Aletheia and the Garden of Eden

In order to improve my French skills I started reading all the young adult novels that I could find on Amazon in French. So far this has amounted to the 'Golden Compass' series by Philip Pullman and the Harry Potter books. I haven't looked at the Pullman books since I was pretty young. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but it was definitely pre-puberty. But in re-reading them I discovered that 'aletheia' actually plays a huge role in the books, and I am pretty excited to find out where this is going. I'm only through the second book, so I'll have to wait to post something more extensive later on about what exactly is going on here. OMG Heidegger??

What's fascinating about reading these books again is realizing how much propaganda is slipped into these kinds of stories. I mean, the Golden Compass books have villain named Mrs. Coulter for Christ's sake. It's really interesting, though, that all of this went over my head when I was younger. Or rather, it was incorporated into my thinking without my being aware of it. That makes me think that writing for children as an adult must be extremely difficult. I'm not surprised so many writers end up sounding clunky and unconvinving; it's really hard to gauge how much information you have to put into a story in order to get your ideas across. As adults it's really hard to step outside of our experiences long enough to remember what it was like when we didn't know so much. Actually, that's a little misguided. We don't know all that much more about anything than the average 12-year-old, and maybe that understanding is what is required in order to write a meaningful book for kids. I don't really know, though.

What I do know is that these books really impress me. I mean really. There's more philosophy and morality in these stories than in ten of my most recent philosophy papers; they have been seamlessly (mostly) integrated into riveting stories and thus carry more weight and persuasive power than many of the more rigorously presented arguments. This format is argument, morality tale, and indoctrination in its purest form. But this isn't some kind of diatribe against these stories, mostly because this is nothing new. The stories societies tell children are some their most revealing social artifacts. I mean, these are not the idle products of bored individuals looking to distract kids; these are the transmitters of cultural norms, philosophies, ways of understanding the world and a way to teach them what is appropriate and inappropriate in social interaction. So it's not all that surprising that we get these wars about what books are appropriate for kids, although the whole 'Harry Potter will turn our kids into Wiccans' arguments seems a bit misguided. I did grow up right around the time that those books came out, though, and a lot of my high school friends ended up being into Wicca. Correlation? I hope not.

I mean, kids can tell the difference between fantasy and the 'real' world (although adults apparently cannot...) and learning the difference is part of growing up in our culture. I am intrigued by books that offer more 'conservative' values and lessons, although I can only think of a few. The 'Left Behind' series, for example. Maybe the C.S. Lewis books? What I'd really like to know is whether children read as much these days as they did in the past. If not, what are the transmitters of values these days? If it isn't books, it must be television and films. A lot of people freak out about the kinds of programs that are available for kids these days, and bemoan the impending deterioration of society. It's like the latest hobby. But I don't think that we will all end up killing each other just because 'Hannah Montana' is more popular than the 'Goosebumps' series (anyone remember that shit? Absolutely awful...).

In fact, the quality of the cultural product is going to be the significant factor here. A terrible book is not superior to a really good television show. T.V. is another way of telling a story, imparting a value, and it can be just as effective. This is not to say that I am hoping that reading disappears, or that I think it will. Books probably will, though. I'm just saying. I'm stocking up for that eventuality, though. When books are finally replaced by 'Kindles' or whatever my house is gonna be like a museum of archaic forms of reading.

So I guess the point of this is that telling stories to kids has been around for millenia and it's not going anywhere so everyone who is freaking out about the fact that kids are watching too much T.V. should get themselves a laptop and should start writing a decent kid's show. Seriously. Anything that doesn't involve Miley Cyrus has to be a good place to start.