[American] Neil Postman: *The Disappearance of Childhood*, translated by Wu Yanlian, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2004
This is also one of those books from which I can hardly bear not to excerpt everything; I strongly recommend it! However, since I already made Postman’s *Amusing Ourselves to Death* one of the “Little Ancient Quarterly Recommendations,” I won’t designate this one as a “quarterly recommendation” as well.
Like *Amusing Ourselves to Death*, *The Disappearance of Childhood* also takes media criticism as its theme, but its perspective is quite different—*Amusing Ourselves to Death* is concerned with the passing of reason and thought, whereas *The Disappearance of Childhood* is concerned with the passing of innocence and play. In fact, these two trends are connected: modern people have lost both “maturity” and “immaturity”; they have forgotten both how to think and how to play!
In this age of entertainment, play is precisely what has been forgotten. Modern people probably find it hard to distinguish between play, diversion, entertainment, and competition anyway—they’re all just for amusement, aren’t they? Of course, play is joyful, but it is different from diversion, entertainment, or competition.
Modern people need “entertainment” because they are too busy, too tense, too exhausted, and thus need the so-called “balance between labor and rest”——but the question is, why has labor seemingly taken for granted become an activity that is dull, unhappy, repressive, and unbearable unless it is tempered by entertainment? On the other hand, although modern people’s bodies are busy, their minds are empty, making it hard for them to endure the emptiness of having nothing to do; so leisure time must be “killed” somehow. Yet people are lazy about thinking and merely prefer to pass the time through indulgence; at the same time, utilitarianism makes it impossible for people to imagine any meaning in aimless play, while the absence of faith leaves them unable to find a “goal” on which to place meaning—we must move forward, yet do not know the ultimate direction, so we can only pursue “moving forward” itself. Thus even “Game” must aim at “higher, faster, stronger,” but in this age full of so-called “competition,” people can scarcely understand what “self-transcendence” means—even when some claim to understand it, in fact they often still rely on external, quantitative standards to measure themselves. What people understand as “more” is, of course, manifested in comparison with one another, and “Game” thus becomes “competition,” becomes “a contest.”
The games belonging to children—or perhaps more accurately: play—are about to vanish entirely from children’s lives, while adult-style competitive contests organized for children are increasing day by day; the status of toys is gradually being replaced by game consoles, and dolls have begun to compare fashion and makeup…
The infantilization of children is accompanied by the infantilization of adults. This does not mean that modern adults all have “childlike hearts still uncorrupted”; rather, it means that “maturity” has also disappeared—without immaturity, there is no maturity, and vice versa.
This book is divided into two parts. The first half traces the “invention” of “childhood”—childhood was not something that had existed since ancient times. Postman points out that the concept of childhood is inseparable from a sense of shame. And the concept of shame has two components: first, “manners,” and second, “secrets.” Therefore, there is no childhood in a barbaric society or in a society without secrets. Only when a child must, through learning, gradually master adult manners and learn adult secrets does there truly exist the process we call “becoming an adult.” In an oral culture lacking manners—for example, in the Middle Ages—once a child grew to the point of fluently mastering language (say, at age 7)—which required no special training—they were no different from adults. Aside from physical development, mental growth came to an end at that point. And the advent of the print age reshaped childhood, because printing altered the way communication worked, allowing “secrets” to be protected and forcing children to undergo long years of study and training before finally acquiring adult knowledge.
But the age of mass media once again changed all this. When television replaced printed matter as the primary medium of communication, adult secrets no longer existed—indeed, for a child, mastering the ability to “watch television” is perhaps even easier than mastering spoken language. We have heard of reading disorders, writing disorders, language disorders, but we have never heard of any special disorder of “watching television.” Television makes no distinction among its viewers, and the “collapse of propriety and ritual” in the consumer age has further ensured that sex, ugliness, greed, crime, and the like—things that originally belonged to adults’ secrets—appear before children ever more unmasked…
I remember seeing a TV program long ago: several children asked adults questions about sex, and a Chinese parent hemmed and hawed while telling some fairy-tale-like stories in response, whereas an American parent pulled out an illustrated booklet and patiently explained the facts to the children… At the time, I also thought: “Oh, how conservative Chinese parents are, how open Western parents are, ah!” But now I know what a lamentable thing this truly is! Is not the forgetting of “fairy tales” precisely the disappearance of childhood? Fairy tales are in fact the wisest kind of hypocrisy: they both protect adult secrets and are able, in a way children can easily accept, to reveal reality and evil, protecting children from trauma. Of course, the loss of fairy tales cannot be blamed on sex education for children. In fact, the reason why one now has to emphasize education such as children’s sex education is that secrets simply can no longer be kept. If one does not take the initiative to educate them, children will also obtain those secrets completely uncontrollably from television and other channels.
Without secrets, there is no sense of shame, and at the same time there is no curiosity. What television culture brings is not only the decay of reason and thought, but also the extinction of sensibility and emotion. Television news strings together, at a rapid pace and in fragmented form, all the pleasant, exciting, sorrowful, or frightening scenes and events; the host, who always maintains a charming smile, never gives viewers enough time to “feel,” and before the audience has time to make an appropriate emotional response, it is already faced with the next news item or an advertisement. In short, television has numbed both people’s reason and their emotions, leaving only simple pleasure and desire.
Finally, Postman does not completely abandon hope. Even if childhood is lost, that does not mean we must lose everything. And although social trends are irreversible, individuals still have ways to resist this age. There will always be such a group of stubborn resisters, holding fast to their memories of childhood.
Page 5
Two outstanding British historians, Peter and Iona Opie, specialized in the study of children’s games. They documented several hundred traditional children’s games, none of which are among the games commonly played by American children today. Even hide-and-seek, which had already appeared in Athens more than two thousand years ago during the rule of Pericles, has now almost completely disappeared from children’s spontaneous recreational activities. Children’s games, in plain terms, have become an endangered species.
Page 12 Without a highly developed sense of shame, childhood simply cannot exist.
Page 19
In the world of writing, becoming an adult means having the opportunity to learn cultural secrets organized and recorded with non-natural symbols. In the world of writing, children must become adults. But in a world without writing, there is no need to draw a clear distinction between children and adults, because there are no secrets; culture can be understood without needing to provide training.
As Mrs. Tuchman has pointed out, this is why medieval people, regardless of age, were characterized by childish behavior. In an oral world, the concept of adulthood does not exist, and much less, then, does the concept of childhood. This is also why all the primary sources tell us that medieval childhood ended at age 7. Why 7? Because by age 7 children were already able to master language. They could speak and understand everything adults could say and understand. They knew every secret revealed through mouth and tongue, and knowing these secrets was enough. This phenomenon helps us understand why the Catholic Church designated age 7 as the age of reason,…
Page 23
Moreover, there was also no etiquette known to the great figures of the 16th century. This is another component of the concept of shame. But there was no detailed set of etiquette available for minors to learn in that society.
Page 115 If there were no secrets, then of course this thing called childhood would not exist either.
Page 117 We shall for the moment not discuss the problem of television fragmenting culture into pieces. There is one question that must be answered first: why does television forcibly haul the entire culture out of the closet and parade it before everyone? Why should topics that ought to be discussed on a psychologist’s couch or in the confessional become shamelessly and brazenly public subjects of discussion?
Page 120
Like alphabetic writing and printed books, television opens up secrets, making what was once private public. But unlike writing and print, television can in no way restrict people’s access to information. The greatest contradiction of literate culture is that when literate culture makes secrets widely known, it simultaneously creates obstacles to obtaining those secrets.
Page 122
In most cases, the formation of social roles is determined by the conditions of a specific informational environment. This is especially true of the social classification of childhood. Children are a group who do not know certain information that adults know. In the Middle Ages there was no childhood, because the means by which adults could be the sole possessors of certain information did not exist. In Gutenberg’s age, such means were developed. In the television age, they disappeared again.
Page 125 If adults have no dark and elusive mysteries to keep from children, and then explain them to children in the way they deem necessary, safe, and appropriate, then the boundary between adults and children must become dangerously thin.
Page 129
Curiosity is replaced by cynicism—or worse—by arrogance. Thus, our children do not rely on authoritative adults but on news from who knows where in order to obtain knowledge. Before our children have even asked a question, they are already given a heap of answers; in short, there are no children around us. ////——！
Page 130 Although television sometimes warns parents, “The following program contains adult content…,” doing so only ensures that more children, rather than fewer, will watch it.
Page 130
In fact, in revealing sexual secrets, television has almost reached the point of completely eliminating the concept of mental abnormality. For example, it has now become commonplace to see twelve- or thirteen-year-old girls displayed as erotic objects in television advertisements. Some adults may have forgotten that, once upon a time, such behavior was regarded as psychopathic. They have no choice but to believe me, because that is indeed how it was. This is not to say that adult men only recently began coveting pubescent girls. They did so in the past as well, but the point is that their desires were always carefully kept secret, especially from minors. Television not only makes secrets public, it broadcasts them as if they were a harmful repression to the body, as if they were a matter of no consequence. Just as in the Middle Ages, fiddling with children’s private parts may once again become nothing more than vulgar entertainment. Otherwise, if saying so is somewhat too much, perhaps we can say boldly (though symbolically) that using children to satisfy adult sexual fantasies has become completely acceptable.
Page 131
In order not to let readers think that these observations are merely the complaints of overly prudish people, I want to make my point as clearly as possible: the issue we are discussing here is the distinction between public knowledge and hidden knowledge, and what consequences would follow from the elimination of hidden knowledge due to the all-around massive exposure of the media…. (Page 132) To say that human sexual behavior is vulgar and ugly is one thing, though in my view that too is a dangerous idea; to say that public exposure strips it of its mystery and awe, thereby changing the nature and meaning of sexual behavior and child development, is quite another.
Page 133 If hiding from children the various facts of adult violence and moral incompetence is hypocrisy, then doing so is still wise. Of course, hypocrisy undertaken to promote children’s growth is not a sin.
That said, this does not mean that children should be kept in complete ignorance of all violence and moral depravity. As Bettelheim showed in *The Uses of Enchantment*, the great significance of fairy tales lies in the fact that they can reveal the evil present in real life in a way children can easily accept, and in an integrated manner, without traumatizing them. This is not only because the contents of fairy tales have naturally evolved over several centuries, but also because they are under the control of adults.
Page 137
I am sure that up to this point, the impression I have given everyone is that all adult secrets transmitted to children through television are terrifying, filthy, or baffling. But in fact, television is not so one-sided. ………… For example, there is also the survival joy of shopping. When children are still very young, television reveals to them the pleasures of consumerism and the satisfaction produced by buying almost anything: from floor wax to cars.
Page 141 In the television age, there are three stages of life: at one end is infancy, at the other end old age, and in between is what we can call “infantilized adulthood.”
Page 143~144
In the television age, political judgment changes from an intellectual evaluation of proposals into an intuitive and emotional response to the entire image of a person. In the television age, people approve or disapprove of politicians just as they like or dislike them. Television redefines “correct political judgment”; it transforms political judgment from a logical judgment into an aesthetic one. A barely literate ten-year-old child can interpret, or at least respond to, the message a candidate sends with a speed and ease no less than that of a well-informed fifty-year-old. In fact, children’s feelings may even be more acute.
Page 148
This way of defining “news” has produced two interesting results. First, it makes it difficult for viewers to think about an event; second, it also makes it difficult for viewers to feel an event. By “think,” I mean having the time and winter to ask oneself: what is the meaning of such an event? What is its historical background? What reasons led to its occurrence? What connection does it have to the world I know? By “feel,” I mean the normal human response to murder, rape, arson, bribery, and all manner of wicked deeds.
Page 153
…, we can even accuse television advertising of completely excluding the ideology of capitalism. That is to say, television advertising has discarded a key assumption of commercialism: that buyers and marketers come to a deal on the basis of self-interest and rational consideration. This assumption is deeply rooted in the capitalist economy, and thus our laws strictly limit the commercial transactions permitted to children. In the ideology of capitalism, deeply influenced by literate culture, people believe that children do not possess the analytical skills to evaluate the products offered by buyers and cannot yet conduct transactions in a fully rational way. But the way television advertisements present products does not require analytical skills or the rational and mature judgment we ordinarily assume. They do not provide consumers with a range of facts; they provide idols, so that adults and children alike can invest themselves in them with equal emotion, while also avoiding the trouble of logic or verification. Therefore, calling this mode of communication “commercial advertising” is misleading, because it despises commercial language and chiefly conveys information through symbols and religious language. Indeed, I believe it is entirely no exaggeration to say that television commercials are a kind of religious propaganda. ////——Postman’s analogy between television advertising and religious propaganda is truly brilliant!
Page 154
Like all religious parables, they introduce the concept of sin, hint at the method of atonement, and then presage a vision of heavenly revelation. They also imply the source of evil and the duties that pious believers ought to fulfill. … (Postman takes as an example the ad parable of “Sweat Rings on the Collar” [about laundry detergent]) … Pages 155–156
In the theology of television advertising, the source of evil is “technological ignorance,” that is, complete ignorance of the various benefits brought by industrial progress. This is the main source of unhappiness, humiliation, and disharmony in real life. And, as “Sweat Rings on the Collar” so powerfully shows, the consequences of technological ignorance may erupt at any moment with the force of a total collapse, catching you off guard.
The sudden attack of technological ignorance is a particularly important feature of the theology of television advertising; thus, it constantly reminds the congregation how vulnerable and defenseless they are. One must never be complacent—or worse, smug. To try to live simply and not care about technological progress is always dangerous, because in the eyes of those who are alert to technology, such innocence and naiveté are terribly glaring. And those who are alert may be waiters, friends, neighbors, or some spectral figure, such as a genie, who appears out of nowhere in your kitchen, bearing witness to your lazy ignorance.
Of course, one should also understand that the meaning of technological ignorance can be very broad: it refers not only to ignorance of detergents, medicines, sanitary napkins, automobiles, ointments, and food, but also to ignorance of technological institutions such as savings banks and transportation systems. For example, while on vacation you might suddenly encounter a certain neighbor (in the parables of television advertising, that is always a dangerous sign) and discover that they have invested money in some bank offering special interest rates of which you knew nothing at all. This is, of course, a spiritual disaster, and your vacation is ruined as well.
However, as shown in the “parable of the sweat ring,” this is not beyond salvation. There are two obstacles on the road to deliverance. First, you must open your heart and accept the advice of those who are wiser than you, as well as social criticism.…………Page 157
The second obstacle on the road to deliverance concerns whether people are willing to act according to others’ advice. According to traditional Christian theological theory, it is not enough merely to listen to the Gospel, or even to preach the Gospel. One’s understanding of the Gospel must be manifested in good works—that is, in action. In the “parable of the sweat ring,” that pitiful wife acts almost immediately, and the parable ends by showing the congregation the fruits of her action.
There are several versions of the “parable of bad breath.” We see a woman completely unaware that her objectionable bad breath already has a technological solution; after a roommate points it out, she suddenly understands. The woman immediately accepts the advice. In the last five seconds, we see the result: a honeymoon in Hawaii. In the “parable of the foolish investor,” we see a man who does not know how to make money make money; after being inspired by others, he acts quickly. By the end of the parable, he is rewarded with a car, or a trip to Hawaii, or something close to inner peace.
Pages 157–158
Because advertising parables are so tightly structured, their ending—that is, the final five seconds—must serve a double purpose. It naturally also carries the didactic meaning that the market wishes to express: if people act immediately, they will be rewarded. Because television advertising displays the result, we thereby also see an image of heaven. Sometimes, as in the “parable of the lost traveler’s checks,” we also catch a glimpse of hell: the technologically ignorant lose their way and are ultimately sentenced to remain far from home, wandering forever abroad. But what we mainly see is still the image of heaven, which is attainable and wonderfully beautiful: that is to say, heaven is right here, right now, on earth, in America, and often in Hawaii.
Page 159
As a people who believe in religion, it is hard to say when it began that we replaced our faith in traditional ideas of God with faith in the awe-inspiring power of technology. Although it should be emphasized that television advertising has played no role whatsoever in this shift, it is obvious that television advertising reflects this change, records it, and magnifies it. Therefore, it has also contributed to the lowering of adults’ spiritual orientation. As a result, it blurs the boundary between adulthood and childhood, because for children, understanding the theology of television advertising is effortless. There is nothing in the theology of television advertising that is complicated or demanding of much effort, nor does it lead people to profound reflections on the nature of human existence. Adults who accept this theology are no different from children.
Page 159 …But that is a characteristic of the medium itself, which has produced infantilized adults, rather than something determined by the characteristics of the medium’s users.
Page 183
But the question is: first of all, what are the parents doing there? Why are 4,000 children involved in a tournament? Why does the team from East Brunswick, New Jersey, have to play the team from Burlington, Ontario? What are these children being trained for? The answer to all these questions is: children’s play has become a matter of keen adult concern; it has become highly professionalized and is no longer a world cut off from the adult world.
Page 184
Twelve-year-old swimmers, skaters, and gymnasts with world-class ability are nothing unusual. Why does this happen? The most obvious answer is that better coaches and training methods enable children to reach adult levels of competence. But the question remains: why do adults encourage this? Why do adults deprive children of the joy of freedom, informality, and spontaneous play? Why must children endure professional training, closed camps, stress, and all the hardship brought by media hype? The answer is exactly the same as before: the traditional assumptions about the uniqueness of childhood are rapidly being sold off, and what we now have is a burgeoning idea: competition is not for competition’s sake, but for external ends such as fame, money, physical training, improved social status, and national honor. For adults, competition is a very serious matter. With the disappearance of childhood, play as children see it also disappears.
Page 188
The secret of adult language, what we call “dirty words,” is now not only fully known to young people (perhaps it always was), but can also be used at will just like adults do. …………The significance of this fact is profound, because it shows that the boundary traditionally separating adults from children has been eroded. Its significance is also profound because it represents the loss of the concept of behavioral propriety. Indeed, when language, clothing, tastes, eating habits, and so on become increasingly similar, the ceremonial practices and the meaning of etiquette rooted in social hierarchy correspondingly decline. Under present circumstances, respect has already lost much of its authority and aura, and the idea of respecting one’s elders has become absurd and ridiculous.
Pages 213–214
In resisting everything that is now happening, is the individual completely powerless? ————The answer to this question, in my view, is “No.” But, like all acts of resistance, it comes at a cost. Specifically, resistance requires imagining that parents raising children is an act of rebellion against American culture. For example, as long as parents remain married, that in itself is an act of defiance and an insult to a culture that embraces abandonment. In such a culture, continuity is meaningless. Living very close to one’s own parents and relatives so that children can feel day after day the meaning of kinship and the value of respect and responsibility toward elders—this is, at the very least, the practice of 90 percent of non-Americans. Likewise, insisting that children learn the discipline of delayed gratification, or sexual caution, or self-restraint in conduct, language, and style, is to place oneself in opposition to almost all social trends. And ensuring that children work hard and become literate, cultured people is astonishingly time-consuming and even costly. Yet the most rebellious thing of all is to try to control children’s access to media. In fact, there are two ways to do this: one is to limit children’s exposure to media; the other is to carefully supervise the content of the media they encounter, and continually provide them with criticism of media content in terms of themes and values. Achieving both is by no means easy. Moreover, to do so requires parents to devote immense attention to child-rearing, something many parents are not prepared to do.
Still, there are some parents who firmly do these things. They are, in effect, openly defying the dictates of their culture. Such parents are not merely some kind of intellectual elite.…………Parents who resist the spirit of the age will bring about what might be called a “monastic effect,” because they are helping preserve the existence of a humanistic tradition. It is unimaginable that our culture would forget that it needs children to exist. And yet it is already on the verge of forgetting that children need childhood. Those who insist on remembering childhood will accomplish a noble mission. ////——Indeed, in this age when so-called “rebellion” is fashionable, adhering to tradition is the true “rebellion.”
January 24, 2007, 13:43
Latest Comments
- unic
2007-01-24 20:43:11
Great book! It really is a great book!!!
I don’t know whether they sell it here. My thinking about childhood is really not enough!
I don’t know whether they sell it here. I long ago noticed that Guangxi Normal University Press translated a great many good books!
We’re having classes as usual this week, but the workload is a little lighter. I’ve already started reading the middle school math textbook, and I haven’t lost a single one of my books.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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