Rousseau's Child

There’s a world where kids are always right
on some level, because how would someone
you have known all their life and whom you’ve
protected from harm and duress –
how would that child come up with a motive
to cause harm and duress. Why would he/she?

This brings me to Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778),
father of the Enlightenment, and (apparently) of Autobiography
with his Confessions, Reveries of a Solitary Walker,
and of the “Noble Savage” theory, in his Social Contract.
Here’s a quote for the day, for all of us romantics:

“The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”
Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality

“In Rousseau's philosophy, society's negative influence on people centers on its transformation of amour de soi, a positive self-love, into amour-propre, or pride. Amour de soi represents the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power of reason. In contrast, amour-propre is artificial and forces people to compare themselves to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing people to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others.” (Wikipedia)

(An Aside: It’s so interesting that a college liberal arts education
is based on reading these philosophers in the original --
not some Grad student’s take on them in Wikipedia.
In my experience at Yale, we often discovered
in our classroom conversations after reading obscure texts,
stones in the thought of the ancients that were left unturned.
It was like meeting a close friend for the first time.
It had a huge effect on me, that kind of deep respect
and deep listening to the past.
It’s probably what led me to being a minister,
where I could dwell deeply
in the ancient Hebrew, Christian and other texts,
to find a truth which could transform me,
and other people’s days and lives.)

(To imagine again that opportunity, that use (misuse?) of my youth
reflecting on what life is about, hearing not only from
“the screaming talking heads that dominate political debate”
(KCRW Santa Monica’s “Left Right and Center’s” tagline
each Friday at 1:30 pm) but from men and women
from ancient times to the present, authors, poets, thinkers,
historians, preachers... and trying to take them seriously,
on their own terms... )

(It seems so odd to call up Rousseau
as I think about raising Matteo, since I have a whole bookshelf
of “how to” books and “my story” books on raising kids,
not a one of which would know to make the connection
from the tragically failed French Revolution to the confusion
among modern Americans about what goes into
raising children to be healthy, awake, thoughtful,
confident, compassionate and hopeful members of a community
(I’m reluctant to say “individuals.”))

It’s interesting that Rousseau was raised on Calvinism
in Geneva, and managed to escape. That was the Calvinism
which, like Bush’s “Democracy” fixation, doesn’t hesitate to kill you
to free you. It’s the “burn the witch to free her soul to enter heaven”
theory, in our time – ravage a few hundred thousand families
in Iraq and America so Iraqis can vote. For what?
For Shell and BP to take over Saddam’s nationalized oil industry?
But back to Rousseau.

Rousseau would have found Calvin’s interpretation
of “original sin” abhorrent. That’s the “double predestination” thing
where if God is all knowing, then God already knows the future,
knows if you’re saved or condemned.
So the best you can do is watch your every move.
If you are ever seen to commit a wrong
(like merriment or dancing, the Puritan thing),
that means you’re predestined to hell.
If you are never seen or imagined to do wrong,
then you’re predestined to salvation, heaven.
But watch your children, Satan is always looking for an opening.

Calvin (Luther, the Pope, et al) believes all are born in sin
(note, this is not what Jews believe, who are responsible
for the story about Eve and the snake – Jews treat the story
as a vivid myth about God’s expectations and human frailty).

Later, the Christian myth (cooked up in the early Christian era –
it’s not really there in the bible)
connects the story of the “fall”
(again, Jews, who own this story,
wouldn’t call it a “fall”)
to Jesus crucifixion, in order to give stature
to an event (the execution of a beloved leader)
which was bleak in the extreme.
Bleak like some of the stuff we’re living through today:
African genocides, violence against children,
middle-class family handgun murder-suicides, school and workplace shootings
(another reason why making such a fuss over the death
of one man 2000 years ago – Good Friday – seems insensitive
and culturally myopic).

But the philosophical “move” that Christians have made isn’t all wrong:
if only we could “redeem” all the violence which befalls good, innocent people
like the Christians “redeem” Jesus’ politically motivated execution.
It would amount to this kind of myth: “Bad things happen to Good People
to make Good People better, and the people that die in the process –
somehow that isn’t a tragedy. Maybe they go to Heaven
and are happier there than they ever were here.”

But maybe to “redeem” a killing is crazy. Stop the killing!
Just stop the killing, the weapons manufacture, the rich versus the poor,
stop it. (Sounds like I’m talking to Teo...)

Back to Rousseau – his “noble savage” theory
stands in stark opposition to the “original sin” teaching
of his era, and it’s horrid stepchild, “predestination.”
Rousseau opens a window of fresh air into the stuffy Christian world,
a world which is drifting free and breaking up
after 1500 years under the boot of the Pope.

But what about raising kids? Are they in need of strict boundaries
and clear authority, rules and expectations, developmental timelines
and standardized tests, in order to measure, guide,
strengthen them and help them succeed?
Or do measurements and old stories corrupt
both the adult and the child?

A voice for Rousseau comes into my e-mail inbox
every morning from “The Daily Groove” by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove
Today’s topic if you don’t have time to visit is “Truth is Overrated.”
It’s about appreciating the hyperbole of kids,
the “I could eat a horse” comments that come at face value,
to bring yourself to celebrate the odd creativity
even when it’s inconvenient to adult schedules
adult anxieties, adult expectations.

Noelle is always trying to get care givers to think like a kid.
Sometimes it helps me pay more attention, relax a little.
Though I don’t know if ultimately I agree with his approach.
I gained so SO much from mentors, careful teachers,
people who noticed me struggling or searching and had opinions
of their own, skills of their own, directions to nudge me in.

I could go on for ten pages about crucial moments where others
shared their opinions or stories and helped me shape mine.
And now as I raise a child, correction, as Marin and I
and our extended family and local community raise two children,
I wonder how much to let go and how much to dive in.

I had mixed results in years 1 & 2 with Teo swimming.
He blossomed, he was paddling around with his buoyancy belt
at 1 ½, and then by the next year, 2 ½ he was clinging to me
and crying every time I urged him to release my neck.
Face to face three times a week we’d walk around in the water
for 45 minutes
while other kids swam, splashed, laughed, threw balls, played games.
Marin told me to cut it out, drop it completely. Sick of my comparisons
(see above sentence). We tried lessons
which also didn’t work (I was there for that too,
and he was all super clingy), so I took her advice.
We don’t go near water at Mary Siah pool anymore, the two of us.

I’ve had good luck the past week with skiing, he’s usually good
at it in the beginning, capable, enthusiastic,
unless he’s all moody, then he becomes all claymation:
knees buckle, eyes roll, poles fly toward the sky with dramatic
flair followed by crossed skis and a face plant, crying, demands to go home,
sending my blood pressure up. After I get him in the Chariot,
the ensuing peaceful 45 minutes of skiing with a 60 lb weight attached
brings me back to equilibrium. Back to where we started,
with a little fitness hovering over it all, and midday sunshine
or the benediction of an impromptu blizzard.

Rousseau! The advantage of a brand of conservatives is that they
believe you can learn from the past, from tried/true recipes,
that practice makes perfect, and that character is paramount.
A brand of conservatives tries to understand and explain things,
and tries to honor voices that have gone before, heros, virtuosos,
certain moments that are relevant. Right now Obama,
thankfully, is studying Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first 100 days.

A down side of conservatives is that they feel entitled,
they can feel distant, and bookish, and they can disempower others.

The advantage of a brand of liberals is that they
believe in spontaneity, that letting go reveals inherent things,
like goodness and hopefulness, and surprise, and hidden truth,
that people will rise to the occasion if given half a chance,
and that we don’t need to be so intellectual or wary or anxious.
We don’t need to plan ahead, if we don’t have expectations.
Buddhists are liberals. Look at the Dalai Lama versus China.

A down side of liberals is that they can easily get rambunctious
when their all-relaxed theory backfires. Heads will roll, to use the
historically-appropriate analogy from Rousseau’s life and philosophy
(French Revolution, terribly idealistic until it wasn’t anymore).

It’s me when I’m trying oh so hard to not get annoyed
at Matteo going all floppy when I’m trying to get his foot
into a sock or his arm into a shirt. I snap.
It isn’t pretty when liberalism gets defrocked.

And Finally: Two Alarming Dispatches from the Trenches:

1. (Discussed above) When Matteo is singularly incapable
of letting me dress him, it’s because he’s decided he wants to be
a baby again. He told me this when I asked him. After I had
flipped out and precipitated a melt down on Saturday afternoon,
when I asked pointedly why he was behaving the way he was
he simply informed me of this.
.
2. (Discussed yesterday) When Matteo demanded a video
before a bath, before a book, and refused to budge,
even to the point of losing his right to see any video that night,
and precipitating another huge falling out,
it was probably because he and Marin had worked this out
in my absence (I used to be at UU meetings or Northern Center
Board meetings at bedtime). I suspect this not because
Marin has weighed in for the defense (she’s still in San Francisco),
but because he laid it out once again last night,
as if it were the first of the ten “lost” commandments
of life in the “Big Brown House.”
So I, being a good commandment follower
once it becomes clear it’s a commandment, went with the flow
(making me a conservative of a sort), and this time it flowed
very nicely. Video, bath, book, sleepy-pie.

Looks like another cold, brilliantly sunny day in the North land.