Childhood and Culture

What's in a Childhood?

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Four years ago I attended a lecture by Seth Lerer, Professor of English at Stanford University, on Children's Literature presented at the Newberry Library.  He discussed the literature of childhood with examples of iconic books.  I was reminded of this lecture yesterday when I heard Katia Mitova, Instructor, Basic Program, the University of Chicago, discuss "What's in a Childhood?", at the First Friday Lecture presented by the University of Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center.
In her lecture Ms. Mitova focused on six ways of looking at childhood:  As a period in life; as a way of being; as an historical concept; metaphorically; ideally; and as an archetype.  Briefly the period she identified as childhood was the ages of 3 years to 12 years old.  It is this period of one's lifespan that is usually referred to as childhood.  The question presented in the lecture was how we should look at this.  As a beginning?  Is it a ladder from which one falls into adolescence and adulthood, never to return?  Or can life be looked at like an archipelago with islands of experience that can be visited and revisited?  She discussed the concept of a goal-oriented life contrasted with a process-oriented life as one aimed at "good deed" or "good reasons", respectively, as presented in the work of Donald Woods Winnicott (Playing and Reality, 1971). 
Poetic references were an important part of the lecture.  For example, the concept of childhood as a "way of being" was introduced with William Wordsworth's famous poem, "My heart leaps up when I behold", which contains the ironic line "The child is father to the man".  Childhood as metaphor may be seen in Alexis de Tocqueville's conception as America as a child of Europe in his work Democracy in America.  Childhood as an ideal ranges from the notion of childhood innocence, Rousseau's depiction of childhood, or the questions of childhood that mimic those of philosopher of any age, such as  "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
This wide-ranging lecture touched on the notion of happiness in Aristotle and Plato's discussions of play; but Ms. Mitova also referenced the ideas of Gareth Mathews as he presented in The Philosophy of Childhood.  Other ideas considered the notion of the freedom of childhood and the loss of it with the onset of compliance with rules and structures during late childhood and adolescence.  
Can we recapture or reexperience the outlook of a child at play?  Perhaps we can, as Johan Huizinga suggests in his famous book, Homo Ludens:  "The child plays in complete--we can well say, in sacred--earnest."  For the adult, "The player can abandon himself body and soul to the game, and consciousness of its being 'merely' a game can be thrust into the background.  The joy inextricably bound up with playing can turn not only into tension, but into elation." (pp. 18, 20-21)

Image at top from Charles Dickens Museum

Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga.  Beacon Press, 1955.

Playful Man

Homo Ludens: 

A Study of the Play-Element in Culture 

by Johan Huizinga

“Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.” - Johann Huizinga

Homo Ludens or "Man the Player", written in 1938 by Dutch historian, cultural theorist and professor,  Johan Huizinga, discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. Huizinga uses the term "Play Theory" within the book to define the conceptual space in which play occurs.
One of the most significant (human and cultural) aspects of play is that it is fun.  Huizinga suggests that play is primary to and a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of the generation of culture. In his discussion of this Huizinga has much to say about the words for play in different languages. Perhaps the most extraordinary remark concerns the Latin language. “It is remarkable that ludus, as the general term for play, has not only not passed into the Romance languages but has left hardly any traces there, so far as I can see".  The cultural aspects of play range widely over law, war, poetry and philosophy.  While ludus is seen as fundamental for human civilization and even myth-making it is the beginnings of play in the observation of the activity of animals that impressed me.  Huizinga makes it clear that animals played first - this along with his other observations make the book a fascinating take on an essential aspect of human activity.


Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga. Beacon Press, Boston. 1971 (1938)