The word puerile comes from the Latin word for boy - puer - and it means boyish, childish.
Infantilize means to make like an infant, to treat in such a way as to cause to become like an infant.
I want a word somewhere between the two that means to make someone like a child, to cause to become not so much childish, with its overtones of intention and silliness, but child-like, simpler than an adult, less knowing, less able. More dependent.
In the 90's there was a lot of talk of "dumbing-down", reducing things, especially information, to simple and easily understood terms, and it's a functionally accurate description of what had been taking place - but it has its own overtones of value and rank. The smart are superior to the dumb, or stupid.
What was being described wasn't dumb at all though, it was child-like, a reduction to the dependencies of childhood.
People who have intelligence, and the abilities and strengths of maturity, were and are being taught to relinquish them, to become like children, and especially to become dependent, for their view of the world and even their view of their own concerns, on a stronger and more knowing authority.
It isn't dumbness at all, it's an enforced reduction to the state of childhood, with the family and its elders replaced by something that's never clearly named or seen, that thing behind the television's smoke and mirrors, the voice of that adult speaking, off-stage, off-camera, that knows more than we do about everything.
The television is a person in the lives of most people that watch it, it has all the attributes of personality, including physical presence. And it's more grown up than any of us, in the sense that it has far more power and knowledge, and can move in the world in ways that we can't. Though it acts like a depraved adolescent at best.
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That trend that was so noticable, the step-down to the level of a ten year old's discourse and interests, in a medium that could have been a platform for exponential growth in human consciousness, wasn't a targeting of the dim, it was a shaping, a sculpting of the public mind. For this, now. For this time.
Stupid adults have power even if they don't have intelligence, but children have no power even when they do have intelligence. That's what this is - not marketing strategy - control. Stupid people are as likely as intelligent people to resent being dependent, but dependence is vital to children, it's a fundamental part of what being a child is.
Infantilize means to make like an infant, to treat in such a way as to cause to become like an infant.
I want a word somewhere between the two that means to make someone like a child, to cause to become not so much childish, with its overtones of intention and silliness, but child-like, simpler than an adult, less knowing, less able. More dependent.
In the 90's there was a lot of talk of "dumbing-down", reducing things, especially information, to simple and easily understood terms, and it's a functionally accurate description of what had been taking place - but it has its own overtones of value and rank. The smart are superior to the dumb, or stupid.
What was being described wasn't dumb at all though, it was child-like, a reduction to the dependencies of childhood.
People who have intelligence, and the abilities and strengths of maturity, were and are being taught to relinquish them, to become like children, and especially to become dependent, for their view of the world and even their view of their own concerns, on a stronger and more knowing authority.
It isn't dumbness at all, it's an enforced reduction to the state of childhood, with the family and its elders replaced by something that's never clearly named or seen, that thing behind the television's smoke and mirrors, the voice of that adult speaking, off-stage, off-camera, that knows more than we do about everything.
The television is a person in the lives of most people that watch it, it has all the attributes of personality, including physical presence. And it's more grown up than any of us, in the sense that it has far more power and knowledge, and can move in the world in ways that we can't. Though it acts like a depraved adolescent at best.
-
That trend that was so noticable, the step-down to the level of a ten year old's discourse and interests, in a medium that could have been a platform for exponential growth in human consciousness, wasn't a targeting of the dim, it was a shaping, a sculpting of the public mind. For this, now. For this time.
Stupid adults have power even if they don't have intelligence, but children have no power even when they do have intelligence. That's what this is - not marketing strategy - control. Stupid people are as likely as intelligent people to resent being dependent, but dependence is vital to children, it's a fundamental part of what being a child is.
