Cult of Childhood (Dunquin Series: No. 18)

Innocence may be a fond fantasy of children, rather than their primary characteristic. Can we really believe, for instance, that artists like Matisse & Chagall have succeeded only by preserving a "childlike" freshness & an "innocent" eye? To answer, Boas examines the idea of childhood. From Plato to Norman O. Brown, the child has been called inherently good & wise or innately bad & empty & therefore corrupted by or improved through education. Boise's compact & revelatory essay exposes the buried assumptions that continue to influence everything we do & say about childhood. The primativeist idea of childhood continues to influence modern-day therapies. Therapy often becomes a ritual of the "cult of childhood" when it attempts to release an innocent, pristine interior child from abusive external events that supposedly have perverted its innate goodness or prevented its authentic creative expression. It might even be said that the developmental model of psychology derives archetypally from the "cult of childhood."George Boas is the author of 'Cult of Childhood (Dunquin Series: No. 18)', published 1998 under ISBN 9780882142180 and ISBN 0882142186.