Angry Young Man
24th July 2009, 12:31
AN ESSAY CONCERNING CHILDISM AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
It cannot be denied that a socialist society has an obligation to protect the best interests of coming generations. This is why the Socialist Workers' Party contains in its manifesto radical educational and childcare plans.
However, this has been clearly misunderstood by other left groups - those with markedly less understanding of Marxism than ourselves. On the 19th of July, members of the East Birmingham branch of the Socialist party joined a picketline outside a public park in Redditch recently sold by Birmingham City Council to Persimmon for a housing development.
The Chair of East Birmingham SP branch, Rick Rawls, said, that, 'if the children of Redditch, who have little enough as it is, lose this park, with the lack of prospects capitalism offers, their lives would just be Dickensian.'
Mr Rawls has clearly not paid attention where Lenin said that it is a patronising and gravely offensive assumption that children like fun. Two of the young parents in the party told me the story of their seven-year-old son's last two birthday parties. For his sixth, they turned their house into a pirate ship, donned Johnny Depp-style costumes and swashbuckled around, leading the children in games like Captain's coming and baking a Blackbeard cake. For his seventh, they organised history seminars and debating groups, which was much more enjoyed by all of the children attending - so much so that two of their friends are scrapping the pinata and cancelling their reservation at the playhouse in exchange for a lecture from a professor of Economics at the LSE.
I have also been told ad infinitum of parents whose children complain to them of teachers who use entertainment to interfere with actual education. Many try to adjust this by listening to Radio 4 until bed, but this is just more proof that the capitalist superstructure cannot provide a decent education. Along with a lack of investment and overcrowding, fun in the classroom is yet more mould on the decay of the capitalist educational system
To conclude, childism, or the belief that children have an instinct towards fun or enjoyment is the most unacknowledged and possibly the most harmful prejudice that tears the proletariat. This bigotry must be acknowledged, and this is why we are the only major left- group to have a six-year-old on our executive committee
Trystan Mochanee-Glottalstop, aged 37 and 7/8
COMMENTS:
Totally agree, man. An SP'er was telling me about his 'childish' delight at bouncy castles. I wasted no time in telling him the rampant mispuery of his statement
-Sam, Glasgow
Thankyou for this wonderful article. Having spent four years at Harrow I learned instinctively to not have fun. Not only this but I learned that dry bookishness and apostasising was the true direction to happiness. I have never seen a child entertained by such things as fun fayres or pinatas. Should I see such an occurence, I will walk over to the child or children and inform them that true happiness is in the pages of Marx, not in some brightly-coloured papier mache donkey that you hit with a stick until it breaks, loosing several bags of confections. Then I chastise the parents, being sure to lecture them of how pinata-beating is a reactionary religious practise. Should I see enjoyment being had at a fayre, I shall stand atop the main attraction with a megaphone and educate those of how they are a political tool used to kill rebellion and discontent with kindness, telling them not to take the boon
-Robert Kindles, London
Thoughts, other than there being more significant groups and people to satirise than the SWP?
It cannot be denied that a socialist society has an obligation to protect the best interests of coming generations. This is why the Socialist Workers' Party contains in its manifesto radical educational and childcare plans.
However, this has been clearly misunderstood by other left groups - those with markedly less understanding of Marxism than ourselves. On the 19th of July, members of the East Birmingham branch of the Socialist party joined a picketline outside a public park in Redditch recently sold by Birmingham City Council to Persimmon for a housing development.
The Chair of East Birmingham SP branch, Rick Rawls, said, that, 'if the children of Redditch, who have little enough as it is, lose this park, with the lack of prospects capitalism offers, their lives would just be Dickensian.'
Mr Rawls has clearly not paid attention where Lenin said that it is a patronising and gravely offensive assumption that children like fun. Two of the young parents in the party told me the story of their seven-year-old son's last two birthday parties. For his sixth, they turned their house into a pirate ship, donned Johnny Depp-style costumes and swashbuckled around, leading the children in games like Captain's coming and baking a Blackbeard cake. For his seventh, they organised history seminars and debating groups, which was much more enjoyed by all of the children attending - so much so that two of their friends are scrapping the pinata and cancelling their reservation at the playhouse in exchange for a lecture from a professor of Economics at the LSE.
I have also been told ad infinitum of parents whose children complain to them of teachers who use entertainment to interfere with actual education. Many try to adjust this by listening to Radio 4 until bed, but this is just more proof that the capitalist superstructure cannot provide a decent education. Along with a lack of investment and overcrowding, fun in the classroom is yet more mould on the decay of the capitalist educational system
To conclude, childism, or the belief that children have an instinct towards fun or enjoyment is the most unacknowledged and possibly the most harmful prejudice that tears the proletariat. This bigotry must be acknowledged, and this is why we are the only major left- group to have a six-year-old on our executive committee
Trystan Mochanee-Glottalstop, aged 37 and 7/8
COMMENTS:
Totally agree, man. An SP'er was telling me about his 'childish' delight at bouncy castles. I wasted no time in telling him the rampant mispuery of his statement
-Sam, Glasgow
Thankyou for this wonderful article. Having spent four years at Harrow I learned instinctively to not have fun. Not only this but I learned that dry bookishness and apostasising was the true direction to happiness. I have never seen a child entertained by such things as fun fayres or pinatas. Should I see such an occurence, I will walk over to the child or children and inform them that true happiness is in the pages of Marx, not in some brightly-coloured papier mache donkey that you hit with a stick until it breaks, loosing several bags of confections. Then I chastise the parents, being sure to lecture them of how pinata-beating is a reactionary religious practise. Should I see enjoyment being had at a fayre, I shall stand atop the main attraction with a megaphone and educate those of how they are a political tool used to kill rebellion and discontent with kindness, telling them not to take the boon
-Robert Kindles, London
Thoughts, other than there being more significant groups and people to satirise than the SWP?