I feel exactly the same way about the Hulu adaptation, except I did t make it past the first episode. A pity considering the excellent source material.
Love these observations, I think a lot of this comes down to the overwhelming neoliberal ideology that has been dominant for many decades in the US and other parts of the world. This kind of world view sees everything as an individual problem to be solved by individuals, and by extension all failure is personal failure and all successes are personal successes. I really think this extends to parenting where people tend to attribute the success/failure of children to the parents. This would seem paradoxical if you view children as individuals responsible for their own successes, but I think many people don't recognize children as individual human beings with their own wants, needs, and personalities. I can't remember if you used the term "neoliberal epistemology" in a different blog post, but I've been thinking about that a lot. How we have a flood of information on the internet and we expect each individual to arbitrate that information and make their decisions. I feel like parenting is probably the best example of this, even pre-internet as new parents were inundated with thousands of contradictory books on parenting styles. I disagree with a lot of what Pinker says in The Blank Slate, especially how he frames his arguments, I view his style as much more of a debater than an enlightener (loved that piece too, by the way), and I think his framing often obscures more nuanced arguments, but I think he was right in pointing out the individuality of children and the fact that much of what they learn is from their peers and social relationships, and parenting styles (within reasonable bounds) don't have as much of an effect as parenting books would suggest. Finally, I think many adults don't give children and young people enough agency to make their own decisions and learn from their own mistakes and triumphs and this may affect people as they become adults and are afraid to take agency and act outside of what they believe is acceptable in their social circle.
I feel exactly the same way about the Hulu adaptation, except I did t make it past the first episode. A pity considering the excellent source material.
As for charity suggestions, you can’t beat Reading Partners in my book: https://readingpartners.org/
Love these observations, I think a lot of this comes down to the overwhelming neoliberal ideology that has been dominant for many decades in the US and other parts of the world. This kind of world view sees everything as an individual problem to be solved by individuals, and by extension all failure is personal failure and all successes are personal successes. I really think this extends to parenting where people tend to attribute the success/failure of children to the parents. This would seem paradoxical if you view children as individuals responsible for their own successes, but I think many people don't recognize children as individual human beings with their own wants, needs, and personalities. I can't remember if you used the term "neoliberal epistemology" in a different blog post, but I've been thinking about that a lot. How we have a flood of information on the internet and we expect each individual to arbitrate that information and make their decisions. I feel like parenting is probably the best example of this, even pre-internet as new parents were inundated with thousands of contradictory books on parenting styles. I disagree with a lot of what Pinker says in The Blank Slate, especially how he frames his arguments, I view his style as much more of a debater than an enlightener (loved that piece too, by the way), and I think his framing often obscures more nuanced arguments, but I think he was right in pointing out the individuality of children and the fact that much of what they learn is from their peers and social relationships, and parenting styles (within reasonable bounds) don't have as much of an effect as parenting books would suggest. Finally, I think many adults don't give children and young people enough agency to make their own decisions and learn from their own mistakes and triumphs and this may affect people as they become adults and are afraid to take agency and act outside of what they believe is acceptable in their social circle.