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So people have been yelling “Grow Up!” 
at us a lot lately.

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And it's in a really weird context.

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Maybe you've been hearing
“grow up” a lot too,

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and maybe you'll recognize the context.

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Quick background:

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We recently made a video about the author
Neil Gaiman,

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and how there's really good reason
to believe he committed sexual assault

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and so we do believe that.

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And distributed through the general
excuse-making

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and denial and apologia
that you'd expect was a theme.

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People yelling “Grow Up!” at us

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all, apparently independently, 
coming up with this thing

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that we really needed to hear.

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The problem is that you guys
glorify entertainers to a hero status.

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You brought that on yourself.
Grow up. Grow up.

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Children have heroes.

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Adults should not aspire to 
be another adult

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Grow Up!
Acknowledging that people

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that move our hearts and minds have human
flaws, too, is a sign of growing up.

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You don't even know what this video is
about.

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Go back to college

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Heroes are for children.

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This is only a problem
in an infantile civilization.

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The Infantilisation of Western Culture.

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Published August 1st.
2000 and ugh

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I'm not reading all that
F***ing hell

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You get the idea!

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They say we're not being realistic,
that we're being immature.

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We're children

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either for having heroes or
for thinking that everyone isn't a r*pist

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or for thinking that celebrities
are perfect or that they're not human,

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whatever that means.

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Basically, if you've got an issue
with sexual assault, you need to grow up.

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But why??

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like this bothered me
so much! Why?

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Why “grow up”
and I know

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mean people being mean
on the Internet

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blokes who disbelieve 
women and defend r*pists

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What's the mystery? They're just nasty.

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They're just nasty men.

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There's no sense in us setting up
a whole Rube Goldberg machine in here

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with a chandelier and a net

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and then pulling the mask off the ghoul
to discover that

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Oh, it was nasty men all along.

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Surely this is

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as so many videos make obvious
before you've even clicked on them

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The f*cking patriarchy,

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*JINKIES!*

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And yet grow up feel so specific,

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so particularly fine tuned to pick on
certain vulnerabilities and flaws that we

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maybe all feel as less than perfect adults
or as not quite normal folk.

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It picks on those sensitivities
while simultaneously

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seeming to have so little
to do with s*xual assault.

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So we were curious

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and we asked some of our 
YouTube friends

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if they'd noticed and well...

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Pillar of Garbage:
Grow Up!

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The Hogwarts Legacy controversy
slash boycott failed

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because the sane people
have finally had enough of you

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terminally on the internet
freaks and

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Hoots:
Grow Up, will you!

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If we were needed to ban
every children story that seemed

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outdated and problematic -
Open your eyes!

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Grow up. 
(grow up)

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Talis: 
Grow up.

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So then, seeing that these examples
also seemed to have

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something to do with naivete
and wanting to change the world

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and pushing back against injustice,
we were frankly even more confused!

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Now, why we're all these people
saying Grow Up?

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What are we doing exactly
when we deploy insults like these?

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Why, without just taking the answer for
granted, is being grown up good?

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And why is not being grown up bad?

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What do people mean
when they invoke maturity?

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It seems that
if you put yourself out there

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with even the vaguest of gestures
towards justice: Boom!

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there will be a great deal of naysayers
angry at you,

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waiting to criticize you
in a very specific and predictable way.

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Sarah’s voice:
Your children.

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Exactly.

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They'll say that you’re children

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Sarah:
No, Neil. Your children, the baby.

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Oh, yes.

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We have children and we just had a baby
and we quite like the baby.

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The baby is brilliant.

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And it got us to thinking

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Why come people think
that being childlike is bad?

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So.

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yeah.

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🎵 frantic high energy 
Jazz drum solo 🎵

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🎵 snare roll  🎵

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🎵 drums continue 🎵

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🎵 tension on the drums builds 🎵

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Have you ever said it? 
Yelled at someone “Grow Up!”

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or said it sincerely, like,
“I think you need to grow up.”

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I have.

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So I'm guilty as charged.

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And I think a lot of us have.

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I think it's a very normal putdown.

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It's possibly the most succinct way
of saying I big and good

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you small and bad,
but that doesn't mean it's ineffective.

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It's quite maddening

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and sometimes pretty hurtful
and usually incredibly frustrating

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to get these comments.

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And I think it's fair to say
they're difficult to counter.

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Let's look at this example.

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You are simply children who can't fathom
the fact that people are multifaceted.

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I mean, dude, your hair says it all.

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This is in response to a video
about credible r*pe allegations.

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What kind of person looks at the 
despair and anger

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that inevitably follows 
a high profile

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s*xual assault case and says grow

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Woman:
Don’t you wave your hand at me!

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I wave my hand at you

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Senator: 
when you grow up I’ll be glad to

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Women:
“When you grow up??”

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That was Senator Hatch dismissing a group
of women who opposed his endorsement

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of Judge Brett Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh,
you remember, credible r*pe allegations.

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So this is a high profile
example of invoking grow up to shut down

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a conversation about s*xual assault.

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But it is also an example of grow up as an
expression of power within a hierarchy.

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You've got a sitting white male senator.

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He's up here operating within the grossly
unjust system,

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and you've got this group
of activist women

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Grassroots. Speaking with nothing
but their own voices,

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attempting to call 
the system into question.

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It seems to be the case that “grow up”

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or more accurately, references
to childlike behavior are common

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when someone in a hierarchy is speaking
to someone from a group below them.

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This is illustrated quite comprehensively
by legal scholar and professor

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of Constitutional Law Ruth Colker
in her paper The Power of Insults.

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In it, she argues that

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Legal Kimchi: the economic
and political power elite

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has effectively hurled insults
at civil rights activists,

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plaintiffs and their lawyers
to undermine civil rights reform.

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I think most of us can recognize
that activists, lefties

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and basically anyone trying
to create positive change in the world.

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Those trying to push civil rights reforms
have to put in much more work

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than the power elites
sitting on their status quo,

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and Overton Window-ing 
their way into oblivion.

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But as Colker says

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Legal Kimchi: insufficient
attention has been paid to how the power

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elite uses the cultural tool of insults
to undermine these reforms.

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As she points out, insults are part
of a long tradition of class reproduction.

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She takes us back to the early years
of the USA, to the 19th century,

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the time between the revolutionary
and civil wars, which was a particular

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hotspot for duels of honor, a time
in which

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FD Signifier:
many respectable, educated men

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eagerly avenged
even the slightest of insults by

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repairing to the local field of honor
and blasting holes in each other.

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A lot of men,
some of them very famous, were shot

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in some duel over some petty insult.

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I am Alexander Hamilton
and I'm a fragile little gentleman.

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But duels weren't universal.

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If some upstart from the lower classes
happened to insult

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the honor of a gentleman,
this would not be followed by a duel.

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Oh, no, no, no.

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This would be followed

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by beating the wretch with a cane
or lashing the reprobate with a horsewhip.

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And funnily enough,
not funny at all, actually.

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This is also how children have been
historically disciplined in respectable

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Western societies,

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in educational and religious institutions
up until very recently.

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It's arguable that like the impoverished
lower classes of the 19th century

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children have historically
also had no honor to defend.

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But anyway, insults!

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Colker points out
how, just like in the 1800s,

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those currently in power exist
in a completely different world

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in terms of how insults work.

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She points out that insults function

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both as a distraction
from civil rights reforms

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and that those insults are more likely
to be successful

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because of the preexisting weakness
of the civil right in question.

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That is, if someone is lower on the social
hierarchy, they have to do a great deal

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more proving themselves of worth
as part of their response to an insult.

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Putting it my own way, I would say that

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if a disempowered person
is dealing with the gallery, the audience

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...

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over insults and slings and arrows,
then they have far less control

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of the narrative
than the person with power.

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This means that the insult itself
causes group based harm

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and it fuels negative stereotypes
about that disempowered group

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and it deflects attention away
from their struggles.

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So surprise, surprise! There are countless
examples of Trump doing this.

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Did we want to...? Do you wanna...?

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We want to talk about Trump?

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Are we are we talking about this?

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Have we heard about this?

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Trump.

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This is the neo-fascist playbook.

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Insult anyone with integrity over and over
and get the client media to report on it

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and ham it up and repeat it
until no one remembers

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anything about that person of integrity
except the insult that you made up.

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Most people remember Trump impersonating
and mocking journalist Serge Kovaleski

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at a campaign rally in 2015,
flapping his arms and such.

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But what Colker points out in her paper,
and I'd forgotten this,

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is that that whole thing started
because Trump had made a false claim

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that the Muslim community in New Jersey

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was cheering as the World
Trade Center fell on 911.

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And Kovaleski,
being a journalist, had published words

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that said, No, they didn't.

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The whole situation devolved into
“Will this boorish behavior

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derail Trump's campaign?”

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Instead of spotting that Trump had used
ableism to Trojan horse Islamophobia,

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he did it again when he mocked NFL players

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for taking a knee
during the national anthem.

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Successfully distracting from

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the major issue of police
brutality against Black Americans.

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And again, when he described Haitian
and African immigrants

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as coming from, quote, ‘shithole countries’
and describing Mexican-Americans

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as drug dealers, and r*pists, all as cover
for his administration rescinding DACA

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a policy that allows certain individuals
who came to the United States as children

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to stay in the country.

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Remember that?

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No. Neither does anyone else.

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And all of that maybe feels like old news
when at time of writing Elon Musk

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and a bunch of fortune gobshite
cronies are locked in some government

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vault, pressing Control
plus A, Delete on America.

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But it's very relevant because the elite
deploying insults and slander

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and dehumanization is at its most rampant
and shameless right now.

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Returning to the nomination of Brett
Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,

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a Trump appointee.

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At a time
when there was ongoing

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investigations into credible allegations
of s*xual assault against Kavanaugh.

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Trump, of course, 
mocked the alleged victim,

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Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

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Trump:
How did you get home?

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I don't remember.

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How did you get there?

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I don't remember.
Where is the place? I don't remember.

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How many years ago was it?

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I don't

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Once again, using insults
to gain political advantage.

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That is, another conservative
Republican judge on the Supreme Court

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now is not quite the same thing as
telling me to grow up?

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Yes.

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No.

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kind of.

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It would be a mistake

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to think that insults are just the thing
that the bad guys do

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many voices:
Grow Up!

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There is growing division
among general online leftish folk

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over whether using certain insults

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is necessary to express ourselves
and show some urgency and strength

244
00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:28,560
and to make our points
well and uncompromisingly.

245
00:11:28,680 --> 00:11:33,000
Or maybe insults are pretty much
always hierarchy reproducing and

246
00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:37,920
Elon Musk won't see your body shaming
tweets, but your dad bod friends will.

247
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,560
And obviously there's
always been an ideological difference

248
00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:44,240
between those who believe to whatever
extent that the politics of identity

249
00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:48,280
should come second to and are
a distraction from the politics of class.

250
00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:50,520
At it's most cliched
and stripped of nuance

251
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:53,120
That's a blue haired wokey
arguing with a tankie

252
00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:55,880
both of which are insults
that never seem to actually land

253
00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:59,560
or hurt anyone because, you know,
they're very silly.

254
00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:01,840
Communists respond to 
being called “Tankies”

255
00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:04,360
the way that gay people respond
to being called “sodomites.”

256
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,040
Like, what did you just call me?

257
00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:08,440
It's so cute.

258
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:12,320
A Tankie?? 
Oh,  I'm a sodomite!

259
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:12,960
Yeah, I am.

260
00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:14,280
So given that bit of noise,

261
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:17,520
there are actually only a few things
that I can say definitively about insults.

262
00:12:17,520 --> 00:12:19,920
One, this is not a well-studied area.

263
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:21,600
We basically can't say
with any confidence,

264
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:24,560
whether it's practice to go low
or it's counterproductive to go high.

265
00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:25,920
We just don't seem to know.

266
00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:30,480
Another is, as I said earlier, that
insults are a useful tool for power elites

267
00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:33,120
and that they are deployed
by the enemies of the working class

268
00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:37,920
and of disenfranchized people to distract
from and sabotage civil rights reforms.

269
00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:40,920
So it is interesting that Ruth Colker
in her conclusion,

270
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:44,080
doesn't fall one way or the other on
the go low go high dichotomy.

271
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:48,400
She doesn't recommend that we do insults
or that we do not do insults.

272
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:51,440
She recommends a contextual approach.

273
00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:54,920
She suggests that we ask,
what is the context of the insult?

274
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:56,360
What are we trying to achieve?

275
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:57,480
And I think that's smart.

276
00:12:57,480 --> 00:12:58,400
Adding to that,

277
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,280
I can infer from her paper
that it might be smart for us to hold onto

278
00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:06,720
and focus on the original struggle
before the Trumps and Musks of this world

279
00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:11,280
turn any given emancipatory thing
into a nonsense ad hominem game.

280
00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,640
So we should learn from what happened
with Serge Kovaleski and keep our eyes

281
00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:17,720
on the goal as it existed
before all the distraction tactics.

282
00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:18,840
But importantly,

283
00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:22,240
as much as we don't know whether insults
unambiguously reproduce hierarchy,

284
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,400
we can say with some confidence
that they reproduce social groups

285
00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:28,400
in-groups and out-groups.

286
00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:31,320
Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

287
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:33,480
It is not necessarily a good thing.

288
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:35,200
It is a thing thing.

289
00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:38,000
As professor of psychology,
Karina Korostelina puts it:

290
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,080
Hoots: An insult is a social act

291
00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:42,400
constructed mutually 
by social groups

292
00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:44,320
on the boundary between them.

293
00:13:44,320 --> 00:13:45,800
Which is to say,

294
00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:48,480
one of the ways that we create
and reinforce social groups

295
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:51,920
and the differences
between those groups is through insults.

296
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:53,800
Which got me to thinking.

297
00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:55,880
When someone says Grow Up.

298
00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:58,920
What is the in-group?
And what is the outgroup?

299
00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:01,480
It's not adults and children, right?

300
00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:04,560
I don't think that these commenters
are accusing Sarah and I

301
00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:07,560
of being actual children, especially since

302
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:11,400
Sarah was visibly pregnant
and I look f***ing old.

303
00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:14,240
Have you seen these new video essayists
they've got these days?

304
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:18,000
Tirrrb and José María Luna?
Skin like baby angels.

305
00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:19,880
No they're not saying that we’re
children.

306
00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:23,800
They're saying we're something else,
something child like.

307
00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:27,480
And so they tell me to grow up
that everybody in the world is corrupt.

308
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:28,880
So hush and shush.

309
00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:29,520
And if you're trying

310
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:33,120
to push for justice, rest assured
we can't because it's just the world.

311
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:35,400
So you better get more mature.

312
00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:38,600
Sarah, I feel like an awful tosser doing
all this Hamilton stuff, I really, it's

313
00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:39,840
tremendously cringe.

314
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:43,160
So I once again looked through
the comments and tried to find a theme.

315
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:44,760
I know I'm a glutton for punishment,

316
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:48,760
but it was important to understand
what “Grow Up” means.

317
00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:50,080
And then I remembered.

318
00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:50,800
I've said it.

319
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:52,200
I have.

320
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:53,320
What did I mean?

321
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,280
And I remember I meant grow up like

322
00:14:56,280 --> 00:14:59,560
be more Irish, be more like me.

323
00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:03,880
It had been during a fight with Sarah
about parenting because Sarah is American

324
00:15:03,880 --> 00:15:07,640
and I'm Irish, and American culture
seems to put romantic partners

325
00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:09,480
and offspring on an equal footing.

326
00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:11,800
Whereas, like, Irish culture
is a little more oriented

327
00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:13,360
around babies and reproduction.

328
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:17,480
So we value the children in a family
kind of over the adults, it seems to me.

329
00:15:17,640 --> 00:15:18,600
Sound off in the comments

330
00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:20,760
if you think I'm wrong about that,
or if you think one or the other

331
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:23,640
of those two cultures is repugnant.
I think it's just a difference.

332
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:26,120
At least, 
I think it’s just a difference

333
00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:28,320
when I'm not arguing 
 with someone about it,

334
00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,400
but when someone else is saying
that my culture is wrong

335
00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:33,840
and I have to argue
that their culture is wrong,

336
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,760
there is a tool at my disposal
well within reach.

337
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:38,080
Grow Up.

338
00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,280
There's only one objective answer here.

339
00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:42,600
The one that the grown ups
are willing to admit to.

340
00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:46,600
And with that insight, I could see that
these comments did fit a pattern,

341
00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:48,560
not an immediately obvious pattern,

342
00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,000
but one which revealed a lot about
our implicit understanding of society

343
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:55,080
and the world. 
Hierarchies we share in common

344
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:58,240
so deeply and unknowingly
that we rarely glimpse them.

345
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:00,640
Grow Up,
as it turns out

346
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:02,760
is a very special kind of insult.

347
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,720
But in order to understand why,
we need to move on to the next

348
00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:10,120
most obvious question,
why is it even a problem to be childlike?

349
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:11,360
Why is this an insult?

350
00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:12,160
Why is it bad?

351
00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:15,960
Why? Of all of the possible ways
that we could group people together,

352
00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:18,280
do we hate this group?

353
00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:19,800
Children.

354
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:22,360
🎵 bass note 🎵

355
00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:24,200
So why get bent out of shape

356
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:26,440
about being told to grow up?

357
00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:27,720
No, this is actually bollocks.

358
00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:28,320
🎵  Jazz drum solo 🎵

359
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:29,240
This is actually bollocks

360
00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:31,520
because by the time we get to
the conclusion,

361
00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:34,280
we're not going to be talking about
insults at all.

362
00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:35,680
It's like a red herring, you know.

363
00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:37,400
Sarah: Why don't you 
talk about something positive?

364
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:38,800
Insults are just a negative bit.

365
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:41,440
we need something uplifting.

366
00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:42,200
Neil: I mean, look.

367
00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:44,960
we're going to
talk about nice, hopeful love things.

368
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:48,960
It's just that and the first comment
that we're going to get is going to be

369
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:51,560
why are you talking about this
when the world is on -

370
00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:53,400
this shouldn't be here, sweetheart.

371
00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:58,840
Why are you talking about childism when,
like, you know, we're all going to die?

372
00:16:58,920 --> 00:16:59,960
I don't mean - I'm sorry 
Sarah: besides

373
00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:02,560
if we set ourselves up
to only talk about the worst things.

374
00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:04,200
That's all we'll ever talk about.

375
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:06,760
And people still won't be happy.

376
00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:08,880
🎵  jazz hihat 🎵

377
00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,960
You're getting
too caught up in the commenters again.

378
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,640
Both:
Just talk about children.

379
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,240
Have you noticed that
it's kind of socially acceptable

380
00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:26,400
to say you hate children
or at least to say you don't like them?

381
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,920
It's definitely socially acceptable
to say that you don't want them around

382
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:31,520
to shoot a look of disdain

383
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:35,480
at a traveling companion because you've
spotted a baby on an airplane.

384
00:17:35,560 --> 00:17:39,160
Or to judge the parenting of a child
who's crying at the grocery store,

385
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:43,360
or to suspiciously keep an eye
on a group of teenagers at the movies.

386
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,920
Adult-only spaces are normative,
and even spaces which allow children do

387
00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:48,720
so only if they're well-behaved.

388
00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:50,640
Is itsocially acceptable
for a crying baby

389
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:53,080
to be in a fancy restaurant?
Or would you expect that

390
00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,920
their mother would whisk them out
until they calmed down?

391
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,440
Maybe judge her for bringing a baby
there in the first place?

392
00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:00,280
Look it up.

393
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:05,880
Search the phrase I hate children
because I did that and it wasn't good.

394
00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:07,320
People are mean.

395
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:10,040
People are mean to babies.

396
00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:13,280
I found screeds at various levels
of professionalism, disliking children

397
00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,120
for being boring or loud.
Disliking them, for taking up space,

398
00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:20,680
blaming parents for being too lax
about discipline, opining that children

399
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:24,880
should not be allowed in public
until they learn to act properly.

400
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:26,360
So here's an example.

401
00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:29,400
A paper out of Australia documented
that during a public debate

402
00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:32,640
about whether dogs should be allowed in
cafes, the conversation

403
00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:36,520
quickly turned from dogs
who were ultimately doing fine to children

404
00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:42,200
who were seen as the real threat
to peace, enjoyment and public order.

405
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:44,680
The paper quotes
one person's take on the matter.

406
00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:46,320
Talis:
I'd really like to see it go further

407
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:49,040
and remove all children from public areas.

408
00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:51,640
Holiday spots and traveling options
should be classed as

409
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:53,640
for and not for children.

410
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:57,240
Make these disgusting things, travel
in their own special carriages and planes

411
00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:58,920
and live in their own areas.

412
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:00,600
The world would be a much better place

413
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:04,360
if all children were just locked up
until they were old enough to behave.

414
00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:07,160
This idea that children 
a class of people

415
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:10,800
should be confined to private
spheres is somehow not controversial.

416
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,080
For young children,
this discrimination is justified

417
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:16,080
by evoking their disruptiveness
or vulnerability.

418
00:19:16,120 --> 00:19:19,040
Either that they're too unruly
to be allowed access to public space

419
00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:21,440
or that they're too vulnerable, 
easily corrupted

420
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,520
or stealable or otherwise hurt
by being allowed in public.

421
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:29,200
Older children, however, are not seen
as vulnerable, but instead as criminal.

422
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:30,440
As one paper puts it:

423
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,840
Rohan Davis:
after around age twelve

424
00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:36,960
adult society recognizes
children, particularly children of color,

425
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:42,480
no longer as helpless pieces of property,
but instead as the reckless criminals

426
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,480
devoid of any sense of responsibility

427
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,560
or understanding of their lives.

428
00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:53,400
As a result, young people are driven
out of public spaces.

429
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:58,480
Teenagers are routinely overtly profiled
or kept from accessing public space.

430
00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:01,960
Think of the Mosquito, a device
which emits a high pitched ring

431
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,560
which teenagers can hear but adults can't.

432
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:05,840
Installing the Mosquito

433
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:09,760
in parks or outside of buildings
prevents teenagers from “loitering.”

434
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:12,360
You know, the crime of appearing in public
without spending money.

435
00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:15,360
This is a particularly impactful
limitation for teenagers

436
00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:19,440
who tend to have very little money
and very few places to go.

437
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:23,920
The mosquito is widely used in Australia,
North America and Europe,

438
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,720
despite the fact that it contravenes
articles on human

439
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,720
rights from both the European Convention
on Human Rights

440
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:33,800
and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,

441
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,720
and that it's capable of causing children
physical harm

442
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:42,880
with symptoms such as dizziness, headache,
nausea and sensory impairment.

443
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:47,720
The risk is greatest for non-speaking
children and infants who may be exposed to

444
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:51,800
the sound for prolonged periods of time
by parents who can't hear it themselves.

445
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,480
And so they don't know why
their child is in distress.

446
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:55,760
And yes,

447
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:59,920
this bias against children is impacted
by other mechanisms of marginalization,

448
00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:01,840
especially race and class.

449
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:04,560
Spaces that privileged children 
can access freely

450
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:06,880
like parks or schools 
are often inaccessible

451
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,560
to children from minority groups.

452
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:09,600
Here in Ireland,

453
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:13,320
Traveler children are technically invited
to attend public schools,

454
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:17,960
but they face persistent discrimination
ranging from more benign erasure,

455
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,000
their culture and language is absent
from the Irish curriculum

456
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,880
to the more extreme forms of hostility
from classmates and teachers.

457
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,600
The result means that 
Traveler children

458
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:29,040
are incentivized
to leave school at an early age.

459
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:30,400
As one traveler put it:

460
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,360
Caelan Conrad:
my parents wanted me to go to school,

461
00:21:32,360 --> 00:21:36,480
but because of the discrimination
that there was in secondary school, I left

462
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,760
after six months of secondary school.

463
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:40,440
I just couldn't stick it.

464
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:41,920
I was really good at school.

465
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:43,360
I was never in trouble.

466
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:45,480
I was never sent home.

467
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:47,200
They used to call me (slur)

468
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:49,760
Or you're a dirty (slur)

469
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:51,120
Go wash herself.

470
00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:55,840
Racialized children are, in fact,
frequently denied childhood altogether.

471
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,040
Elliot Sang: 
Racial bias treats Black children

472
00:21:58,040 --> 00:21:59,360
as physically stronger,

473
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:03,560
more sexually knowledgeable,
less innocent, less sensitive to pain,

474
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,560
and more culpable than white children.

475
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:11,480
This exclusion shows that entitlement
to the ideal of childhood is not a given,

476
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:16,560
but is instead a privilege that is largely
exclusive to white children.

477
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:18,680
This is something
we should all be familiar with

478
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,800
through high profile cases 
like 12 year old

479
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:26,120
Tamir Rice, who was playing with a toy gun
in a park when police officers shot him.

480
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,800
Or Trayvon Martin,
a 17 year old walking in public shot

481
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:33,520
by a vigilante for the crime
of walking home from a convenience store.

482
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,600
The man who shot him, George Zimmerman,
who in his spare time paints

483
00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:39,920
images
like this, was acquitted of all charges.

484
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,840
The jury clearly agreeing
that an unarmed black child walking

485
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:48,480
out of the store constituted behavior
suspicious enough to justify murder.

486
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:53,520
Seemingly paradoxically, Black adults
are often viewed as more childlike.

487
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:56,200
Showing the mutability
of these categories.

488
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:01,680
How we invoke adulthood to make racialized
children appear dangerous

489
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,480
but invoke childhood to make adults seem

490
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:08,040
as if they're undeserving of rights.

491
00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:10,800
In either case, we're using age

492
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:15,240
as a mechanism of control and terror.

493
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:16,640
But thankfully,

494
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,920
there's a philosophical movement meant to
question the morality of this assertion.

495
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,760
It's called Childism, and it's exciting.

496
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:24,680
It's new.

497
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:26,760
It's compatible with leftist goals.

498
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,040
And it feels congruent

499
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,000
with a lot of the stuff we've been
exploring over the last couple of years.

500
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:36,240
But before we go on in the style of better
video essays,

501
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:38,480
we must outline the term

502
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,840
so childism can refer 
to two distinct concepts.

503
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,560
The first is discrimination
against children.

504
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,240
That's an “ism”
the way that racism describes

505
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,800
discrimination against 
people of different races.

506
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,800
The second conception of childism 
is a philosophy

507
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:55,360
one that proposes more 
egalitarian relations

508
00:23:55,360 --> 00:23:56,920
between adults and children.

509
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,840
This is an “ism” in the way that feminism
proposes more egalitarian relations

510
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:02,600
between genders.

511
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:07,560
In this essay, when we say childism,
we'll be referring to the philosophy

512
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,840
to the foundational idea
that children are people

513
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:14,000
and more importantly, the responsibility
that we have to reconfigure society

514
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,120
so that it serves
the needs of both children and adults.

515
00:24:17,120 --> 00:24:19,240
Because right now
it only serves the latter.

516
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:20,840
And children are people.

517
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:22,280
Really take that in for a second.

518
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,600
Children are people.

519
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,560
It doesn't sound revolutionary
to say that children are people,

520
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,360
but when you stop to consider the way
we currently operate, it becomes clear

521
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:33,720
that we don't see children as people.

522
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,280
We see them as future adults
or almost people.

523
00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:40,960
This goes all the way back to Aristotle,
who argued that an organism's

524
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:45,160
mature form is its definitional form,
fulfilling its actual purpose.

525
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,760
All of the stages leading up to that
are oriented to the goal of adulthood.

526
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,640
Though rather than seeing this as an
Aristotelian conception, we're likelier

527
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,800
to view children through a lens
of developmental psychology.

528
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,080
As someone who has not yet
developed their full capacity

529
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,280
for empathy
or their real eyesight abilities,

530
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:07,640
this is how Piaget described children
as existing at various stages of being.

531
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:13,480
Where those stages are defined by deficit
when compared to an imagined adult norm.

532
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:17,360
And even if we don't consciously
think of children as deficient adults,

533
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,880
we often see them as beings
in the process of becoming

534
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:24,440
who should be nurtured in that process
by those of us in power:

535
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:28,800
Adults. Until such a time that
that child develops their full abilities

536
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,880
and crosses the threshold
into adulthood themselves.

537
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,400
Grows up.

538
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:36,720
We often think of the child
as a sort of evolution in miniature.

539
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,000
First, you're a baby
and you can't see well,

540
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,200
you can't speak, you can't walk, etc.

541
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:43,440
Then you're a toddler.

542
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:45,400
You can speak, You can walk a bit,

543
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:49,080
but you can't really engage with long term
plans or complex operations.

544
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,920
And then you're a child, then a teenager.

545
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,920
Always there are developmental milestones
you are supposed to hit.

546
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:56,640
And finally, adulthood.

547
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:58,440
You've reached your final form.

548
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,240
This is a philosophical concept
called recapitulation, that the development

549
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,440
of an individual child mirrors
the phylogeny of the human species.

550
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,960
And like with the modernist misconception
of evolutionary theory,

551
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,720
we believe that the ultimate form 
is the best one,

552
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,400
the one to strive for

553
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:15,840
the Blastoise

554
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:17,760
This is the reason people
tell us to grow up.

555
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:21,000
It's unseemly for us to
still not have progressed to adulthood.

556
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,640
But it's a mistake to view evolution
hierarchically.

557
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,160
Apes are not better than monkeys.

558
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,400
They are adapted
to different environments.

559
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,440
And there's actually
no such thing as a Blastoise

560
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:33,480
Likewise, 
Social Darwinism

561
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:35,520
was a misapplication
of evolution.

562
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:36,880
Viewing some societies

563
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,840
as more evolved than others
when they were just differently adapted.

564
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,640
The idea that you are not a person
until you have hit these developmental

565
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,640
milestones is essentially the same
as you not being a person.

566
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,440
If you're non-normative
and have, for example, a disability,

567
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:54,800
maybe you have poor eyesight
like an infant,

568
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,360
maybe you have poor social skills
like a young child,

569
00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:00,600
maybe you have poor emotional management
skills like a teenager.

570
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:04,800
Ableism interacts with Adultism
so strongly that they start to feel like

571
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:06,120
almost the same thing.

572
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:11,520
The idea that respect is only earned
via growth to this ideal of adult,

573
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,560
a physically
and emotionally independent being.

574
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:17,560
Zoe Bee: 
Childism dissolves this

575
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,640
dichotomy of independent adults

576
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:23,920
and dependent young children
by emphasizing mutual dependency

577
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,800
on various levels
as a fundamental to human existence.

578
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,040
Human beings, emotions,
and agency

579
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,000
are shaped through relations
to other human beings

580
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,240
and to their emotions and agency,
as well as to non-humans.

581
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,800
That is, animals, microbiomes,
the climate, etc..

582
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:45,160
This challenges the notion of liberty
and freedom and raises the question

583
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,480
what does freedom actually
mean in the light of the understanding

584
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:54,120
of social and more than social relations
as characterized by interdependence

585
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,800
and in light of children's experience
and practices of this interdependence

586
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:03,080
between human beings as well as between
humans and non-human species,

587
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:08,560
and materiality, child ism asks us to stop
equating dependance with subservience,

588
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,560
but rather to see all of us
as partially dependent

589
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:16,800
and partially independent
in ever changing webs of interdependence.

590
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,760
Even the most independent person
is still dependent on human society,

591
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,840
and any period of relative independence
is going to be brief.

592
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,440
Sandwiched between starting off as babies
and experiencing

593
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,120
increasing forms of disability.

594
00:28:30,120 --> 00:28:34,320
So why not abolish the hierarchy
and embrace the fact that nothing we do

595
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:35,640
is ever really independent?

596
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:38,560
Even for babies,
as I've just learned with breastfeeding.

597
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:40,080
It's a cooperative effort

598
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:44,040
between the baby and I, with both of us
learning and adjusting for the other.

599
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:45,680
In order for it to work.

600
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,840
It's not something that I can impose on
the baby.

601
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,360
Childism at its most basic points out
that children are people.

602
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:53,280
Children are people.

603
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:54,480
My baby is a person

604
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,840
with a physical experience of the world
and a social experience of the world.

605
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,400
They have needs that differ
from adult needs and that does not make

606
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:04,360
those needs any less important.

607
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,000
They have a right
to express themselves socially

608
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,200
without that expression
being taken as distasteful,

609
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,800
without their social experiences, needs
or self-expression

610
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:21,960
being reduced to some inconvenience
for whatever adults are nearby.

611
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:27,120
So if we are really ready to wrestle
with this, what would it look like?

612
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,200
To say that children have rights
that babies have rights?

613
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,400
In some ways it makes us
rethink what we mean by rights,

614
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,640
because I don't think my infants should be
casting a ballot in the voting booth.

615
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,440
Not only because I don't think
that that would benefit society,

616
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,680
but because I don't think
it would benefit them.

617
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,200
I don't think that when a kid wants
to exclusively eat ice cream, their parent

618
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:52,000
is violating their foundational human
rights if she makes them eat some carrots.

619
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,440
But those examples reflect
a misconception of rights

620
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,440
that is very individualistic
and taken to their extreme.

621
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,000
They lead us to some 
very uncomfortable places.

622
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,360
I frequently cite Firestone
de Beauvoir and Foucault on this channel,

623
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:05,440
and while I really like
a lot of their work,

624
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,040
they all tackle this phenomenon
and end up in, frankly, the wrong place.

625
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,160
All of them are uncomfortable
with hierarchy

626
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,120
and all of them
want children to be our equals.

627
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,760
But they seem to get stuck on the idea
that treating children as equals involves

628
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,320
giving them free rein

629
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,520
because in many ways they 
conceive of freedom

630
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,000
as the benchmark right

631
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,160
And some of their writing

632
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,360
gets unconscionable when they, 
to different extents,

633
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:30,520
explore this in the context of adult
and children sexual relations.

634
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,360
And I know that all philosophy,
when taken to an extreme,

635
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:34,240
can sound problematic,

636
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,880
but Simone, Shulamith, Michele,

637
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:41,160
So what if instead of valuing freedom
or independence

638
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,480
as the ultimate benchmark of respect,
we pick different rights?

639
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:45,320
Like Care?

640
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,240
the right to be cared for, 
the right to have one's needs met.

641
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:49,880
That right is the same,

642
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:51,880
whether we’re talking about 
an adult or a child,

643
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:53,520
we all need shelter, 
food, connection

644
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,600
or what about the right to community?

645
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,760
So the right to have
your needs be considered

646
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,760
when making group decisions,
the right to access spaces,

647
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,720
the right to
have your voice hear

648
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,160
the right to be 
a participant in the world

649
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,720
rather than just have the world
impact you.

650
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:09,800
So how would this look?

651
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,760
Well, I'm an immigrant
and so my assumptions about how life works

652
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,840
get challenged all the time
because certain

653
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,120
aspects of life
work quite differently here in Ireland.

654
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:25,040
And children are treated much differently
here than they are in the US.

655
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:29,520
As an example, let's look at that
very Irish center of community:

656
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:30,600
The Pub.

657
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,520
Pubs have the same components
as bars in the US.

658
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,160
They may have racks of hard alcohol.

659
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,400
They may have televisions playing sports.

660
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,200
They may have music.

661
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,680
They certainly have the regulars
who may or may not have

662
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:45,360
substance use disorders,

663
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:47,320
but they also have children,

664
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,600
and not even necessarily
the well-behaved children.

665
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,480
But children who run around
underfoot, children who cry,

666
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,080
children whose parents aren't reining them
in at all.

667
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,920
Last year, I wandered into the pub,
not realizing that

668
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:06,400
it was confirmation season 
and I found tons of kids.

669
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,200
They were dressed up
in their best outfits, running from one

670
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:15,480
end of the pub to the other, shrieking
happily while their parents got sloshed.

671
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:17,320
This wasn't a private event.

672
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,040
The pub wasn't rented out.

673
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,720
It's just socially acceptable here
for kids,

674
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,680
even kids hyper on sugar
and special event energy

675
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:27,440
to share a social space with adults.

676
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,680
Children here are closer to having
the right to community recognized.

677
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:35,160
Another example: let's look at Japan.

678
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,000
The extent to which the built environment
is structured to meet

679
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
the needs of children
is really different there.

680
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,520
I remember moving to Japan
and seeing for the first time

681
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,360
a five year old 
confidently walking down

682
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,440
the sidewalk alone, 
not a parent in sight.

683
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,640
Having been a preschool teacher in the US.

684
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,880
Walking my classroom anywhere
outside of the building was terrifying.

685
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,360
An event we minimized as much as possible.

686
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,680
But in Japan, 
even in major cities,

687
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:04,760
kids walk alone.

688
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:06,240
Don't mistake this for the idea

689
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,600
that Japanese children are more mature
or better behaved.

690
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:12,840
instead, Japan has cultural

691
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:17,160
and structural differences
which allow children to be out in public.

692
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,680
The sidewalks are broad and generous.

693
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,120
Speed limits are low.

694
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:23,120
Children are taught to raise their arms

695
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,120
as they cross the street
in order to make themselves more visible.

696
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:31,000
But all the same drivers expect children
to be in the crosswalks,

697
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,960
so they watch for children
in the crosswalks.

698
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,960
During times when children are likely
to be commuting to or from school.

699
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:43,000
Networks of volunteer adults place
themselves along well-traveled routes

700
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,080
so that they can watch out for anything
dangerous.

701
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,440
There's a popular 
Japanese TV program

702
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,680
called Hajimete no otsukai

703
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,880
which documents
the right of passage of children

704
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,040
going on their first solo errand.

705
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,440
So cameramen follow these children
ranging from ages 2 to 5

706
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:06,240
as they navigate crowded city centers
or wild rural countrysides.

707
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,760
to bring home a packet of fish
or to bring cookies

708
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:13,200
to their grandma.
They do this completely on their own.

709
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,440
And the show is really, really charming.

710
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,040
I would recommend
you watch

711
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,000
public infrastructure
in Japan

712
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:22,720
is designed to some extent
with children in mind.

713
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,560
This feels very different from how we live
in the English speaking world.

714
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,160
As one paper puts it:

715
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:30,040
Cogito:
parents across socioeconomic

716
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:31,840
backgrounds in Western cities

717
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:36,600
consider public space unsafe
for children, a concern fueled by media

718
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:41,720
hype around stranger danger
and an increasingly risk averse society.

719
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,960
Hence, children who are still seen out
about in the street with an adult

720
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,320
are often regarded
with a mixture of suspicion and worry.

721
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:54,040
These paradoxical positions share a view
that children should remain in child

722
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:58,440
friendly places such as school, home
organized after school activities

723
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:00,040
or the playground.

724
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,040
This was from a research paper
called No Messing Around,

725
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:06,360
which looked at how children view
public spaces in Dublin.

726
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,440
So don't let my romantic view of the pub
influence you too much.

727
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,800
Children here are still quite 
marginalized when it comes to

728
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,640
access to public spaces.

729
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,800
Beyond those 
explicitly carved out for them

730
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:23,320
with special deterministic functions
like a formalized playground

731
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,840
with literal boundaries
versus a large car free avenue,

732
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:31,600
which would facilitate more 
free creative play.

733
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,840
And God, does Dublin need that?

734
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,640
I'm sure many people from the US
who've been to Ireland

735
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,440
and by Ireland
they just mean Dublin are thinking.

736
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,040
But is it Dublin just idyllic?

737
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,080
And that's precisely the problem.

738
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,440
Dublin is so solely focused on tourism,

739
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,200
on presenting this quaint little 
twee image of Ireland

740
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:57,120
so that it can extract as much money
as possible from said tourists.

741
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:01,400
That it fails locals in general,
and especially fails children.

742
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,600
A few years ago, security
at the Temple Bar, a pub famous

743
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,520
for having the most expensive
drinks in Ireland and for being a place

744
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:13,000
that no self-respecting
Irish person would ever set foot in.

745
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:19,240
Well, they got upset that children,
a 13 year old and 16 year old specifically

746
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,800
were skateboarding on the 
pedestrianised street outside of the pub.

747
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:28,400
So, you know, being in public,
using the street,

748
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,160
presumably making 
the atmosphere

749
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,840
less conducive to selling 
thirty euro pints or whatever.

750
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,000
So now the pub is also famous
as one where the security guards

751
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:43,720
assault children for having the audacity
to play in the public space.

752
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,600
Seriously. 
Boycott the Temple Bar.

753
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,360
But it's grim in other places too.

754
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,520
A paper on children in urban spaces
focused on a neighborhood in L.A.,

755
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:58,040
specifically the neighborhood around South
Central Avenue, southeast Los Angeles,

756
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,600
which is a primarily low
income, high density area

757
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:05,080
where residents are majority
Latin-American and Black.

758
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:09,000
Children are marginalized in the same way
that we've mentioned before.

759
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:14,160
Few places to congregate, streets
that are unsafe for commuting, etc., etc..

760
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,720
You get the idea,
but also by factors unique to the area,

761
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,200
like through criminalization
and institutionalization.

762
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,520
The paper's author,
Meredith Abood,

763
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,000
documents how children
move through

764
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:26,760
regimented spaces, 
each day.

765
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,720
The majority of children
go to afterschool programs,

766
00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:32,120
which means that they are
in an institutional setting

767
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:36,600
 from 7:30 a.m.
until 6 p.m. each day.

768
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,560
But when surveyed, only 9% of fifth
graders like their after school programs

769
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:46,120
and based on Abood’s writing,
I don't blame them for disliking them.

770
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:47,600
José María Luna:
The children in the program are

771
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,600
for the most part, institutionalized,
disciplined and controlled.

772
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:53,240
Students are commonly
told to put their hands on their heads

773
00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:56,200
until the room is silent, often
for upwards of 20 minutes,

774
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,480
or told they cannot go play
until they learn to make a perfectly

775
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,520
straight line, meaning
they are often standing still in a line

776
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:06,280
for 15 minutes until they are released
and given permission to play.

777
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:10,240
Students who misbehave because they refuse
to silently work on their homework

778
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:14,040
or do not put their hands on their head
for the entire 5 minutes are “benched”

779
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:15,080
and spend the majority

780
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,800
of the three hour block
sitting alone with their heads down.

781
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:21,120
If they are lucky, they just have to
pick up 50 pieces of trash

782
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,920
as if they are convicted
criminals serving probation.

783
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,240
Remarkably, however, 
students rarely question

784
00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:28,000
the hyper-disciplined 
environment because

785
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,760
they cannot conceive 
of anything else

786
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,120
in a built environment
that constrains their play,

787
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:34,680
autonomy and freedom,

788
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,600
where  police can search children 
and youth without cause

789
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:40,840
and where more money is spent 
on prisons than schools,

790
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,000
Children often do not even realize

791
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,880
they can ask for or 
expect anything more

792
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,560
I think it's particularly noteworthy
that this demographic of children

793
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,720
is also primarily made of 
children of color.

794
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:54,760
Children who 
are not awarded

795
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,320
the same premise of helpless 
innocence as their white peers.

796
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,440
As a paper on Black girlhood puts it

797
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,200
Ember Green:
racialized gender and sexuality, i.e.

798
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:08,760
Black genders and sexualities
in and under white supremacy

799
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,480
and colonization, 
negate and obliterate

800
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,480
the very idea of the subject position.

801
00:39:15,720 --> 00:39:21,280
And the categories of 
child, childhood, girlhood and human

802
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:23,600
in tow of
such configurations

803
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:25,320
is the denial of innocence

804
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,760
in the traditional sense of the word,
where Blackness blots out

805
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:34,280
naivete, not knowing 
and exemption from responsibility.

806
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,120
Or, to put it more crudely,
children of color aren't given

807
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:41,000
the presumption of innocence
that white children are routinely granted.

808
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:47,000
We are dominating and subordinating
young people just because we can.

809
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,880
And in the cases of racialized children,
we are even more cruel and harsh,

810
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,000
potentially creating a scenario 
where kids go

811
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,720
 from institutionalization 
on the basis of their age

812
00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:00,840
to institutionalization
on the basis of their race.

813
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,440
The school to prison nexus.

814
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,960
And I ask you genuinely,
Is this how we want to treat people?

815
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,480
Is this how we want our society to run?

816
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:11,320
Have you heard the 
baby in the background?

817
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,800
Neil actually just 
ran out with them.

818
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:15,720
But I think you might have heard
a little bit of it.

819
00:40:15,720 --> 00:40:19,640
They're here and we're not doing that
because we're showing off.

820
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:20,760
I mean, 
maybe you think

821
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,360
that I'm trying to monetize them
or make a shift to mommy blogger,

822
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,000
but I'm not. Don't worry.

823
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,040
I don't plan to make videos
which feature them.

824
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:29,400
We're not that sort of channel.

825
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:30,800
And like many of you,

826
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:32,320
I would worry about the ethics

827
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,520
of exposing someone to a public life
that they didn't consent to.

828
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:41,120
But this is also my job, and I think
children should be allowed at workplaces.

829
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:44,200
And I know there might be
some loss of productivity.

830
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,440
There's been some 
loss of productivity today.

831
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:50,520
And sure, maybe not every job,
certainly not the dangerous ones.

832
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:54,080
But the system we have now 
requires institutionalization.

833
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,880
The system we have 
requires carers to either

834
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:58,800
give up their 
careers entirely

835
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,120
to focus on their children,
or to segment their day into sections

836
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:06,000
where they're isolated from their children
and their children are in care.

837
00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:08,520
And I don't want to do either of those.

838
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,240
I really like that most European countries
have generous maternity leave,

839
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:13,840
but I'd also be 
pretty miserable

840
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,640
if I spent every second 
of maternity leave

841
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,960
focused solely on the baby
and completely neglecting

842
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:24,520
my own need for intellectual stimulation
or to participate in society.

843
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:27,960
Babies should be allowed in public
for their own sake, but doing so

844
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,680
would allow their parents
to maintain their public access as well.

845
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,800
And that's why the baby's here

846
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,000
Because they're a newborn 
and they can't be left alone.

847
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:38,760
Because I'm breastfeeding 
every few hours,

848
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,400
because I don't
want to put them in daycare.

849
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,680
And if you take me less seriously
as a thinker or as a professional,

850
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,520
because I've got a baby 
strapped to my chest,

851
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:49,240
 that's your Adultism showing.

852
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:50,680
Everything I've discussed today

853
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:54,480
gets extra depressing
when you see what children want

854
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,840
and how easy it would be for us
to give it to them.

855
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,600
when they're asked,
children want to be integrated

856
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,640
and valued in their communities.

857
00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:05,400
They want to feel safe

858
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,000
and they want to be able to move
through their neighborhoods.

859
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,360
They want to be able to conduct

860
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:13,600
a variety of activities
like playing sports or exploring.

861
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,120
They want public art.

862
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:16,840
They want green spaces.

863
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,360
They want tangible 
interactions with nature.

864
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,600
They want spaces
where they can meet up with their peers.

865
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,080
And this one was especially heartening.

866
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,720
Spaces where they can 
mix with kids from different

867
00:42:27,720 --> 00:42:30,480
ethnic and religious 
backgrounds than their own.

868
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,760
So, like, they want what we all want
but shaped like them.

869
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:36,360
Usable for them.

870
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:38,880
Public sculptures that they can climb on.

871
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:41,160
Adequate lighting for dark areas.

872
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:42,120
Bird feeders.

873
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,520
Graffiti walls
where they're allowed to paint.

874
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:46,680
Seating protected from the elements.

875
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:48,320
Doesn't that sound nice?

876
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,480
I hesitate to give many concrete examples
of what changes

877
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,160
that we should make for children.

878
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:54,720
Because I'm not a child.

879
00:42:54,720 --> 00:42:56,040
I'll just be designing

880
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,320
around an idyllic image of a child.

881
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,040
But children aren't an idea.

882
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:01,480
They're a cohort.

883
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,400
They can tell us what they want.

884
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,040
We should invite children to the table
and not tokenistically

885
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:11,280
but with the intention of actually 
engaging and taking them seriously.

886
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:16,640
Otherwise, we'll keep perpetuating an
unfair adult framework, as Abood puts it.

887
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:18,040
José María Luna:
If children and youth

888
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,280
do not have a way to 
empower themselves

889
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:24,120
and shape their communities,
they will remain victims of an adult world

890
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,920
that has continuously demonstrated
that it does not care.

891
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:29,520
I like children.

892
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:31,960
I like having children 
sharing my commute.

893
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,960
I like having children
running underfoot at the pub.

894
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:38,440
I don't think children should be 
confined to a narrow range

895
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,520
of child friendly spaces
like fenced in playgrounds.

896
00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:45,320
But whether you like
or don't like children shouldn't matter

897
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,520
because they're people.
They have just as much right to be

898
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:53,400
in public life as you do, regardless
ofyour feelings on that matter.

899
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,240
🎵 bass note 🎵

900
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:57,880
We can't make
anyone watching

901
00:43:57,880 --> 00:43:59,600
care about children.

902
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:00,440
We can't make -

903
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,520
(Loud Click)

904
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:03,440
Neil, what happened??

905
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:04,560
🎵 jazz drums 🎵

906
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:05,520
Neil: 
I don't know.

907
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,280
We don't have 
Philosophy Tube’s budget, do we?

908
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:10,400
🎵 more drums 🎵

909
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,440
Recently,
I spent some time in a maternity hospital.

910
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:15,360
It was interesting.

911
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:20,680
There was an atmosphere of tension
and of excitement and magic, actually,

912
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:26,640
and horror and grossness and mundaneness
and occasionally tragedy.

913
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:29,240
We had some time to soak up all of it.

914
00:44:29,240 --> 00:44:33,000
Sarah was in there for almost ten days,
having the baby.

915
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:34,320
Her labor had to be induced.

916
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,520
And unfortunately,
it wasn't a very successful induction

917
00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:41,040
and little Bábóg had some trouble
coming out into the world.

918
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:45,240
Basically, contractions, but no dilation,
no progression, just a little baby

919
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:47,960
stuck in there getting 
squished by a womb,

920
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:51,480
displaying increasingly distressed 
and distressing vital signs.

921
00:44:51,720 --> 00:44:56,000
And of course, Sarah in absolute agony,
but kind of for no reason.

922
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:57,320
We had very good care.

923
00:44:57,320 --> 00:44:59,880
There is very good
maternity care in Ireland,

924
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:01,600
and that was particularly striking
for Sarah

925
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:05,480
coming from the States where there are
statistically poor maternity outcomes.

926
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:09,960
In fact, the death rate isn't just high
in the US, it's actively increasing.

927
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,040
And it felt like the staff there
in Galway, a combination of doctors,

928
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,600
nurses, medical students and midwives
all were fully in it.

929
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,760
Hearts invested,
life purpose being fulfilled,

930
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,120
at least from my perspective,
it felt like

931
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,880
and I may be come across
as a little bit of a wanker

932
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,280
putting it this way, 
but it felt so authentic.

933
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:32,040
It's just such an authentic experience
having a baby.

934
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:33,400
I mean,

935
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,440
when they held up our baby,

936
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,600
our new shining
nexus of unimaginable potential and beauty

937
00:45:39,720 --> 00:45:43,600
and the boundaries of reality were
as wishy-washy as my tear-veiled vision

938
00:45:43,720 --> 00:45:45,600
and the force of love itself,

939
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,160
which had taken 
such a deep breath

940
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:49,400
finally exhaled.

941
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,320
It felt authentic, you know, like it
felt like something was happening.

942
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,240
But anyway,
that's not the point of the story.

943
00:45:54,240 --> 00:45:57,120
There was a different bit to that bit

944
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:02,200
There was a bit where I stood outside of
the hospital and I was holding burritos.

945
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:04,560
I just bought these mediocre burritos
right?

946
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:06,040
And I felt
as I stood there

947
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,040
that I was standing between 
two very different worlds.

948
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,760
On the one side was this magical

949
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,440
hospital place where people fulfilled
their life's purpose.

950
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,480
This really rather difficult
and involved and body-horror-infused

951
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,920
and emotionally fraught business of birth
and medicine and care.

952
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,600
And on the other side, past the pedestrian
crossing and the busy road

953
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:27,280
was Tesco

954
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:28,280
and Burritos

955
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,520
and chain pubs and moneylenders.

956
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:35,280
And we're sort of expected
to think that these two are the same world

957
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,520
and that in fact the hospital world
depends for its survival

958
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,600
and viability on the Tesco and burrito
and money lender world.

959
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,480
But this is of course not true.

960
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:45,160
We've been caring for each other

961
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,880
for a lot longer than we've been selling
assembly line burritos.

962
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,560
Ireland almost has a public healthcare
system, and Sarah and Bábóg

963
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,560
basically got free care
for the duration of the pregnancy.

964
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,560
And it feels right, actually,

965
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,400
that that should be something
that society exists to do.

966
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:06,200
It feels right that we all collectively
should be simultaneously protective

967
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,320
and welcoming towards Bábóg
and that we should be challenged

968
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:14,440
in an outward radius from Bábóg’s
needs to reevaluate the world.

969
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:19,800
It feels deeply wrong to think of
their future welfare being based on money.

970
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:24,480
And so following that logic, it should be
deeply morally wrong that any child

971
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:28,520
or any person should have their future
welfare, be based on their economic value.

972
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:33,560
Their value in reality, in a moral sense,
is coming from somewhere else.

973
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,360
So I want to circle the block

974
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,840
of this Childism philosophy thing

975
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:44,000
with exactly that dichotomy
in my mind, a society of children,

976
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:48,360
which is a society of schools
and hospitals and playgrounds

977
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:52,840
and mutual interdependence
and so forth, versus a society of adults,

978
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:58,800
which is money and exploitation,
and Tesco and techno feudalism.

979
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:02,320
See, no matter how lofty or far
reaching or academic this gets,

980
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,240
ultimately this is still a story
about a baby in the world,

981
00:48:06,240 --> 00:48:09,720
just like how your story is ultimately
about a baby in the world.

982
00:48:09,720 --> 00:48:10,680
That's you.

983
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:11,280
And you know

984
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,960
the movie Three Men and a Baby
is actually about Three Babies and a Baby,

985
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,720
if you think about it.

986
00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:19,800
(embarrassed laugh)

987
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:20,280
Okay.

988
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,600
So one of the things

989
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,280
that we could accidentally do here
that we might want to, you know, not do

990
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,240
is to build a whole picture of
childism that makes you think,

991
00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:30,120
oh, I get it!

992
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:34,680
This is like “children are brilliant.
The Philosophy.”

993
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:35,680
This is wrong.

994
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:36,480
That isn't it?

995
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,720
That would be as silly as coming
to the conclusion that feminism is.

996
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,920
“Women are brilliant.
The Philosophy.”

997
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,000
which I'm aware, is a conclusion 
that some people do come to,

998
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:46,560
and I wish they wouldn't.

999
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:49,560
Some people get these sorts of things
wrong on purpose, actually,

1000
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:52,200
and they quite actively
throw a spanner in the works

1001
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,360
by responding to 
feminism with,

1002
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:56,600
 “Well, men are great too!”

1003
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:00,560
or “are you saying
women never do anything wrong??”

1004
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,440
and thus participate at whatever level
in a sort of ratcheting

1005
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:07,400
of misinterpretation that tends towards
making feminism look silly?

1006
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,400
And much like 
our discussion of insults earlier,

1007
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:14,520
erases productive conversations 
about problems like

1008
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,560
patriarchy or gender based violence.

1009
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,600
Similarly, people interpret
critical race theory as this kind of

1010
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,640
inelegant, half-assed 
exaltation of non-white

1011
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:27,440
racial identities or some kind of cult
of Negative Nellies who hate the whites,

1012
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,480
which you'd have to be pretty generous
to actually interpret as misunderstanding.

1013
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:32,680
But I digress.

1014
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:37,080
This is important, though, because as I
now start to talk about the details

1015
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,200
of things like democratic representation
for children,

1016
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,040
political participation for children,

1017
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:46,080
youth activists, equality for 
children imagined in new and concrete

1018
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,840
ways, you might find yourself
somewhere on that spectrum of

1019
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,320
“But we can't really be serious
about all of this.”

1020
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,800
“We're not really considering children
as people in this way, are we?”

1021
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,920
And this is just something
I would ask you to be aware of as we go,

1022
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,920
because there is such a thing
as invisible ideology.

1023
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:04,320
 ideas that you hold

1024
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,960
that you didn't come up with
that don't even necessarily serve you,

1025
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:12,360
that you nonetheless reproduce
on the behalf of your oppressors.

1026
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:14,880
This is part of what makes a status quo,

1027
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,040
however unjust and dysfunctional
that status quo is

1028
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:22,400
more comfortable than 
particular imaginable alternatives

1029
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:23,840
in John Walll's paper.

1030
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:28,600
Can Democracy Represent Children?
Towards a Politics of Difference

1031
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,800
He points out that history regards
the political role of children

1032
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:34,840
in often more generous ways 
than we do now

1033
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:36,480
That Dang Dad:
In the past, children have been kings

1034
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,600
and queens played important roles
in the labor movements, marched

1035
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:43,600
with Gandhi to liberate India, helped
desegregate the United States South,

1036
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:47,480
and been involved in one way or another
in all manner of political movements.

1037
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:51,520
Have you ever heard of the
Newsboys Strike of 1899?

1038
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:54,040
It's a long and storied
and controversial tale

1039
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,240
that we can't fully indulge here today.

1040
00:50:56,240 --> 00:50:59,280
But basically, newspaper
hawkers of the time, young men

1041
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:03,480
and boys had a strike for two weeks
which effectively halved the circulation

1042
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,240
of the papers of both Pulitzer
and William Randolph Hearst.

1043
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:09,840
Now, they didn't
exactly succeed in their aims.

1044
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:13,160
Neither Hearst
nor Pulitzer agreed to pay them more,

1045
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,560
but they did leverage buybacks
for the papers that they didn't sell,

1046
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:20,600
so they successfully impacted
their own poverty at the expense

1047
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,920
of those famously miserly 
capitalists c***s

1048
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:25,560
And that's a win for the little fella.

1049
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:29,000
It's all somewhat faithfully recreated
in the Disney film Newsies

1050
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:33,360
and the Broadway musical of the same name,
neither of which I've seen,

1051
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:34,920
but Biz Berkeley has.

1052
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,400
So you can just watch the video
that she did about it

1053
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:39,080
🎵 swelling music 🎵

1054
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,160
🎵 When I Dream 🎵

1055
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:44,480
Anyway, the news
hawkers were an exploited workforce.

1056
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:45,280
Absolutely.

1057
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,120
And it sucks that children were part
of an exploited workforce,

1058
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,600
but they also organized
and used collective action.

1059
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:56,560
This gets referred to as “Youth Activism”
now because of course

1060
00:51:56,560 --> 00:51:59,720
it's different to just activism
because they're children.

1061
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:01,080
It's so cute.

1062
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:02,600
They think that they're people.

1063
00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:05,440
But I'm going to put a pin in this

1064
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:06,000
(pin!)

1065
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:07,320
and it's a lynchpin,

1066
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,120
it’ll be really quite important
and have something to do with

1067
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:12,720
Youth Activism and kids
fighting for the whole world.

1068
00:52:12,720 --> 00:52:14,120
You'll see it's a whole thing

1069
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:16,160
because children, it would seem,

1070
00:52:16,240 --> 00:52:20,160
are the cohort most patently aware
of how f*cked the world is

1071
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,320
and just how urgent and necessary it is

1072
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:27,200
to stop playing adult games
and unf*ck the world immediately.

1073
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:31,520
But as I say, we’ll pin that because that
is children outside of the establishment.

1074
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:35,960
No matter how Other a group is, it's
possible to picture them outside the gates

1075
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:37,640
yelling and saying, “This Sucks!”

1076
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:40,240
Even children don't get
their usual erasure from that scenario.

1077
00:52:40,240 --> 00:52:44,360
But if we turn our attention instead
to children sitting in the big chairs,

1078
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:46,480
in the big rooms,
making the big decisions

1079
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,160
Like Bossy Baby baby 
or Blank Check or whatever

1080
00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:50,960
then it does start to sound 
a bit weird, right?

1081
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,560
If we look at the various instances
where there has actually been an attempt

1082
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:58,120
to integrate children into democracy,
to facilitate their participation

1083
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,560
in the establishment,
then our preconceptions,

1084
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:03,520
our clichéd 
mental images

1085
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,360
and our cognitive biases
kick right back in again.

1086
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:09,120
But it's true that attempts have been made
at this very thing,

1087
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,200
this more liberal version
of representing children in politics.

1088
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:16,480
And by looking at some of the examples
of children's democratic

1089
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,920
participation, hopefully
it will help us to understand how,

1090
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:24,640
One, the issues with involving children
in democracy are actually quite arbitrary.

1091
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:28,640
And Two,
those issues are also really similar

1092
00:53:28,720 --> 00:53:32,520
to the issues that face
everyone who gets excluded from democracy.

1093
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:37,600
So again, drawing from John Wall's paper,
there is something of a shift around 1989

1094
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,400
with the establishment of the Convention
of the Rights of the Child,

1095
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,560
with various countries
struggling to interpret or pay lip service

1096
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:47,160
to listening to children
without that actually being a concrete

1097
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:50,760
legal obligation, you have New Zealand,
South Africa, even Israel

1098
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:54,200
establishing consultative 
bodies for children.

1099
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:55,320
In more recent years,

1100
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:58,880
many countries go a step further
by introducing children's parliaments,

1101
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,280
the idea being that adults assumptions
about the needs of children

1102
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,880
can be supplemented
or challenged by children themselves.

1103
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,960
But as Wall and others have pointed out,
there's a few issues here.

1104
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:10,600
He clears up the picture

1105
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:14,920
of democratic participation for children
by splitting it into three categories:

1106
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,920
Agency, Interdependence 
and Difference

1107
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:19,240
Okay, first: 
Agency.

1108
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:23,160
That idea that you can just give children
the vote, give them the microphone,

1109
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,080
give them something, give them agency.

1110
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:28,200
Some of the problems with this,
we actually touched on already

1111
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:30,080
First: which children?

1112
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,640
that is, wealthier children from 
good schools are overrepresented in

1113
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,640
even the most benevolent forward
thinking of organizations.

1114
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:40,920
Agency has the problem of simultaneously
holding open doors for certain

1115
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:44,520
kinds of people and closing doors
for other kinds of people.

1116
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,800
It tends to be that those who most closely
resemble the existing power elites

1117
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:53,480
will have disproportionately
greater “agency” in political participation.

1118
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:55,920
If we're talking about adults,
they'll be the sort of people

1119
00:54:55,920 --> 00:55:00,560
who have the ear of the powerful, or
they'll be part of existing institutions.

1120
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:03,200
They'll have access to education,
they'll have property,

1121
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:06,640
they'll have savings, technology,
other forms of cultural capital.

1122
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:10,560
And if we're talking about children,
even once you've gotten past the razors of

1123
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:13,680
which kids, rich kids, the right kids,
the white kids?

1124
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:15,600
you still have the problem 
that they will be

1125
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,040
the children who 
most resemble adults

1126
00:55:18,240 --> 00:55:21,560
and at that most resemble wealthy
and powerful adults.

1127
00:55:21,720 --> 00:55:23,520
On top of that, you have Tokenism.

1128
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,320
This idea that whatever diversity you
is mostly decorative.

1129
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:31,400
Now, at time of writing,
most everyone even remotely left of center

1130
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:34,680
is crying out for some 
decorative tokenism in the US

1131
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,960
because it's better than the beady-eyed 
Ku Klux Klan bloodthirsty whitewashing

1132
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,280
evisceration of the 
Republican Party under Trump,

1133
00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:42,800
and none of them have any eyebrows.

1134
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,720
But we can still,
I hope, recognize that sticking

1135
00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:50,520
some marginalized people in a committee
does not actually emancipate them.

1136
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:54,160
This is extra true of sticking children
in a committee

1137
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:55,320
That Dang Dad:
as suppressed groups

1138
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:59,320
throughout history have found citizenship
in name can differ from citizenship

1139
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:03,560
in reality. For example, children
in civic councils in the UK report

1140
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:06,560
feeling that, while they can 
participate and have a voice.

1141
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:08,440
These councils are really controlled

1142
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:12,240
by larger institutional structures
that are run by adults.

1143
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,680
There's a basic structural issue
with the concept of agency,

1144
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:16,920
as Wall puts it.

1145
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:18,120
That Dang Dad:
The problem is that

1146
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,480
agency itself is a political norm

1147
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:22,920
with historically adult-centered biases.

1148
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:26,880
So he outlines his next category:
Interdependence.

1149
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:29,920
A different form of participation
that isn't contingent

1150
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:33,400
on hierarchical skills
and knowledge and various forms of capital.

1151
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:35,280
Now, interdependence is a term

1152
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:36,880
we've already thrown around once or twice,

1153
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:40,360
but we might now take a moment
to actually understand

1154
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:41,360
That Dang Dad: 
children can be

1155
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:44,040
included as full
rather than second class citizens,

1156
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:47,560
the argument goes
If citizenship is broadened to include

1157
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,520
relational ties and social
and political interdependencies,

1158
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,520
that is persons simultaneously active

1159
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:58,040
independence and passive dependance.

1160
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:03,040
We exist in webs of relationships
with different dependencies.

1161
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:06,880
Drawing on other thinkers, John Wall
points out that the idea of an independent

1162
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:10,680
participant in democracy
is kind of a fallacy in the first place.

1163
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:12,680
Individuals,
just like, y’know

1164
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:16,520
your parents or your neighbors,
the people commenting on our last video,

1165
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:19,800
they cannot necessarily 
grasp political concepts,

1166
00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:22,080
economic or ecological problems,

1167
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:25,800
clearly, they cannot grasp issues
of public health and so on.

1168
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,480
We need each other
in order to outsource expertise.

1169
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,760
And therefore, citizenship
is a dynamic process

1170
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,240
of active independence
and passive dependance.

1171
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:40,720
The idea of any category of person
who is granted the respect to make salient

1172
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:44,280
political decisions because of that
category has always been silly.

1173
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:49,760
Whether the category is landowner or man
or white person or f***ing Baron or Duke

1174
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:54,760
And that idea doesn't stop being silly
just because now the category is adult.

1175
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:57,480
Have you met adults?

1176
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:01,120
As I will really emphasize later,
a key missing component of functional

1177
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:04,480
and benevolent democratic 
participation is education.

1178
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:08,760
This idea that we must learn or outsource
learning would require a willingness

1179
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:13,600
to suspend entitlement when you don't know
and to admit when you don't know,

1180
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:16,920
to get good at 
accessing the experience of not knowing

1181
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,960
and therefore knowing when it is
that you are not capable of showing

1182
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:22,680
greater judgment
than someone who doesn't speak English

1183
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:24,720
or someone with a mental illness
or someone

1184
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:28,000
with an intellectual disability,
or indeed a child.

1185
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:29,680
Sometimes you don't know
better than a child.

1186
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:33,400
That itself would radically 
transform democracy,

1187
00:58:33,480 --> 00:58:35,120
as Mark Jans puts it in

1188
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:39,320
Children as Citizens: Towards a 
Contemporary Notion of Child Participation.

1189
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:40,800
Babila: 
This citizenship of children

1190
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:42,800
is based on a continuous learning process

1191
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:44,960
in which children and adults
are interdependent.

1192
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:47,800
In this interdependency,
the playful way in which children

1193
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:50,800
give meaning to their environment
has to be taken into account.

1194
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:51,680
The play of children

1195
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:54,920
cannot merely be considered
as socially unimportant child play.

1196
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,840
But there's still an underlying issue
with interdependence,

1197
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:00,840
and that is that it represents
a failure of imagination

1198
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:05,080
and will tend to bring us right back
to situations that favor adults.

1199
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:07,280
Usually, 
advocacy.

1200
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,280
as in hey group that is dependent 
on us to represent them.

1201
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:12,480
What kind of ice cream

1202
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:15,680
would you like with this legislation
that increases funding for the police?

1203
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:19,480
Would you like Biden Genocide
or Harris Genocide?

1204
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:24,080
Interdependence as much as it is
very much along the right path,

1205
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:27,200
still has this implicit
hierarchical order of things

1206
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,880
in which power kindly squats down
next to non-power asks it

1207
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:34,760
how many sugars it would like in its tea,
and then

1208
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:37,040
defunds the committee 
in charge of tea

1209
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:40,720
in order to begin to get around this
and other issues with interdependence,

1210
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,280
Wall proposes a third category: 
Difference

1211
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:46,400
and this is the real 
blow-it-all-up

1212
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,800
change our mindsets
anti-colonial childist radicalism

1213
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:50,880
That Dang Dad: 
on this model,

1214
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:54,800
democracy means striving 
against historical norms of power

1215
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:59,320
for the inclusion of the greatest possible
diversity of social differences.

1216
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:01,000
This isn't DEI,

1217
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:02,880
this is f***ing

1218
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:04,240
Die.

1219
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,120
That's a bad joke.

1220
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:09,720
In its simplest form,
we can say that an inclusive democracy

1221
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:12,920
should represent
the specific needs of different groups

1222
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,800
in their specific and different ways
that those groups interact

1223
01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:20,640
with and understand society
differently to each other.

1224
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:24,440
This is the exact opposite of the Euro-
Americananian norm

1225
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:27,160
that if anyone should dare
to try to make a life for themselves

1226
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:31,440
in one of these golden imperial lands
of the free, then they had better curtail

1227
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:36,480
their bloody culture and adapt to the many
horrible norms in said land of the free.

1228
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:40,120
Conformities understood
through the rhetoric of its richest

1229
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:43,560
and most powerful
and most c***-like

1230
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:45,520
different cultures, be they
from

1231
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:47,400
foreign lands
or minority religions,

1232
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:51,000
or they're queer, or they have different
needs or different neurotypes, or indeed

1233
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:55,600
they are simply children
should be represented in that difference,

1234
01:00:55,840 --> 01:00:59,440
by that difference,
different democraies should be different.

1235
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:02,480
Public spheres should be plural
and many and different.

1236
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,640
And the people watching 
who already know a thing or two

1237
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:07,800
about decolonialism
will know what I'm dancing around

1238
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:12,640
is that the process of “civilizing”
or “developing democracy”

1239
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:17,360
is the same as the process of conforming
to the will and design of the colonizers.

1240
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:18,400
More on that later.

1241
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:21,840
Because in the more macro,
all encompassing complex high

1242
01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:24,960
end of this idea, some childists
are proposing that in order

1243
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:29,240
to do fair representation
and utopia properly, democracy itself

1244
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:32,360
should be deconstructive
rather than consensus-oriented,

1245
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:35,640
and the role of the citizen
should be antagonistic towards power

1246
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:38,520
rather than part of the mechanism
that creates it

1247
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:39,040
(sound of chair)

1248
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:42,560
and the people watching who already know
a thing or two about political anarchism

1249
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:48,240
will also be saying
Yes, yes, we know more on that, etc.

1250
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:49,720
(chair)

1251
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:52,760
But for me, 
while that's all huge and inspirational.

1252
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:55,240
It's not quite substantive
or actionable enough,

1253
01:01:55,240 --> 01:01:58,240
or at least it doesn't yet
compose a material set of tools

1254
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:00,960
and guidelines
and things we can do

1255
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:02,680
for that, I must
draw your attention

1256
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:06,080
back to this here pin, 
because I promise

1257
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:08,640
there's actually a way of 
doing all of this,

1258
01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:10,640
at least an imaginable way.

1259
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:12,520
In the meantime,
what you’re probably

1260
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,640
currently imagining as the
democratic representation of children

1261
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:19,080
is probably still somewhat
mired in tokenism

1262
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:21,480
and playing pretend 
and ultimately, at best,

1263
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:24,720
advocacy with extra steps 
by adults for children.

1264
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:27,440
I mean, this essay is in many ways
no different.

1265
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:28,440
It is adults.

1266
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:32,680
Sarah and I thinking about what
children need and speculating

1267
01:02:32,680 --> 01:02:36,480
on what young people think and advocating
for what young people would say,

1268
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:38,720
if only there was some way
to listen to them.

1269
01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:42,320
Because let's face it,
when you're not imagining these idealized

1270
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:45,960
four foot tall activists and advocates
who all look like Greta Thunberg

1271
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:49,160
and speak six languages, 
and you instead imagine

1272
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,160
actual children!

1273
01:02:51,160 --> 01:02:53,840
children you have met,
I mean, like a crowd of them.

1274
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:58,440
It's just a cacophony of chewing gum
and monster energy drink and references

1275
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:00,720
to Bluey, and it's impossible
to make out a single word

1276
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:02,160
Right?

1277
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:03,880
No, obviously,
that's bollocks.

1278
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:07,720
But still, we do default to the adult-
centric frame quite readily,

1279
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:10,760
and it seems to be
an irresistible worldview.

1280
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:12,080
There seems to be a pattern

1281
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:16,200
to the excuses we use to rationalize
the disenfranchisement of kids:

1282
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:20,360
Children can't engage with the political process,
children can't articulate themselves.

1283
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:23,280
Children aren't good at judging
their own needs and so on.

1284
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:28,160
And again, these excuses,
when we set aside for a moment

1285
01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:29,400
that they're about children,

1286
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:33,360
may be strikingly familiar
to those who are disempowered in general

1287
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:37,440
for trans people, for disabled people,
for people with chronic illnesses.

1288
01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:43,080
“Oh, you're not understanding the system,
you're extremist, naive-ists

1289
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:44,560
and you're pushing people 
away from your cause!”

1290
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:46,640
for mentally ill people, 
for pregnant people.

1291
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:48,880
“You're not actually able
to judge your own needs!

1292
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:50,880
Have you been talking to Doctor
Google again?”

1293
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:52,680
for immigrants, for refugees,

1294
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:56,640
for people on minimum wage, for anyone
basically who stands outside

1295
01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:58,360
of the establishment halls of power,

1296
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:00,840
No matter how perfectly
you articulate your needs

1297
01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:04,440
and no matter how incontrovertibly
you understand

1298
01:04:04,440 --> 01:04:08,400
and know your own needs, you don't
get to actually represent yourself.

1299
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:10,000
And it's familiar, right?

1300
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:13,000
that even the people
that do come close to representing you

1301
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:16,920
are the richer, more educated, prettier
and more urban version

1302
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:20,160
of you and the means
by which the participants are

1303
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:22,680
then Disenfranchized is,
of course, familiar too!

1304
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:26,280
Participation transformed 
into manipulation, decoration and tokenism.

1305
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,760
In fact, much of the language
used to describe disenfranchisement

1306
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:36,120
has the adult child dynamic baked into it
Infantilizing, belittling, patronizing.

1307
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:39,240
They're making it difficult for me
to draw a parallel here.

1308
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:42,520
And so, of course,
when people seek meaningful change,

1309
01:04:42,520 --> 01:04:46,680
they get told to grow up,
which is particularly unfair

1310
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:51,000
on the cohort of literal children
and young people who, when they grow up,

1311
01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:55,280
will no longer
have the political concerns of children.

1312
01:04:55,360 --> 01:04:59,640
Of course, that's the idea
because having just gone full circle,

1313
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:03,240
we now see that 
the traits that make them children

1314
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,600
are the very things that we otherize
and objectify in the first place.

1315
01:05:06,840 --> 01:05:10,760
These otherized,
objectified, childishnesses

1316
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:13,880
are the things that become problems,
whether they are

1317
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:17,680
value neutral traits or needs
or just phenomena peculiar to a cohort.

1318
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:21,320
The idea is “come back to me
when you're an adult!”

1319
01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:24,760
Very similar to “come back to me
when you're no longer trans”

1320
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:28,320
or you can lean in or talk
like a white person, or you can

1321
01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:30,720
get out of that f***ing wheelchair
or whatever.

1322
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,480
And it may be, as ugly
as it's going to feel,

1323
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:37,200
that the things you think of
as annoying about children are exactly

1324
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:40,960
those otherized, socially undesirable,
economically unproductive

1325
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:44,320
and generally needy and vulnerable traits
which your oppressor

1326
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:47,000
wants you to hate 
about children

1327
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:49,800
wants you to objectify
and villainize and pathologize.

1328
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:54,120
Ugh, children on planes, children
in restaurants, children needing

1329
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:58,120
things, costing money, being born,
bringing more misery into the world,

1330
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:02,320
taking over my friends’ lives!
As ugly as it might feel,

1331
01:06:02,400 --> 01:06:05,400
it may be that your oppressor
wants you to hate those things

1332
01:06:05,520 --> 01:06:10,640
because those are the things
that he hates about you.

1333
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:18,040
(footsteps exiting the stage)

1334
01:06:18,120 --> 01:06:21,280
I bet there's a part of you right now
that's thinking, okay,

1335
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:25,880
this is great in theory, but in practice
this is kind of hippie nonsense.

1336
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:27,440
Maybe you're willing to go along with me

1337
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:31,240
when I say that we're interdependent,
that makes some intuitive sense.

1338
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:33,600
No one does anything truly alone.

1339
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:38,040
But what if I ask you to picture
someone with no agency,

1340
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:44,120
someone who has no active independence,
someone who only takes and doesn't give?

1341
01:06:44,160 --> 01:06:45,600
Like, what about infants?

1342
01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:46,440
It's all well and good

1343
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:49,440
to say that relationships with older
children are reciprocal.

1344
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:52,640
They can report on themselves,
they can be reasoned with.

1345
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:55,160
They can help come up with solutions
when there's a problem

1346
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:57,480
that they're facing,
even they still need

1347
01:06:57,480 --> 01:06:59,040
your involvement
for some of it.

1348
01:06:59,040 --> 01:07:01,640
They can even provide
moments of care for adults.

1349
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:04,920
Like one night
I was up with the baby at 2 a.m.

1350
01:07:04,920 --> 01:07:06,000
and my 14 year old

1351
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:07,800
step kid peeks their head in the door

1352
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:09,200
because they thought they heard me

1353
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:13,400
and they wanted to offer me
a cup of herbal tea, which in that hazy,

1354
01:07:13,400 --> 01:07:17,160
sleep deprived state,
it sounded like my absolute salvation.

1355
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:19,920
So they made it for me
and they brought it to me.

1356
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:21,720
I was up because I was breastfeeding.

1357
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:23,520
They were up because they're a teenager

1358
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:27,160
and they did a sweet thing for me
at a time when I really needed support.

1359
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:30,240
But they're 14.
What about younger children?

1360
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:33,480
What about infants? What about my newborn?

1361
01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:37,560
I think many people would argue
that my newborn isn't even a person yet.

1362
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:38,520
Not really.

1363
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:40,560
They’d argue that
newborns are completely dependent.

1364
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:43,520
They can't give back.
They can't even reciprocate.

1365
01:07:43,520 --> 01:07:47,280
They're just creatures of instinct
with no thoughts or feelings of their own.

1366
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:49,880
They can't feel stress.
They can't feel pain.

1367
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:51,400
You think they're smiling?

1368
01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:53,880
That's actually just gas.

1369
01:07:53,880 --> 01:07:55,480
Except it's not.

1370
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:57,760
Because newborns do feel stress.

1371
01:07:57,840 --> 01:08:00,000
And though
they have a limited set of tools

1372
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:04,000
with which to address it,
they can do things like avert their gaze

1373
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:08,120
from the object of stress in order
to help regulate their heartbeats.

1374
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:12,360
Newborns do feel pain, something we didn't
learn until as late as the 1980s,

1375
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:16,040
before which we were still sometimes
doing surgery on newborns

1376
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:19,160
without pain relief and wondering
why they were dying of shock.

1377
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:22,560
Recently, The Lancet, the world's
most prestigious public health journal,

1378
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:26,400
had to put out an article
calling on doctors to properly medicate

1379
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:30,440
newborns undergoing painful
medical procedures as the current practice

1380
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:34,360
of giving them sugar water 
doesn't actually address pain

1381
01:08:34,400 --> 01:08:37,680
and the repeated experiences
of feeling pain, even in a baby

1382
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:41,000
so young, is so disruptive
that it can lead to brain damage.

1383
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:44,360
And yes, mountains of relatively 
recent scientific evidence

1384
01:08:44,440 --> 01:08:47,440
overwhelmingly lead to the conclusion
that newborns smile

1385
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:51,040
not just as a reflex, but as a meaningful
sign of social connection.

1386
01:08:51,120 --> 01:08:54,120
They do this as early as 36 hours old.

1387
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:57,560
That's how long it takes for them
to observe their caregivers smiling,

1388
01:08:57,640 --> 01:09:00,280
understand that this 
is a tool of social connection

1389
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:02,640
and then reflect it back themselves.

1390
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:06,000
In fact, they are so good at this
that even during the pandemic,

1391
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:09,480
researchers tested whether they could 
detect smiles under masks.

1392
01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:13,760
The results of the trial showed that even
with the mouth part of a smile covered,

1393
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:17,280
babies were able to observe
the rest of the face enough to determine

1394
01:09:17,480 --> 01:09:21,320
that they were being smiled at
and reciprocate by smiling themselves.

1395
01:09:21,360 --> 01:09:24,960
Babies, even when they're hours
old, are already people.

1396
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:26,960
They're not just biological computers

1397
01:09:26,960 --> 01:09:30,120
coded with instincts, dictating
when they eat, sleep or poop.

1398
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:32,640
They're already learning,
taking in the world,

1399
01:09:32,640 --> 01:09:34,080
making connections with it.

1400
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:35,200
They are people.

1401
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:37,080
Just as valid as any one of us.

1402
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:39,000
This isn't a moral imperative.

1403
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:40,960
This is a scientific reality.

1404
01:09:40,960 --> 01:09:42,760
We see this same bias with animals.

1405
01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:45,320
Serious scientists have to 
put out papers saying,

1406
01:09:45,320 --> 01:09:48,440
“Actually, animals do love. 
Animals do mourn.”

1407
01:09:48,440 --> 01:09:49,800
as if that were a revelation.

1408
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:50,680
A few years ago,

1409
01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:54,440
a whale named Tahlequah carried
the body of her dead calf for weeks,

1410
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:57,800
not because she thought it was alive,
but because it was her calf,

1411
01:09:58,000 --> 01:09:59,240
because she was mourning.

1412
01:09:59,240 --> 01:10:02,960
She's actually recently lost another calf
and carried its body with her again

1413
01:10:03,040 --> 01:10:05,520
long days pushing a dead baby around

1414
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:08,640
because it's her baby,
because she lost someone she loved.

1415
01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:10,080
This has captured headlines.

1416
01:10:10,080 --> 01:10:12,160
“Isn't it incredible that whales mourn?”

1417
01:10:12,160 --> 01:10:15,480
But animal studies
tell us that lots of animals mourn.

1418
01:10:15,560 --> 01:10:18,880
Maybe even most, if you're brave,
look up how dairy cows

1419
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:21,960
react when their babies are taken away
to go to slaughter for veal.

1420
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:26,360
The standard practice in dairy farms so
that we can take cows milk for ourselves.

1421
01:10:26,520 --> 01:10:30,720
Listen to the noise that mothers make
or the way they thrash the footage of cows

1422
01:10:30,800 --> 01:10:34,560
chasing slaughter down the road
to get their calves back.

1423
01:10:34,760 --> 01:10:39,000
At the cat rescue I worked at, we dealt
with a situation where some scumbag

1424
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:40,760
took neonatal kittens away 
from their mother

1425
01:10:40,760 --> 01:10:42,840
and the way that cat 
screamed for her babies

1426
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:46,600
circled the house endlessly, 
desperately trying to get in.

1427
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:49,440
I genuinely don't know why
we feel that something

1428
01:10:49,440 --> 01:10:53,120
so obvious as “animals
love each other” is surprising.

1429
01:10:53,200 --> 01:10:55,360
I don't know why
we need studies to validate it

1430
01:10:55,360 --> 01:10:57,240
Or why, for a century at least,

1431
01:10:57,240 --> 01:11:00,600
we've dismissed the idea 
that newborns do, in fact

1432
01:11:00,920 --> 01:11:01,680
smile.

1433
01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:04,280
But a lot of harm has been done
on the basis of this misconception,

1434
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:06,440
or more cynically:
fabrication.

1435
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:10,720
What if we go further and consider that
the environment itself should have rights?

1436
01:11:10,840 --> 01:11:12,240
Lawyers in various countries

1437
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:16,440
have tried to get personhood status
for notable areas like the Ganges River

1438
01:11:16,560 --> 01:11:19,680
or Mount Taranaki, but to me
it seems that environmental rights

1439
01:11:19,840 --> 01:11:21,320
are inherent in childism,

1440
01:11:21,320 --> 01:11:24,320
even without considering the 
personhood of the natural world,

1441
01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:26,480
let's picture a small 
area of native forest

1442
01:11:26,480 --> 01:11:28,800
here in Ireland. 
We only have 1% of those.

1443
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:32,240
Most of the forests you see here 
are ecologically dead farms

1444
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:36,160
of Sitka Spruce and the rest of the land
has been clear cut to raise cows and sheep

1445
01:11:36,360 --> 01:11:38,280
for us to consume dairy and milk,

1446
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:39,720
but maybe you live in an area

1447
01:11:39,720 --> 01:11:43,200
where there is some native forest
and that land goes on sale and you buy it.

1448
01:11:43,400 --> 01:11:46,560
Under an individualist
framework, a buyer can get said land

1449
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:50,040
clear cut the established forest
and plant it with Sitka Spruce

1450
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:53,360
to begin the process of growing, clear
cutting and selling.

1451
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:55,560
Through a childist framework,
however,

1452
01:11:55,560 --> 01:11:58,280
you must consider the web
of things dependent on that forest.

1453
01:11:58,320 --> 01:11:59,840
The trees themselves, sure,

1454
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:03,320
but the animals, plants and fungi
dependent on those trees.

1455
01:12:03,440 --> 01:12:07,200
And if there are humans who use
the forest, you need to consider them too.

1456
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:09,880
Is this forest a play area for children?

1457
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:11,840
A picnic spot for families?

1458
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:13,040
How would they feel,

1459
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:15,440
If you clear cut it and 
fence it in?

1460
01:12:15,440 --> 01:12:17,720
How would they feel
about the increase in pollution

1461
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:19,520
they're going to experience
from the machines that

1462
01:12:19,520 --> 01:12:23,120
you're going to be using to clear cut
or the increased carbon released

1463
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:26,760
from burning wood,
the increased soil erosion, or the runoff

1464
01:12:26,760 --> 01:12:30,120
from fertilizer, which will cause algae
blooms in the nearby lake, c

1465
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:34,520
killing more wildlife and making
it dangerous for humans to swim in.

1466
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:37,400
Shouldn't you be obligated
 to ask locals how they feel?

1467
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:40,120
Is it genuinely fair
that you are able to impact

1468
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:43,680
a community of humans and animals
just because you have the money to do so?

1469
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:47,640
Is it fair that any of us can trade
some socially meaningful paper money

1470
01:12:47,840 --> 01:12:50,160
for socially meaningful paper deeds?

1471
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:51,920
and then just do whatever 
the f*** we want?

1472
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:54,120
Yeah, it might feel constraining
to have to consider

1473
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:56,760
every factor before you act,
because for a lot of people

1474
01:12:56,760 --> 01:12:59,400
that's going to mean
their actions are more limited.

1475
01:12:59,400 --> 01:13:02,680
For someone used to individuality,
it can feel chafing.

1476
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:04,000
But it's also right.

1477
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:07,080
It's just right from a moral perspective
to view things from the lenses

1478
01:13:07,080 --> 01:13:10,600
of interdependence and difference
rather than through power and capital.

1479
01:13:10,760 --> 01:13:12,120
Because we need each other,

1480
01:13:12,120 --> 01:13:16,360
we need disabled people, we need children,
we need a biodiverse ecosystem.

1481
01:13:16,360 --> 01:13:17,800
We need a livable planet.

1482
01:13:17,800 --> 01:13:21,000
Luckily, it's not up to adults to solely
get their shit together.

1483
01:13:21,240 --> 01:13:26,800
Many children are already acting to
bring us closer to this more just world.

1484
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:28,360
Foreign Man in a Foreign Land:
There are two key questions

1485
01:13:28,360 --> 01:13:29,560
consistently raised by 
children and youth

1486
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:30,440
consistently raised by 
children and youth

1487
01:13:30,680 --> 01:13:34,960
since the onset of the school strikes
for climate in 2018 in the Global North.

1488
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:37,960
Why study for a future
which may not be there?

1489
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:40,400
Why spend a lot of effort
to become educated

1490
01:13:40,400 --> 01:13:44,400
when our governments
are not listening to the educated?

1491
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:46,320
You remember those protests?

1492
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:48,720
the School Strikes for Climate
seven years ago

1493
01:13:48,960 --> 01:13:50,920
Greta Thunberg and all that.

1494
01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:53,880
Yeah, that was back
when Greta was in the media all the time.

1495
01:13:53,880 --> 01:13:57,320
But around about the time 
that she set her focus

1496
01:13:57,320 --> 01:14:02,120
on capitalism and colonialism,
the media started to lose interest.

1497
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:06,640
And by the time she was protesting
Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza,

1498
01:14:06,720 --> 01:14:09,960
getting assaulted and arrested by police,
the media was so silent

1499
01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:11,480
that, well.

1500
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:12,800
(pin drops)

1501
01:14:14,040 --> 01:14:17,160
So that quote, There are two key questions
Why study for a future?

1502
01:14:17,160 --> 01:14:18,280
Why get educated?
and all that

1503
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:19,800
is from the 
beginning of a paper

1504
01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:22,960
by associate professor of pedagogy
at the University of Stavenger

1505
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:25,960
and foundational thinker
in the philosophy of childism

1506
01:14:25,960 --> 01:14:27,120
Tanu Biswas

1507
01:14:27,120 --> 01:14:30,560
Biswas is like the, uh, decolonial
“let’s fix the future, education

1508
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:33,960
and the planet” childist.
A very interesting thinker.

1509
01:14:34,160 --> 01:14:37,120
That paper is called
Becoming Good Ancestors,

1510
01:14:37,120 --> 01:14:41,920
A Decolonial Childist Approach to gGobal
Intergenerational Sustainability.

1511
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:44,120
And it starts
with some very good questions.

1512
01:14:44,120 --> 01:14:46,920
Why study for a future
that may not be there?

1513
01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:49,960
Why be obedient
on the educational production line

1514
01:14:50,120 --> 01:14:52,080
to said non-existent future?

1515
01:14:52,080 --> 01:14:55,000
Why value truth and knowledge
when the systems and the people

1516
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:59,080
with decision making power
do not at all value truth and knowledge?

1517
01:14:59,080 --> 01:15:01,800
To me, this feels
like the same frustration

1518
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:03,800
and puzzlement 
I feel when I see everyone

1519
01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:08,760
just carrying on as normal, ordering stuff
from Amazon and booking holidays.

1520
01:15:08,760 --> 01:15:11,520
During this increasingly 
proximal climate crisis.

1521
01:15:11,520 --> 01:15:13,040
What's everyone doing?

1522
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:14,400
What am I doing?

1523
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:15,600
What's wrong with all of us?

1524
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:19,160
This willingness to stand in the queue
or fill in the form

1525
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:23,200
while the building is literally on fire
feels really quite adult, doesn't it?

1526
01:15:23,280 --> 01:15:27,480
But these troublemaking children back in
2018 create a really quite the disruption

1527
01:15:27,480 --> 01:15:29,840
of a really quite deceptively
important thing

1528
01:15:29,840 --> 01:15:31,200
as Biswas puts it:

1529
01:15:31,400 --> 01:15:32,560
Foreign: 
a pivotal institution

1530
01:15:32,560 --> 01:15:35,600
of modern childhood
and one of the foundational pillars

1531
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:40,480
for sustaining an intergenerationally,
unjust capitalist economy -

1532
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:42,040
the contemporary school.

1533
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:45,240
Now, before I get into my own critiques
of the contemporary school,

1534
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:47,760
and some people are already 
vibrating in anticipation.

1535
01:15:47,760 --> 01:15:49,360
 over here, they're like, 
(gasp)

1536
01:15:49,360 --> 01:15:52,440
there's already enough conspiratorial
anti-intellectualism out there.

1537
01:15:52,440 --> 01:15:54,760
What are ya doin Cooks?? 
Don't come for the schools!

1538
01:15:54,760 --> 01:15:59,920
And over here they're like, Yes, validate
my resentment towards elementary school.

1539
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:01,680
I hate you, Mrs. Doherty!

1540
01:16:01,680 --> 01:16:04,120
But before we actually do it
and we will, we should make

1541
01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:07,360
an important carveout 
on behalf of educators

1542
01:16:07,360 --> 01:16:08,960
because those who teach

1543
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,640
so often seem to be doing it
for complete ideological reasons.

1544
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:17,680
They're rarely financially incentivized.
Underpaid US public schoolteachers,

1545
01:16:17,800 --> 01:16:20,960
English as a foreign language teachers
who actually like being English

1546
01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:25,000
as a foreign language teachers, lifelong
semi impoverished academics

1547
01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:29,800
searching for one really specific thing
and then discovering to their delight

1548
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:33,120
that it's actually a million
specific things.

1549
01:16:33,240 --> 01:16:37,400
Those people seem to live
in a world of their own with its own rules

1550
01:16:37,480 --> 01:16:40,800
similar to the world I stood outside
with my burritos

1551
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:42,680
but I'm getting ahead of myself.

1552
01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:43,800
How do we sort this out?

1553
01:16:43,800 --> 01:16:47,680
Well, Biswas draws a helpful distinction
between two concepts:

1554
01:16:47,760 --> 01:16:50,760
education and schooling.

1555
01:16:50,760 --> 01:16:53,520
Education, Biswas sees as 
geared towards the future,

1556
01:16:53,520 --> 01:16:55,560
composed of its own pedagogical aims

1557
01:16:55,560 --> 01:16:59,120
and disruptions and endless reimaginings.
We can all be engaged in education.

1558
01:16:59,280 --> 01:17:02,840
Education is a foundational 
human endeavor.

1559
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:05,720
Schooling, on the other hand,
Biswas calls a

1560
01:17:05,720 --> 01:17:07,520
“co-conspirator of capital”

1561
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:11,160
a place to put children that is like work
and teaches them about work

1562
01:17:11,280 --> 01:17:14,800
and teaches them how 
not to be trouble at work, she says.

1563
01:17:14,840 --> 01:17:17,160
Foreign: A key analytical 
 and decolonial step

1564
01:17:17,160 --> 01:17:20,040
I took was to recognize 
‘Western schooling’

1565
01:17:20,280 --> 01:17:25,240
as a specific mode of learning,
a conspirator of capitalism deeply rooted

1566
01:17:25,240 --> 01:17:30,520
in philosophical racism and contributing
to a global epistemological loss.

1567
01:17:30,600 --> 01:17:34,200
If we're going to be honest,
we need to admit that a large part

1568
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:38,960
of the purpose of education
all over the world is employability.

1569
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:41,600
That itself is an injury against children.

1570
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:43,000
But it quickly becomes worse than that

1571
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:46,000
when we realize that this employability
often serves the purpose

1572
01:17:46,080 --> 01:17:48,040
of colonial wealth extraction,

1573
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:50,760
creating middle management 
for the colonies

1574
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:53,880
supervisors, civil engineers, 
tour guides and teachers

1575
01:17:54,040 --> 01:17:58,800
to expedite the theft of raw materials
and capital from the developing world.

1576
01:17:58,840 --> 01:18:02,560
See, neither nor myself is being some glib
lip service lefty

1577
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:04,120
when we say “colonial”

1578
01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:06,960
it is in this case
a very real and material

1579
01:18:06,960 --> 01:18:09,000
and fucked up phenomenon.

1580
01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:11,520
You ever heard of the term 
“school in a box?”

1581
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,160
Yeah. It's not as cute as it sounds.

1582
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:17,280
Bridge International Academies,
the world's largest

1583
01:18:17,280 --> 01:18:21,880
for profit primary education
chain, has around 750,000 students

1584
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:25,040
in its schools in India, Kenya, Liberia,
Uganda and Nigeria.

1585
01:18:25,080 --> 01:18:26,200
Bridge is the brainchild

1586
01:18:26,200 --> 01:18:30,320
of two white American entrepreneurs,
Shannon May and her husband Jay Kimmelman.

1587
01:18:30,400 --> 01:18:33,360
They saw an opportunity
to undercut and outcompete

1588
01:18:33,360 --> 01:18:35,360
the schools in the city of Nairobi

1589
01:18:35,360 --> 01:18:37,680
for some of the world's
most impoverished children.

1590
01:18:37,680 --> 01:18:40,680
And then from there, they continued
to spread all over the developing world.

1591
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:43,960
They successfully raised investment
from some of Silicon Valley's finest

1592
01:18:43,960 --> 01:18:46,280
Bill Gates and Pierre Omidyar
amongst them.

1593
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:47,520
As May herself said:

1594
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:49,760
Shannon May: 
it was straight commercial capital

1595
01:18:49,840 --> 01:18:53,520
who saw, like wow, there are

1596
01:18:53,600 --> 01:18:55,320
a couple billion people

1597
01:18:55,320 --> 01:18:58,720
who don't have anyone 
selling them what they want

1598
01:18:58,720 --> 01:19:01,200
in order to successfully undercut

1599
01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:03,760
the existing private schools 
in Africa and Asia,

1600
01:19:03,760 --> 01:19:06,320
they needed to scale up 
ridiculously fast

1601
01:19:06,320 --> 01:19:08,960
and have irresponsibly outlay.

1602
01:19:08,960 --> 01:19:11,280
So, like, cutting the costs of classrooms,

1603
01:19:11,280 --> 01:19:14,680
of classroom supplies
and teacher salaries, which they can slash

1604
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:19,320
by having curricula centrally 
produced and distributed on tablets

1605
01:19:19,400 --> 01:19:22,400
so the teachers 
are high school graduates.

1606
01:19:22,440 --> 01:19:24,560
This is what it is to be a 
school in a box

1607
01:19:24,560 --> 01:19:26,280
Lola Sebastian:
with scripted lesson plans

1608
01:19:26,280 --> 01:19:28,160
delivered by tablet,
which detail

1609
01:19:28,160 --> 01:19:31,720
what teacher should do
and say at every moment of each class.

1610
01:19:31,800 --> 01:19:36,080
The tablets are also used to monitor
lesson pacing, record attendance

1611
01:19:36,240 --> 01:19:37,400
and track assessment.

1612
01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:39,560
Nicola Ansel's 
Shaping Global Education

1613
01:19:39,560 --> 01:19:42,440
International Agendas and Governmental 
Powers uses the example

1614
01:19:42,440 --> 01:19:45,240
of another school in a box:
Omega Schools

1615
01:19:45,480 --> 01:19:47,000
Lola:
a chain of for-profit schools

1616
01:19:47,000 --> 01:19:50,720
serving, 12,000 students from nursery
to junior high school in Ghana.

1617
01:19:50,720 --> 01:19:53,680
Teachers are senior high school graduates
who receive one week

1618
01:19:53,680 --> 01:19:57,720
of pre-service training and 2 to 3 days
per term of in-service training.

1619
01:19:57,720 --> 01:20:01,360
Both Bridge and Omega are among 22 private
school chains supported by

1620
01:20:01,360 --> 01:20:04,200
the Center for Education Innovations,
which is funded by

1621
01:20:04,200 --> 01:20:06,760
the UK's Department
for International Development.

1622
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:11,200
Despite the seemingly low cost of such
provision, studies suggest low cost

1623
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:16,000
private education exacerbates inequality,
with children from rural areas and lower

1624
01:20:16,000 --> 01:20:20,240
socioeconomic backgrounds underrepresented
and a widening gender gap.

1625
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:22,320
But it's not just low cost crapness

1626
01:20:22,320 --> 01:20:24,360
Bridge was opening schools so fast

1627
01:20:24,360 --> 01:20:27,880
that sometimes they weren't
even obtaining approval to do so legally.

1628
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:31,680
The Kenyan government
had to close ten bridge schools in 2014

1629
01:20:31,800 --> 01:20:33,600
for violating children's
basic safety.

1630
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:37,240
At one school in Nairobi
at least 11 girls were sexually assaulted

1631
01:20:37,240 --> 01:20:40,040
In 2019 at another school in Nairobi,

1632
01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:43,360
A kid was fatally electrocuted
by an exposed livewire,

1633
01:20:43,360 --> 01:20:45,920
and Bridge reached a settlement 
with the child's mother,

1634
01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:48,160
which did require 
them to apologize.

1635
01:20:48,200 --> 01:20:51,600
Shannon May and her 
entrepreneurial stroke of genius

1636
01:20:51,600 --> 01:20:55,200
Bridge International Academies 
has received funding from the World Bank,

1637
01:20:55,440 --> 01:20:58,960
glowing praise from the New York
Times and sits as the gold standard

1638
01:20:58,960 --> 01:21:02,280
for the future of for profit education
the world over.

1639
01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:08,040
And I'm just going to let that sit
with you at this time in this age

1640
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:12,760
where we know that the plan is definitely
not to make the Global South richer,

1641
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,600
it is to make the poor everywhere poorer.

1642
01:21:16,680 --> 01:21:19,400
Tanu Biswas
a self-avowed child ist with a penchant

1643
01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:22,680
for the anti-colonial, has other ideas
about what the f*** we should do.

1644
01:21:22,800 --> 01:21:25,560
A different imaginable world.

1645
01:21:25,560 --> 01:21:29,440
She lays out four strategies 
to reimagine education

1646
01:21:29,440 --> 01:21:30,840
in no particular order.

1647
01:21:30,840 --> 01:21:32,440
One: 
move away from capitalism

1648
01:21:32,440 --> 01:21:35,600
as the modus operandi
for which schooling is in service.

1649
01:21:35,600 --> 01:21:38,040
Forget bullshit jobs and employability.

1650
01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:41,160
Stop trying to create capital
out of young people.

1651
01:21:41,200 --> 01:21:44,640
Foreign: the paradox of a global 
education agenda geared towards

1652
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:48,040
generating human capital
employable on a job market

1653
01:21:48,200 --> 01:21:52,000
is that most of those jobs,
if at all, they will be there, continue

1654
01:21:52,000 --> 01:21:55,800
serving the very economic system
that is threatening the right to life,

1655
01:21:55,800 --> 01:21:59,000
health, culture,
especially for indigenous communities

1656
01:21:59,160 --> 01:22:02,920
and the best interests of future
generations on this planet.

1657
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:04,480
Two: restructure and reclaim

1658
01:22:04,480 --> 01:22:06,960
the spacio-temporality
of global childhoods.

1659
01:22:07,000 --> 01:22:08,040
What does that mean?

1660
01:22:08,040 --> 01:22:11,200
it means that different places 
are different to each other.

1661
01:22:11,200 --> 01:22:14,560
And education should take place
in community by community.

1662
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:19,680
What Biswas calls, quote, adapting
formal education to local realities.

1663
01:22:19,720 --> 01:22:23,440
See schooling takes children
out of community and assimilates them

1664
01:22:23,440 --> 01:22:25,640
into standard capitalist aims.

1665
01:22:25,640 --> 01:22:27,960
Colonial wealth extraction
molds them in the

1666
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:31,720
Western norm of the 
employable upward climber.

1667
01:22:31,960 --> 01:22:36,000
Examples like Bridge and Omega show
that a lot of the time standardizing

1668
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:38,880
has less to do with 
meeting a high pedagogical standard

1669
01:22:38,880 --> 01:22:42,000
than it has to do with establishing
an acceptable lowest standard.

1670
01:22:42,120 --> 01:22:46,560
Large scale standardized
education is often an homogenizing force

1671
01:22:46,680 --> 01:22:50,560
self-replicating and modular
and production line-esque

1672
01:22:50,560 --> 01:22:52,800
Even in the best of 
free education systems,

1673
01:22:52,800 --> 01:22:56,240
often schooling is fundamentally
putting children in boxes.

1674
01:22:56,480 --> 01:22:59,680
This means that the differences
between children can become a problem

1675
01:22:59,760 --> 01:23:02,840
and the differences between 
cultures equally so.

1676
01:23:03,000 --> 01:23:07,080
This is why Sami children in Norwegian
schools have their culture brushed over

1677
01:23:07,160 --> 01:23:11,480
First Nations people in Canadian schools,
Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals.

1678
01:23:11,640 --> 01:23:14,360
This is why
Traveler children in Irish schools

1679
01:23:14,360 --> 01:23:16,880
don't get recognized
as a different culture

1680
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:19,880
except when they're being 
called slurs, of course.

1681
01:23:20,040 --> 01:23:21,800
Like there's a story from one paper

1682
01:23:21,800 --> 01:23:24,600
of a school in Ireland
putting on an Intercultural Day

1683
01:23:24,840 --> 01:23:26,520
and they invited
the media and everything,

1684
01:23:26,520 --> 01:23:28,560
and it was probably the 
only time in the whole year

1685
01:23:28,560 --> 01:23:30,400
that the Polish kids 
or the Ukrainian kids

1686
01:23:30,400 --> 01:23:32,880
or the kids from Nigeria
had their culture celebrated.

1687
01:23:32,880 --> 01:23:36,440
But they had the traveler kids lumped in
with the settled kids.

1688
01:23:36,440 --> 01:23:40,120
Like, officially categorizing
them as not a culture

1689
01:23:40,120 --> 01:23:43,080
worthy of celebration 
or even recognition.

1690
01:23:43,160 --> 01:23:48,200
This absolute cultural vandalism
that permeates global education

1691
01:23:48,200 --> 01:23:51,840
and “development” is the same 
phenomenon that allows a couple

1692
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:54,120
like Shannon May 
and Jay Kimmelman

1693
01:23:54,120 --> 01:23:56,800
who, if you'll forgive
just a wee bit of editorializing,

1694
01:23:56,800 --> 01:24:00,400
are a disgusting pair of white, 
money-hungry colonizer

1695
01:24:00,400 --> 01:24:04,200
Silicon Valley loveless c*** c***s
who think they can just rock on over

1696
01:24:04,200 --> 01:24:08,320
to Kenya with zero cultural connection,
zero curiosity and just pump out shit

1697
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:12,320
standard schools, endangering
children, ruthlessly profiteering,

1698
01:24:12,320 --> 01:24:14,760
all for the benefit of their investors
and the future investors

1699
01:24:14,760 --> 01:24:17,760
in a more employable
and exploitable Africa.

1700
01:24:17,800 --> 01:24:21,920
While Biswas cautions very directly
against forces like nationalism

1701
01:24:22,040 --> 01:24:26,320
and xenophobia in embracing the community
and culture side of education,

1702
01:24:26,440 --> 01:24:29,640
she nonetheless encourages
indigenous teaching practices

1703
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:33,600
and the school
as a center of cultural celebration

1704
01:24:33,800 --> 01:24:37,920
and integration, which dovetails
nicely with her next strategy.

1705
01:24:38,080 --> 01:24:42,840
Simply, make existing institutions
and educational systems work.

1706
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:46,240
So here we immediately
step back into the science of pedagogy,

1707
01:24:46,320 --> 01:24:49,600
the best practices in education,
the study of childhood.

1708
01:24:49,680 --> 01:24:51,360
There are things that work.

1709
01:24:51,360 --> 01:24:55,560
There are many things that work
that schools the world over do not do

1710
01:24:55,800 --> 01:24:58,000
because they haven't caught up
with the recent research,

1711
01:24:58,000 --> 01:25:01,080
or they're too expensive
or they would work

1712
01:25:01,080 --> 01:25:05,440
but other things would have to be in place
in the community for them to work.

1713
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:08,600
And this is probably the broadest
of all of Biswas’ strategies,

1714
01:25:08,600 --> 01:25:11,560
 but that's because it runs the 
gamut of some really important stuff.

1715
01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:13,960
things like apprenticeship practices

1716
01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:17,560
and passing on skills,
involving the community in teaching.

1717
01:25:17,720 --> 01:25:21,560
Helping parents to help kids, to help
teachers, to help kids, to help parents.

1718
01:25:21,640 --> 01:25:23,680
As Biswas herself says:

1719
01:25:23,680 --> 01:25:25,640
Foreign:
Existing institutional settings

1720
01:25:25,640 --> 01:25:30,520
such as kindergartens and old homes,
can be used as intergenerational learning

1721
01:25:30,520 --> 01:25:35,320
sites to combine education and care
for children and aging populations.

1722
01:25:35,400 --> 01:25:39,960
So finally,
rethink the inseparable imaginations

1723
01:25:39,960 --> 01:25:42,560
of childhood and education afresh.

1724
01:25:42,560 --> 01:25:48,320
That is, completely blow up the invisible
ideological assumptions of education.

1725
01:25:48,320 --> 01:25:51,480
Blow up the aims of children's advancement
through that system.

1726
01:25:51,680 --> 01:25:55,800
Completely reimagine
the life you want for these kids.

1727
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:58,240
Foreign:  Broadening 
epistemological horizons

1728
01:25:58,240 --> 01:26:00,320
on living a good life
could enable

1729
01:26:00,320 --> 01:26:03,400
diverse forms of intergenerational 
relating with children

1730
01:26:03,520 --> 01:26:07,760
so that their learning is responsive
to the broader cultural, socioeconomic

1731
01:26:07,920 --> 01:26:11,320
and political changes
within their societies and beyond.

1732
01:26:11,400 --> 01:26:15,080
Like, we're going to be putting
our little baby in school at some point.

1733
01:26:15,280 --> 01:26:17,760
I don't want Bábóg to
have their imagination

1734
01:26:17,760 --> 01:26:20,960
curtailed by the goals that 
society invents for them.

1735
01:26:21,040 --> 01:26:25,280
I want to engender a very broad idea
and a functioning broad idea

1736
01:26:25,280 --> 01:26:27,360
of what a good life is.

1737
01:26:27,520 --> 01:26:30,960
And I want this child to teach me
what a good life can be.

1738
01:26:31,120 --> 01:26:34,320
And I want my dear baby's 
education to be an endless

1739
01:26:34,560 --> 01:26:38,040
unfolding of the possibilities 
of a good life.

1740
01:26:38,240 --> 01:26:42,520
So we're we're away with the fairies now,
but in for a f***ing penny, right?

1741
01:26:42,760 --> 01:26:44,680
With a view to all of these strategies,

1742
01:26:44,680 --> 01:26:49,680
Biswas proposes we re-imagine education
as community formation

1743
01:26:49,680 --> 01:26:51,920
Foreign:
to foreground the intrinsic value

1744
01:26:51,920 --> 01:26:56,760
of learning and realign the entangled
purpose of education, economy

1745
01:26:57,000 --> 01:27:01,280
and community livelihoods with the overall
purpose of life on this planet.

1746
01:27:01,360 --> 01:27:05,280
I propose reimagining education
by redefining development

1747
01:27:05,440 --> 01:27:11,160
as nurturing diversity and expanding
the scope of intergenerational life.

1748
01:27:11,240 --> 01:27:12,560
And I'm saying

1749
01:27:12,560 --> 01:27:13,960
Yes And

1750
01:27:13,960 --> 01:27:18,000
let's reimagine learning and teaching
and discovering and nurturing

1751
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:21,960
as the foundational unit of 
human existence,

1752
01:27:21,960 --> 01:27:23,880
like, go with me here,

1753
01:27:23,960 --> 01:27:25,840
What are we doing?

1754
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:27,240
What is life?

1755
01:27:27,240 --> 01:27:30,480
What is the purpose of this 
society thing that we've built?

1756
01:27:30,560 --> 01:27:32,800
Is it “line go up”?

1757
01:27:32,800 --> 01:27:36,000
like “our investments are
currently relatively well future-proofed?

1758
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:38,480
We're all very excited about AI.

1759
01:27:38,480 --> 01:27:39,440
All it's taking,

1760
01:27:39,440 --> 01:27:42,640
killing all the poor and filling everyone
with murderous rage for outgroups

1761
01:27:42,640 --> 01:27:43,360
and just generally

1762
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:46,360
a complete ideological brainwashing
of whole generations of human

1763
01:27:46,440 --> 01:27:48,560
such that they will lose their very souls.

1764
01:27:48,560 --> 01:27:49,920
Price Of eggs a little high.

1765
01:27:49,920 --> 01:27:53,840
But price of gasoline surprisingly
affordable, all things considered.”

1766
01:27:54,520 --> 01:27:56,600
Like, what are we doing?

1767
01:27:57,320 --> 01:28:00,880
Even when we propose these 
alternate theories of economic value

1768
01:28:00,880 --> 01:28:02,840
and I'm not a Luddite 
coming for Marx,

1769
01:28:02,840 --> 01:28:04,800
a lot of our work
has a marxist underpinning.

1770
01:28:04,800 --> 01:28:08,480
But I'm actually just asking
some childlike questions like why

1771
01:28:08,560 --> 01:28:13,680
in order to produce alternate
imagined ways of structuring things.

1772
01:28:13,680 --> 01:28:16,040
And a big part of the reason
why I'm so excited

1773
01:28:16,040 --> 01:28:17,560
by philosophical childism

1774
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:19,360
is because, well,  
One: we've been saying

1775
01:28:19,360 --> 01:28:20,480
a lot of this stuff for years.

1776
01:28:20,520 --> 01:28:25,320
And two, you know, I kind of always had
a suspicion that children were people.

1777
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:29,920
But three, and most importantly,
when I read those words,

1778
01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:34,080
“reimagine education
as community formation”

1779
01:28:34,160 --> 01:28:38,560
I was transported back to that hospital
car park where I stood

1780
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:42,200
on the threshold between an economic 
world and a nurturing world.

1781
01:28:42,440 --> 01:28:43,720
And instead of that nurturing world

1782
01:28:43,720 --> 01:28:47,400
just vaguely existing in a cozy,
but directionless utopia,

1783
01:28:47,400 --> 01:28:50,760
suddenly in my imagination,
we had something to be doing:

1784
01:28:50,760 --> 01:28:53,080
learning and discovering and teaching

1785
01:28:53,080 --> 01:28:56,440
that already is a foundational 
human endeavor.

1786
01:28:56,560 --> 01:29:00,520
What if that were the
basis of our entire society?

1787
01:29:01,720 --> 01:29:03,560
and I know what you're going to say.

1788
01:29:04,400 --> 01:29:06,200
It's not.

1789
01:29:07,080 --> 01:29:08,680
So grow up.

1790
01:29:08,680 --> 01:29:10,800
🎵 frantic jazz saxophone 🎵

1791
01:29:10,880 --> 01:29:13,880
Sarah: well, I think 
you'll have  a conclusion now.

1792
01:29:13,960 --> 01:29:15,720
Neil: 
Yeah, uh, will I?

1793
01:29:15,720 --> 01:29:17,240
Will I have a conclusion?

1794
01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:21,160
because from where I'm sitting, we kind of
just did the same thing we always do

1795
01:29:21,240 --> 01:29:25,880
where we raise the stakes, and it's all
very urgent and important and inspiring.

1796
01:29:25,880 --> 01:29:27,760
But you know, 
what we didn't do actually?

1797
01:29:27,760 --> 01:29:30,360
is we didn't answer 
the f***ing question.

1798
01:29:30,480 --> 01:29:31,320
uh

1799
01:29:31,840 --> 01:29:34,960
“Why do people think being
childlike is bad?”

1800
01:29:35,040 --> 01:29:36,760
Sarah:
Neil It's video essay.

1801
01:29:36,760 --> 01:29:38,360
They have framing devices.

1802
01:29:38,360 --> 01:29:41,560
We don't necessarily need to have
an answer to that question

1803
01:29:41,560 --> 01:29:42,960
Neil: but we could!

1804
01:29:43,040 --> 01:29:47,520
We could sit with people in their messy,
embarrassing feelings

1805
01:29:47,680 --> 01:29:52,000
about kids, like the actual source
of the nasty things that people say.

1806
01:29:52,080 --> 01:29:56,440
And we could like empathize with that
and then come through it.

1807
01:29:56,520 --> 01:30:01,080
And you know, if we're worth listening to,
we can still make a compelling case

1808
01:30:01,080 --> 01:30:04,960
for this philosophy
with some love intact or whatever.

1809
01:30:05,040 --> 01:30:10,360
But if all we're actually
dealing in is idealism, then it's just

1810
01:30:10,440 --> 01:30:12,560
set decoration.

1811
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:16,000
Imagined worlds, but not much else.

1812
01:30:16,000 --> 01:30:17,760
(slam)

1813
01:30:20,040 --> 01:30:21,600
I have a pet theory,

1814
01:30:21,600 --> 01:30:25,200
a suspicion really, that a lot of people's
discomfort with children

1815
01:30:25,280 --> 01:30:28,480
is that things in the world in this dark

1816
01:30:28,480 --> 01:30:32,480
timeline are so grossly out of
whack with our things are supposed to be

1817
01:30:32,680 --> 01:30:35,760
that children existing in this world
is not as it's supposed to be.

1818
01:30:35,760 --> 01:30:37,920
And so your relationship with children
is not as it should be.

1819
01:30:37,920 --> 01:30:42,160
And so by extension,
the children themselves should not be.

1820
01:30:42,240 --> 01:30:43,800
It's similar to the cliché.

1821
01:30:43,800 --> 01:30:48,640
I remember when all of this was trees
as far the eye could see, except it's

1822
01:30:48,720 --> 01:30:53,400
I remember when childhood 
wasn't disgusting.

1823
01:30:53,400 --> 01:30:55,440
And there's a great deal
I can empathize with

1824
01:30:55,440 --> 01:30:57,800
the way that parents 
become unreachable,

1825
01:30:57,960 --> 01:31:01,600
whether that's friends,
like essentially ceasing to exist

1826
01:31:01,600 --> 01:31:06,720
as their own people or strangers seemingly
parsing their entire existence aroundchildren

1827
01:31:06,800 --> 01:31:10,240
or it’s parents
asserting their rights as parents

1828
01:31:10,440 --> 01:31:16,560
to dominate and dictate all of society
up to and including their own children.

1829
01:31:16,640 --> 01:31:18,200
And you!

1830
01:31:18,200 --> 01:31:20,960
I can sympathize with not knowing
how to interact with children.

1831
01:31:20,960 --> 01:31:25,600
It's not your fault that Western society,
and particularly white American society

1832
01:31:25,680 --> 01:31:30,400
decided to be so age-segregated
and gave you every reason to be ashamed

1833
01:31:30,400 --> 01:31:33,280
of your inherent childish qualities
and therefore to race ahead

1834
01:31:33,280 --> 01:31:35,120
and escape childhood

1835
01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:37,680
while giving you zero tools 
to then engage

1836
01:31:37,680 --> 01:31:40,680
with the new children that,
yknow, keep coming into existence.

1837
01:31:40,800 --> 01:31:44,560
I can sympathize with struggling
with noise or with sensory stuff

1838
01:31:44,560 --> 01:31:48,600
because I'm autistic and I often find
exactly those things rather difficult.

1839
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:50,800
I find it especially difficult at first

1840
01:31:50,800 --> 01:31:53,200
when I'm interacting with a child
that I haven't met before.

1841
01:31:53,200 --> 01:31:55,640
And even though I think 
people would say I'm good with kids,

1842
01:31:55,640 --> 01:31:59,160
I think I put on a good show
and I put in effort.

1843
01:31:59,160 --> 01:32:01,400
But internally I'm struggling.

1844
01:32:01,400 --> 01:32:03,240
Adults would say that I'm good with kids.

1845
01:32:03,240 --> 01:32:05,960
Kids can see through my bullshit.

1846
01:32:06,040 --> 01:32:07,880
I mean, it's deconstructed, which is good.

1847
01:32:07,880 --> 01:32:09,400
I can especially sympathize right now

1848
01:32:09,400 --> 01:32:11,880
because I haven't slept in 13
f***ing weeks!

1849
01:32:11,880 --> 01:32:12,920
having a baby

1850
01:32:13,000 --> 01:32:15,120
I mean, this baby's remarkably chill,

1851
01:32:15,120 --> 01:32:16,720
but that doesn't mean
that it's not screaming

1852
01:32:16,720 --> 01:32:18,720
and puking and pooping and all the rest.

1853
01:32:18,720 --> 01:32:23,160
And in between, it's the most disarming
smiles and chuckles you've ever seen.

1854
01:32:23,280 --> 01:32:27,880
I assure you, newborns can smile socially
and it's just as f***ing well.

1855
01:32:27,960 --> 01:32:29,080
See, I'm Irish. I don't.

1856
01:32:29,080 --> 01:32:32,160
I don't have to make sure that I'm coming
across as positive or diplomatic.

1857
01:32:32,320 --> 01:32:38,200
You maybe don't know if I'm joking
when I say that all children are bastards.

1858
01:32:38,280 --> 01:32:39,800
Pains in the arse!

1859
01:32:39,800 --> 01:32:41,280
But you know,

1860
01:32:41,280 --> 01:32:44,200
I'm actually doing something
by admitting to myself

1861
01:32:44,200 --> 01:32:46,240
that I have negative thoughts
about kids sometimes

1862
01:32:46,240 --> 01:32:48,360
or that I'm crap with kids sometimes

1863
01:32:48,360 --> 01:32:50,560
I'm being honest and frank
and a bit ugly

1864
01:32:50,760 --> 01:32:53,240
not in order to escape
a social responsibility,

1865
01:32:53,240 --> 01:32:57,360
but in order to understand why I find
that social responsibility difficult.

1866
01:32:57,560 --> 01:32:59,960
Because I'll let you in 
on a little secret here.

1867
01:32:59,960 --> 01:33:02,120
I don't like adults either.

1868
01:33:02,120 --> 01:33:03,880
I don't like any of
my social responsibilities.

1869
01:33:03,880 --> 01:33:04,760
I'm a recluse!

1870
01:33:04,760 --> 01:33:06,200
My favorite way to talk to people

1871
01:33:06,200 --> 01:33:09,240
is curated monologues 
uploaded to a YouTube channel.

1872
01:33:09,400 --> 01:33:11,560
I know that people's discomfort
with people,

1873
01:33:11,560 --> 01:33:13,440
even with categories of person

1874
01:33:13,440 --> 01:33:17,600
comes from a place, has reasons
that people think are justified.

1875
01:33:17,640 --> 01:33:18,720
And my suspicion

1876
01:33:18,720 --> 01:33:19,440
(smashy)

1877
01:33:19,440 --> 01:33:23,120
is that this growing discomfort
generally towards children generally

1878
01:33:23,120 --> 01:33:25,840
comes from a combination
of our segregating them,

1879
01:33:25,840 --> 01:33:27,920
our alienation from community

1880
01:33:27,920 --> 01:33:30,680
and our disgust more  generally 
at the world that we live in

1881
01:33:30,680 --> 01:33:33,040
which is really f***ed up
because those issues

1882
01:33:33,240 --> 01:33:35,280
really negatively impact children.

1883
01:33:35,280 --> 01:33:36,880
you and the children,

1884
01:33:36,880 --> 01:33:40,280
you are oppressed by common 
enemies on all of those fronts.

1885
01:33:40,360 --> 01:33:43,360
And I think if anyone was going
to be disgusted by anyone,

1886
01:33:43,440 --> 01:33:46,080
it's children should be disgusted by us.

1887
01:33:46,080 --> 01:33:49,200
And when children
and those that remind us of children

1888
01:33:49,200 --> 01:33:53,280
ask why the world is this way,
how do we respond?

1889
01:33:53,360 --> 01:33:54,120
Grow up.

1890
01:33:54,120 --> 01:33:56,760
It's not a million miles away 
from “Shut up” is it?

1891
01:33:56,760 --> 01:33:59,120
Oh, my God. Sarah. Cormac,
we've got a conclusion.

1892
01:33:59,120 --> 01:34:01,160
I've got a conclusion now!
I can do a conclusion.

1893
01:34:01,160 --> 01:34:02,320
Conclusion!

1894
01:34:02,320 --> 01:34:04,440
(anticlimactic scarpering)

1895
01:34:04,440 --> 01:34:06,560
🎵 bass note 🎵

1896
01:34:06,560 --> 01:34:10,240
So why get bent out of shape 
about being told to grow up?

1897
01:34:10,320 --> 01:34:11,480
It's no big deal.

1898
01:34:11,480 --> 01:34:13,080
It's actually not a big deal.

1899
01:34:13,080 --> 01:34:14,280
We're admitting it 3 hours later.

1900
01:34:14,280 --> 01:34:15,880
Show's over, everybody! 
Byeeeee!

1901
01:34:15,880 --> 01:34:17,840
Turns out, grow up,
it just wasn’t a big deal

1902
01:34:17,840 --> 01:34:19,640
It’s not a big deal.

1903
01:34:19,640 --> 01:34:22,640
Do you think we'd have gotten this far
if we couldn't handle an insult or two?

1904
01:34:22,720 --> 01:34:24,720
We made a video about being vegan.

1905
01:34:24,720 --> 01:34:26,400
We can handle being insulted.

1906
01:34:26,400 --> 01:34:28,560
And “Grow Up”
isn't even really an insult, is it?

1907
01:34:28,560 --> 01:34:29,800
It's just a

1908
01:34:29,800 --> 01:34:30,760
...

1909
01:34:30,760 --> 01:34:32,640
thing people say?

1910
01:34:32,640 --> 01:34:37,000
I maybe it would wound someone if they
were particularly sensitive or vulnerable.

1911
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:41,000
I mean, it's it's
probably not nice to say, but an insult?

1912
01:34:41,080 --> 01:34:42,960
Had you thought about that before today?

1913
01:34:42,960 --> 01:34:45,400
Had you thought about what people mean
when they say grow up?

1914
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:48,400
Had you questioned
what people generally think of children

1915
01:34:48,520 --> 01:34:51,520
and what people think of the qualities
of being childlike?

1916
01:34:51,520 --> 01:34:54,520
Had you examined your own 
attitudes to those things?

1917
01:34:54,600 --> 01:34:57,560
Because in reality, grow up is an insult.

1918
01:34:57,560 --> 01:35:02,200
It's just an insult which polices
very popular social conformities

1919
01:35:02,280 --> 01:35:04,720
And people do really think
very little of children

1920
01:35:04,720 --> 01:35:08,640
and take a particularly dim view of
the childlike qualities of vulnerability,

1921
01:35:08,640 --> 01:35:12,560
dependance, imagination and any 
insistence on asking the question “Why”

1922
01:35:12,800 --> 01:35:16,680
But, like with Grow Up, these are also
very popular social conformities

1923
01:35:16,920 --> 01:35:19,560
I'm still not sure where I stand
exactly

1924
01:35:19,560 --> 01:35:22,880
On the whole, going low going high thing

1925
01:35:22,880 --> 01:35:24,000
because, I mean, in the ridiculous

1926
01:35:24,000 --> 01:35:26,960
arena of politics on the Internet,
I've definitely fired off

1927
01:35:26,960 --> 01:35:30,720
my share of insults,
many of which I am frankly still proud of.

1928
01:35:30,800 --> 01:35:34,440
But know that I firmly stand
by interrogating my own attitudes

1929
01:35:34,440 --> 01:35:37,560
and keeping an eye
on what those insults are about.

1930
01:35:37,640 --> 01:35:41,160
These are insult heavy times.
Far from duels of honor,

1931
01:35:41,280 --> 01:35:45,120
it just seems like the lowest common
denominator of Twitter honourlessness

1932
01:35:45,240 --> 01:35:50,080
has taken over every other sphere
of, in particular, American society.

1933
01:35:50,320 --> 01:35:53,880
It makes me wonder what will 
be considered childish tomorrow?

1934
01:35:53,920 --> 01:35:56,960
What level of injustice
and violence and cruelty

1935
01:35:57,080 --> 01:36:00,000
will we be told next is just normal

1936
01:36:00,000 --> 01:36:03,480
and that instead of fighting it,
we should just grow up?

1937
01:36:03,560 --> 01:36:06,360
What will be the next shifting
of the goalposts, you know,

1938
01:36:06,360 --> 01:36:09,360
so that even more of the thoughtful,
curious people

1939
01:36:09,520 --> 01:36:14,560
get mischaracterized 
as unrealistic children?

1940
01:36:14,640 --> 01:36:16,400
Sarah: 
drinking tea again

1941
01:36:16,400 --> 01:36:17,800
if you know, you know.

1942
01:36:17,800 --> 01:36:19,320
In caring for a baby,

1943
01:36:19,320 --> 01:36:22,320
I'm supposed to feel very adult,
but I don't.

1944
01:36:22,440 --> 01:36:27,480
That's because “adult” is a social construct
and “child” is a social construct.

1945
01:36:27,560 --> 01:36:28,360
Like, we know this.

1946
01:36:28,360 --> 01:36:30,720
Children face more lenient 
sentences in court.

1947
01:36:30,720 --> 01:36:34,040
So if a crime is bad,
we decide to charge a child as an adult

1948
01:36:34,200 --> 01:36:38,520
we just wave a rhetorical wand, and now
they're more complicit in their actions.

1949
01:36:38,520 --> 01:36:42,400
And when a white 20-something athlete
sexually assaults someone,

1950
01:36:42,480 --> 01:36:45,400
we plead for mercy
by calling him a college kid.

1951
01:36:45,400 --> 01:36:49,520
The frame of child or adult carries weight
and biases our perceptions of reality.

1952
01:36:49,520 --> 01:36:53,880
And based on that misunderstanding,
we make decisions that should horrify us

1953
01:36:53,960 --> 01:36:56,960
like separating calves
from their screaming mothers or giving

1954
01:36:57,000 --> 01:36:59,920
infant children medical procedures
without pain meds.

1955
01:36:59,920 --> 01:37:01,560
We have power over some people.

1956
01:37:01,560 --> 01:37:03,400
Some people are weaker than us.

1957
01:37:03,400 --> 01:37:06,320
Adults have power over children,
but children's dependance

1958
01:37:06,320 --> 01:37:07,720
doesn't mean they're lesser.

1959
01:37:07,720 --> 01:37:11,960
The fact that they can be so utterly
dominated does not make it moral to do so.

1960
01:37:12,160 --> 01:37:14,000
And you don't need to like children.

1961
01:37:14,000 --> 01:37:18,160
You don't need to enjoy the setting
of an Irish pub during communion week.

1962
01:37:18,160 --> 01:37:22,480
I would advise you not to hate them
though, because prejudice is stupid

1963
01:37:22,640 --> 01:37:24,000
and there are probably a lot of children

1964
01:37:24,000 --> 01:37:27,520
who fall outside of whatever
stereotyped vision you have of them.

1965
01:37:27,600 --> 01:37:29,840
But I can't tell you how to feel.

1966
01:37:29,840 --> 01:37:32,720
I can tell you that you can't
discriminate against them.

1967
01:37:32,720 --> 01:37:34,360
 and that doesn't mean 
you can’t get

1968
01:37:34,360 --> 01:37:36,560
accommodations for your own needs.

1969
01:37:36,560 --> 01:37:41,520
I think we can come up with all kinds
of clever solutions for competing needs.

1970
01:37:41,640 --> 01:37:44,040
If you're someone really 
struggles with noise,

1971
01:37:44,040 --> 01:37:47,440
then I think it's valid
to have a designated quiet car on a train

1972
01:37:47,440 --> 01:37:50,440
that someone doesn't
bring a screaming baby into.

1973
01:37:50,520 --> 01:37:54,360
But I don't think it's valid
to have a child-free train car

1974
01:37:54,600 --> 01:37:59,040
because there's some kid out there
who's like a little baby Neil who also finds

1975
01:37:59,040 --> 01:38:03,040
noise really upsetting and would also like
to sit in the quiet space.

1976
01:38:03,120 --> 01:38:05,960
And this is all provided
that it's just one portion of a train

1977
01:38:05,960 --> 01:38:07,800
and the screaming
baby is still allowed somewhere

1978
01:38:07,800 --> 01:38:10,200
because the screaming
baby is a human.

1979
01:38:10,200 --> 01:38:11,800
Besides, if you're from the 
States watching this

1980
01:38:11,800 --> 01:38:14,000
and I say this as a 
fellow USAnian

1981
01:38:14,000 --> 01:38:16,440
I promise you,
you don't want to give Europeans the right

1982
01:38:16,440 --> 01:38:20,840
to kick you out of public spaces
on the basis of the volume of your voices,

1983
01:38:21,000 --> 01:38:22,920
because rights shouldn't
be something we grant based on

1984
01:38:22,920 --> 01:38:25,920
whether someone is likable or not,
or whether someone has

1985
01:38:26,000 --> 01:38:29,560
good social awareness
or whether someone is autonomous.

1986
01:38:29,640 --> 01:38:32,360
Our little Bábóg is not autonomous

1987
01:38:32,360 --> 01:38:33,880
they have woken me up

1988
01:38:33,960 --> 01:38:39,880
every few hours for the last few months
to be fed, to be held, to be entertained.

1989
01:38:39,960 --> 01:38:41,960
And I'm delighted to provide that

1990
01:38:41,960 --> 01:38:44,120
 I'm madly in love.

1991
01:38:44,200 --> 01:38:46,000
But it's not always easy either.

1992
01:38:46,000 --> 01:38:47,720
Caregiving isn't easy.

1993
01:38:47,720 --> 01:38:50,800
Watching out for the rights of others
isn't easy, but it's moral.

1994
01:38:50,800 --> 01:38:52,160
It’s Praxis.

1995
01:38:52,240 --> 01:38:53,480
Next time you’re with a child

1996
01:38:53,480 --> 01:38:56,520
ask yourself if you’d treat an adult
the same way you're treating them.

1997
01:38:56,760 --> 01:38:58,840
If you’d rip something
out of an adult's hands

1998
01:38:58,840 --> 01:39:01,080
or make them ask permission
to use the bathroom

1999
01:39:01,080 --> 01:39:04,360
or bar them from public space
or hit them when you feel angry.

2000
01:39:04,400 --> 01:39:05,760
Because when you strip away

2001
01:39:05,760 --> 01:39:09,280
the social construction of adult
and child, you're left with human

2002
01:39:09,360 --> 01:39:12,000
And one group of humans
who is allowed to mistreat

2003
01:39:12,000 --> 01:39:16,280
another on the basis of 
their needing more care.

2004
01:39:16,360 --> 01:39:17,520
Neil: and hey, maybe we are being

2005
01:39:17,520 --> 01:39:19,200
hippy-drippy and unrealistic

2006
01:39:19,200 --> 01:39:21,040
Maybe we're being glib.

2007
01:39:21,040 --> 01:39:25,200
It's easy to be theater kids
waving your arms and telling people

2008
01:39:25,200 --> 01:39:29,160
how exciting something is, but it doesn't
put out the flames of a world on fire.

2009
01:39:29,320 --> 01:39:31,840
And while I'm keen,
in fact desperate,

2010
01:39:31,840 --> 01:39:33,720
to really do something

2011
01:39:33,720 --> 01:39:35,880
I'm also aware of the 
white savior advocate

2012
01:39:35,880 --> 01:39:39,080
for marginalized group, 
well-meaning wanker trap

2013
01:39:39,080 --> 01:39:41,120
as Biswas puts it:

2014
01:39:41,200 --> 01:39:45,040
It is here that I invite readers
to pause the hasty urge to lean

2015
01:39:45,040 --> 01:39:48,120
into performing
the logistics of implementation.

2016
01:39:48,120 --> 01:39:50,360
But equally, this video
might actually have

2017
01:39:50,360 --> 01:39:53,680
some small impact on
how sound you are to children

2018
01:39:53,760 --> 01:39:57,880
and the amount of respect you treat them
with, and that will materially affect

2019
01:39:57,960 --> 01:39:58,840
some children.

2020
01:39:58,840 --> 01:40:00,840
which matters. 
It's worth talking about!

2021
01:40:00,840 --> 01:40:01,920
 on the bigger level,

2022
01:40:01,920 --> 01:40:04,600
yeah, we're pitching
imagined alternative realities,

2023
01:40:04,600 --> 01:40:08,880
but every material improvement
was once an imagined alternative reality.

2024
01:40:09,120 --> 01:40:11,520
I don't know what we do
with the world now.

2025
01:40:11,520 --> 01:40:12,320
I really don't.

2026
01:40:12,320 --> 01:40:15,840
But in my lifetime, from my childhood
through to my becoming

2027
01:40:15,840 --> 01:40:18,920
an adult and a parent,
not necessarily in that order.

2028
01:40:19,160 --> 01:40:22,000
I know I've seen manufactured outgroups

2029
01:40:22,000 --> 01:40:23,880
designed disgust and hatred

2030
01:40:24,040 --> 01:40:26,880
towards groups that were 
at various points, not exactly beloved,

2031
01:40:26,880 --> 01:40:28,200
but at least more accepted.

2032
01:40:28,200 --> 01:40:32,760
I've seen change happen in real time,
and I've heard enough rhetoric from people

2033
01:40:32,760 --> 01:40:36,520
who feel like finally they're free
to just say that they hate kids.

2034
01:40:36,720 --> 01:40:40,520
And it really reminds me
of a similar celebration in other spheres.

2035
01:40:40,520 --> 01:40:44,080
Finally, they say we can just openly hate
a group of people.

2036
01:40:44,280 --> 01:40:46,400
People hate when they 
don't know any better,

2037
01:40:46,400 --> 01:40:48,840
but that thing that would
make that better

2038
01:40:48,840 --> 01:40:51,240
Educstion, the thing that would make 
democracy better,

2039
01:40:51,320 --> 01:40:55,440
the thing that would make public health
easier and climate change taken seriously.

2040
01:40:55,560 --> 01:40:59,760
That's a thing that adults reject
because “education is for children.”

2041
01:40:59,800 --> 01:41:02,800
And we seem to think that children
only need education

2042
01:41:02,880 --> 01:41:04,760
because they're so damned incompetent

2043
01:41:04,760 --> 01:41:07,240
and useless and they don't 
know how anything works.

2044
01:41:07,240 --> 01:41:11,120
We think education exists
to successfully transform

2045
01:41:11,120 --> 01:41:14,120
children into adults,
but it need not be so

2046
01:41:14,280 --> 01:41:16,720
we can imagine otherwise.

2047
01:41:16,720 --> 01:41:19,520
We can't make anyone
watching care about children.

2048
01:41:19,520 --> 01:41:23,240
We can't make you reorient
your worldview towards interdependence.

2049
01:41:23,240 --> 01:41:25,800
You're not even going to get 
social points for this one.

2050
01:41:25,800 --> 01:41:29,080
The power structure is just so in-baked.

2051
01:41:29,080 --> 01:41:31,880
but morality isn't determined 
by popular consensus

2052
01:41:31,880 --> 01:41:35,120
and clinging to the status quo isn't wisdom.

2053
01:41:35,200 --> 01:41:36,960
It's a failure of imagination.

2054
01:41:36,960 --> 01:41:38,760
As with any marginalized group,

2055
01:41:38,760 --> 01:41:42,600
some of the changes
that children want will benefit all of us.

2056
01:41:42,600 --> 01:41:46,440
I know I'd benefit if I remembered that
a sidewalk could be a place of play

2057
01:41:46,600 --> 01:41:50,080
rather than just the liminal space
between work and home.

2058
01:41:50,320 --> 01:41:54,640
I think like a child, it's good
for us to look at society and ask why?

2059
01:41:54,720 --> 01:41:57,480
Why have we constructed
labor relations this way?

2060
01:41:57,480 --> 01:42:00,120
Why Have we created gender? Race?

2061
01:42:00,120 --> 01:42:02,040
Is this still serving us?

2062
01:42:02,040 --> 01:42:03,640
Why don't we change it?

2063
01:42:03,640 --> 01:42:06,560
I imagine we could do so much
if imagining itself

2064
01:42:06,560 --> 01:42:08,560
wasn't seen as uncouth.

2065
01:42:08,560 --> 01:42:09,560
Childish.

2066
01:42:09,640 --> 01:42:15,400
Imagine what we’d do if when we grew up
we still understood ourselves as

2067
01:42:15,400 --> 01:42:20,360
as full of potential,
as incomplete, as malleable, as brave

2068
01:42:20,360 --> 01:42:24,000
and weird and 
unknowable as we were

2069
01:42:24,000 --> 01:42:25,840
when we were kids.

2070
01:42:26,360 --> 01:42:28,000
🎵 scratching 🎵

2071
01:42:28,640 --> 01:42:32,480
🎵 Peter and the Wolf set to hip hop 🎵

2072
01:42:40,440 --> 01:42:42,320
Hey, Editing Neil here

2073
01:42:43,080 --> 01:42:43,760
Hi.

2074
01:42:44,480 --> 01:42:47,320
I just wanted to say
we were pretty harsh on commenters

2075
01:42:47,320 --> 01:42:51,640
and sort of on the concept of commenting,
and please don't let that stop you

2076
01:42:51,640 --> 01:42:55,720
from commenting on this video because
actually we often get very lovely comments

2077
01:42:55,800 --> 01:43:00,960
and it would be a shame to not have you
comment here, so feel free.

2078
01:43:01,040 --> 01:43:02,200
I won't make you self-conscious.

2079
01:43:02,200 --> 01:43:03,800
Just, you know, do do your thing.

2080
01:43:03,800 --> 01:43:05,680
Leave a comment below.

2081
01:43:10,600 --> 01:43:14,200
Just to be clear,
you don't have to comment.

2082
01:43:14,280 --> 01:43:16,240
Just if you were ...

2083
01:43:16,240 --> 01:43:18,040
whatever comment
you were going to

2084
01:43:18,120 --> 01:43:21,920
just act, just act normal, just whatever
comment you were going to leave.

2085
01:43:22,000 --> 01:43:22,960
Just put that.

2086
01:43:22,960 --> 01:43:24,240
I'll go.

2087
01:43:28,400 --> 01:43:31,080
Okay, I have noticed this 
one particular comment that's come in

2088
01:43:31,080 --> 01:43:33,000
and I did think
this was going to happen,

2089
01:43:33,000 --> 01:43:38,120
so we didn't use the stage lights and
that was an intentional artistic decision.

2090
01:43:38,120 --> 01:43:39,240
That's not a mistake.

2091
01:43:39,640 --> 01:43:41,840
It’s not cause we didn't 
know how to use them.

2092
01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:42,880
We wanted to have

2093
01:43:42,880 --> 01:43:44,240
because it's like a video essay.

2094
01:43:44,240 --> 01:43:45,360
It's like as if a video essay.

2095
01:43:45,360 --> 01:43:46,480
were a stage show.

2096
01:43:46,480 --> 01:43:48,960
So we used the video essay lights to

2097
01:43:48,960 --> 01:43:50,080
um

2098
01:43:50,160 --> 01:43:52,440
semiotically

2099
01:43:52,440 --> 01:43:54,400
signify

2100
01:43:54,400 --> 01:43:57,000
it was intentional.

2101
01:44:03,280 --> 01:44:04,760
I'm actually going to talk 
to Sarah about this

2102
01:44:04,760 --> 01:44:06,240
because I'm a little bit annoyed.

2103
01:44:06,240 --> 01:44:07,760
Sarah, we just got a comment
that said

2104
01:44:07,760 --> 01:44:10,040
that we didn't turn on the stage lights

2105
01:44:10,040 --> 01:44:14,720
like by mistake, but that was an
intentional artistic decision, right?

2106
01:44:14,800 --> 01:44:16,000
Sarah: I mean, I just

2107
01:44:16,000 --> 01:44:18,120
you didn't know where they were

2108
01:44:20,280 --> 01:44:21,200
(baby sounds)

2109
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:23,040
Neil: but then I made
the intentional artistic decison

2110
01:44:23,040 --> 01:44:27,640
to not use them
because I didn't know where they were.

2111
01:44:27,720 --> 01:44:28,960
Sarah: Yeah, but that's not

2112
01:44:28,960 --> 01:44:31,280
that's not what intentional is, 
Neil

2113
01:44:31,280 --> 01:44:33,840
like I wanted to use the stage lights.

2114
01:44:33,840 --> 01:44:35,400
I wanted to find my light. I wanted

2115
01:44:35,400 --> 01:44:35,760
Neil: No, no, no,

2116
01:44:35,760 --> 01:44:37,040
it's fine. It's actually fine.

2117
01:44:37,040 --> 01:44:38,480
You can do whatever comment you want
and this is

2118
01:44:38,480 --> 01:44:40,080
the worst sequence we’ve ever had

2119
01:44:40,080 --> 01:44:40,920
over the credits. Thanks.