The age of labels
When I was young, discrimination was a good thing – I was taught to be discriminating, to discriminate between good and bad, right and wrong, true and false, wise and unwise...
The root meaning of the word "discriminate" comes from the /kri/ (PIE *krei- meaning 'sieve') which we also find in other -cr- and -cer- words iike "crime" and "critic", "crisis", "crime" and even "certain", "concern" and "discern". I was also taught to think critically, to be discerning about truth, honesty and integrity, and to be concerned about the evils of the world and the troubles of other people - these being necessary steps to playing a positive role in the world we live in.
Today, discrimination is a bad thing - we are taught that to be discriminative is to be judgemental, to discriminate amongst people is bad, and instead we are taught to label people as if that is somehow good.
But this is oxymoronic, as labels are intrinsically discriminative - you are "in" or "out".
Now we are taught that adjectives are good and nouns are bad (so "a disabled person" is good and "the disabled" is bad). But contrarily we now have all kinds of new genders, that label people with nouns – with new pronouns to go with them. We also have a whole range of new labels for reader and consumer demographics, like "children", "middle grade", "tween", "teen", "adult", "young adult", "new adult". And in the world of fiction, we also have an ever increasing number of genres and subgenres...
The root meaning of the words "gender" and "genre" come from the French genre (kind, species, race, character) and the Latin genus/generis (PIE *gene- 'give birth, beget'). The -d- got picked up somewhere along the way in both French and English for the specific meaning of grammatical gender, which then got increasingly used as humorous euphemism for "sex" (from Latin secare; PIE *sek-s, meaning cut or divide into two; also the root "second" in its various senses relating to divisions in order, rank or priority, and specific divisions of time or angle). The two "sexes" literally means the two divisions (of animal kind).
So "sexism", "racism", "ablism" and "ageism" are new words that have grown up in the world of "isms" spawned over the last century, and reflect the negative consequences of dividing people on the basis of sex, race, ability or disability, age or youth.
But isn't that precisely what we are doing with our "convenient" modern classifications of fictional work? Indeed, my books get flagged when I try to indicate that they are readable by both children and adults (I say my books are for readers from 9 to 99; although I have recently been challenged to extend that as 8 to 108). I keep getting asked to select new categories because those I've selected are regarded as being mutually exclusive.
Yes, it is nice to be able to look for particular kinds of books that are targeted to readers like me - and this makes genre, gender and other audience labels something of a necessary evil. Unfortunately, many of these categories - particularly the narrower more select ones - are stacked with books that don't really fit. Authors, publishers and publicists want their books/clients to be seen, and that is more likely if they are a slightly bigger fish in the smallest pond they can vaguely claim to belong in.
The age of adults
So let's now turn to ageism and the effect of the education system in delaying the onset of adulthood and prolonging the inferior status of childhood, discrimination under the guise of protection. Adult is (by definition) about reaching maturity (viz. puberty or sexual maturity) but now we have invented new terms and new problems as we delay training for entry to adult society. In earlier eras, the 8-12 year olds were in active training and entered the workforce (and betrothals) at around 12-13 - and in girls in particular, their onset of menstruation was the marker that they should be betrothed and quickly married off. Now that early education phase has become elementary or "primary" school. And now most “tertiary” educated people don't get married until after they have completed their education and passed the peak of their fertility if not agility and ability.
I attended the first national government "public" school in the country. Initially set up as a "model school", it was soon divided into a primary school, a boys' high school and a girls' high school. High school is now called "secondary education" and has gradually extended from an extra three or four years (e.g. middle school or junior high school - leaving certificate at about 15) to an extra six or seven years (adding on some form of senior schooling, depending on country, leaving with a higher school certificate at around 17-18). In some countries, "high school" refers to the full six-seven years of education from around 12-18, and in some just to the last three of four years of secondary school, while in some places the whole six to seven years, or just the last three years are called "college" – and in other contexts this refers to university or "tertiary" level education.
In 1989, the UN formalized an expectation of free and compulsory primary education as well as secondary (including general and vocational) education available to every child. Originally, this secondary level was called "higher education", but now that term is generally reserved for "tertiary" education - which in turn reflects an expectation that all "children" proceed on to a third level of education. This was perhaps nowhere quite as overt as in Australia with the "intelligent country" and "clever country" slogans in the late 1980s making explicit the expectation that every Australian should have a degree (making Australia the clever/intelligent country) and turning (or merging) Teachers Colleges and Colleges of Advanced Education into degree-awarding Universities.
There are two other social phenomena associated with this, the emphasis on women having equal status in the work force (so the move from one income to two income families, and thus creating pressures on unemployment) and the keeping of young/new adults out of the work force (and thus relieving pressures on unemployment). Thus the perpetual student is born...
Historically, boys worked at home or nearby when they were around 7 to 12, and then might become an apprentice or a squire in their teens, or enter farm service or domestic service around 12. The on the job training of an apprentice would lead to them achieving mastery by the time they were around 20 or so. 21 was the traditional age of maturity. As for girls, children from 6 to 12 were expected to look after younger children, and take on domestic duties and learn appropriate skills, so that by the time they reached their teens they were ready to run a household.
Interestingly, the industrial revolution tended to lower the age at which children entered the workforce or an apprenticeship (increased need for cheap unskilled labour). Indeed, children as young as 4 would work in the mines...
The age of protectionism
This leads us to child labour laws and the flipside of education: protection. Our children are going to be protected – from themselves as much as others – as long as we can... whether they like it or not. But this also means that we are coddling our children, and many don't really learn the practical skills to survive in the real world till after they have exited their three tiers of education — and a student who proceeds to a doctorate won't tend to enter the workforce until their late twenties (or later) - apart from some casual tutoring of other students.
We also have inconsistent ages for drinking and driving, consensual sex/marriage, electoral voting and full status in the work force — and these vary widely. Conversely, what in one context is called pornography or paedophilia is in another called education.
As a university professor, I have often been surprised at how increasingly helpless the modern university student is becoming, and indeed by the increasing prevalence of intervention of parents on behalf of their children — children in their late teens or early twenties. And as for primary and middle schools, the role has become more akin to kindergarten (literally "to look after children") than education. And, of course, with both parents slaving away in the work force as part of our liberation of women, child care is the main object of the exercise.
The systemic dilution of academic education in the West (esp. STEM) continues into senior high school. Over the last 50 years, I have seen three levels of new introductory first year maths courses introduced to teach what is no longer taught at school, as well as new bridging courses like Engineering Science. And then university education itself has become an export industry characterized by mass production, lowest common denominator expectations, and commercial objectives -– and it is particularly important not to fail those international students, because that would be bad for our reputation/intake and they are a critical income source.
Outlawing discrimination removes the distinction between good and bad; outlawing punishment and stigmatization of failure removes consequences, negative feedback/reinforcement, and opportunities to learn. Worse, we are often rewarding students who get things wrong, and reinforcing their mistakes. And we now claim we are educating “for life” rather than “academic success”. So we now call basic arithmetic mathematics, and audiobooks and comics novels, and we wonder why there is a shortage of scientists and engineers, or even of tradesmen — and why the graduates of our clever western countries are not workforce ready or socially well rounded.
Yes, as a parent, we don’t want our children to get hurt. But at some point is necessary to let go of our child’s hand and let them try walking on their own. Yes, they’ll fall over occasionally – but we can still ensure the environment is safe, and the younger they are, and the earlier they learn to experience the ups and downs of life, the less they’ll be hurt and the better they’ll survive as they move into adulthood. Yes, they’ll need our help from time to time – but let them ask for it rather than forcing it on them. But recent generations of young people can lack confidence because they haven’t had a chance to try things on their own, or to learn from experience. Worse still we don’t recognize that there are work and family responsibilities our children don’t face till they are 18 or 28, that previous generations met competently at the age of 8.
References
• Arnett, J.J. (2000) ‘Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties’, American Psychologist, 55(5), pp. 469–480.
• Marginson, S. (1993). Education and Public Policy in Australia. Cambridge University Press.
• Postman, N. (1982). The Disappearance of Childhood. Delacorte Press.
• Zelizer, V.A. (1985) Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Princeton University Press.
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