In his study positing the vanishing of childhood, social critic Neil Postman observed that it was the idea of childhood that permitted a portrait of the modern idea of adulthood, distinguished by “the characteristics…of a fully literate culture: the capacity for self-restraint, a tolerance for delayed gratification, a sophisticated ability to think conceptually and sequentially, a preoccupation with both historical continuity and the future, a high valuation of reason and hierarchical order.”3 Postman is typical of modern psychological and sociological views of child development, which to some degree track the Protestant ethos (self-restraint, delayed gratification, rationality, and order). Playing on child/ adult dualisms, this perspective suggests that childishness, in contrast to adulthood, privileges: IMPULSE over DELIBERATION; FEELING over REASON; CERTAINTY over UNCERTAINTY; DOGMATISM over DOUBT; PLAY over WORK; PICTURES over WORDS; IMAGES over IDEAS; PLEASURE over HAPPINESS; INSTANT GRATIFICATION over LONG-TERM SATISFACTION; EGOISM over ALTRUISM; PRIVATE over PUBLIC; NARCISSISM over SOCIABILITY; ENTITLEMENT (RIGHT) over OBLIGATION (RESPONSIBILITY); THE TIMELESS PRESENT OVER TEMPORALITY (NOW OVER PAST and FUTURE); THE NEAR over THE REMOTE (INSTANTANEOUS OVER ENDURING); PHYSICAL SEXUALITY over EROTIC LOVE; INDIVIDUALISM OVER COMMUNITY; IGNORANCE over KNOWLEDGE.
