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Beverly Cleary on the Moral Improvement of Children

September 8, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Cleary

As I read books to my kids (and listen to them in the car to keep them from beating on each other), I look for the message of the stories. Are they learning the Tao of Pooh? The heavy handed Christianity of Narnia? The LSD lessons of Lewis Carroll?

Of late, we've made our way through five or six books by Beverly Cleary, author of books about Henry Huggins, Ramona Quimby, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and other stuff that I remember not scarring me particularly when I was a kid. These are, on the whole, much less painful and sentimental than the recent movie version of Ramona & Beezus, which bears no resemblance to the book of that name (I think it's based on some later-written book about the same characters, but I expect that Hollywood shmultz was applied liberally in the transition.)

One of the audio books started off with an interview with the now fairly elderly ex-librarian, and she expressed probably the central insight behind her writing, which makes her, in my eyes, into a veritable Seinfeld ("no hugs, no learning") of kid literature: Children do not learn lessons that then improve their behavior.

As a child herself, she was annoyed at all the didacticism of the books she read, wherein the child or anthropomorphized animal or garden tool or whatever would transgress some social norm (e.g. intentionally fail to function effectively as a garden tool), fall into misfortune (e.g. be thrown in the trash), be delivered from misfortune (e.g. by a hungry seagull mistaking said non-functioning garden tool in the trash for a fish but then, upon the discovery of non-identicality with the hypothesized fish, dropped it coincidentally back into the shed), and then learn not to repeat the offense (e.g. to function with greater effectiveness as a garden tool).

So in her books, kids might learn something (e.g. "It's okay to feel weird about this."), but they do not morally improve. They just have to eventually grow up to get over their naughtiness, and that might not even do it. Ramona the four-year-old might learn, specifically, not to lock the dog in the bathroom again, but does not repudiate her reasons for doing so ("He ate my cookie, which was bad, and should have to be shut in a room just like I have to go to my room when I'm bad."), nor in any way renounce her right in general to base bold actions on her own judgments of this sort.

fat aristocratBy contrast, the Thomas the Tank Engine books, originally written starting in the 1940s by an Anglican clergyman, are all about keeping quiet, meek, and in your place: Don't be so cheeky, Thomas! Despite a fascinating but freakish zeal for accuracy regarding railway practices and equipment, these stories totally misrepresent psychology (though maybe having to sleep in a shed and slave for a fat aristocrat all day makes one psychologically deviant.)

I will leave you cheeky people to ponder the implications of Cleary's claim for the alleged moral instruction of children.

-Mark

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Filed Under: Reviewage Tagged With: Beverly Cleary, moral education, philosophical education, philosophy blog, philosophy podcast

Comments

  1. Jan Weaver says

    June 11, 2021 at 7:10 pm

    Hi, I have been listening to PEL for about 9 months, first the newer stuff, more recently I started with the earliest episodes. I note very little discussion of children by philosophers in their theories even though for most of us everyday humans they consume a good part of our lives. It feels like they should be part of any important philosophical framework. When I used the search function, this blog popped up. So, I’am asking you…

    Why children? Why didn’t the creator just skip them altogether and create the perfect being fully formed?

    Are children conscious? If not, when do they become conscious? If yes, what do we owe them as conscious beings?

    Are children part of the social contract? Do children have social contracts with each other?

    Were philosophers ever children….Seriously, has philosophy every engaged with the issue of children?

    Thanks, Jan

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      June 14, 2021 at 3:30 pm

      Hi Jan, I think children come up frequently (along with animals) in discussions of reason, ethics, and knowledge, e.g. in our recent Locke on innate ideas discussion. See also our Lacan episode; anything Freudian is of course going to have lots to say about socialization of children. A discussion about reason in children might be fun; see if you can find us some good philosophy lit that tackles that! Best, -Mark

      Reply

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