KD-ADS: Expanding Horizons

Cos thinking should never be stagnant...

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Emotional Development of a Society?

Being out with a few classmates today, we eventually engaged into an interesting debate regarding the emotional development of children or rather adults who have reached a plateau in developing into emotionally mature individuals. While I was not an active participant in the discussion, the commentaries and statements struck a chord with me, which I shall now conjecture.

The general hypothesis exegesis was that in relative to the older generation (i.e. our parents, grandparents and above ancestors though no exact limit was stipulated), the current generation of today are not as "emotionally mature". Bereft of personal emotional maturity, today's youngsters are boor, coarse, licentious, sordid, corrupt and just plain "immature". The underlying factors were attributed to a growing concentration of focus on intellectual development (c.f. the knowledge-based economy), lack of parental support and the changing modern capitalistic society (although no reference in the conversation specifically indicated "capitalistic", they considered the capitalistic nature of the work environment as the factor).

This comparison to previous monuments and societies in our past is certainly idyllic, and claims were adduced that a real important change/shift in emotional politick or economy was drastically called for. It seems that these intuitive comparisons suffice on some phenomenological grounds, simply, people may simply "feel" that others are not as emotionally developed as before. Since a study on scientific validity is impossible, we should reflect on a possible palpatable interpretation form of history.

Strangely, we do find that perhaps our history demonstrates little resolve in our ancestors' emotional maturity. We have come from the disasters/crises of racism, sexism, two World Wars, genocidal conflicts and certainly a few other "moral crises" we can easily sum up. We could be said to have learnt and repent for our past mistakes, but that doesn't absolve or palliate our own crimes. Consider how societal members have reacted together as insurgents towards a "moral crisis", such movements have picked up a faster pace than before, and collective trepidation from our own quietude has forced us to develop an emerging moral conscious. We are heading somewhere but the road won't be easy.

But this progressive appraisal won't reach its zenith if countered by the forces of industrial economy. In a micro-environmental sense, my classmates' comments were centred on the social family structure and its evolving mutation. Since parents now work on full-time jobs, we don't expect them to vivaciously spent time with children, depreciating them from emotional growth. Further, the responsibilities of parents' have dissolved into childcare centres, nannies/maids, guardians and etc. While research is still young on the consequences of alternative practices of child-care development, nevertheless a salient decisive link between biological parents and the child's socio-emotional development retains as very critical in the childs' personality development. Lest we misconstrue this as indicative of derogating female's rights to work, the father is also a significant role player in the process, albeit the mother with her maternal instincts is inexplicitly sancrosanct.

Thus, it seems in a very intuitive sense that there is no hiatus in confering my classmates' beliefs on the rising "despondent" generation, or what they dubbed the new "pragmatics". Especially discerning is the observation that these comments surmised from the citizens of the SP21 country. As I quipped in this remark, they inconvertibly absconded themselves as culprits but clairvoyant outsiders who knew the truth about SP21. What became most alarming was when one of them ratified SP21's policies as prerogatives, thus insisting that the decline of moral or emotional development was "inevitable", which suffused a heated rebukement from the others that this must be "changed".

In summary, and to simplify the debate, they saw humans as lacking in emotional development compared to our ancestors. The nuance in emotional (and perhaps moral) development might be the capricious side-effects of modern societies, especially industrious nations. While I agreed that perhaps on a microlevel, this is what they are experiencing, but on a global scale, I hopefully expect this form of social-moral-emotional consciousness to grow. I also believe that a glaring omission in the discussion was individuals as "active participants" in the process. Social, cultural values does influence us to a greater degree than we like to believe, but we are not "blank slates". WE can enact and reinterpret social messages to sculpt our own "world".

Now when one of them was willingly to sacrifice the lack of emotional maturity for economical prosperity, that was obstreperous to me, she was essentially saying, "nothing should be done, society will evolve further into less emotional creatures, and this is fine." This statement may not be as impactful until she defended her belief that SP21 is "just like that". It shouldn't be changed, nor does it need be.

This superfluous example was not ephemeral, as I alluded to in my earlier post, it is an exemplary of an ingrained mindset that should be struck with enmity.

4 Comments:

  • At 1:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The younger generations of today face different challenges and sets of problems of their time that should not be haphazardly compared to the past. In some aspects, I'll say that the younger generation are more mature and adverse in dealing with them, not to mention more informed.

    While the younger generation can be said to have "lost their innocence", they are better equipped than those of yesteryear. Did not rebelliousness against authority and immaturity ever existed too in children in the past? Or domestic problems? It does seem indeed like an idyllic notion of the past being an outdated faded model of society when it continues to remain a bedrock foundation of our culture today.

    We human beings constantly negotiate our beliefs in accordance to our everchanging surroundings. To assume that we all simply accept whatever that comes to us is a fatalistic notion that ignores the struggles and sacrifices of our forefathers.

    Fat Cat Lim

     
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