Scarring the Innocent

 

 

"Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue."
-Anatole France

At first, this quote seems trivial and worthy of little contemplation. Yet, when we think of innocence as it relates to naivete and the charge for society to protect gullible youth from the snares of cunning and deceit, we can see the reality of the French writer's words. Today, as moral excellence and conformity to a common standard of right matter less than a rush to maturity, children are subject to too much inescapable offensive exposure.

We parents "wish" and "pray" our children will experience innocence instead of assuring them access to an environment that actively guards their fragility. We seem content to teach them some limited form of family values, warn them of what we conceive to be the most prevalent dangers, then release them as "young adults" into a razor-sharp world.

The obstacles and temptations our children encounter often overwhelm their immature brains and wrack their developing bodies. They pay dearly as parents prematurely jettison them into perilous situations.

How could innocence flourish in the real world of today? Now, most children who maintain healthy, long-established traits of innocence do so in spite of overwhelming odds. They somehow become the recipients of outstanding good fortune despite the tremendous forces against incorruptibility.
 
Isn't it time for us to fix the world and recreate conditions necessary to allow innocence to return?

I know. At this point, many readers are reciting this old litany: "Buddy, you can't bring back the past. Snap out of your fantasy world."

And then, even more of you are preaching: "You can't change the world. Only a fool would believe that we can successfully "put the Genie back into the bottle."

So, good friends, I believe it is time for the second quote of this entry. Here it is...

"Experience, which destroys innocence,

also leads one back to it."

-James Baldwin

A psychologist may tell us that innocence refers to a state of unknowing, where "one's experience is lesser, in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale."

("Innocence," Dictionary of Psychology, 2010)

As we grow, all innocents learn from experience. This is one important way humans form vital understandings. Some of what we learn from experience reinforces our innocent nature while some of what we learn from experience causes us to modify our beliefs and our values of innocence. To me, this process of forming understandings is best when new experiences occur gradually and reasonably.

Without a doubt, our experiences can lead, and usually do lead, to the end of "child-like" innocence. Yet, somewhere along the way as our experiences threaten to destroy completely our faith in purity, most of us realize that maturity and time allow us to make this transformation from innocence to "knowing" with less risk and less evil consequence.

Unfortunately, today, many parents are more than willing to rush their children through puberty and young adulthood with little attention to the value of innocence. They honestly believe by loading their children with increasingly "adult" attitudes and behaviors, they are preparing them to compete and to survive in a jungle that rolls by "survival of the fittest." I think these parents expect their children to handle emotions and logical decisions that most simply are incapable of controlling.

Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Research confirms that teenagers' brains are only about 80 percent fully developed and that brain development isn't complete until people reach their 20s or even 30s—more than a decade later than experts had originally thought. 

(Erin Graham, "The Teenage Brain," DreamOnline, Children's Hospital Boston, 2008)

So, even though as Baldwin says "experience destroys innocence," experience also leads us back to understanding the value of an innocent transformation into adulthood -- a transformation that must include proactive measures, considerable counsel and interaction, guarded and carefully planned experiences, and continual extended open conversations.

It is time we view innocence as a positive term once more. In terms of fashion, dating, relationships, sexual experience, school preparation, independence, body adornment, athleticism, group interactions -- I believe we have a lot of work to do to bring innocence back into popularity. We must begin to do this ourselves by showing our appreciation of innocence to our own children and grandchildren. Then, we must also encourage changes in popular culture with our active participation in groups and government organizations that work for reform.

Little Sis does not need to be a beauty queen or a trashy object of sensual attraction. Junior does not need to be a bad ass or a thug. These children are dependent, and since they are, they are dependent upon us to break the molds Madison Avenue, MTV, and Hollywood make for the promise of their popularity and acceptance.

You say it's too late to bring back such a fantasy? Hold a newborn in your arms and take a long, hard look at the wonderful creation. You will be caught in the delight and the charm of the child's total innocence. Let that experience lead you back... back to instilling dreams of purity. Or, you can merely rely upon the fate of good fortune to insure what happens to the babe.

Regaining Innocence Or Innocent Insight?

Innocence can be defined in terms of freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil: Innocence is often associated with blamelessness, chastity, simplicity, and lack of worldly knowledge. Many feel people have lost all innocence. Have they? Let's explore what innocence really is.

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Blake was also a critical thinking and philosopher.

What was Blake’s definition of innocence?

1) The condition of man before the fall. Innocence is characteristic of or belonging to the time or state before the fall of humankind (Biblical reference).

2) On another level (internally and psychologically) innocence applies to the child who has not yet experienced the inner divisions of human life. Childhood is a time of protected innocence.

So, how did Blake define experience?

1) As an inner state representing feelings.

2) As the world of normal adult life in which adults try to analyze their feelings of direct observation or participation, and therefore become incapable of spontaneity. Society exerts the outside influences that bring experience and is a corrupting influence.

3) In the human condition, the child is not immune to the fallen world and its institutions. This world sometimes impinges on childhood itself, and in any event becomes known through "experience," the stage of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear and inhibition, by social and political corruption, and by the manifold oppression of Church, State, and the ruling classes.

4) However, Blake saw experience as not just bitter but as an opportunity to gain wisdom. The natural harmony of innocence is lost but insight comes in its place.

Blake believed with wisdom, people could organize their divided selves and forge a new unity. He understood humans could never regain the original state of innocence, but this new “organized innocence” was even more desirable to Blake.

Why was it more valuable? Blake believed an innocent child does not yet know right from wrong – in this state, the child makes no choices for good or evil. He does not even know he is in this state of innocence. Only when a child grows to adulthood, begins to fashion experiences, and suffers, does the child become aware of his choices.

The “Fortunate Fall” to Blake was the realization that man and woman had to fall and become experienced and knowledgeable to be free and have free will. Blake said, “Without contraries (Innocence vs. Experience) there is no progress. The progress Blake referred to was progress toward being in harmony with the lost innocence. Blake saw experience as energy driving people toward this desire to regain lost innocence.

Let's simplify Blake's views:

1. We are born without inner divisions, unknowing, and protected by others: innocent. (But by our very birth, we are destined to enter a flawed world.)
2. As we grow, society exerts outside influences upon us that bring experience and inevitable division and corruption.

3. Corruption causes us to become incapable of expressing undivided childhood traits of complete spontaneity, lack of inhabition, and unbridled vitality.
4. We are then forced to form a new unity with innocence as we become aware of our free will and our ability to make our own choices.
5. The contraries of our innocence vs. our experience produce harmony and progress. With this wisdom, we gain new insight.

6. And, with new insight of the contrary nature of living, we begin to desire to regain lost innocence.

Even with their knowledge of evil, many people want to return to times when people practiced high levels of innocence – times characterized by being simple, guileless, pure, naive, and trusting. This thinking is bred through regretful experiences and nurtured through the nostalgia of fading pasts.

Innocence is a concept that continually evolves. Cultural ideas about what is “innocent” change. Each generation has its own concepts of what innocence means based on ever-changing mores, manners, and customs. In that sense, desires to return to lost innocence certainly mean something different to 65 year-old grandparents and 35 year-old parents.

A particular state of innocence may endure as long as people believe that individuals or forces outside themselves can provide easy solutions to the complex and, at times, chaotic problems that confront them every day. When innocence falls to change because experience renders its utility useless, people must learn to cope with new modern conceptions. For example, the old, trusting practice of not locking the doors of one's home at night has become risky and ill-advised.

Then, should people give up worrying about regaining lost innocence? I don't think so. I understand we can never return to our past and change everything back to the “good old days.” Besides, we know now that some of old innocence was not “good” at all. We actually needed more knowledge then that might have optimized our past experiences.

Carry Me Back...

Still, I would love to see some lost innocence regained. Today, I just want to vent a little innocence longing with a want list of my own.

1. Highly revealing clothes, gaudy tattoos and in-your-face. “I don't give a flying _ _ _ _ , bi-atch” behavior is nasty. Want sexy? Go innocent and moderately understated.


2. Screaming, whining, and constantly complaining about “who's doing what” to you is extremely annoying and totally unproductive. Want help? Ask nicely; say 'please' and 'thank you.'”


3. High school students have not developed the necessary “total” package of reasoning and responsibility to match their mature looks. Most have a Ford Fiesta brain in a Ferrari body. Innocent, fun time dating can be much better than steady, heavy-duty love affairs.


4. Speaking of high schools... high schools are not colleges. Classes can be challenging within reason and at grade level. Too many high schools want to take over the role of colleges by offering programs for college credit instead of concentrating on developing crucial skills and critical thinking.


5. Playing a grade school or a high school sport should not be a year-around, all-consuming passion for an athlete, not should it be an ego trip for a “star starved” parent. Students require social development outside of structured events, and they require free time to rest and digest everything that is rapidly changing in their environments.


6. Parents need to realize that giving their children “everything” and buying their affection and good behavior is creating spoiled, material-minded, lazy bums. Chores won't kill children and possessions won't lead to success. Teaching morals and values will help them as they learn responsibility.


7. Many adults in a child's community contribute to his or her positive growth. Listening to life lessons from seniors and befriending trusted adults, a child gains valuable wisdom and new perspectives. This adult friend isn't always the coach or the teacher. Managers, bosses, business acquaintances, counselors, neighbors – all can be helpful.


8. Young people must be independent/dependent. They must have the flexibility to find good, helpful interests. They must be encouraged to practice integrity and work independently. They must be given opportunities to lead and to speak out with reason. Yet, youth must build strong friendships with positive peers and friends that pay dividends in character. They must realize the value of group interaction. And, they must respect the common good.

“The essential self is innocent,

and when it tastes its own innocence

knows that it lives for ever.”

-John Updike

Innocence

Innocence Innocence is its own reward. Given at conception from the grace of the highest love, Fiercely protected from those who might spoil its virtues, And set free to explore a snug island of earthly delights. Pirates of purity raid the fragile sanctuary Attempting to distort every vestige of chaste life. And only the most stable fend off the evil marauders For long tomorrows of pristine perfection. Time eventually weakens even the most innocent As it sweeps away the clean remains of juvenile behaviors And carelessly tosses them away without ceremony Into boxes neatly stored in the closets of the adult mind. Longing and regret eventually occupy the seasoned stage To play their somber roles in tales of lost simplicity And stories of bygone, careless times: Simple, outdated vignettes soon shrouded by drawing curtains. Innocence is the unrealized reward given freely to all. Too quickly undervalued and tarnished By covetous hands of greedy, loveless animals Or by the innocent pawns moved by the rights of natural passage.