the worst insult you can throw at somebody today is “you’re a child”. because in the minds of the US citizen, the child is the worst things in existence. schools exist to quarantine them, to remove them from society, to make them “proper” humans, adults, in other words.
the reason why the child is considered the most despicable object in US mainstream culture is because the child represents nature, the thing that is a direct offspring of biology, instinct, and whatever we consider “uncultured uncivilized being”. in the US, the child is like a piece of dirt, or clay maybe, that has to be sculpted and burned into porcellaine before it’s considered worth anything. even more, the child - through its playful instinct and lust for life - might even represent the animal instinct that has been so successfully repressed in every Grown-up human. and we cannot accept what was never accepted about ourselves.
i don’t see it that way, but a lot of people in the US seem to, at least from what i can see. see my other comment for explanation.
I can’t speak for the whole US but, in my experience, this is not representative of US attitudes toward children at all. Children are considered to be naive and ignorant of the world, but that’s generally understood to be an unavoidable part of childhood. Insults like “childish” or “like a child” are generally applied to adults or older children who “should” have matured beyond such behavior by their present age. It’s not a dig at children, they haven’t had a chance to mature yet.
Your impression of US culture feels pretty wide of the mark to me. I don’t think most Americans would identify with it.
ok, thanks, i’ll keep it in mind
yeah np! kinda cool to see how american media distorts its own culture in transmission. I think when you’re immersed in it you don’t really notice the parts that don’t make it into media representation.