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Question #1, Jean Briggs "Mazes of Meaning"

-"Chubby Maata might want to be loved, but at the same time she may perceive being loved as dangerous too; people might steal her or carry her away...." (p.43)
-Is Chubby Maata actually rationalizing this or is this the psychologist/sociologist's (Briggs) opinion of what Briggs thinks she would think at age 3 in this situation?
-How can the reader decide what is real and what is simply author interpretation?

-With the complexity of constructed meanings available, doesn't there still need to be a normative process that transforms the interesting child-like answer into the unremarkable adult answer, thus ending the "game"?

-Briggs - (pgs 46 & 47 didn't get copied?) Hm. The 'mind games' (well, not really) that adults play with Chubby Maata (and other children) reminded me of the passage that Aries quoted from "The Statue of Salt". Admittedly, they're not exactly the same, but I thought it was interesting that in both the Inuit and Tunisian societies there seemed to be a sort of "rite of passage" which consisted of one or more adults asking bewildering questions to a confused, embarassed, and uncomfortable child. In both, all the adults know what's going on, and they derive amusement from the child's actions. It's sort of like a great societal in-joke, at the child's expense. However, at some point, the child figures out that the adults are just playing, and "when children begin to respond like adults, it's not fun anymore [to question them]." At that point, the child seems to have passed onto a new stage in development.

-At what expense are the Intuit children learning independence? They try to teach children not to trust anything or anybody but themselves.
-While perhaps in the future these children might have greater problem solving skills, will they know how to truly love and trust another?
-Will these children develop a cynical perspective of life?
-While this method of questioning seems like a novel way to teach children how to think independently, this strangely reminds me of the condtioning experiements in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (especially why Chubby Maata played the game with herself after the drama was over). Something seems to be amiss here-conditioning children to be independent.

-I find that Briggs is attributing a complexity of thought to Chubby Maata I would not expect a three year old to possess. I don't have much experience with children of this age. Are three year olds able to reason and consider outcomes of their actions in the way that Briggs suggest Chubby Maata does?

-Briggs says that she sees "culture now as a bag of ingredients that are available for selection." In Chubby Maata's family, the particular dramas chosen were determined by family members, although the style of dramatization was Inuit. What happens in a situation in which the culture that a family belongs to differs from the culture of the surrounding people, such as for immigrants raising their children? And with increased media accessibility, many children have a wider access to this cultural grab bag. How has children's cultural development changed?
-Do they have more mixed ideas because of access to many more cultures?
-Can they make more individualistic decisions in their development of values and norms?
-What kinds of tensions arise from a multiplicity of cultural options?

-"Mazes of meaning: how a child and a culture create each other" -- are there negative aspects to the constant questioning?
-We keep being told that this helps mold the child and to show the child other aspects of his/her personality that he/she has not thought about, but it does not say anything of the failures of this type of system.
-What happens to the children that cannot take this type of questioning and simply fail at it?

-How do we know we can trust in Briggs's assessment of the people involved in the dramas?
-Understanding another person and that person's thought and motives is a very complicated and intuitive process. It is not something i would trust just anyone to do. Ideally i would want to meet Briggs to evaluate what I think of her judgement and biases and filters, so i would have a decent idea of how to relate what she writes to what is really happening. I think that idea of subjective science can be very useful and can give us insights more traditional objective science cannot. But it must e used very carefully

-It seems to me that the learning aquired from the "dramas" presented to the child could also lead to children learning some of the wrong messages. For some of the questions there really is no right or wrong message, but it is important to sometimes define some of the grayness involved. Wouldn't it be useful if the adults would discuss the same topics that are brought up in the dramas with children after they are deemed "too grown up" to fall for the ploy any longer?

-Briggs account lists subtle status transactions between 'actors' in a 'drama'. I am strongly reminded of the classic work on status transactions, Keith Johnstone's 1989 'Impro' as an explanitory paradigm, and concurrently of the Japanese notion of saving face as a fundamental currency of social interaction. I therefore wonder if it's reasonable to state that it is far easier to become aware of social interactions and particularly status transactions in alien cultures than in one's own, simply because one is able to view them disappationately.
- Somehow, I feel I've entirely failed to make the point I wanted to in that paragraph.

-Is the Inuit method of interrogative teasing with children actually a kind of fantasy play many western children engage in during their individual play?
-In the Inuit model, the hypothetical dramas and blunt questioning allow the adult and child to share a fantasy that they can both use as a basis for overtly learning and teaching moral issues (e.g. "why don't you kill your baby brother"). So, what (if any) are the analogous rituals to this in western culture?
-It seems that western cultures don't *actively* and *bluntly* teach children morality through personalized and overt questioning? Is this part of the western policy of shielding children from harsh moral questions for as long as possible?
[Aside: I spent 3 years in Labrador living and going to school with Inuit children when I was between 8 and 11 years old and the style of interaction Briggs describes was very obvious. As I was reading the article, I recalled that older Inuit children would often engage in such questioning interactions with other, younger Inuit children (but never us students from outside the community) -- was this a kind of scaffolding interaction among Inuit children in which the older children would practice their own interrogative skills while helping the younger children "practice" for their interactions with Inuit adults? Also, the teachers at the school were usually from outside the Inuit community and would often discipline the Inuit children for asking "rude" questions that, in retrospect, may have just been forms of the blunt questioning the kids experienced in their own community.]

-What might account for the durability of Inuit dramas "over time and space," in contrast to the constant fluctuation of cultural patterns that Zeldin describes in France?

-Is the goal of anthropology to study without influencing or changing a culture?
-How important is it to maintain distance from your subjects?
-At what point does the anthropologist's interaction with a culture become inappropriate?
-Do parents know that they are teaching their children?
-In the course of common, everday interaction, are parents aware that they are teaching their children socialization skills etc.?

-Inuits differ greatly from Americans in that they impose emotionally trying experiences/dramas on their young children rather than letting their children come face to face with similar dramas on their own, during circumstances that will eventually arise inevitably in due time. If this aspect of Inuit child-rearing allows children to truly come to recognize and deal with such intense emotional conflicts - conflicts that the child inevitably would have had to deal with even if she weren't subjected to said adult manipulation - then perhaps the Inuits were the first to have implemented preventative action. American teachers, parents, doctors, shrinks have all been forced to comtemplate prevenative meausures for our children - based on Littleton, etc,etc
-Would Littleton have happened in Quipsa?
-What can we borrow from the Inuit's child-rearing strategies that can help us prepare American children to be able to better "deal" with emotionally intense experiences?

-When asked directly by Maata, Cubby Maata playfully refuses to go home with her...however, she nestles trustingly with the author of her own will (abandoning her mother in a sense -- something she wouldn't do when Maata asks her to)...how does this fit in with the drama where loyalties are so important (being tested)?

-How closely does the raising of Chubby Maata through these contrived drama questions resemble the animal behavior of parents training heir young to function on their own shortly after birth. And more interestingly can these contrived dramas be linked in any ways to the feeling of the late 19th through early 20th century of placing children in factories or apprenticeships in order for them to become self-sufficient?

-The author mentions learning specifically from a longer analysis of Chubby Maata, but what might she be missing from this analysis? (I realise she's studied hundreds of other kids)
-Is there a difference in the themes/questions posed for boys and girls, as surely they have different social roles? Is there an equivalent game in other cultures? (This question has come up frequently for me) =)

-Is the Individual approach by Biggs possible without a previous long term study?

-I'm curious to know what someone applying the natural history mode(I think that's what it's called) would think of, say violence in the media and it's effects on kids. If one sees culture as a brown bag full of ingredients available for selection, that is, "available for being invested with affect, hence meaning" then what types of issues must be accounted for if one uses Briggs' approach with regards to US pop culture?

-Detailed studies of individuals will be helpful in understanding childhood development. I think detailed studies will help you to understand the meaning behind the general trends. I am curious to read about the general conclusions Briggs will attain from this study of an individual.

-In our culture it is thought that inconsistencies drive a child into massive confusion. However, the Inuit seem to take the opposite approach and run their children through inapproiate situations so that they immeadately start becomming acclimated to confusing and ambiguous situations. Is the Inuit more effective in producing children that can sort through the various inconsistencies of life?

Question #2. Theodore Zeldin, "How to Interpret the Anger of Teenagers"

-Do teenagers rebel due to a lack of a strong parental imposed belief system and thus desire to create it themselves?
-Is this bad?

-I thought this guy was pretty amusing. He mentions how French kids absorb so much of their parents values and points out their dissillusionment towards the school system but he never once offers any type of solution (maybe it's not his responsibility). From what Zeldin says about "their goals [becoming] more cultural...than economic or politicial" it seems to me that he is upset that French kids are not as "political" as people in his generation(I'm assuming). Why doesn't he question his generations responsibility?
-If French kids are less political and less interested in economic gain rather than the pursuit of happiwhy doesn't he take any personal responsibility for this supposed change?

-By labeling the conflict of generations a "myth", doesn't Zeldin come to deny the very real anger of the teenager and therefore remove a significant source of power and protest within the family and society?

-Foremost in my mind is, how did the author manage to talk to Emmanuel without getting the "dangerous and dim lout" treatment?
-More interestingly, I wondered at what point did adults forget that they used to be kids. The employers treating the young badly had the same experiences when *they* were young, possibly -- if they did, why are they so unsympathetic?
-Is it because they've just grown jaded?
-Or did they become generically selfish?
-Or are they trying to give kids the same hardships they had to suffer?
-A better example of the "kid-adult" threshold might be with the different parenting philosophies -- teenagers say that when they grow up they'll be lenient with *their* kids, but when they *do* grow up, they may end up forgetting that and treating their children as their parents treated them.

-"I need others to prove that I exist, to enable me to be proud of myself; I need encouragement from otheres." (Emmanuel). Why is it that Emmanuel is fighting/rebelling against the society that he needs?
-Zeldin asserts that teenagers are angry because some have been forced to fit into the established societal boundaries. Some teenagers feel they are "alone in [their] ideas, in [their] way of seeing life." But why must we interpret this as teenagers being angry?
-Could this just be a period of exploration outside familiar environments?
-Zeldin speaks of how adults believe there is a conflict of generations when evidence points to the contrary. Perhaps, when raising our children, we are focusing too much on the external differences like technology, fashion, or music. Wouldn't it help if we shared our journeys in how we found ourselves...if we shared our experiences in exploring our limits?
-While the details would be different, the core (the epiphanies about the human condition), would be very similar. Why must children in order to find their individuality alienate themselves completely and totally from their parents?
-Parents could serve as guides...must this rite into adulthood be experienced alone?

-Zeldin mentions classic forms of rebellion, from clothing to music, that teens use to shock their parents. Many teens, however, listen to the music that their parents did when they were young, so in a sense, they aren't rebelling so much against their parents as they are emulating previous youth culture (e.g. many kids still like to listen to people like hendrix or led zepellin or leonard cohen). How does this affect the expected "generation gap," since at a certain age children and parents, at least according to culture in the States, are not supposed to understand each other?
-Is there ever a backlash of mature children resisting a prolonged youth of parents?
-How do parents react to pre-teens who emulate teen anger by starting to rebel early because it's "cool?"

-This paper seems to describe the anger of teenagers in this generation. how will the anger of this/my generation effect the next generation, the one that we will be bearing?

-Don't parents realize that the reason we don't want to enter the rat race is because we want more, not less?
-How do we cope with the fact that economic success is not the most important factor in a person's happiness?
-We know this because we see our parents and their immediate successors, who are probably in general as economically successful as it is possible to be, are living in a discontented, depressed, self-help world, despite their "success."

-In the example given at the beginning of the reading, Emmanuel's father reproaches him for his lack of ambition". Isn't this exactly what they have seen teaching him to expect?
-In the example given at the beginning of the reading, Emmanuel's father reproaches him for his lack of ambition". Isn't this exactly what they have seen teaching him to expect?

-At some point -- whether personally or as a collective, institution -- the older generation seems to relinquish responsibility for their children's future (e.g. age limits on social programs like education funding for orphans, ages of majority, expectations to leave the home after a certain age, etc.) Is this motivated by a desire to force youth into a self-supporting position that is viewed as a necessary final step to becoming an adult?
-Is this motivated by a desire for parents to regain their own complete freedom?
-For example, why didn't Emmanuel's parents stop supporting him and let him "resort to theft" (page 417)?

-Basically, at what point (either through personal relationships or through institutions) does one generation start or stop being responsible for the next?

-What is the distinction Zeldin is making between individuality and rebellion? Do you agree that issues of culture and quality-of-life are not political?

-What happens to these angry teenagers when they grow up?
-What sort of parents do they make?
-How do they, in turn, deal with the rebellion of their teenage children? (assuming of course, they get so far as to have children)

-I think adults do not realize the hypocrisy with which they label youth "rebellious." Zeldin writes, "His is not a story about rebellion, but about an independent effort to find his own individuality." I argue that, in a majority of cases regarding teenagers, rebellion is synonomous with "finding own's own individuality." Children are incredibly perceptive - perhaps so much so that they realize at some point that they are not being treated by society with the same rights and respect as adults. Does it not make sense then that children who are viewed as rebellious, are merely REACTING to their limited experience with the adult world, and not their "total rejection of the adult world?"
-Adults also don't realize that when an empty kid fills his head with anything to forget his pain that kid is sucked into a cycle of not thinking about WHY he feels the need to rebel. Hence, these empty kids create another generation of adult parents who continue to treat rebellion as a problem and not a symptom.

-Isn't the search for an identity at rebellion (if a figure of authority told you who you were, no search would be needed)?
-So isn't all of childhood a rebellion in a sense (just taken to different extremes) (whether or not there is anything left to rebel against, one will find something)?

-How closely related is the rock and roll Woodstock generation of songs of peace in the time of the Vietnam War to the despair filled punk music of Emmanuel and today's modern gothic music, in terms of reflecting the emotions of the teenage society of the time?

-Zeldin writes that the "conflict of generations is, hoever, largely a myth, and that helps to explain why change is so slow and superficial." It is obviously physically manifested through "abominable" dress, music, etc., but how is it _maintained_?
-Also, not quite as ponderous a question, but could part of the extension of childhood ages (ie Louis XIII told he's an adult at five (!)) be simply because our life spans have increased so much?

-In the article (Zeldin: How to interpret ...) it is stated that part of the reason why French youth are rejecting education is because of the lack of benefits, particularly in economic/job security, that it brings. For the most part in America, more education brings more security in a better job (though this tendency is declining as well), but an attitude of rejection still exists towards school. Why could this be?

Question #3 - Theodore Zeldin, "How children Deal with their Parents"

-The article states, " What that meant was that the way parents expressed their love depended more on their ambitions, both for their children and themselves, than on any national customs or medical theories. This echoes an earlier point Justine made concerning children being encouraged by parents to go to local universities over ones further away such as MIT. Are parents always looking at their children as carriers to propel their personal values?

-"There certainly are children who feel victims of their parents confusions and private problems." This phrase struck me as one of the most intriguing. it'd be interesting to discuss how this notion is revealed in the US (among cultural minorities and sub populations). And are why are some of the "victims" able to overcome these fears and confusions while others not?

-"The family is a commune with no hierarchy, authority or formality." Do you think that this breakdown of social roles of each family member has lead to a breakdown in contemporary children's culture?
-Have the children-parent roles been switched in some situations?
-What is the impact?

-Given his view, why isn't this essay entitled "How parents are unable to deal with their children"?

-The fourteen-year-old's essay on pg 103 had all sorts of contradictions... mainly, the child says his/her parents "support all my wishes", and s/he enthuses about how great the family is, and then s/he mentions that they're currently not talking to each other, and there's a lot of tension. How can s/he still believe that "we are a united family, and on fairly good terms", when there's so much anger?
-Partially related to that is this theory -- is it possible that lack/little communication between child and parents is related to the fear that these kids/parents are your only set, and you don't want to make a mistake and lose them?
-Or, is it that you're afraid of the power their respect/affection or lack thereof have over you?

-As a child, I was incredibly confused when my parents ordered me to do things. I would always ask why and they would always tell me because we told you to. I think parents have this expectation of automatic respect because they are the parents. But do these parents realize that they are expecting their children to be mindless?
-That their children will simply do because they are told to without any reason why?

-What is the nature of the parents inability to understand their children?
-Does the fault lie primarily with the parents who are failing to listen correctly, or with the children who refuse to communicate?

-Is Zeldin claiming that children develop differently depending on class values and expectations when he says that parents are more similar cross-culturally by class than across classes within a culture?
-How does this affect basic assumptions about social mobility?

-How does a society as a whole survive when the children are not all brought up the same?
-Does it lead to a disconnected and disjoint society when each person is raised completely differently?
-when there are not even subgroups within the society which are raised similarly?

-I can't imagine fighting with my parents such that we're not speaking yet still being satisfied with my of relationship with them. Is there such a range of parental styles in the U.S.?
-if so, is it as economically based?
-is there truly no sense of societal norm there?
-or do people usually just assume others are raised approximately as they are [which definitely happens in the U.S... as i'm sure we'll be able to see in this class...]

-In regards to the discussion in class on Monday about whether children were perceived as ways for parents to achieve social status, the statement by the sociologist which claims that parents of the same social background, but different cultural background relate to each other better than those of the same country, but different social class seems to support this. Zeldin claims that parents express their love based on their ambitions. Could it not also be true because people of the same social background have similar everyday experiences?
-Just as a children of the same generation are shaped by the times, arent children also shaped by their social stature to a certain extent?

-To what extent are child-adult relationships social contracts and to what extent are they individually negotiated arrangements?
-For example, do children take care of their parents in old age out of a sense of social obligation? guilt? a feeling of indebtedness? genuine affection?
-To what extent is the mutually supporting child-adult relationship the result of an implicit and pragmatic social bargain and to what extent is it true familial altruism?

-Do French family dynamics depend more on class than America's?
-What about race? Religion? (I am guessing French society is somewhat more heterogenous than Zeldin suggests)

-What is the mainstream culture equivalent of anthropology? (I found both of the readings called attention to the idea that white american culture is "normal")
-Is it necessary to couch the study of culture within the framework of a "standard" culture?

-In French society it seems that "sex has ceased to be unmentionable" (p.107). In American societies it seems to me (at least, by the paranoia about it in the press and popular culture) that sex is still extremely unmentionable. How does this account for differences in French and American societies? -Which differences are due to this?
-I am sure there are other differences in the way French and American children are brought up, but I picked this one to think about because it seems capable of doing the most damage -- children who do not know about their own reproductive ability , and about all the things that can happen to them because of it, are a danger to themselves.

-It is interesting to ask why French parents have traditionally tolerated certain behaviors over others. A child's bid for attention is listened to by the parent, yet a child's request for help or expression of discomfort is not as quickly seen to. Why is this?
-The latter two behaviors strongly manifest a child's dependence on the adult, while the first, arguably, doesn't. Does the preference of some behaviors over others have anything to do with adults unconsciously not wanting to acknowledge the child's dependence on them?
-Isn't dependence a major aspect of what it means to be a child?

-"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." (Algernon, in The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde) This seems to be accurate, at least to a degree...but is this something beyond a parent and even a child's control?
-Why is there such a large difference in the percentages of girls and boys in school later in life?
-Does this linger from treatment by parents?

-Why is it that the so call experts on Child rearing are always constantly updating their doctrines, yet the public continues to blindly follow their teachings as if it were given to them from God?

-Seriously, how does a fourteen yr old (pg. 103) live with both parents while not being on speaking terms with them?
-Are *any* of these children happy?
-In a culture widely renowned for openness about sex/love/romance, it's interesting to read about the (until recently) taboo talk between parents and children of sex. How was it dealt with prior (ie "learn it on the streets")?
-Were there any specific events to stimulate this change?

-At the end of the article (Zeldin: How Children Deal ...) it was stated that "it is not in the direction of more warmth that the young generations" are moving. American youth have also experienced the same changes in society, yet it seems that now we (America) are moving towards a society of where intense commitment is now the ideal versus the ideal of a society of casual pals. Why the difference?