Re:All Children Should Be Delinquents
by tokenadult on Sunday July 13, 2014 @08:23AM
(#8027192)
In some ways, the most startling thing about this essay is the work affiliation of its author: "John Beckman is an English professor at the United States Naval Academy and the author of 'American Fun: Four Centuries of Joyous Revolt.'" On my own part, as a parent of four children, I encourage my children to be defiant in applying higher principles to analyzing whether or not to follow arbitrary rules. My oldest son coined the phrase "conform to nonconformity" when he was stifled by some of the silly customs at JHU-CTY camp. But for the most part, although young people try random misbehavior all over the world, there is a lot more personal development to be had from self-discipline in pursuit of curiosity and independence than from mindless thrill-seeking.
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Relevant: One of my favorite pg quotes, from http://www.paulgraham.com/word.html:
"Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions. The best word to describe the failure to do so is probably "denial," though that seems a bit too narrow. A better way to describe the situation would be to say that the unsuccessful founders had the sort of conservatism that comes from weakness. They traversed idea space as gingerly as a very old person traverses the physical world."
Since reading that, I've loved the idea of traversing idea space the way you might look for easter eggs in video games- click all the things, flip over all the stones!