h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Greetings

As I was growing up my parents used to tell me "When you go out and live on your own, then you can do (whatever they were griping about that time), But while you live in our house you will follow our rules."

Personally, I believe that whenever an individual has choosen to leave their parents place and go out and find their own, then they are an adult. (i.e. The point at which one decides that they are going to be responsible for their own survival and actions in the world/galaxy/whatever.)

I do not think that drinking, smoking, etc. are very good criteria for deciding adulthood, nor do I think that they should be "rights" (or whatever you may choose to call it) of all adults. They are a completely seperate thing altogether as far as I'm concerned.

42!

Phoenix

^..^

Well, of course, you must be right, the answer must surely be 42, surely.

But then....nagging doubts appear....I am in a position to tell you its not quite true. The real truth (wisdom appears through rear entrance) is that bits of us get to be adult at different times. And such timings are not universal.

If I knew then what I know now, and if only you would listen!

I agree that people become adult at the age of 42. That's a relief, mind you, because I am 28 and still living with my parents, still a virgin, I own neither a gun nor a power drill...

Who cares about being an adult? I like being a kid. I want to stay a child forever. I don't want to work, I don't want to worry. I want to play, fool around and have fun and live to do it all again another day. I don't want to impress people or live up to their expectations. People take things for granted too much. I reject the entire adult scene - politics, money and business, schools and universities, churches and shopping malls. It is high time we reduced humanity and existence to their bare bones again, because too many people are getting lost in the details.

:SNIP:
If I knew then what I know now, and if only you would listen!
:SNIP:

Who said I wouldn't listen? Man, I've got so many ears that the corn jokes seem to never stop. Er, maybe that's a little over exageration.

I do agree with you that bits of us enter 'adulthood' at different time. Obviously puberty is a form of adulthood that happens at particular points in our lives. Such is the problem with questions that are so broad, the answers can't fit right.

Also, while I do think 42 is the answer to many things, I don't think it's the age when we become adults. If that were the case I'd never be an adult (which since being a kid is so much fun, I guess I wouldn't mind ) cause I've decided not to see my 43rd birthday. A decision I made in 1992. I'm 28 at the moment, about to turn 29 on the 26th of Oct.

My usual sign off ...

42!

Phoenix

^..^

:SNIP:
If I knew then what I know now, and if only you would listen!
:SNIP:

Who said I wouldn't listen? Man, I've got so many ears that the corn jokes seem to never stop. Er, maybe that's a little over exageration.

I do agree with you that bits of us enter 'adulthood' at different time. Obviously puberty is a form of adulthood that happens at particular points in our lives. Such is the problem with questions that are so broad, the answers can't fit right.

Also, while I do think 42 is the answer to many things, I don't think it's the age when we become adults. If that were the case I'd never be an adult (which since being a kid is so much fun, I guess I wouldn't mind ) cause I've decided not to see my 43rd birthday. A decision I made in 1992. I'm 28 at the moment, about to turn 29 on the 26th of Oct.

My usual sign off ...

42!

Phoenix

^..^

Er, sorry about the double posting. I had some connection problems during that last post.

42!

Phoenix

^..^

Ok, so lets start with

Adulthood is the triumph of Cynicism over Ambition.

Being an adult is to know with certainty that your dreams will not come true. None of them. Ever.

An adult can say 'Its my fault'. A child will say 'Its his/her/their fault'.

An adult will not take anyone at 'face value', a child always does.

Once upon a time, long ago in a land far away, I had long hair. This was important to me. It was a badge. I was a rebel. I needed a job. It was suggested that I cut my hair. I could not, it would represent a betrayal of all that I stood for. I didn't get the job. I had another interview. A friend asked, how does cutting your hair affect your heart? I cut my hair. I got the job. I was still a rebel, but the difference was that the outside world did not know that. I was a subversive, and I was able to change, in a very very small way, the attitude of others because I was apparently one of them, on their side. I accepted the compromise (of appearance) and effected change. I had grown up a little.

Mr Case, is not your espousal of perpetual childhood a rejection of responsibility? (And is that a good or bad thing?)

Irresponsible? NO WAY!!! In my experience it is the adults who are irresponsible. Children always watch what they are doing, and very quickly realise when they're doing something wrong, but adults do just what they please and are so dim-witted that they don't even see the awful mistakes that they are making. It is adults who cause the problems of the world: they are the ones who have come up with fascism, communism, apartheid, they are the ones who wage the wars and cheat and exploit people and squander their own gifts. Children are aware of and appreciate the preciousness of life: they notice and care about the little things such as flowers, butterflies, little beetles and other animals. Children will accept anyone as a friend. When they become adult, they suddenly have all these important things like money and business to think about and they don't even notice the small things any more. Thing is, they invent all kinds of nonsense and believe that it is very, very important but they don't even notice the really important things that are under their noses. I hate the inhumanity of the modern "adult" world. I accept as my RESPONSIBILITY to change the world so that people FEEL again, and UNDERSTAND again, the BASIC qualities of life, that make life worth living. To make people open their eyes and see once again what is around them.

Life is a miracle and filled with wonder. There is an irreducible quality to merely being alive that is worth more than anything else. But people in the "adult" modern world are kept so busy doing unnecessary things that they hardly ever examine the quality of their lives. They don't realise the importance of things like friendship, beauty, imagination. They have been brutalized. Their original elemental sensibilities have been dulled and stunted. They waste away their time doing totally meaningless things for the sake of money with which they can only buy totally meaningless things.

My responsibility is towards all living creatures, past, present and future, to make right what is wrong, to give them the keys to their fullest freedom, to break their minds out of the deadening grey prisons in which they have been locked so that they can go out into the light and blossom to the fullness of their potential beauty. No adult can even begin to have this kind of a sense of responsibility.

Look, I'm being deliberately difficult! I want people to question the whole issue of adulthood. Most people are complacent about society, but society sucks! People ought to dream and expect to fulfill their dreams, they ought not to be cynical, the more ambitious they are, the better! But they should do all this with an attitude that is pure and innocent but at the same time wise and realistic. Children often have excellent personal qualities lacking in adults. When I was two years old in many ways I was wiser than I am now, in many ways I was more aware than I am now.

Be as difficult as you like, Mr Case, thats why we're here (on h2g2, not the planet) but I think you may need to change your medication!

Firstly, should you choose to become an adult, you would not, could not lose your prior life experience. It doesn't suddenly disappear.

Secondly, who are these children that do all this, do you work for Disney or follow yellow brick roads or some such tosh? The picture you paint resembles no child I ever knew. Children are selfish, narrow minded, intolerant - in the extreme -, vicious, cruel, totally self-centred etc etc as well as all those cuddly attributes. (innocent???)

Thirdly, the humans amongst us are here for a purpose (nothing to do with religon) and that is, simply, to leave the planet a bit better than we found it. This implies responsibility, this implies, other than for exceptional figures (e.g. Mr Mandela, Ghandi) working with the grain, trying to improve things a little etc., which, in turn, implies an acceptance by society, a putting back more than you take, and this you cannot do as a child, or as a child-like innocent. You have to play a part (in both senses) you have to cut your hair.

Maybe I don't need to change my medication, maybe I just need to go to bed. I've been shoveling dirt all day and when I came here I was already tired and just said everything that came into my head without much auto-editing or self-censorship.

But I do think that the concepts I mention have some relevance and value. When I was a child, I was the way I described, I knew other people who were also like that as children, and I still think that is the natural inclination for children to have. Perhaps some children are selfish, but vicious, intolerant, narrow-minded - I don't know about that. Which country do you live in? What kind of environment do those children you talk about grow up in? My experience is of Africa, I grew up here with big open wild spaces to move around in and to explore. I can imagine that children who grow up in cities might become the way you describe, because they lack stimulation, they are constrained, they don't have outlets for their natural curiosity. But I don't think it is natural for children to be like that.

But I don't speak of children only as you understand children. I'm talking of any person with what I consider POSITIVE child-like qualities - in particular, qualities like a sense of wonder at existence, a strong imagination, a sensitivity for the subtle details of life experiences, a sense of fun and a lack of seriousness. With a "lack of seriousness" I mean an intuitive attitude that recognizes the absurd element that is always present in life, call it a sense of humor. The worst outrages in history have come about because people took their own problems and ideas too seriously. The fact is that life is a puzzle, a riddle, an enigma. Because of this, people must have the freedom to explore its meaning, not be too tightly bound by conventions and expectations that are based on a fixed view of it.

The thing is, I do not even mean this response of mine particularly seriously. It is a challenge, a provocation - there are lots of stuff in here that don't make water-tight sense. I want to upset people's complacency, make them think, shake them out of their comfort zone. It is a game! That's another thing that children do but adults don't. Adults are serious even about games! But frivolous games can have great value. If adults played more frivolous games, they would keep on learning and growing - in effect, they would stay young. Agree/disagree? If you are finding and pointing out weak spots in my arguments, at least you are thinking about them, in which case I am satisfied.

You may not know children who exemplify my "Disneyesque" stereotype; but still, I know some people - some old, some young - who do display at least some of those properties. If it is a stereotype, at least it is a positive stereotype (well, I think it is). I often talk to children, I treat them like fully responsible and independent people who are just as intelligent and entitled to their opinions as I am, I talk to them without condescension, and I assure you, while they are not always as well-informed as some adults, they are not narrow-minded, intolerant, vicuous, cruel or totally self-centred. I'm talking about children between the ages of three and twelve, not teenagers.

I am sorry, I'm just more optimistic about human nature than you are. I think most people are capable of being better people than they are allowed to be. I think modern society fails to make the most of the human potential of its members. Sometimes people have to go against the grain. Sometimes society will not accept the people that can in fact make the greatest positive contribution to it. Then those people have to work outside of the system. Currently I have to work outside of the systems of my city and country because there is just no way that those systems can accommodate me. I can cut my hair, but I cannot change my skin and I cannot endorse beliefs that I disagree with. So I have to go my own way. But the world is a big place, there is no "single" worldwide system; there are many niches in which people who don't fit in elsewhere can fit. Here on h2g2 there's a system that suits me better, because it is very open, imaginative, and light-hearted.

If you can work within your system, be grateful for it. Be happy that your world is not yet so badly screwed up that even you would rather opt out of it. But I assure you there are many people who just cannot adapt to your kind of world; I would rather have a world that can accommodate as many different kinds of people as possible. I agree with you, we have to leave the planet a bit better than we find it, we have to put back more than we take. I don't have anything against responsibility. If anything, my problem is that most "adults" don't seem to have it. I don't really think that we'll solve the problem by putting children in charge, either. Rather it's the case that I think we humans took a wrong turn somewhere; now we need to back up so we can take the right turn. I think we need to "unlearn" some of the wrong things we have learnt so that we can learn the right things the next time. You can tell me what you will about adulthood, I will listen. I am not against fitting into society and working in the system; I am not against conforming to conventions per se; what I am against is that many conventions that people are forced or expected to conform to are destructive and harmful and needlessly stifling.

OK, case. I get the tactic, overwhelm me with length would you!

I can't possibly respond to all that. If its not the medication, it can only be the rose tinted spectacles. Take them off!

Who said you lose your sense of wonder, sense of humour etc when you become an adult?

Why don't City kids get as much stimulation as a country kid? Its the children themselves, their psyche, and their parents, that governs whether or not they will be bored/stimulated by their environment.

Alright, you can see life as a game if you want to, but if you want to make a contribution (to the general good) you need to win.

'society will not accept the people that can make the biggest contribution to it' Precisely. To become an adult is to take your place in society and work to improve society. To remain an outsider (in child-like innoocence) is to reject society, and to shirk the reponsibility that you have to help make this a better place. Society will not accept outsiders so they cannot make a contribution.

Who is talking about endorsing beliefs you do not believe in? That is dishonest.

And please, don't talk about 'my kind of world'. Everyone has their own view of life and you cannot begin to stereotype me from a few witty (I hoped) epithets on a message board. That makes me cross!

(And hey, keep up the good work, but shorter, please!)

Okay, now I'm rested, so maybe I can make a bit more sense.

First of all, sorry for stereotyping you. I have no idea what kind of world you live in, that is true, so I can't make any categorical statements about it.

Okay, let's talk about the sense of wonder, sense of humour, and so on. Certainly people don't automatically lose those senses when they become adult. But some do - I suspect too many. A lifetime of working to earn money to pay bills leaving no time for anything else does take a toll. Many people grow stressed, grow old quickly, grow cynical, disillusioned and tired from such a regimen. Maybe in your part of the world this is not the case, maybe there people have more freedom. So tell me: how important do you think things like a sense of wonder, a sense of curiosity, sensitivity, an active imagination and a sense of humour ought to be in the life of an adult?

About cities: I would die if I had to live in a city. There is a difference to me between being surrounded by dead things and being surrounded by living things. The atmosphere of a city is different from the atmosphere of a forest. To me city air seems like poison. I think there are more unhappy people - proportionately - in cities than in areas that still have largely natural and undisturbed vegetation and ecosystems. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but it is a very strong intuition that I have. Maybe I'm wrong, cities differ among themselves and some are perhaps more inhabitable than others.

If you have to win to make a contribution to life, then life can only move backwards, because there will always be many more losers than winners; for one guy who wins and makes a positive contribution, there will be ten guys who lose and make a negative contribution.

Let me be clear about which system it is that I am against. I am against the current super-competitive capitalist system, the global market economy, the consumer society. Does that make me a communist? No. I am just as against communism. Why I am against the current form of capitalism is because as I said for every winner there are so many losers. And the losers don't just disappear - it's not like it's game over and everybody can go home. The First World countries have flourishing and strong economies and so totally dominate the world scene that there is no way that the Third World countries can ever catch up. We are told that we must be more productive, more competitive - but there is no way we can do that, there is no way we can compete while under the disadvantages that we're currently under - it is like a boxing match between Mike Tyson and a baby. We just grow deeper in debt, we are ravaged by wars and diseases and catastrophes - soon the only way out would be to sell ourselves as slaves to the West. Which is in fact basically what is happening already.

Many people have tried to accept this system and work within it, only to be chewed up and spat out by it. On a world-wide scale the system cannot work, because the earth has limited resources, in no way can economic growth carry on forever. Sometime there has to be a massive crash. I think the entire affair is exceedingly foolish and I think that in the end all parties will suffer massive losses.

About "society": there is not one single society in the world; the total community of humans are made up of many small societies, and many of them expect people to do ridiculous things to get accepted. Some societies will not accept someone of the wrong colour, others won't accept someone unless he/she subscribes to a particular belief system. In my society at the moment I am either the wrong colour or I subscribe to the wrong belief system, so I have to change the one or the other to get accepted. I can only manage to be tolerated by keeping a low profile.

Have you seen the movie "La Vita e Bella" (Life is Beautiful)? That is a movie about somebody with the kind of child-like attitude to life that I am talking about, who gets caught up in a senseless system and overcomes that system not by working within it, but by refusing to take it seriously. Many people liked that movie, so I am not quite alone in the kind of sentiments that I have.

I fear you will beat me here, through sheer volume, but I will try a few last punches... (Phoenix, come back and rescue me!)

Man is a social animal. There are those that argue that 'society' is the organism, not the individual. Man needs to interact with others, and to contribute to society. This is a basic need, and cannot be done from outside.

Work is not just about money. It is about interaction and contribution.

Cities can be places of wonder, and centres of excellence.

Before Radio, TV, the internet etc., we could only educate (at the highest level) entertain and govern collectively in Cities.

How can you lose your sense of wonder etc. etc.? See Grand Central Station in New York and wonder, see the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and wonder, see the Parthenon and wonder.

Arguments about Political Systems will have to wait for another time and place, but, as I said before, you cannot change the world from outside. You have to be in it, understand how society works etc etc before you, as an individual, can make a change. Mr Mandela (for example) was educated in a society, he knew how it worked, he was able to use that knowledge to effect change. He could not have done that had he been rejected as an outsider.

And yes, 'Life is Beautiful' is a wonderful film, as are many others. You can only make films in cities. (You need to collect the ideas, the skills, the people together in one place.

It might just be possible, in the distant future, using all the present and future technologies available, for man to live a rural idyll at the same time as taking responsibility for moving society forward, i.e. being an adult. You and I will be long gone by then.

Mr Pheroneous & Pillowcase

I am new to h2g2, but can I just say how much I have enjoyed your conversation.

Can I ask you both a question.

Is Nelson Mandela a child or an adult, and why?

Further to my last message, few thoughts.

Pheroneous
You regard adulthood as the "triumph of cynicism over ambition". I would put this slightly differently, as 'the triumph of scepticism over naivety'. Cynicism is destructive, scepticism healthy. Ambition does not die, it is naivety that should be put to rest. Your thoughts?

Pillowcase
"life is a miracle and filled with wonder". I agree, but I only fully realized this 2 years ago when my first child was born. It is also when I first regarded myself as an 'adult'. Your thoughts?

Good q, crusty. (I suspect) Mr Case would claim he is a 'child'. I, on the other hand, say he is an adult because he has taken on his responsibilities and worked within Society to change it.

I may be misunderstanding the points that our odd bedlinen type friend is making, as he does go on a bit and my attention span is not what it was! We shall see!

Now is the time for peace. I will stop being difficult.

Pheroneous, engage that attention span of yours just for a while longer. I'll try to be brief, but this conversastion has now become nice and complicated, just the way I like it. Of course you misunderstand me, because as I said I was deliberately being difficult! My approach to the "argumentation game" is to first confuse people a little and to scramble their brains a bit, so that thoughts and ideas can recombine in interesting new ways. I don't want to "win" any particular argument. My goal with argumentation is that all the parties, me included, can come to a new, better, CHANGED understanding of the matters.

Nelson Mandela, as I see it, is an adult who keeps the inner child alive. And I think that is what we must all strive for. I think there is a point where we become sexually adult, but there is no set point for emotional/intellectual adulthood. In fact, the second a person thinks "now I know what I have to know" he/she stops learning. But if a person keeps an attitude of being curious, being imaginative, being enthusiastic and perceptive - which qualities I call child-like - he/she can keep learning and growing throughout life, and stay emotionally young despite physical age.

About life being a "game": my attitude to games is that losing or winning is less important than the playing itself. I would love it if we could work out a system where everybody can win in some way. Not total egalitarianism, as that will not allow individualism. Something that balances the independence of the individual with the needs of the community. A game that never ends, that everybody can keep on playing and where the winners help the losers out to get them back into the game.

My opposition to "systems" and "society" is not an ABSOLUTE opposition. The thing is, there is no single system or society. The capitalist system against which I railed so vehemently in the last post can work, if it sees itself as being only an inferior part to a bigger system. Money should serve people, not people money. I am in favor of finding a system that will allow many different sub-systems to function in mutual balance and harmony. I always want to see the biggest possible picture. I want other people to see that, too. When they are so caught up in a single system that they cannot see anything else, then something is wrong. The system may not be wrong, but in such a case it has too much power over those people and they must be rescued from it. I sympathize with outsiders and I would like it if we can build new systems outside the old systems to accomodate them as well.

Similarly there is no single homogenous world-wide "society". Every country has its own society/societies; there are cultures and sub-cultures and many people belong to more than one "society" at the same time. I agree that man is a social animal. But man can also function quite well as an individual. It does happen that individuals find themselves unable to fit into the main societies of their worlds, in which case they have no choice but to go into a "fringe" existence. The way I see the world, there is a place for societies and a place for outsiders. Above "society" is the total community of human beings, and every person belongs to that by virtue of being human, irrespective of whether he/she conforms to the expectations of other humans or not. I am a nonconformist, but in many ways I conform superficially just to enable myself to be tolerated. Very much like getting a haircut. We're not that far away from each other's point of view, Pheroneous. It's just that I ALSO believe that every individual's life belongs to him/herself in the first instance, and society has no claim on that person's mind or soul. If a person judges a particular society to be bad, then that person has a moral right to dissociate him/herself from that society. It has happened many times in the past and it will happen again in the future.

Once again I would love it if people can always see the biggest picture. The big picture I see is of a world of people, animals and plants and inorganic stuff that is inextricably interconnected - there are groups or systems or continents of numerous individuals, but also islands of single individuals. But the whole is made up of all the different parts, big and small, nothing can ever be isolated from the whole. If human society itself understood this and adopted this view of itself, it will in fact function more efficiently. I think it is short-sighted to believe that people have to conform and fit into societies and systems. In my "big picture" they can still make a contribution from the "outside" because they are still "inside" an even bigger society. People must not identify too closely with small groups. I warn people against identifying too much with a particular country, a particular political or economic policy, or a particular religious ideology. Because to be human, to be alive, is to be in essence a part of a much BIGGER group. Not understanding that is what stifles people and enslaves their minds and souls.

Okay, I said my part. Now how about telling us more about adulthood as responsibility, and working inside a system to change it for the better, Pheroneous? You said it many times, now describe it in more detail.

Oh my! What an entertaining discussion and one I feel impelled to wade into (albeit with intense worries about my inadequacy to keep up with the debate).
I strongly agree with the 'adulthood as responsibility' idea. I wouldn't expect a child to have a well developed sense of responsibility for its own actions or the wellbeing of others. These two mindsets develop gradually with experience and independence, particularly the latter. I've often heard the comment made above about finally believing oneself to be an adult with the birth of one's first child, but the point of realisation may be arrived at by other routes too. For example when I first realised I was looking after my mother more than she was looking after me.
Most children will assume that if they make seious mistakes, their parents will be their to sort it out if it gets out of hand. As children mature into adults they begin to learn that they have to fix their own problems and understand the need to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This realisation extends into taking responsibility for others less capable, be it younger siblings, their own children or other members of society less able to take care of themselves.
And here we connect with the other point of working inside a system to initiate a change process. I'm not sure I've entirely decide on this one but I am moving towards the position that to take a stance outside a system and then attempt to change it is to avoid engaging with a difficult problematic social interaction. In this respect it could be described as avoiding taking responsibility for one's own actions within that system, (although it is difficult to conceive of anyone living completely outside of the society they wish to change) and therefore is consistent with my defined irresponsible nature of a child.
*hopes some of the above was coherent to TUMP and Pheroneous*

Mr 'Case, I think, as you said, that you and Pheroneous are probably closer in thought than you realise. I hope you have both had some new thoughts from your exchange, I certainly have, indeed I went home last night with this on my mind.

'Case, your last message expressed what I feel in that 'adult' is not opposed to 'child', but an extension of it. It is a case of balancing the two elements. The heart and the head must compliment each other, together they bring the powerful mix of imagination and critical thought.

To push this further, perhaps those 'childlike' outside of society, the idealists, are often in some sense the visionaries, or the imagination, of the greater society. And through time and reflection, their ideas are adapted, and filter into the general psyche. Jesus after all was an outsider (not that I am religious, or necessarily believe his influence as beneficial. It is just evidence to support my point). Environmentalism is another thing that springs to mind.

On a different, linguistic, tact. It is interesting to note the negative aspect of the word 'adulterated'. 'Tampered with' would be my synonym for it, the death of purity. Are we pure as children? You two have discussed this, and looking at my child, I really can't tell!My take on this is that while we all long for a pure simplicity, life just isn't like this. Liberty and Justice are complicated things. We have spent thousands of years debating them, and where have we got? Tampering with our existence is a necessity born of our sentience, this is the 'reality' the 'adult' comprehends. I apologise that this is a little vague, but it is early in the morning.

By the way, Mr Chicken, looking after your mother is I think the same route as mine in many ways. It is about selflessness, the loss of egocentricity, moving on from just the responsibility of looking after oneself, to the responsibilty of looking after others. It is when the self finally seeks to integrate into the whole(of its surrounding world). This is of course merely my personal experience, but it is a joyous one.