The Literature to Which We Feed Our Children
It’s no surprise that Shakespeare, among others, is required reading for school-aged children. His works, like many in the standard curriculum, help to cultivate an abysmal view of human nature and a bleak, if not depraved, outlook on life and relationships.
I recall being subjected to many such manuscripts: A Separate Peace, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Bridge to Terabithia. The list is long and monotonously grim.
Of course, we’re told the literary value of these works is beyond reproach (this, of course, is folly). In truth, these texts function as precursors to mind control, a form of cultural grooming that erodes trust in institutions, glorifies rebellion without cause, and aestheticizes despair, all without offering meaningful counterexamples. They condition students for resignation, not resilience.
Are we to believe that among the full repertoire of human thought and endeavor, there exists not a single uplifting tome that exalts man or, at the very least, illuminates his virtues? Or are we merely deprived of those, lest we be forced to seek them out ourselves?
The Bible casts us as sinners, and modern literature as hedonistic, disloyal, vengeful, and avaricious. Is this art imitating life, or do we have it the wrong way round. Is there respite for the human spirit which can still be found. A place in which to shelter from this brooding storm?
It’s not that the literary canon lacks morally exalting or redemptive works, only the school syllabus does. When every assigned book delivers the same lesson; trust no one, the world is cruel, human bonds are fragile or doomed, is it any surprise that students begin to internalize this worldview, even if they don’t consciously subscribe to it?
Is it so incredulous to speculate, that once internalized, this worldview inevitably becomes self-fulfilling. Is it not to be expected that the outer world would begin to mirror the inner desolation, that it would take on the disjointed sum of its disaffected parts. A sort of existential Frankenstein’s monster.
Take Catcher in the Rye. It has become a cultural cipher for alienation masquerading as insight. Holden Caulfield is not simply misunderstood, he is canonized because of his disaffection. That canonization likely serves to validate the very nihilism that drives certain individuals to extremes. It’s no surprise the book has become fetishized by the alienated and disturbed.
The situation is exacerbated because disaffection is a hallmark of adolescence, a natural byproduct of youth seeking identity and purpose. These books, rather than guiding that passage, hijack the coming of age. They co-opt angst and recast it as identity.
When every literary touchstone reinforces isolation, absurdity, and moral failure, is it any wonder that readers emerge from adolescence adrift in existential malaise that shadows them into adulthood?
This translates into behaviors and interactions that transform the world outside into a reflection of the disturbed mind within. Even Stephen King, one of horror’s most prolific writers, pulled his book Rage from circulation - citing moral hazard. The book featured a character not unlike Holden Caulfield in many respects.
Alas, the real lesson is clear, why risk teaching students that humans are capable of nobility, cooperation, and genuine care when the goal is to produce a populace that doesn’t expect or demand those qualities from their leaders, their institutions or themselves? Why educate a population on the nobility of man if they are being bred for servitude. Why teach them about honor, dignity, self-reliance and duty when their fate is to bare the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in quiet desperation.
“Grim” fairytales indeed…