ES2207emblems

Week 3: The Object of the Child

Return to module outline.

Last updated 31.01.12.

Introduction

In the first week we looked at how complex it was to think about an autonomous ‘I’ (or a ‘subject’) as being separable from the world – language in particular exemplified this complication for us. Last week you saw an example of how children can be presented, alongside ideas for their education, community and social structure. Equally, Innocence also acts a comment on the way we constitute children in our culture. This is clear particularly where the film seems to portray children (or how they should be educated etc.) in a way contrary to the way we think about it.

It is doubtful that the director of Innocence is using the film as a means to express an educational philosophy, however, she has used the space of the film to think about childhood and how childhood as an object is malleable. Our ways of thinking about it can change which means that it can change. Innocence is interesting because it takes us right up to several margins of ‘innocence’ as a concept. ‘Innocence’, of course, being one of the main concepts we associate with childhood. What are words you would to define a child? What is a child to you? These are questions we will discuss in the session.

In ‘Toys’ Roland Barthes looks at the objects which objectify the child in French society. They take for granted what a child is and take for granted what is good for a child to play with. As we can read in the text, Barthes suggests that these toys simply ‘prefigure the world of adult functions’ and do not appeal to the spirit of invention. With these toys the children become ‘users’ not ‘creators’. Do you still think this is the case for toys today? Think through the kinds of toys which you played with as a child. Do these generally fall into either category? Can we perhaps find the inventive qualities in areas other than we might first think?

Take the example of Innocence. Are these children not more able to use their inventiveness and imaginations than those of our world? Are we not also forced to use our imaginations when we watch the film? The story is not obvious. The reasons for certain things that occur in the film (and the whole structure of the education) are not clear to us. Is this perhaps a slight transformation of the Rousseauian ideal? Or is it rather a perverted version of society in itself?

Remember the difference that was drawn upon for some of you in Theorising Early Childhood: is education there to help the child become who they are or who they are not? Or is it rather a negotiation between the two? Is it necessary to objectify the child to a certain extent so that they can better negotiate their place within society?

One of the questions that Barthes raising in ‘Myth Today’, the much longer essay in your reading pack, is that of myth as a factor in objectification. However, before we can talk about myth we must first look at signs; discerning the difference between signifier and signified. In the first week we looked at the ‘death of the author’ as a concept which allows us to think of existence and existents without falling into definitions of subjects. We are therefore left with subjective definitions of these subjects. Our imaginations and experience construct our ideas of other subjects. However, our experience and imaginations are guided by objects. For example, the reason why the death of the author is followed by the birth of the reader is because the object of the text guides our experience of it rather than some kind of extra-textual author figure. As such, the text is what we make of it.

But ‘what we make of it’ doesn’t mean we are excused from making sensible or logical judgements. Our own experience and the context of the sign play a big part in what it can mean to us.