Dead Poets Society is not taking children seriously

Dead Poets Society is not taking children seriously. Taking children seriously is not just being a bit kinder to the inmates, or being a tiny bit rebellious against an authoritarian system you nevertheless continue to work in, it is a different thing entirely. It is about children actually being free.

The importance of video games

Videogame players are learning not just knowledge of the overt subject-matter of the game, but inexplicit knowledge that applies in all creativity in the world. In a way, they are (mainly inexplicitly) learning how the universe works.

In defence of television soap operas

What children learn from soap operas is how to live in our culture. Parents naturally want their children to rise above the culture – to reject its false ideas, if you like – but to do that, one has to start from the culture one is in, and improve it. There is no way of jumping to a better set of ideas without first criticising the existing ideas. The growth of knowledge begins with existing theories.

Common emotional blackmail

Why some children run away, but others do not. Using love as leverage to double-bind children to obey – threatening to withdraw the relationship – is wrong. Children have a right to our love.