I think I understand what Paul means. The world being a brutal place can be distracting. One might get caught up in the “brutality” because of his lousy judgment and live for things that dont really make any difference(pleasure of the moment over what’s best). Learning that the world is a brutal place means you start participating in the brutality. On top of that learning would probably just make one better at playing the brutality game. So then knowledge becomes a play thing to lousy judgement and a new way to play the brutality game. Once your in that game your biased by default (hence less openminded). So you interpret the world for your game. This assumes no one stays innocent, which goes without saying I think.

Everybody pursues pleasure without exception. Following each individual pleasure doesnt really order your life for success. If one could remain innocent maybe he could pursue “learning” without henderance. Alas no will remain innocent. Sooner or later seeing the world as it is would be of benefit and might help you avoid some brutality. Perhaps a mixture of protection from, and a proper dose of the world could help a child get his pleasures prioritized? If learning was the a greater pleasure then nothing would discourage the pursuit of knowledge.

So we should avoid giving information in a manner and amount that leads to undesired effects? Thank you O Wise Benefactor for sharing that vital information with us!

Further Comment: Have you ever studied Communications? The difference between “what the sender intended to send, and what the Recceiver actually heard” is called the “Arc of distortion.”…

I believe that is what you and I have here. We are talking about developing children. So would you say that too much candy i.e. eating candy for every meal is appropriate? How about too much pornography or no pornography at all? Too much history and not enough science. Too much Math, and not enough language arts skills. These are basic examples and to put it into the terms of the article…too much information about the negative, moving away, reactive concept of the “world is a brutal place”, or too much “you can do anything that you want in our world without restrictions” would be wrong too. I think that is why we have and even animals have “parents”, and in the case of Humans, we have a whole bunch of significant othersm, that make up our “circle of infulence” that helps us to shape our own perceptions of who we are ane what we are capable of. Is the glass half full, or is it half empty. Do you answer the phone because it rings? Or do you answer it becasue you want to know who is calling? Hope this explains my position better.

More importantly, what are they learning, and is what they are learning true? If you allow them to learn some facts, but prevent them from discovering others, they may end up with a very dangerous view of the world.

Children might cross the road more adventurously if we prevented them from finding out that oncoming cars can be dangerous. Perhaps they would learn more in total. But it is hard to believe that they would be well served by their ignorance of this danger.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080319151225.htm

And of course there are (subjective but real) benefits to so-called early debuts. Raise your hand if you really remember what it was like to be a celibate teenager.

You could reformulate it: “The world is a brutal place … to people who are ignorant to the fact that the world is a brutal place … to people who are ….”

All I have to do is look back on my experience in school and wonder what had happened if someone had advised me on how to deal better with mean people without becoming one myself. This would have been much more useful than learning to perceive of myself as a victim and them as moral defectives. Sanctimony is not just useless, it is harmful.

Do early debuts have any benefits?

But there’s more to it than that. The reason our hypothetical jaded 10 year old bothers me so much is not just that he’d be annoying, but that he’d have cut off his prospects for growth so early. To be jaded you have to think you know how the world works, and any theory a 10 year old had about that would probably be a pretty narrow one.

For related psychological research, see:
- Attachment theory, which says that well-adjusted little kids can use their good relationship with a caregiver as a secure “base” from which to set out and explore the environment (while kids with an anxious attachment style explore less)
- Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build theory, which says that positive emotions broaden a person’s attention and behavioral repertoire, helping them build strengths like creativity, resilience, and social connections (while negative emotions have a narrowing effect)

“Does innocence promote learning?” could be phrased as a testable empirical question. But even if we had evidence that innocence does promote learning, we should be clear on whether it’s promoting the right amount of learning, or an irrationally high investment in learning (or whatever other behavior we’re trying to promote).