Tom Bell: Children’s fiction often promotes credulity as a virtue. Consider, for instance, the admonitions in Disney’s Peter Pan, in Elf, or in The Neverending Story. These and many other works teach our children, "Just believe!" Children’s fiction employs this trope so often that it fits a formula. A wise character tries to convince the protagonist that something wonderful will happen if only he or she will earnestly believe an improbability. … Why does this theme occur so often in children’s fiction? … Perhaps religious and political leaders, among others, would like to see youth raised to believe without question. … I propose a different, less conspiratorial cause. I suspect that children’s fiction so often promotes gullibility as a virtue because those who author such works know, at some level, that they rely on children’s gullibility.
The content of fiction is largely market-driven - especially if we limit ourselves to looking at fiction that has already been filtered out by market success. Thus we might expect that the reason a lot of fiction promotes credulity, is that children want to believe. They are not the only ones who want to believe. Religions are popular among adults.
Maybe exhorting children is compulsive behavior for adults, and "Believe!" seems innocuous enough that it can be thrown into stories that don't actually have a moral point.
Afaik, Hans Christian Anderson's stories don't have "Believe!" in them, and I suspect exhortions to believe is a relatively modern thing, possibly a side effect of religious tolerance. There's still a background belief that religion is a good thing, while it wouldn't be welcome to promote any particular religion to a general audience.
Perhaps kids do not have to be dumb to believe in fairy tales. Most kids learn that their fairy world is not true when they grow older. Ever thought, that it is actually a good exercise to think and explore the impossible. Problem is, if kids (and adults) get stuck in fairy tale worlds. Good thing is, because of this some people might want to discover new things, and by not believing that things are impossible even extend boundaries of current knowledge and systems. Without fairy tales no AI and no talk about singularity! Kids who loved and indulged in the fantasy worlds of books and films might become story tellers and filmmakers, other artists, explores, scientists and sometimes (unfortunately) religious leaders.
Perhaps the meme is popular as it makes the dumber kids feel better, it allows them to deal with the situation where a smarter kids say something is impossible, that they want to believe in, for example Santa or fairies. On the other hand, perhaps it is a valuable caution along the lines of Burkean conservatism: the stock of reason is limited, and you should be humble about what you can know, better to accept traditional thought as your guide rather than reason.
"Um, how often, exactly? What percentage of children's stories promote scepticism (e.g. don't trust what the wicked witch/nice old lady says) as a virtue instead?"
often enough that if I gave you this line "...but it IS true Timmy, all you have to do is believe..." you will instantly recognise the line from scores of movies.
Are we perhaps overlooking a simpler explanation rooted in the mechanics of story-telling?
Perhaps this trope has proved useful in telling stories to kids who haven't quite learned how to suspend disbelief yet. It also might function as a means of introducing a fantasy situation or making a fantasy situation more plausible by explaining it as something only available to believers.
I really think this may be a case overthinking the "problem". Kids dig fantasy. They WANT to believe in magic and whatnot. Their parents buy them books they like, the market does the rest.
On a related note, Scooby Doo was a great example of a children's program that promoted skepticism. Not only was there always a rational explanation for for supposedly supernatural events, but the person "behind the curtain" always had a rational reason to scare people away from the haunted house or whatever.
Psy, I have seen most of it. I should note my kids love the movie, but I doubt they come away from it with the idea that being gullible is a virtue. Such an interpretation is, in my estimation, a stretch of the presentation and only successful viewed out-of-context.
So here's an interesting question: if you find yourself on an impossible train to Santa-land populated by ghosts and faeries, what do you believe?
Drive yourself crazy reasoning that it can't be happening because it breaks "the rules", or test the parameters of the situation despite them conflicting with your previously established beliefs?
The author would be better off examining the book The Neverending Story rather than the movie The NeverEnding Story.
Even in the movie, the point was that the protagonist should have taken his dreams seriously, rather than regarding his imagination as a frivolous waste of time, as everyone urged him to.
There is a real concern, here. Far too many people seem to associate being gullible with a sense of wonder and awe. But the concern is not well-supported in those articles.
"Children's fiction often promotes credulity as a virtue."
Um, how often, exactly? What percentage of children's stories promote scepticism (e.g. don't trust what the wicked witch/nice old lady says) as a virtue instead? And what percentage of children's stories assume that children will trust their own eyes and ears? (i.e. if they happen to meet a gryphon in their backyard, they'll believe in it, but a gryphon in a story is just made up.)
The three well-known examples Tom Bell quotes don't convince me that children's fiction is overrun with this credulity stuff. How about some hard facts on what's really out there?
'What does marvel have to do with credulity?', as indicated, not much. Eliezer seems to think that these archaic tales are designed to teach our dear babes to be credulous, I believe they are designed to keep alive the flame of the marveloous, or of wonder.The injunction to 'believe in fairies' thus becomes an injunction to resist the 'disenchantment' of life and to keep alive the sense of wonder.I'm sure the Reverend Bayes would, one way or another, agree.
Evolutionary psychology explains why people who seem innocent and trusting will gain better allies. But is it plausible to believe that parents consciously rely on the teachings of evolutionary psychology in deciding how to raise their children?They don't know what they're doing, it's just evolutionarily advantageous for them to do it and so they do.
It seems like a perfectly sensible way of describing things. One can have false motives and true motives, and we usually use "real" to mean the true motives. Would you prefer they talked about one's true motives as opposed to their false motives?
"Simple but horrifying explanation: The scriptwriters honestly think that credulity is a virtue."Eliezer's comment is particularly unhelpful, he seems to have forgotten that the sense of the marvellous is not synonymous with simple credulity, and that these tales did not originate with Hollywood scriptwriters.An eternal life of rationality without the marvellous ? That indeed would be - Hell.
The content of fiction is largely market-driven - especially if we limit ourselves to looking at fiction that has already been filtered out by market success. Thus we might expect that the reason a lot of fiction promotes credulity, is that children want to believe. They are not the only ones who want to believe. Religions are popular among adults.
Maybe exhorting children is compulsive behavior for adults, and "Believe!" seems innocuous enough that it can be thrown into stories that don't actually have a moral point.
Afaik, Hans Christian Anderson's stories don't have "Believe!" in them, and I suspect exhortions to believe is a relatively modern thing, possibly a side effect of religious tolerance. There's still a background belief that religion is a good thing, while it wouldn't be welcome to promote any particular religion to a general audience.
Perhaps kids do not have to be dumb to believe in fairy tales. Most kids learn that their fairy world is not true when they grow older. Ever thought, that it is actually a good exercise to think and explore the impossible. Problem is, if kids (and adults) get stuck in fairy tale worlds. Good thing is, because of this some people might want to discover new things, and by not believing that things are impossible even extend boundaries of current knowledge and systems. Without fairy tales no AI and no talk about singularity! Kids who loved and indulged in the fantasy worlds of books and films might become story tellers and filmmakers, other artists, explores, scientists and sometimes (unfortunately) religious leaders.
Perhaps the meme is popular as it makes the dumber kids feel better, it allows them to deal with the situation where a smarter kids say something is impossible, that they want to believe in, for example Santa or fairies. On the other hand, perhaps it is a valuable caution along the lines of Burkean conservatism: the stock of reason is limited, and you should be humble about what you can know, better to accept traditional thought as your guide rather than reason.
"Um, how often, exactly? What percentage of children's stories promote scepticism (e.g. don't trust what the wicked witch/nice old lady says) as a virtue instead?"
often enough that if I gave you this line "...but it IS true Timmy, all you have to do is believe..." you will instantly recognise the line from scores of movies.
Are we perhaps overlooking a simpler explanation rooted in the mechanics of story-telling?
Perhaps this trope has proved useful in telling stories to kids who haven't quite learned how to suspend disbelief yet. It also might function as a means of introducing a fantasy situation or making a fantasy situation more plausible by explaining it as something only available to believers.
I really think this may be a case overthinking the "problem". Kids dig fantasy. They WANT to believe in magic and whatnot. Their parents buy them books they like, the market does the rest.
On a related note, Scooby Doo was a great example of a children's program that promoted skepticism. Not only was there always a rational explanation for for supposedly supernatural events, but the person "behind the curtain" always had a rational reason to scare people away from the haunted house or whatever.
Psy, I have seen most of it. I should note my kids love the movie, but I doubt they come away from it with the idea that being gullible is a virtue. Such an interpretation is, in my estimation, a stretch of the presentation and only successful viewed out-of-context.
So here's an interesting question: if you find yourself on an impossible train to Santa-land populated by ghosts and faeries, what do you believe?
Drive yourself crazy reasoning that it can't be happening because it breaks "the rules", or test the parameters of the situation despite them conflicting with your previously established beliefs?
The author would be better off examining the book The Neverending Story rather than the movie The NeverEnding Story.
Even in the movie, the point was that the protagonist should have taken his dreams seriously, rather than regarding his imagination as a frivolous waste of time, as everyone urged him to.
There is a real concern, here. Far too many people seem to associate being gullible with a sense of wonder and awe. But the concern is not well-supported in those articles.
"Children's fiction often promotes credulity as a virtue."
Um, how often, exactly? What percentage of children's stories promote scepticism (e.g. don't trust what the wicked witch/nice old lady says) as a virtue instead? And what percentage of children's stories assume that children will trust their own eyes and ears? (i.e. if they happen to meet a gryphon in their backyard, they'll believe in it, but a gryphon in a story is just made up.)
The three well-known examples Tom Bell quotes don't convince me that children's fiction is overrun with this credulity stuff. How about some hard facts on what's really out there?
'What does marvel have to do with credulity?', as indicated, not much. Eliezer seems to think that these archaic tales are designed to teach our dear babes to be credulous, I believe they are designed to keep alive the flame of the marveloous, or of wonder.The injunction to 'believe in fairies' thus becomes an injunction to resist the 'disenchantment' of life and to keep alive the sense of wonder.I'm sure the Reverend Bayes would, one way or another, agree.
Ah, wrong post.
Evolutionary psychology explains why people who seem innocent and trusting will gain better allies. But is it plausible to believe that parents consciously rely on the teachings of evolutionary psychology in deciding how to raise their children?They don't know what they're doing, it's just evolutionarily advantageous for them to do it and so they do.
It seems like a perfectly sensible way of describing things. One can have false motives and true motives, and we usually use "real" to mean the true motives. Would you prefer they talked about one's true motives as opposed to their false motives?
I'm confused. What does marvel have to do with credulity?
"Simple but horrifying explanation: The scriptwriters honestly think that credulity is a virtue."Eliezer's comment is particularly unhelpful, he seems to have forgotten that the sense of the marvellous is not synonymous with simple credulity, and that these tales did not originate with Hollywood scriptwriters.An eternal life of rationality without the marvellous ? That indeed would be - Hell.