Anthony Esolen writes about a theme park which prepares children to be adults.
“As a reporter from the New Yorker described it, “children can work on a car assembly line, or move furniture, or put out a fake fire with real water.” Through role playing in adult occupations, they earn a “salary” that can be “deposited in the central bank and accessed with a realistic-looking debit card” – after a “tax” of 20 percent is deducted. (Here is a fun way we teach them to pay tax,” says the company’s founder and CEO.) Their pretend money can be used to purchase goods and services at stores operated by very real corporate sponsors – Sony, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Domino’s Pizza, and many others. (The park offers “a good platform in terms of building brand loyalty,” another executive boasts.)" (Life Under Compulsion 16)
Esolen thinks we don’t know what children are anymore. They are just mini-adults and the sooner they learn the ways of adults the better:
“This theme park, unusual though it may be in its field, reflects an understanding of childhood that has become all too common. It is childhood as mere preparation for adulthood, and a dull, drab limited adulthood at that. Every year millions of parents take their children to this theme park, happily handing over the large admission fee, so that their children can…what? So they can take their position on an assembly line, or deliver packages, or prepare fast food, or make plastics, to earn enough to amass the latest consumer gadgets and pay their taxes to an unseen government overlord. Here we see a firm commitment to the tyranny of the useful. Consider: Children attending the theme park quickly learn that the less interesting the job, the more it pays. And the adult staffers end their conversations with children by saying, “Have a productive day.” (Life Under Compulsion, 16)
Esolen thinks the real purpose of education is to provide wings to learn about the wonders of love:
“To free oneself from the accumulated sludge of sin is to free oneself for the freedom of heart that is love. “He seeks his freedom,” says Virgil to Cato, the guardian of Purgatory, as he begs to allow Dante to climb the mountain. Virgil does not mean that Dante is looking for a democratic republic. He wishes for Dante to learn about sin, but more, to learn about the wonders of love. He wishes Dante to grow wings, so to speak. Without wings, you may say that you are free to fly, and say it all day long, but you will not get one foot off the ground.” (21)
A little further on, Esolen talks about these wings as though they were the ability to contemplate what is good and to act in accord with it.
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