Tuesday, September 1, A.D. 2009

Medicated Boys as Descented Skunks

The number of American boys who are medicated for behavioral or “learning disability” reasons is astonishing. Has it not occurred to our establishment leaders that something is seriously wrong when we consider a huge slice of the adolescent population to be in need of behavior altering drugs? Perhaps, there is something foul in the air (or water) that is creating such a disturbing situation. More likely, we are forcing square pegs into round holes in our contemporary pedagogy. If a large minority of boys does not conform to the current system, perhaps it is the system that needs fixed.

I do not know what the causes of the current problems are, but I think that Christina Hoff Sommers might have discovered some relevant issues. Broken, fatherless homes, a breakdown of traditional discipline, an educational system geared toward teaching passive students (and one that has been largely oriented toward girls’ learning over the last several decades), video games, and a society wide reflex to solve “problems” (of inconvenience) through medication are possible contributing causes.

Boys are problematic in a society that takes not its cues from nature but from prevailing pseudo-philosophical fads. So, if you have a boy who is not responding according to your wishes in the unnatural environment in which you have placed him, our society counsels you to alter the boy—through drugs. How Cartesian! Technology is called upon to reinvent nature when nature runs against our wishes.

The American response to boyhood reminds me of folks who want exotic pets but who do not want what such pets entail. Think about obnoxious folks who want a skunk but who do not want the skunk to be a skunk. Thus, they have the skunk “operated on” (“fixed”) so that the skunk conforms to their desires. Never does it occur to such people that perhaps their desires are at fault.

No, our pampered Cartesians have no higher authority than their passing fancies. Nature be damned.

Our poor boys are getting “fixed,” all right. What happens to a society, though, when all of its men were castrated as children?

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, September 1, Anno Domini 2009
Philosophy | Anthropology • (0) Comments