"Sticks and stones"

Zipes, J. D. (2002). Sticks and stones : the troublesome success of children's literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter / Jack Zipes, Routledge.

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[Image reproduced from Google Books]

Zipes engagingly outlines his beliefs regarding the field of children’s literature, and, like many, voices concern about the impact of the current dominant culture, or “culture industry” as he refers to it, on American children. However, his concern is not with children’s moral development per se, but with their homogenisation. He believes that in a society led by market forces, in which people are modeled into commodities, "We do not know our desires. They are packaged for us and induced" (page xi).

Throughout the book, he outlines a tendency to create a cycle of expectation and disappointment – an addiction that requires the continual input of new and novel, but simultaneously predictable stimuli. Children learn not to have loyalty to any text but to continually crave the next and newest. And, because of the focus on consumerism, the aim is always to please and reward, never to challenge or confront. Children therefore do not learn to critically analyse or take on board new and challenging perspectives. They do not even learn the possibility of unresolved pain in a continually repeated formula of overcoming adversity with an invariably happy outcome.

The texts and pictures titillate children or reinforce certain formulaic patterns of thinking that reduce the possibility for the child to develop his or her own creative and critical talents. (p. 47)

This would appear to suggest the disturbing possibility that patterns of reading (with “reading” used as a broad term to incorporate the consumption of all forms of cultural texts  including television and games) can influence not only moral but intellectual and cognitive development. The homogenisation of children creates a creatively and intellectually impoverished society, lacking the ability to question itself.

But what is the significance of the homogenisation that is seen as so harmful? Does Zipes mean to refer only to commercialisation? For example, I have been told that in France, there are comparatively few dedicated children’s books, because children are taught to read from a combination of functional language examples (such as every day signs and instructions) and classical French works. The preservation of French culture and a strong French identity based on the culture’s great works is considered to be very important, and children are raised firmly within a strong classical heritage. More modern works, such as Tin Tin, are quite rare, and must earn their place of pride within the culture before they may be used in the acculturation and education of children. Similarly, in the US about which Zipes writes, I understand that free public education was not originally under consideration, but the government was swayed by the desirability of educating all children in the essential values of US citizenship. And what are traditions, morals and spiritual values but shared understandings of and accepted meanings about the world? Is the “culture industry’s” homogenisation of children somehow essentially different from any other form of educational development, based on the idea of what a child is, or is it merely a different and, to Zipes, less desirable form of homogenisation?

A question is raised by Zipes about the validity of the concept of “children’s literature” in an environment in which most “children’s” books are bought and read by adults with an interest in shaping children’s lives (including literature students, teachers, librarians and parents). Zipes points to historical differences in the concept of the child and depicts a society attempting to construct the child according to its own interests and needs:

'children' and 'childhood' are social constructs that have been determined by socioeconomic conditions and have different meanings for different cultures (p. 40)

I therefore actively sought evidence of how Zipes would construct his child and what he would put in place of the current culture industry. Given his concern with homogenisation, he appears to believe that “the child” does in fact exist as an entity, despite the concept’s transient constructedness, and that s/he can be manipulated at some level. However, tantalisingly, his beliefs about what would be beneficial for child development appear to be largely absent. He does make reference to the importance of the ability to critically analyse, and also to the importance of developing independent creativity and spirituality. These two words, creativity and spirituality, appear to be linked, but Zipes does not elaborate on what he means by either term, or in what way they may be associated. I can therefore only speculate about whether they are meant to be seen as working in combination, such that the development of a moral and spiritual outlook are necessarily associated with the ability to critically appraise and take on board creative independence, free of conformity to mass values.

I am equally curious about the level to which Zipes feels that children can be manipulated, and here I find apparent ambivalence: "there is no longer great faith in the power of children's literature to strengthen the moral character of our children" (p. 158).

And yet, from the preface onwards it is clear that he believes that people at all levels of society are not immune to the culture industry and that we have only a fantasy of freedom, not even truly knowing our own desires (though presumably some level of awareness must be possible or Zipes would not be able to recognise the problem). He forcefully states:

We seek to improve our children's lives by getting rid of moral sewers and by constructing purification systems that confine them. We do not realise how much our purification systems actually produce the waste and turpitude that we complain about. (p. xii)

He postulates two poles of thinking about children, one in which children are passive victims, and one in which they are creative and active agents, creatively recognising and manipulating the constructed rules within which they operate. Zipes places himself in the middle ground, in which children are active players in an environment shaped by powerful adults, and over which they have at best limited control:

Children see and recognize very early how we are indoctrinating them… it is a good sign that the children… recognize the cultural homogenization with which they are confronted. The difficulty is that they will not be able to resist the constant pressure to conform to market demands and to retain their critical and creative perspectives if we ourselves do not keep alive alternatives and change our daily cultural practices. (p. 22)

This creates an image or definition of the child seen in relation to the adult, with the child in the position of relative powerlessness. And yet, since Zipes has already said that “We do not know our own desires” and “We do not realise how much our purification systems actually produce the waste…” the level of adult power and autonomy has already been placed in question. A picture is thus created of the powerless leading the powerless, with the impersonal “system” in the position of control.

The ambivalent, middle ground position is reinforced in the following statement:

Anyone who has worked with children knows that it is practically impossible to make children conform completely to standards and regulations that will determine their behavior as adults. On the other hand, we do know from fascist and totalitarian societies that governments, business, educational institutions, and religious groups can have a profound effect on the belief systems and comportment of children. (p. 20)

This appears to be the glimmer of hope already suggested by the fact that Zipes has awareness of society’s lack of awareness of its own desires. The system is powerful, but not completely so. The child’s limited ability to manipulate his / her own environment is sufficient to prevent even totalitarian regimes from achieving entirely predictable outcomes. Zipes appears to be depicting the production of analytically challenged or “disabled” adults; adults with a certain limited degree of freedom of thought and expression. The disability can be reduced or even eliminated by the removal of the restrictive boundaries. But what would Zipes put in their place?

That text is of extreme importance to Zipes does not appear to be in doubt:

it is through the writing down of experiences and mental representations that the writer endows life with meaning within the codes and symbolic referential framework of a culture and language… (p. 43)

And from Karl Kroeber, who describes narrative as an almost independent and corrupting force:

No one can dispute that narrative has been the primary means by which most societies have defined themselves. On the other hand, narrative is also the primary means by which sociocultural boundaries could be crossed, not transgressively, but unobtrusively. Stories are like plant species that move readily but unobtrusively over surprising obstacles, including vast spaces of time and space, quietly adjusting to foreign environments, and then changing those environments. (quoted p. 108)

But Zipes also quotes a story by Herman Hesse in which a young boy succeeds in penetrating the lies and deceit by which the village priest binds his people, and achieves freedom. A battle is fought between text and individual, with the text holding the strongest hand, but the individual, if s/he can recognise it, holding the wild card.

I find myself delighted by the book’s apparent contradictions and questions as represented in the following statement:

If our young are to have a chance to ground their lives in any kind of tradition, then they must learn hopeful skepticism, how to play creatively with the forces dictating how they're to shape their lives, and how to use storytelling to reshape those conditions that foster sham and hypocrisy" (p. 145)

Presumably, in the process of creative play, one of the forces against which they will have to struggle will be the very “tradition” in which Zipes apparently feels they should be grounded?