Another good column from John Hawkins:
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”
~ Thomas Sowell
We like to think of children as innocent little angels. Of course, that’s only true in the sense that there aren’t any three year olds who’ve stabbed their cousins to death for drug money or set up a stock swindle designed to bilk senior citizens out of their life savings. Children are not naturally good. To the contrary, they begin their lives as selfish, completely self-absorbed little savages whose entire world revolves around meeting their own needs regardless of who else it impacts. How else could they be when they’re too small to take care of themselves and don’t have any concept of how their demands affect people around them?
The values a society imparts to children while it’s civilizing them have a great deal to do with how functional that society will be when those kids grow up.
