Reply #4: Nature and Madness [View All]

a classic. Thanks for the reminder. Exactly what I thought of when I came across this article.

"The history of Western man has been a progressive peeling back of the psyche, as if the earliest agriculture may have addressed itself to extenuation of adolescent concerns while the most modern era seeks to evoke in society at large some of the fixations of early natality rationalized, symbolized, and disguised as need be. The individual growth curve, as described by Bruno Bettelheim, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and others, is a biological heritage of the deep past. It is everyman's tree of life, now pruned by civic gardeners as the outer branches and twigs become incompatible with the landscaped order. The reader may extend that metaphor as he wishes, but I shall move to an animal image to suggest that the only society more frightful than one run by children, as in Golding's Lord of the Flies, might be one run by childish adults." 
Paul Shepard, Nature and Madness

The last line here has stayed with me through the years and it has become increasingly evident that we are experiencing that "one run by childish adults". And they are vicious