You Little Beasts

I had a good, quiet winter break nestling in the warmth of my 40 inch plasma hearth. Apparently my father now wants to switch to blu-ray, which necessitates the purchase of blu-ray movies to replace the DVDs. In other words, we're single handedly staving off the recession for the time being.

I did get out, though, and with my family saw a production of The Turn of the Screw at the Writer's Theatre in Glencoe. The production, severely economized to two actors playing about five roles, was all in all a great success. However, the few devices developed by writer Jeffrey Hatcher, such as a lockett discovered by the governess that almost conclusively rules out the possibility of actual ghosts, felt cheap and unnecessary. These quibbles notwithstanding, the great question of the work was vividly brought to life: What are children, morally speaking? The governess's great fault is that she has an overly romanticized and unreflective notion of the nature of children; either they are beautiful, good, and pure, or evil, possessed by spirits, etc. The possibility that they are neither good nor evil, but simply ignorant of the full meaning of their actions, never occurs to her. The Writer Theatre's rendition seems to suggest this. But I think James left the question open whether children are capable of evil, or to what extent they should be held accountable for their actions. I'm not sure where I stand.

Rousseau said that to reason with a child about moral matters was fruitless, that all you can do is strictly forbid something and you shouldn't bother to try to make them understand the grounds of this prohibition. Morality only comes with reason. Rousseau wouldn't say this, but if children are incapable of moral reasoning, is something like corporeal punishment the only way to teach them right from wrong? What do people think about corporeal punishment for children? I'm not sure what I think. Children will remain a moral mystery, I think.