Thanks for that. Very refreshing. For decades I thought "I am special and I have an awesome world changing destiny" was the pinnacle of Christian thought. Never mind the Saints and Martyrs. Never mind the problematic things Christ actually said.
I think when we are functioning within the hierarchy in a healthy way we do move in and out of moments of "specialness" - a wedding, a birth, the Eucharist, death...etc. But these are in the context of a community - a body. And they are experienced through participating in that community, not "changing the world".
That’s a great point - those moments of specialness are always integrated within something larger than oneself. I’ll have to refer back to that idea when I untangle the idea of sentimental humanitarianism from authentic Christianity in a future post.
Thank you for this post, Emily. My wife and I were also struck by that concluding picture from Yamada's book. We are currently reading Matthieu Pageau's "Language of Creation", and what immediately stood out to us is that the boy, crowned by his idea, is shown next to (trampling on?) a tree and a clock. According to the symbolic paradigm outlined by Pageau, these are perennial symbols of the dual axes of time and space. And these, in traditional thought, are forces in constant conflict with each other. The only one who can rule over these two forces and hold them in their proper balance is God. And so, that final picture is shocking, for the claim is not just will to any garden-variety power, but that the boy has become like God, mediating between irreconcilable forces, crowned king of time and space. This book is the snake's story, and is just new clothes on a very old lie.
Wow, I’ll have to update my review! It’s worse than I thought. Also, I’m going to get a copy of this book you mention. I just checked it out on Amazon and it looks wonderful. I had not heard of that one before, thank you.
I highly recommend it. It has led to a lot of fascinating conversations around our house in the evenings.
As I've thought more about the symbolism of the illustrations you included in your review, there was one other thing that stood out. This is explained in much more detail in Pageau's book, but one of the most significant recurring patterns in the world is the union of heaven and earth (or abstract idea and concrete matter, thought and word, etc.) which results in new life. The fullest expression of this is the Incarnation, but it exists at the microcosmic, personal level of male and female, with the male as symbolic of the abstract idea and the female of concrete embodiment. With that being said, it's significant that the illustrator chose an egg (a symbol of the feminine) as the pictorial representation of the Idea. It seemed symbolically jumbled to me until I realized, as you pointed out in your review, that the whole point of the book is individual self-sufficiency. In these illustrations, the boy, alone, sufficiently contains both the abstract and the concrete, the masculine and feminine geniuses, necessary to bring new life into the world. He does not require the help or participation of anyone else in order to renew the face of the earth. Both inception and conception, progeneration and gestation, take place within him.
If we take this idea out further, we can begin to see the major tenants of current feminist and manosphere thought: that male and female alike both find the fullness of their identity in isolation, and that their union produces, not new life, but rather new limits and headaches. And, as a seed looks completely unlike the plant which springs from it, so this book looks nothing like an Andrew Tate diatribe or a radical feminist TikTok post. But, as Christ reminds us, as we sow, so shall we reap. Rousseau and this book are the seed and the chaos of societal relations at the present moment seem to be the harvest.
I'm not sure if it was conscious or unconscious, but Yamada illustrates the romantic heresy to a tee in this book. The symbolism seems to go deeper than I appreciated.
Thank you for writing your articles. I have subscribed to your newsletter because we have a lot of similar thinking on the subject of inferior children's literature. I have frequently made a living as a short-term nanny or part-time sitter for multiple households, and so I have had quite a lot of firsthand experience seeing this sad lack on the children's bookshelves.
I would like to add that I think it is lovely and good to teach children to think of themselves as beautiful unique snowflakes, in that we are each beloved by God and irreplaceable; we are special to Him in this way. I think when you wrote "youngsters to believe that they are each and every one a beautiful snowflake who will, without any special effort, change the world" we could simply redact the last part (everything after the first comma) and it would be a perfectly nice sentiment. Maybe someone ought to write up some new stories, about children being happy and content with their families and living their ordinary lives, perhaps with some anti-grumpy-bird messages thrown in (ie, grumpy bird was so grumpy that no one wanted to be around him, but then he figured out how to be nicer and then everyone was willing to forgive him and be friends with the improved character) or something like that. I think, to teach this sort of thing well, it is helpful to focus on the specialness of other people (I think Mr. Rogers might do this nicely, but I would be interested in your thoughts on the matter).
What you say about Rousseau is also very interesting to me. I have studied Rousseau a bit in college and believe he was thoroughly insane, but you point out the seriousness of its effect.
I also would be curious about your thoughts on the current mental health crisis. You mentioned it off-hand in your article. Have you written about this before anywhere that I could read?
Thanks for your comment, Violet. I've heard that Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street represent two different types of imagination, and that the former is much better than the latter, but I have not sat down to study those! You may be on to something. As far as the mental health crisis, I did publish something in the Wall Street Journal recently and put up a link to it here on my substack newsletter: https://efinley.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-young-people-are. In essence, I argue that we ought to be looking to the romantic imagination for one of the major causes behind the rampant anxiety and depression in young people. I think that understanding the romantic/moral imagination dichotomy is key to understanding the modern age.
Thanks for that. Very refreshing. For decades I thought "I am special and I have an awesome world changing destiny" was the pinnacle of Christian thought. Never mind the Saints and Martyrs. Never mind the problematic things Christ actually said.
I think when we are functioning within the hierarchy in a healthy way we do move in and out of moments of "specialness" - a wedding, a birth, the Eucharist, death...etc. But these are in the context of a community - a body. And they are experienced through participating in that community, not "changing the world".
That’s a great point - those moments of specialness are always integrated within something larger than oneself. I’ll have to refer back to that idea when I untangle the idea of sentimental humanitarianism from authentic Christianity in a future post.
Thank you for this post, Emily. My wife and I were also struck by that concluding picture from Yamada's book. We are currently reading Matthieu Pageau's "Language of Creation", and what immediately stood out to us is that the boy, crowned by his idea, is shown next to (trampling on?) a tree and a clock. According to the symbolic paradigm outlined by Pageau, these are perennial symbols of the dual axes of time and space. And these, in traditional thought, are forces in constant conflict with each other. The only one who can rule over these two forces and hold them in their proper balance is God. And so, that final picture is shocking, for the claim is not just will to any garden-variety power, but that the boy has become like God, mediating between irreconcilable forces, crowned king of time and space. This book is the snake's story, and is just new clothes on a very old lie.
Wow, I’ll have to update my review! It’s worse than I thought. Also, I’m going to get a copy of this book you mention. I just checked it out on Amazon and it looks wonderful. I had not heard of that one before, thank you.
I highly recommend it. It has led to a lot of fascinating conversations around our house in the evenings.
As I've thought more about the symbolism of the illustrations you included in your review, there was one other thing that stood out. This is explained in much more detail in Pageau's book, but one of the most significant recurring patterns in the world is the union of heaven and earth (or abstract idea and concrete matter, thought and word, etc.) which results in new life. The fullest expression of this is the Incarnation, but it exists at the microcosmic, personal level of male and female, with the male as symbolic of the abstract idea and the female of concrete embodiment. With that being said, it's significant that the illustrator chose an egg (a symbol of the feminine) as the pictorial representation of the Idea. It seemed symbolically jumbled to me until I realized, as you pointed out in your review, that the whole point of the book is individual self-sufficiency. In these illustrations, the boy, alone, sufficiently contains both the abstract and the concrete, the masculine and feminine geniuses, necessary to bring new life into the world. He does not require the help or participation of anyone else in order to renew the face of the earth. Both inception and conception, progeneration and gestation, take place within him.
If we take this idea out further, we can begin to see the major tenants of current feminist and manosphere thought: that male and female alike both find the fullness of their identity in isolation, and that their union produces, not new life, but rather new limits and headaches. And, as a seed looks completely unlike the plant which springs from it, so this book looks nothing like an Andrew Tate diatribe or a radical feminist TikTok post. But, as Christ reminds us, as we sow, so shall we reap. Rousseau and this book are the seed and the chaos of societal relations at the present moment seem to be the harvest.
I'm not sure if it was conscious or unconscious, but Yamada illustrates the romantic heresy to a tee in this book. The symbolism seems to go deeper than I appreciated.
Thank you for writing your articles. I have subscribed to your newsletter because we have a lot of similar thinking on the subject of inferior children's literature. I have frequently made a living as a short-term nanny or part-time sitter for multiple households, and so I have had quite a lot of firsthand experience seeing this sad lack on the children's bookshelves.
I would like to add that I think it is lovely and good to teach children to think of themselves as beautiful unique snowflakes, in that we are each beloved by God and irreplaceable; we are special to Him in this way. I think when you wrote "youngsters to believe that they are each and every one a beautiful snowflake who will, without any special effort, change the world" we could simply redact the last part (everything after the first comma) and it would be a perfectly nice sentiment. Maybe someone ought to write up some new stories, about children being happy and content with their families and living their ordinary lives, perhaps with some anti-grumpy-bird messages thrown in (ie, grumpy bird was so grumpy that no one wanted to be around him, but then he figured out how to be nicer and then everyone was willing to forgive him and be friends with the improved character) or something like that. I think, to teach this sort of thing well, it is helpful to focus on the specialness of other people (I think Mr. Rogers might do this nicely, but I would be interested in your thoughts on the matter).
What you say about Rousseau is also very interesting to me. I have studied Rousseau a bit in college and believe he was thoroughly insane, but you point out the seriousness of its effect.
I also would be curious about your thoughts on the current mental health crisis. You mentioned it off-hand in your article. Have you written about this before anywhere that I could read?
Thanks for your comment, Violet. I've heard that Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street represent two different types of imagination, and that the former is much better than the latter, but I have not sat down to study those! You may be on to something. As far as the mental health crisis, I did publish something in the Wall Street Journal recently and put up a link to it here on my substack newsletter: https://efinley.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-young-people-are. In essence, I argue that we ought to be looking to the romantic imagination for one of the major causes behind the rampant anxiety and depression in young people. I think that understanding the romantic/moral imagination dichotomy is key to understanding the modern age.