Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, by Anthony Esolen, is a new book about how destructive the modern culture is to the childlike mind--though in a genuine Screwtape manner, it is written as if that's a good thing. It's a bit schizophrenic as well because it is also a glowing tribute to all the creative and inspiring achievements that have come from imaginative people throughout the ages. You've probably heard the adage: "Show, don't tell." This book shows the power of a visionary mind through pages and pages of examples from history, literature, old textbooks, and more. But since all the logic is reverse, it leaves the reader on his own to figure out how to go about encouraging that--whether in his children or in himself. As a result, it's a book to chew on and it may take some time to digest. I have found it extremely thought-provoking and those thoughts have ended up becoming the subject of most of my conversations since I began reading it.

And now it's about to take over my blog! I've been taking notes so that I can actually convers about it instead of just saying, "Uh, yeah, um, it was really good. You should read it." I'm going to write those notes up chapter by chapter in a series of blog posts here. It's a bit tricky to translate the reverse logic, but for the most part I will try to say what actions I think we should positively take. When I quote though, it's coming straight from the book so don't be scared off by anything like, "Sit your children down in front of the TV for all of their free time."

Below is a list of links to the completed posts:

• Introductory Chapter: Why Truth is Your Enemy and the Benefits of the Vague
• Method One: Keep Your Children Inside As Much As Possible
• Method Two: Never Leave Children to Themselves
• Method Three: Keep Children Away From Machines and Machinists
• Method Four: Replace the Fairy Tale with Political Cliches and Fads
• Method Five: Cast Aspersions upon the Heroic and the Patriotic
• Method Six: Cut All Heroes Down to Size
• Method Seven: Reduce All Talk of Love to Narcissism and Sex
• Method Eight: Level Distinctions Between Man and Woman
• Method Nine: Distract the Child with the Shallow and the Unreal
• Method Ten: Deny the Transcendent

My Concluding Thoughts