French Enlightenment: A Creation Story and Our Descent Into History

Upon reading Voneches Chapter I am reminded of the Adam and Eve creation story. What struck me in this regard was when he concludes the chapter by saying:

“Instead of a rapprochement between school and life, we witness here a confusion of the two. In the commendable desire to close the gap between school and real life, our time has succeeded in making living a form of schooling.” (Broughton, 1987)

I feel this quote encapsulates the root of our descent into history as symbolized by the Adam and Eve story. Before eating of the fruit Adam and Eve remained whole, pure and innocent, without the concepts of good and bad. It is into this thrust towards knowledge that they lose their innocence and so history begins. This is akin to Voneches apt description above where instead of a rapprochement of school and life, similar to the pure ‘whole’ beingness of Adam and Eve prior to eating the apple, we find our self in a world of separation and reductionism where we have relegated life to one corner and school to another and in our attempts to reconcile them have only propagated the separation. I like how this one analogy can be used as an interpretive lens for the slice of history that Voneche conveys throughout the entirety of the chapter and how this has influenced the field of psychology particularly in its role in stewarding the field of human development. (Broughton, 1987)

Voneche starts the chapter by introducing Victor, a boy who comes out of the wilderness to be socialized by French Society post the revolution. This was an era where children were no longer allowed to be, to simply exist as they are in their wholeness and accepted in that regard. Old forms of innocence in childhood were abolished and innocence was now something that was conferred upon childhood through the reification of the family and surrounding institutes such as orphanages shepherded by deacons and nuns. Then came the reformation, replacing Religion w/ reason and due to its incontestable dominance, it was used to justify and standardize all kinds of new norms and ideals. Nuns were replaced with experts, Orphanages with specialized schools. This time period to me reflects the deepening of the banishment from the garden mentioned earlier. It was the imposition of innocence through reason which further removed us from an inherent state wherein this new age of enlightenment marked a threshold, an upswing on the exponential curve away from the garden. The irony in all this was that it had been done in the name of liberty and equality with the guise of philanthropy to justify putting children into families and families into the hands of social technicians and an assortment of other controlling figures to civilize humans and serve berougoise rationality. It was a hand me down, I know what’s better for you attitude, that was being imposed on the masses in the name of liberty and equality as determined by a class of experts, ‘keepers of knowledge.’ (Broughton, 1987)

Humanity had descended well into realms of knowledge conferred by the apple at this point. This was also further denoted by the separation of man and women within the household. Women were trained to be the anchors of the home while men went away and became the wage earners. This, along with revamped urban design and schooling of children allowed for strict surveillance of the family and therefore kept the unruly masses in control. Not only was the role of woman and man strictly defined and separated, so also was people’s disconnection with their bodies. The body had merely turned into a functional instrument, a mere tool for the use of control and order. Like with Adam and Eve, all the innocence of nature was lost, and was replaced by a knowing that was legitimized by the measures of science. And So arrived the field of psychology, not as a way to necessarily bring people back to this lost wholeness, but an attempt towards it by administering parameters to rectify any deviants of the norm. And unlike the forgiveness of God still available during the reformation the new enlightenment of science was inflexible. This strict regime of control and disconnection was further mirrored in the outfits worn that disconnected people from their bodies.

Due to all this tension created in the minds of people so came psychoanalysis to the rescue the tensions between these new rules and innate desires. One can interpret psychoanalysis as providing a balm for that original wound of being banned from the garden and it was a reflection and necessity of the times as a byproduct of control and order. It is also noteworthy that the expressive or ID was repressed and was ascribed to women and the Instrumental or Superego ascribed to Man, therefore subjugating women and nature to home while elevating man towards capitalism, which was above and separate from the universe. It’s also interesting to note his correspondence of all this with the branching off of the political left and right with the tensions being managed as the left opening more space for ID impulses (increased bodily contact over time) versus the stringent morality and control of the right maintaining the superego. Of further interest is how the author makes the claim that development phases were also based on cultural forces rather than something innate.

The cultural component became naturalized and legitimized conflating the forces of culture with nature. This is an interesting development as it can represent the full conquer of nature or the knowingness of man bereft of the actual wholeness of nature we had in the garden, a perfect substitute but never the real thing. I like how the author ends the chapter by noting this very thing, where in our desire to reclaim a nature lost, it has become totally socially reconstructed. We have made children so special with their closeness to nature, as to end up controlling them and fit them into standards where psychology has come to enforce any deviance all while infantilization adulthood by ‘trying’ to reclaim this lost innocence and spontaneity. Maybe all this trapezing around outside of the garden in search for ourselves has created this duality represented by history and eventually we are to give up the striving and realize that it has always just been there within ourselves, this wholeness that we have lost. It would be interesting how this return would be reflected in our sciences and psychologies and notions of human development (Broughton, 1987)

References Broughton J. (1987). Critical Theories of Psychological Development. Pgs 61-86. New York, New York. Plenum Press.