Are human beings actually less robust, more fragile, than they used to be -- or are we just being encouraged to believe we are?
I think it's the latter, and I would even say that the younger the person involved, the more this is encouraged; the more "concerned parents" try to shield their children.
Same field, different example. There are so many mothers worried about their daughters (and sons?) seeing Daniel Radcliffe in the nude in Equus, or in promotional posters for that, because they think that their children will be disturbed by seeing a sexualized "Harry Potter". First of all, I think the readers of the Potter books and watchers of the Potter movies know the difference between the actor and the role (I know I did when back in the 1980s, in my teens, I had a crush on Marty McFly - and not on Michael J. Fox). And second, the concerned mothers do not know what kind of fiction their teenage daughters are writing on the Internet.
So anyway, I don't think we're more fragile than we used to be. But we are certainly more pampered, and I personally am surprised and frightened at the amount of people willing to be pampered and shielded from the world.
... this turned into a kind of rant, didn't it? ;)
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I think it's the latter, and I would even say that the younger the person involved, the more this is encouraged; the more "concerned parents" try to shield their children.
Same field, different example. There are so many mothers worried about their daughters (and sons?) seeing Daniel Radcliffe in the nude in Equus, or in promotional posters for that, because they think that their children will be disturbed by seeing a sexualized "Harry Potter". First of all, I think the readers of the Potter books and watchers of the Potter movies know the difference between the actor and the role (I know I did when back in the 1980s, in my teens, I had a crush on Marty McFly - and not on Michael J. Fox). And second, the concerned mothers do not know what kind of fiction their teenage daughters are writing on the Internet.
So anyway, I don't think we're more fragile than we used to be. But we are certainly more pampered, and I personally am surprised and frightened at the amount of people willing to be pampered and shielded from the world.
... this turned into a kind of rant, didn't it? ;)