Monaco 2/6 philosophical meetings. – Exclusively for Madame Figaroand in collaboration with PhiloMonaco Week, which takes place from June 11 to 16, six philosophers subtly shed light on the essence of being. Today, we question childhood and its unsettling strangeness with philosopher and professor Claire Marin.
We want to say about all children that they are unique, irreplaceable and loved as they are, unconditionally. We would make this unique difference (being oneself and therefore “not like others”) an object of observation and respect. In this sense, we would be happy if each child was “not like the others”, free to exist in its own uniqueness. However, this expression rather evokes the parent’s modest shame or makes the child’s anxiety palpable. When he asks why he is “not like the others,” it is often with anger or sadness, indicating the sense of injustice associated with this difference.
Not being “like others” is most often an expression of the child’s suffering, stigmatized or marginalized, fixed in an identity that is defined as appearing “difference” to others. And we ourselves, becoming adults, are we not still this child “like the others?” We remained permanently marked by these childhood stigmas, these moments when we too were judged “strange”, “strange” and ridiculed or rejected under this pretext. We do not so easily break free from the weight of the norm, the power of the group, or the gaze of others, especially when it has been painful.
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Even as an adult, I am still that child whose size, skin color, name, clothes, shyness or clumsiness, stuttering, or any “flaw” could be an excuse for insults or beatings. The mark of this difference, which still sometimes appears on my face, is called shame. We see this intimate rift reappear in situations of conflict or trial, when this childhood vulnerability is reactivated, reactivated. A child who is “not like the others” may never be able to fully relax. What did we do with a difference that weakened us? It is not so simple to “transform” it into force. It remains for us to be mindful of this long history of shame that words or looks can evoke. Especially at this moment, when the youngest is experiencing great psychological suffering.
Claire Marin is a philosopher, a teacher of preparatory classes, especially an authorPartitions , To be in his place And the beginnings
(Pocket Book Editions).
PhiloMonaco Week is organized from Tuesday June 11 to Sunday June 16 by Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco, chaired by co-founder Charlotte Casiraghi. Free and open to all. In the program: ecology, education, care, woman, art of living and the pleasure of philosophizing.
The matches are broadcast live and replayed on philomonaco.com
Source: Le Figaro
