HLTC23H3 Lecture Notes - Neil Postman, The Gutenberg Galaxy, Infant Mortality
Document Summary
In this lecture i will: define childhood versus infancy, describe the natural history of childhood, talk about where we are now, globally with respect to childhood, how this impacts the global health of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social/cultural artifact. Childhood is a different story, it can be loner or shorter depending upon several factors. Infancy is a biologically driven event with a genetically timed duration. Greeks had no real world for child in the ancient world. They did invent schooling, but children"s lives were precarious: plato speaks of disciplining children through threats and blows, like a piece of warped wood (protagoras) Little concept of child and a category separate from adult in the middle ages. Children are defined as a class of people who must be sheltered from adult secrets. This connects to the general concept of children as a group that requires special protection from adults. Rome, a. d. 374: law forbidding infanticide (exposure)
