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5 also part of a cultural process of«sacralization» of children's lives. The term sacralization is used in the
sense of objects being invested with sentimental or religious meaning. While in the nineteenth century the
market value of children was culturally acceptable, later the new normative ideal of the child as an
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exclusively emotional and affective asset precluded instrumental or fiscal considerations. In an increasingly
commercialized world, children were reserved a separate, noncommercial place. The economic and
sentimental value of children were thereby declared to be radically incompatible. Only mercenary or
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insensitive parents violated the boundary by accepting the wages or labor contributions of useful child.
Properly loved children, regardless of social class, belonged in a domesticated, nonproductive world of
lessons, games, and token money. It was not a simple process. At every step working class and middle-class
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advocates of a useful childhood battled the social construction of the economically useless child.
** Cash nexus — the money system
Exercise:
1.According to the American College Dictionary, «asset» (1.9) means «a useful thing or a quality» — or —
«an item of property.»
a. What definition seems to apply here?
b. The writer is being ironical when he modifies the word «asset» with the terms «exclusively emotional»
and «affective.» (Usually we expect our «assets» to have qualities of a very different sort.) Who, or what, do
you suppose he is poking fun at here? (I.e., which social classes can afford to hold on to «exclusively
emotional» and useless property? Which one cannot?)
2. What is the implied connection between the fact that the world was being «increasingly commercialized»
(1.10) and the fact that people who could afford to live without their children's «wages or labor contributions»
(1.15) began to insist that «chirdren...belonged in a domesticated, nonproductive world of lessons, games, and
token money» (11.16-18)?
3. «Properly loved children» (1.16)
a. Who (or what social class) decided what the «proper» way to love a child was? (Can there be any one
«proper» way to love?)
b. Which social classes had other ideas about this?
4. How has the writer previously prepared us to understand the last sentence as implying that a «useful
childhood» is not necessarily a bad thing, while an «economically useless child» is not necessarily good thing?
From:
«THE FRENZY OF RENOWN»
by Leo Baudy (New York Times Book Review (4.9.86)
The fame that is spiritually justifying purports to compensate for the social uneasiness of being
successful. By now, almost everyone has heard the innumerable stories of the trap of fame and glory. But
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most still strive, for part of the promise of modern fame is that you and you alone will be able to do it
differently, surmounting the past because you have learned from or ignored its examples. Once the spiritual
fulfillment promised by modern fame is given, goes its myth, it can never be taken away. In the face of the
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myriad identities and demands of a more populous world, the spiritual glow conveyed by being recognized
means finally not having to say who you are. Touched by the magic wand of this secular religion, the
aspirant moves beyond the usual social context of achievement to a place where there is no career, no
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progress, no advance, no change — only the purity of being celebrated for being oneself.The aspiration to
such purity restates the close relation fame has always had to both death and transfiguration: the desire to
find a place where one may live untarnished and uncorrupted throughout the ages.
Exercise:
1.
«purports to compensate for the social uneasiness» (11.1-2)
a. What is the subject of the verb purports? ________