Crooked Timber, a lefty politics-sociology blog, mentions a recent UNICEF report on the welfare of children in different nations. Among the developed (OECD) nations, kids come out best in the Netherlands and Sweden and the worst in the US and UK.
Commenters bring up questions about whether the methodology of the report is really valid, but I was still reading Ingrid Robeyns' discussion (she's from the Netherlands), thinking, okay, cool, kids have it good in the Netherlands...
...when I ran across this: "...few Dutch children feel awkward, an outsider, or lonely."
What the hell?
WHAT KIND OF ABNORMAL CHILDREN ARE THEY RAISING IN THE NETHERLANDS?!?
I'm sorry, this is too much. A child who lacks anomie is a child who fails at being a proper child. He needs an in-service in angst and alienation, or he will be unable to make the proper transition to emo teenager, and ultimately will be turned away from the gates of adulthood, his visa to Modernity still un-stamped. How is he supposed to understand The Catcher in the Rye, or death metal, or even Shelley, for heaven's sake?
Dutch, you are stealing from your children every child's birthright of crushing weltschmerz and existential despair!
Children are an oppressed class. They have the unique distinction of being the only oppressed class that is expected eventually to join the ranks of its oppressors. At the very least, they deserve to be as miserable, depressed, and embittered as the rest of us were as children.
Children of the Netherlands! Rise up and revolt!
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HI
meaning: queen, princess 妃殿下 == hidenka == (noun) princess, Her Royal Highness |
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Left radical is 'woman' (女). Right radical is 'self/thread' (己), here acting phonetically to express 'line'. A 'woman in line' was a princess or queen. Henshall suggests as a mnemonic: ''Woman thinks herself a princess.' Info from
Taka
Kanji Database |
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