Turning children into Orwellian eco-spies
There is a long and sordid tradition of trying to socialise children by scaring them. The aim of such socialisation-through-fear is twofold: firstly, to get children to conform to the scaremongers’ values; secondly, to use children to influence, or at least to contain, their parents’ behaviour. The Big Brothers of the 1940s saw children as tools of moral blackmail and social control. Today, in the twenty-first century, scaremongers see children in much the same way, exploiting their natural concern with the wonders of life to promote a message of shrill climate alarmism. In a world where moral education seems to be exhausted, where teachers are reluctant to judge or to explain the difference between right and wrong, environmentalism has become one of the few values that educators feel comfortable with. The growing significance of environmental issues in the school curriculum is directly proportionate to society’s broader moral illiteracy and loss of purpose.
It appears that preying on children’s fears and exploiting their anxiety is now considered to be a form of enlightened education. Yet the future of our children demands that we provide them with existential and moral security. Instead of feeding them on a steady diet of scaremongering, we need to inspire them about our potential to improve the future of our world.
