You Can T Childproof the World (Globe and Mail)

ENG3U Unit 1

You Can’t Childproof the World (Globe and Mail) BY CHARLES E. ANDERSON

ODERN life presents us with many indignities. Our sanity relies on our ignoring the bulk of them and overlookng the rest. For instance, I try to ignore the fact that barely literate employees at Canada Customs continue to decide which books I will be allowed to read. I try to ignore that a man noisily declaring his common sense believes he owns my head and can decree when it is to be helmeted and when it may be left bare. I have almost Movercome living in a society that acts as if smoking poses a greater public-health risk than AIDS, but even a gentle soul reaches a limit. I reached mine with the advent of the childproof cigarette lighter.

2 For those of you who are unaware, it is now nearly impossible to buy a disposable lighter that isn't "childproof." In simple terms, this means that every disposable Lighter on the market is damn near useless. You see, the lighter itself has no knowledge as to whether a child or an adult is trying to light it, and so it protests as vociferously when a man of 40 attempts to do so as it does with a child of two.

3 I have no interest in bringing up the tired debate as to whether much of what is deemed "childproof" actually is. Images of arthritic hands painfully manipulating Aspirin bottles come to mind. My objection is much simpler: This is a cigarette lighter, for God's sake! How much more adult can you get than a cigarette lighter? If this logic is as widespread as I fear it is, designers are probably busy working on childproof cigarettes. What will follow will be childproof cars, and ideally, childproof heavy objects.

4 It seems that there is a large contingent that has forgotten that there are adults in the world — real adults, not big pre-schoolers: adults who don't want their world reduced to a Romper-Room universe of soft landings, early bedtimes and play-nice dictums. It is true that some of these adults do have children, and their primary job is to protect those children. Their job is not — and shouldn’t be— to make the world safe for unsupervised six-year olds. And yet that is exactly what seems to be occurring.

5 Try to uncover the roots of all this and a host of dark possibilities come to mind. I've got my own favourite. It's a perverse riff on that old feminist standby, the patriarchy. Feminists would be utterly adrift without this shadowy group of puppeteers, forever tightening the threads of female bondage. The thing is, I’m not buying it. In the low-calorie, calcium-enriched world in which we find ourselves, where we're constantly being nagged to buckle up, slow down and just say no, the patriarchy doesn't seem the most likely culprit.

6 Properly understood, patriarchy is supposed to echo a fatherly role. But the combination of handwringing and hysterics that seem to be society's response to almost everything these days doesn't sound much like Dad to me. It sounds a whole lot more like Mom. What we have is irrefutable and damning evidence of an overweening matriarchy. The outgrowth of this, the apron strings constantly tightening around our throats, is our being matronized. What we are in need of is a little bit of the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, let’s not-make- mountains-out-of-molehills outlook that a true patriarchy would impart. ENG3U Unit 1

7 THE matriarchy is not alone. Even the most half-baked of conspiracy theories requires a slew of covert organizations in order to be credible. Another contributing factor is the increasingly crybaby attitude of Society itself. Whether or not this childishness is the result of constantly being matronized, or whether the equation goes the other way around, is difficult to judge. What we do know is that increasingly nobody will take responsibility for his actions.

8 Fast-food joints get sued for serving coffee that is actually hot. Grown men become infuriated when the hundreds of thousands of cigarettes they've inhaled begin to interfere with their breathing, and blame, not themselves for relentlessly sucking on the things, but the people who made them. The stuff of class- actions suits might seem to be very adult, but it isn't. A litigious culture is one in which everyone has been infantilized to the point where anything that goes wrong cannot be attributed to individuals, but must be the fault of the state, or the big bad corporations or whatever other parental figure has the deepest pockets.

9 A concrete wading pool in close proximity to where I used to live is illustrative. Each spring the Parks Department would fill it with water and for the bulk of the summer it was jammed with kids splashing about. It was, all in all, a pretty typical summer sight save for one surreal detail. All around the circumference of the pool repetitively stenciled in bright yellow spray paint were the words "No Wading.” Fear of some future irate parent, whose darling child had dashed his head on the side of the thing, had resulted in a small Dadaist installation in a Westmount park. Welcome to the world of "No Wading Pools," a world where some municipality, or by-law, or statute, or some other sign-planting entity, forever limits our behaviour for fear that some day in the future we might fall down, hurt ourselves and sue.

10 “No Wading,” “No Swimming,” "No Skating,” “No Smoking” — One has to despair at what we are doing to ourselves as a society.

11 I can try to ignore the censors. I can overcome the social engineers, but I'll have no truck with a childproof cigarette lighter. I'll use my Zippo, unchanged in design since the 1940s. On its best days, it smells like a jet taking off, and should I overfill it, it becomes a great ball of fire in my hands, but I can handle that – I’m a smoker.

12 And I can handle that. I'm an adult. ENG3U Unit 1

Choose the best answer for each question:

1) The first paragraph introduces Anderson’s idea through a) a series of examples. b) an anecdote. c) directly stating his thesis. d) giving a prolonged description of a specific situation.

2) The cigarette lighter at the end of paragraph 1 a) is an example of hyperbole. b) acts as a particular example to anchor Anderson’s universal statement. c) is not really relevant to Anderson’s main idea, but shows sociological implications. d) reinforces Anderson’s persona of a “gentle soul”.

3) The image of “arthritic hands painfully manipulating aspirin bottles” a) is an example of juxtaposition. b) indicates that this essay is highlighting issues that affect the elderly. c) is designed to generate sympathy for the narrator. d) shows the negative repercussions of this overregulation.

4) In paragraph 4, Anderson writes that it “is true that some of these adults do have children, and their primary job is to protect those children.” This sentence can best be described as a) a new argument that changes the focus of the essay. b) an anecdote. c) a concession that admits the importance of safety and supervision. d) an emotional appeal.

5) Paragraph 6 implies that Anderson blames all this overregulation on a) an increasingly powerful legal community. b) males who don’t pay enough attention to the safety of their children. c) corporations who do not ensure the safety of their products. d) women.

6) In this context, litigious means the following: a) unreasonably fond of legal action. b) lazy, thoughtless. c) prudent, careful. d) aware of the importance of proper parenting.

7) In the context of this essay, “infantilized” means the following: a) protected, insulated. b) nurtured. c) childish. d) moronic.

8) The word “Dadaist” in Paragraph 9 can best be described as a) an allusion to the early 20th movement that mocked artistic and social conventions, and was founded on principles of irrationality and incongruity. b) a reference to late 19th legislation banning swimming and wading in public places. c) the counterpart of the “Mamaist” attitudes described earlier. d) an allusion to the work of H. Dada, early 20th architect who designed Disney World. ENG3U Unit 1

Answer the following questions (point-form is fine):

1. In your own words, explain the author’s thesis.

2. What method(s) of development does the author use? Explain.

3. What is the overall tone of the article?

4. How does this article appeal to logos, ethos, and pathos? EXPLAIN.

5. Find and label as many rhetorical devices as you can find (some of them have been bolded for you).

6. Choose 2 words from the article that you are unfamiliar with; provide a definition for each.

7. Do you agree with the author’s points? Explain.