Alain de Botton - Still Thinking Like A Child

Alain de Botton, who was born in 1969, is still thinking like a child, positing that the nanny state is a good thing in an essay titled A Point of View: In defence of the nanny state, which de Botton ends with these words.

It is perhaps in the end a sign of immaturity to object too strenuously to sometimes being treated like a child. Why does the idea of a nanny state always have to be so terrifying? The libertarian obsession with freedom ignores how much of our original childhood need for constraint endures within us, and therefore how much we stand to learn from certain paternalistic strategies. It is not much fun, nor ultimately even very freeing, to be left alone to do entirely as one pleases.

Come now, Alain, isn’t it time to grow up and let go of mommy’s hand?  Show some maturity.

Linked via Nick M. at Counting Cats in Zanzibar, who deconstructs the entirety of de Botton’s child like musings.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/07 at 10:14 AM

  1. What a dexterous way to avoid responsibility for one’s own actions. It’s always someone else’s fault because Mommy and Daddy are still responsible for me.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/07  at  02:22 PM

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