Tom Bell, in the
Agoraphilia blog, asks an interesting question. Why does children's fiction promote credulity as a virtue?
Children's fiction employs this trope so often that it fits a formula. A wise character tries to convince the protagonist that something wonderful will happen if only he or she will earnestly believe an improbability. Consider, for instance, how Yoda tells Luke to cast aside all doubt if he wants to levitate his x-wing from the swamps of Dagobah. "Do, or do not. There is no try," Yoda explains. Following the usual script, Luke resists, courting disaster, before he finally embraces faith and wins its rewards.
Bell notes an obvious explanation -- that religious and political leaders would like to see young people raised to believe without question. But Bell then suggests an alternative explanation. Maybe it's because children's literature depends upon the suspension of disbelief, and therefore children's authors need to promote gullibility as a virtue.
Looking at the question historically (which, after seven years of grad school is how I tend to approach questions like this), I would say it might have something to do with the sentimentalization of childhood which, in western culture, began to occur during the 18th and 19th centuries. Of course, this just raises the question of why our culture began to sentimentalize childhood. I honestly don't know, but it sure has helped Disney make a lot of money.
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In SF alien invasion books/movies, often the one individual who doesn't believe turns out to be right (X-Files, V, Body Snatchers). A bad movie but it featured a kid and was aimed at younger audientces--in The Stuff, the protagonist survives by completely distrusting family and society.
As you mentioned stories about magic and science fiction need an extra helping of belief but there is an omnipresent hero of disbelief reaching children everywhere-- "I'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kids and that dog!"
Take the Narnia series - in one sense, only the children could enter Narnia because only they have the wide-eyed innocence and imagination to do so, then as they grow up and get involved in real life, they lose that ability to believe in imaginary worlds. But on the other hand, you could argue that only the children can actually see the *truth* because their eyes have not been clouded by the deceptions that come along with being an adult.
Many books that are popular with kids, such as The Series of Unfortunate Events books, have the kids seeing the truth about things and people, while the adults around them don't see the truth at all and are fooled by every deception. Part of the popularity of these books is the sense of independence that it gives the reader - not having to rely on adults to do things for you - and also perhaps a sense of superiority.
Parents are definately in on the game too - look at how many parents try to convince their young ones of the existence of Santa Claus. I know a number of otherwise reasonable mothers who were crushed when their children realized that Santa was imaginary. And I know quite a few kids that were equally crushed when they found out their mothers had been lying to them all that time. It's a part of my culture that really baffles me. What's the point of putting the kids or the parents through that? I never believed that Santa was real, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the holidays!
In the book Death (who speaks in small caps) is talking to his very tired, adopted grand-daughter Susan...
***
"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers [i.e. Santa Claus]? Little
I'm not entirely sure why humans evolved with these traits. My theory is if you lived your life not believing in an after life were your existence would continue, that the good would be rewarded and the evil would be punished and that there was some intelligent being(s) were controlling the universe you would fall into despair. You would have to live with the fear that at death you would no longer exist. If you didn't believe in supernatural rewards and punishments your motivation to do good would be reduced and all the evil things people did would go unpunished. If you didn't believe in God(s) that you could control through worship into keeping the world a friendly place then you would be living in a universe that was totally out of your control. Finally if we lived in a society where no one trusted and believe anything they were told how could we function as a group?
The term "con-man" is a shortened version of "confidence man" because as long as someone has your confidence you'll believe what they tell you. It's only when our trust in others is abused and we are unwilling to question and/or change our beliefs do we get into trouble.
I don't think children are gullible. They just see the world in a different way.
Probably, it mostly depends on which plot device the writers need to deploy in order to advance the narrative.
In any case, most entertainment narratives, for adults as well as children and adolescents, cater to people's need to escape at least temporarily from the grinding realities of quotidian life. In real life, Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone don't take on whole armies single-handedly and win (we'll leave Chuck Norris out of this for the moment). In real life, if your vehicle gets stuck in the swamp, you aren't getting it out unless a heavy-duty tow truck comes along at the right moment. But who would buy a ticket to see that?
I'll just add that once I found a website with full page scans from printings of the story of Little Red Riding Hood spanning a couple hundred years. The earlier ones ended with Little Red Riding hood being eaten. It was a cautionary tale intended to warn women entering puberty (hence the red cloak) to be careful who they placed their trust in.
But as you chronologically went through the editions, that ending was softened more and more until the original message was lost. It had been "replaced" by the message that if you are cute and pretty enough, some well-intentioned man will save you from any ill-intentioned men.
However, the new message was an accident that developed through years of different authors trying to make the ending happier. So no one intended to replace the message of mis-trust and wariness with one of blind faith that someone will save you, it just happened accidentally.
I've heard that many other familiar children's stories have undergone similar accidental changes just to give them happy endings.
Sorry, I can't find that website with the scans of the old books.
As a grown up I got into trouble with my wife because I told my 3year old son that Elmo is just a toy. She tells him he is a friendly monster.
Naturally I believe children are born rational thinking beings .. we clamour their thinking with bunch of BS as they grow up.
The message of the Emperor's New Clothes is not really about scepticism: it is that the obvious, apparent truth is more to be relied on than the claims of those who maintain that they have special knowledge.
That said, I'm racking my brains and can't think of all that many kid's books that really stress the virtues of credibility; most 'magic' stories are set in a fantasy reality where magic actually does exist, rather than in a woreld that is recognizably the one in which kids are. I can think of some, but I can easily dismiss those as outliers too...
Chris Crutcher is the only author I can think of off the top of my head that writes really high-quality books set in a real world with events that could really happen (The Chocolate War, and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes are both excellent), but his books are aimed at a teen audience, and they tend to deal with much darker issues. But the young protagonists are still often the ones that know the truth of the situation, while the adults around them are in denial or they know the truth but lie about it. But Chris Crutcher could also be considered an "outlier" because although his books are always on recommended reading lists put together by teachers and librarians, he's not a household name.
The Golden Compass series (which I found to be absolutely brilliant and beautifully written) and the Narnia series (which I also love, and have never found sanctimonious even though I'm not religious) both involve truth-seeking, it's just that the truth is different from one author (and one reader) to another.
A series like The Dark Is Rising might be a counter-theme, perhaps - stories rooted in mythology and archetypes rather than overt attempts to push a religious message (though it's been a long time since I read those, and as with Narnia I might well find myself disillusioned if I went back to those now!).
At the end of my last comment I mentioned being able to think of a few books that do rewerd credulity. Allende's teen novels are a good (bad?) example of these: set in 'this world', about 'real' young people, and overtly dealing with contemporary issues, but demanding that the reader accept all sorts of nonsense like memories of past lives and telephathy at face value. In these books, it's egregious because the reader is supposed to believe that the story happend not in a world like-ours-but-magical but in-our-world. As I also said, though, I'm not sure that they're necessarily representative of a significant trend.
A storm approaches, and lightning strikes! It's a destructive force that comes out of the sky and can cause a great deal of destruction! How can you explain that without any of the scientific knowledge we have now?
Easy.. you make a story about a god, living up high, watching over humans who sends the lightning down upon those who anger him.
You hear sounds coming from inside a cave.. it's too dark to see.. you've never heard the noises before.. Today a scientist could go investigate and find geothermal activity. Humans long ago would have called it a demon.
Stories were made to explain things that couldn't be understood, and gradually evolved over time - and because many of these stories could scare - they used them as cautionary tales for children too, as mentioned earlier with little red riding hood.
The concept of magic came from early humans not understanding natural occurances.. and it's evolved from there.. It's now so deep in our culture, our history..
You try explain to a child what causes lightning. You think a toddler would understand all the scientific concepts involved? Thats why it's easier to use magic and make believe - it gives them a degree of understanding that will change once they later develop enough understanding to learn what the truth is.