MAP Forum

A short discussion on the silliness of the category.

https://www.brianribbon.com/short-takes ... y-of-minor

I don’t know what fuels this extremism, but I believe the ground that allows it to grow is the constant separation between adults and minors, and among minors themselves—a relationship that becomes especially weak in large cities. I would say it is almost inevitable that when a group is isolated, and then further dissected into subcategories, stereotypes about it emerge, not unlike racial stereotypes.

If this is coupled with the fact that families are also becoming smaller and smaller, what else can we expect? People are spoon-fed by the way a group is represented in films, in newspapers, or through scandals, with fewer and fewer people having direct experience of other groups.

I mean, when I was 14, I had no kind of relationship with people who were 8, and none with those who were 17. There were only authority figures (teachers, doctors), family, or peers. Doesn’t one end up feeling like an exception when living this way? It’s only once you enter the world of work that this disappears, since it’s a context where you interact, at least to some extent, with everyone.

It seems to me that a perfect environment has been created for prejudice against “minors” to proliferate, because fewer and fewer people have any contact with them. Even minors themselves have no real opportunity to relate to other “minors” (people younger than they are).