Should Art challenge the viewer?

Recently, someone had an unexpected reaction to Syahidah’s art. A well to do Irish lady and her husband had the chance to see some of my wife’s work (which is now displayed at home). After they had viewed the works, we sought their reactions.

“Oh, they are nice.”, began the Irish woman, “but I wouldn’t have them in my house.”, she concluded, oddly.

“Why is that?”, I prodded, gently, muting my reaction and keeping my true thoughts from my face and tongue, lest they persuade her to disguise her own.

“Well, my children might not understand them – and I couldn’t risk that.” The prospect seemed to appall her.

Since her children are teenagers, to twenties, I thought this most peculiar.

I didn’t probe further, in general, but directed her attention towards one particular piece, which had two monumental faces facing each other.

“Oh no! I couldn’t bring that into the house.”, she looked somewhat disgusted. “They look like they are about to kiss. If my daughter (Ed: 15 years old), saw that, she would go “yewwh!””

I thought this response most enlightening about the psyche of my interlocutor. You see, the heads in the drawing were NOT about to kiss. They were near each other, yes – but, if anything they were just engaged in conversation. There was no kiss involved. In fact, both heads were men, too, which, in most circumstances, would have worked against her interpretation.

Further discussion with her, uncovered the obvious fact, that, for her, sexual interpretations were to be found in most of the drawings, even though, in reality, they were very mild, in that area. It seemed that it was her own perceptions, that were to blame, here. She was overly sensitive to the possibility of sexual interpretations of images, which, of course, suggested an undue preoccupation with or fear of such subject matter. Furthermore, her reactions were divided into two types: labeling some works, as sexual, when they weren’t really – or labeling works as “difficult” and therefore, “unsuitable for children” – because they “wouldn’t understand them”.

I found this all rather puzzling. To my perceptions they are all interesting works of art, many with a story, all with a point of view that reveals something about the subjects. None of them are “unsuitable for children” – indeed, our own children enjoy them, even Tiarnan, who is just five years old.

Is this Irishwoman right, do you think? Is it wrong to challenge children, with something beyond their immediate understanding?

My own view on the matter is that children should always be challenged. It is not right, I think, just to present them with whatever is readily understood without effort. When a child is challenged, the child has an opportunity to learn, to see something new. I believe that by being fearful of challenging her children with that which might puzzle them, this Irish lady is stifling the growth of her children: were they to see my wife’s works, part of their perceptions and understanding of the world and its possibilities would have a chance to expand.

I made no comment about the Irish woman’s outlook, at the time – but, to me, her parenting stance, on the issue, seemed remarkable and prompted me to reflect on it, subsequently, on several occasions. What do you think of her stance on not challenging her children with art beyond their immediate understanding? Is she right? Am I wrong?

Let me know your thoughts below please.

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Irish roots go deep into History

How old are the Irish? By this I do not mean how old an individual Irish man or woman is, but how old the race is.

From time, to time, I have wondered about the origin of the Irish: what makes them distinct from other Europeans - indeed, are they distinct from them?

To look at, an Irishman is very easily picked out, if you know what to look for. The fact that there is a particular typical appearance suggests a unique set of genes which distinguish them from the other nationalities and races of the world. I have always thought this, by observation alone.

I have also opined, to others that, as an Irishman, I was of an older race than the Europeans to whom I spoke. I don't know why I felt this, I just did. They, of course, shrugged off, or laughed off the suggestion, depending on personality - and one, in particular, argued vehemently against it for a good twenty minutes, as if personally offended by the idea that the Irish might be of more antique stock than other Europeans.

The funny thing is, I was right and all those who laughed, scoffed, shrugged off or argued against me, were wrong. The Irish are the oldest race in Europe according to recent genetic research.

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin completed a genetic map of 200 Irish people and compared the Irish samples to over 8,000 other samples from around Europe. What they found stunned them and overturned all the ideas people had had about the Irish (except for me and mine I might add). The genetic testing proved that Irish people with Gaelic surnames (like my family, for Cawley is a rewrite of a Gaelic name), from the West of Ireland (where we are from) are NOT descended from the same group of people who populated the rest of Europe. In fact, the genetic testing proves that these Irish people - true Irish, if you like - are descendants of a far older race - of the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers before the farmers came from the South-East of Europe. The Irish are, indeed, an ancient race - the oldest in the Caucasian world. The Irish are a remnant of the pre-Neolithic hunters that existed before the agricultural revolution swept the world bringing new ways, and new genes with it. The thinking is that the invasion of large numbers of agricultural people from the South East pushed the original hunters (who for economic reasons are necessarily much smaller in numbers) to the margins of the world. They found shelter in the chilly, unwelcoming West of Ireland, where they lived in genetic isolation from the rest of the world for the next ten thousand years. You see an Irishman of today, from the West of Ireland, which had little or no contact with the rest of the world (and if you ever go there you would see the same forces at work today), is an inheritor of an ancient genetic lineage. His (or her) genes are not the ones found in the rest of the farmer descended Europeans, but are those of Ancient man. They have the genetic makeup of Stone Age Hunters. At the very latest these would have been Early Mesolithic hunters - but the work suggests an origin of "over 10,000 years ago" - which is outside the Mesolithic and would, I suppose, put it into the Upper Paleolithic (the period of 30,000 B.C to 10,000 BC)

The marker used in the study is quite distinct and this research is not in the least controversial. The researchers at Trinity College, Dublin, looked for Haplogroup 1, which is a genetic marker present in the oldest group of humans to ever enter Europe. Their genetic map was telling. They discovered a gradient of Haplogroup 1 throughout Europe, the lowest prevalence being in Turkey, at only 1.8 %, showing that the Turks have very little genetic influence from the most ancient of men. The highest prevalence of Haplogroup 1 is found in the West of Ireland with prevalences reaching as high as 98.3 % of all Irish men carrying the gene, in Connaught. This means that these true Irish men are derived almost entirely from Stone Age stock, with almost no admixture of more recent genetic lineages from other races/areas of mankind. This result could only have happened under conditions of extreme and persistent genetic isolation over a ten thousand year period. It is astonishing, really, when you think about it - but that is what happened to the Irish: isolated from the rest of the world, for ten millenia (at least in the West of Ireland). The results, however, are very interesting - for it means that the Irish have preserved, in their blood, the genetic inheritance of the Stone Age (Middle and Old Stone Age) hunters.

The Haplogroup 1 is present on the Y chromosome inherited by males from the father. The average prevalence of Haplogroup 1 across the whole of Ireland was 78.1% - but this diluted number includes those descended from the British, Scottish and Normans/Vikings - who are almost exclusively present in the East of Ireland. Those descended from Irish alone show the Stone Age marker at almost 100% prevalence.

It is funny that what I had always felt to be the case, turns out to be true. The Irish are truly a race apart - and older, more ancient than any other Caucasian group, you will ever meet.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Natural hairstyle and individuality

As regular readers will know, Fintan, four, has curly hair. Yet, we live in Singapore - a "Land of the Straight-Hairs", as I call it. Basically everyone, apart from foreign visitors, has straight, black, flat hair.

A few days ago, Syahidah took Fintan to the Science Centre, in Singapore. This is a kind of interactive Science Museum - though not as extensive as the Science Museum in Kensington, London, that I remember from my childhood, it is still worth a visit, particularly for children.

While wandering around the exhibits, Syahidah noticed two children who looked rather surprising: they both had curly hair.

"Look Fintan!" she pointed them out to him, "They are like you."

He looked and he saw and then he spoke a little disenchantedly, "Yeh, but who is the father?"

His arm picked out a man far away across the room, amidst the bustle of many people coming and going - a curly headed man. How he spotted the man in such a crowded, busy, poorly lit, room is a marvel - but being sharp of eye is typical for Fintan.

There was too much separation between the children and the "father" so Syahidah watched him for a while. Soon enough she saw him close the gap between them and interact with the kids: sure enough, he was the father.

This was one of the only occasions that Fintan has ever seen another curly headed person. Two things are interesting here: first, he was very quick to scan the environment and link the distant curly headed man as father to the nearby curly headed children. But also, it is telling, perhaps in a sad way, the conclusion he drew from this: that those children had reason enough for their curly hair - but he did not. You see neither his mother nor his father have curly hair - but we both have slightly wavy hair. It seems that two genetic doses of "wavy" is enough to make hair curly.

Why do I write this? Well, Fintan feels set apart by his appearance here, in Singapore. No other child of his acquaintance looks remotely like him. He doesn't look Malay (but is half-Malay), he doesn't look Irish (but is half-Irish), he doesn't look Chinese (but speaks it a little), he doesn't look Indian (but occasionally eats their food!). He has no real visual affiliation with any of the basic groupings of Singapore. Being of two different racial lineages, he looks only like his brothers. Allied to this disparity of race, is his hairstyle - abundant, never straight, curls, with plenty of natural body - and this makes him feel marked out from his fellow children. That feeling is unlikely to ever leave him, unless we live somewhere else.

Even Syahidah's attempt to make him feel that there were others, by pointing out the curly-headed children fell flat - because the father's appearance made it clear where their appearance comes from: Fintan has no such understanding of his origin. He cannot say to himself: "My hair looks like Daddy's" or "My hair looks like Mummy's". The fact is, it looks like neither's. Perhaps, then, he feels a little unanchored, a little set adrift. He needs to be moored to the facts of his origin - in a comprehensible visual way - but, owing to his mixed genetic lineage, he cannot really have that. The admixture has obscured his origins - and made something new.

Yet, I am happy for him that he is different. He is different in many ways - and not just hair. He is very much himself and unlike any other. In time, I think he will come to appreciate that and learn to be content with the way things are. It is just that, at four years old, finding common ground with one's fellow youngsters is a big social issue.

I look forward to the day when he is happy to be a stocky, curly headed, half-Irish, half-Malay, handsome man!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

On the genetic inheritance of gift

My father was an enormously strong man, in his youth. His strength would have been legendary, had he lived in earlier days, that lauded such things. As it was, however, he found daily uses for his strength, in the way he went about tasks. He was a man who could lift furniture upstairs, on his own. He had no need of the help of another. He could move objects that would be unmovable, at all, to a typical man, with casual ease. Many a time, as a child, I would wonder at the strength he applied to his daily tasks, in the garden or about the house. Unseen by me, he would apply his strength too, in his business – but for privacy’s sake, I am not going to say what that business was. That his strength was an asset to him, even in modern life, is clear, and in some ways, had he not been strong, he would not have been the success he became (for reasons I will leave undescribed, for they would tell too much about his life – and that wouldn’t be fair).

Now he was an enormously strong man – and I inherited some of that from him, for I have always been a strong man – stronger than most men – yet, not as strong as him, I think. The strength has been handed down to me, somewhat diluted.

I look at my sons, now, in particular, Ainan, and no longer see the strength there, at all. You would never guess, looking at Ainan, that his grandfather was of great physical strength. Ainan does not possess the build that promises a large musculature to come: his is the slightness of the eternal academic, not the strength of a fearsome warrior of old, as, no doubt, our forebears in the old celtic world, were.

So, why do I discuss this? Well, looking at Ainan today, in relation to me, I felt our disparity in strength, and remembered my father’s greater strength before me. Is this, then, the destiny of all genetic gift? Is it to be lost little by little, generation by generation, until all is diluted to nothing? Looking at the decline in strength from grandfather, to father, to son, it might seem so, but all, as usual, is not what it seems.

If we look wider than a single line, we see a different story. I have three brothers, two of whom are stronger than me. I am the shortest male in my family, (though six foot tall) but not the lightest, though the two I estimate to be stronger than me, are both heavier and taller than I am.

My father’s genes have spread wide and each of his children carry half of them. He bore gifts of the mind and gifts of the body – for his mind is good, very good – and his body, in terms of strength, in particular, was most well equipped.

Looking at my brothers, I can see that my father’s qualities of mind appear in them in various admixtures – and so too his strength, in various proportions. I don’t know how many genes are involved in the gifts of the mind and the body – but we each have half of them. It seems, from observation, that there must, for strength, be more than one gene involved – for one can see a gradation across the sons: from quite strong, to strong to very strong to ferociously strong.

My father’s gift of strength lives on – and it is possible that one of his sons is stronger than him, in one way – for one son is six inches taller than his father, allowing him an advantage of scale, even if, for his size, he is weaker.

So, too, is it with my children. Ainan missed out on the gift of strength, it seems – but his brother Fintan did not. Fintan is thickset, well-muscled and, like all Cawleys, stronger than you would estimate. So my own gift of strength has not been lost – it is just not evenly distributed amongst my sons.

I do not know whether Fintan will be as strong as me, or whether, like one of my father’s sons, stronger than his father – but that he has inherited greater than common strength is clear. So, the gift goes on.

I would think it is like this with all genetic gifts. Looking both wide and deep, one will see that the gifts pass into one branch of the family, but miss others – and then further branch again, passing into some lines and not others and so on, forever. Nothing will be truly lost as long as one rule is adhered to: have several children – so that each may bear half the genes and so at least half of each gift, onwards.

I ponder this question because Ainan has certain mental gifts which were evident in my childhood and, no doubt, were anyone around to watch, in my father’s before him: how many more generations can this continue?

The answer is, I think, forever – as long as each generation has enough children so that some – well, at least one, - expresses the gift in question and may pass it on.

As it is in our family, so it is in yours. Whatever gifts you have in you, may be passed down – you just need to have a kid or three. Don’t worry that some have it and some don’t – (or some have more and others have less) because all bear some of it, onwards.

Now all I have to hope for is that I become a grandfather, one day – and watch the story begin to unfold again. There would be satisfaction in seeing that genetic continuity at work. I only hope my children want to have children when they grow up. We will see.

(I should add that even my father is not the strongest man in family legend – there were much larger and stronger men, still, in our background. Looked at physically, therefore, there is evidence of decline in strength over many generations, I would say. (In the direct line, there is decline…but the genes spread wide and are around somewhere). Once, it seems, my forebears had a use for such strength – otherwise they would not have evolved to be so strong, I would think. Looking at the history of the area and of the family, I would say a lot of that would have something to do with the war-torn history of the Land of Ireland, in times, before the gun, when strength was a man’s greatest defence – and offence, too, I might add.)

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan invents the practical joke.

Many a time, Tiarnan has observed Ainan's dislike of insects.

Ainan jumps at the sudden appearance of a cockroach, or the like, spooked by them in a primordial fashion. It is the kind of instinct many of us are born with, but grow out of through over-exposure to the situation. Ainan, though, has yet to have the time to grow out of this basic instinct, this fear of the unknown, or the alien.

Tiarnan, however, does not fear them. No animal seems to excite fear, at all in him. All that is excited is curiosity.

About a month ago, Syahidah saw Tiarnan put a grasshopper, which he had found, lying dead, and picked up, fearlessly to play with, into one of Ainan's school shoes. She scolded him for doing so, and took it out. That was the end of it, she thought.

Later on, as Ainan walked with his mother, he turned to her and said: "Mummy, there is something in my shoe.", there was trepidation in his voice.

Syahidah took off his shoe - and, sure enough, there was a grasshopper inside. Tiarnan had replaced it, when his mummy wasn't looking.

To distract Ainan, Syahidah at once launched into a tall tale about her own childhood and how something similar had happened (whether or not it was true I do not know...that wasn't the purpose: distraction was.) Ainan's attention was drawn to the story and away from the dead horror in his shoe and he was able to cope with the discovery.

Knowing Tiarnan, this was done out of a mischievous sense of humour, for he laughs at many a sophisticated thing.

What I find impressive about this, is that, on seeing the grasshopper, he did not ignore it. Nor did he try to eat it. But he planned the creation of his first practical joke, with it. He must have known that Ainan would react with horror on seeing it. He must have seen some humour in surprising his older brother in this way...and he must also have understood that, in placing the grasshopper in the shoe that it would remain there until Ainan stepped into it. There was planning, dark humour, mischief and imagination in this act, all rolled into one. What is also notable is that he did not desist when his mother told him off - but that he had replaced the grasshopper, as soon as his mother's back was turned. All of this indicates quite a degree of sophistication for a twelve month old baby.

I wonder where this dark humour and liking of practical jokes will take him?

I think I had better start checking my shoes, before I put them on, lest he repeat the joke! (He hasn't so far.)

(If you would like to read more about Tiarnan, or Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, or Fintan, three, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children, in general. Thanks.)

The confederacy of dunces

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift: Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting.

Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, was an Irish literary genius, born in Dublin on November 30 1667. He lived the life of a satirist - at war with the world he saw around him, using words as his weapons. Given the litigious world in which he lived (which might sound familiar to anyone living in the modern Western world), he often wrote under pseudonyms. He is most famed for writing Gulliver's Travels, a satire on his times, and its problems. The quotation above is, perhaps, his most famous remark.

I bring up the matter of Jonathan Swift's remark, for a very important reason. People of genius, whether they be gifted children or talented adults, often find themselves opposed by others. Their new ideas are blocked at every turn by the concerted opposition of their ungifted brethren. This is not a new phenomenon, as the remark of Jonathan Swift, above, makes clear.

I have seen this force at work in my own life - and have read of many examples of an innovator, or creative person, meeting great resistance, from the society around them.

Rather than give you my own examples, at this time, I would like to invite you to comment on any experience that you or your gifted children may have had with this tendency. It may appear in two main forms - and a third unfortunate one. One is the resistance to adopting a new idea - people often find reasons why it won't work or they shouldn't do it. (Alternatively they might just plagiarize you!) Another category is resistance to the genius themselves: ensuring that the gifted individual cannot proceed with their project, idea, plan. There is a final category of resistance. In some times and societies, someone with a new or awkward idea is eliminated, permanently.

So, if you are a creative person, or have creative friends and relatives - and have any experience, major or minor, that supports Jonathan Swift's contention, please comment on this post. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn about a scientific child prodigy, Ainan Celeste Cawley, six, and his gifted brothers, go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html )