143. I am told, for example, that someone climbed this
mountain many years ago. Do I always enquire into the reliability of the teller
of this story, and whether the mountain did exist years ago? A child learns
there are reliable and unreliable informants much later than it learns facts
which are told it. It doesn’t learn at
all that the mountain has existed for a long time: that is, the question
whether it is so doesn’t arise at all. It swallows this consequence down, so to
speak, together with what it learns.
whatever is put to you –
whatever is proposed –
is open to question –
open to doubt
the so called ‘reliability’ of an informant –
is logically irrelevant –
and reliability
–
is really just about pretence –
a pretence that holds up –
when questions are not asked
do children ‘swallow down the consequence’?
hard to say –
some probably do get conned by the rhetoric –
however –
you will find children –
who question
© greg t. charlton. 2010.