When I look in to my son's eyes I see an unsullied, pure intelligence utterly unaware of itself. He is innocent, but that doesn't mean that he is always an angel. He has made the connection between crying and things happening (comforting, feeding etc.) and he is starting to wield that power capriciously, at times crying at the slightest provocation, or with no perceptible provocation at all. Now, my questions are threefold: 1. If he is aware of having power over his environment does that mean that he is necessarily aware of himself as the agent wielding that power? 2. What is the moral status of the state of innocence? 3. When is innocence lost, where do we draw that line, and what is the crucial distinction between innocence and ignorance?
In his inchoate mind, it must seem magical how things come and go. We, his parents, must appear to be omnipotent agents pulling the strings that make it all happen. Freud said that the widespread belief in an all-powerful personal deity can be traced to this ubiquitous experience as an infant. As far as he is concerned, religious faith is explained away as merely a distorted recollection of that early impression of omnipotence. But, I digress. As far as I can tell, the essence of innocence is to be beyond blame, i.e. beyond reproach or accountability for one's actions. Forgive them father, for they know not what they do. And, indeed, I have no doubt that he does not cry to deliberately exercise his power over us. He does not yet have the requisite concepts to perform a power trip. However exasperating his touchiness may be for us, because we know that he doesn't yet have the capacity to be truly pulling one over on us we practice patience and try not to hold it against him when he cries seemingly just for the hell of it. I believe that what is going on can be explained much more simply as a conditioned response. He is operating on the same level as a rat pushing a bar to get a pellet. Of course, that is a rather unsavory comparison but I believe it gets at an essential point, namely, that innocence has a rather undeserved aura of goodness associated with it, when in fact it is nothing particularly admirable, in and of itself. Just as the rat will continue to push the bar when it is not particularly hungry, but just peckish or simply feels like gorging itself, so my son will cry at will in a sort of free floating see-what-happens directive. Perhaps boredom is the stimulus. This is a recent development, which to my mind lends more credence to the notion that it is a learned behavior that can be differentiated from the instinctual cries that have physiological needs behind them. His hunger cry is very clear (MmN- Gah!) and his cry of pain for gas or whatever else ails him is quite different from the newer petulant cry he now deploys every once in a while, arbitrarily. In any case, in light of these reflections, I can say answer my first question with a definitive No. He has no idea that it is even him doing the crying-it is not something he does deliberately, rather it is something happening to him, or through him, as it were. He hasn't yet developed a concept of himself as an agent yet. One need only observe his random arm movements to understand that he is not yet aware enough of himself to be master of himself.
As to the moral status of innocence, earlier I alluded to the widespread positive connotations of the state of innocence as being unwarranted. I believe that this impression of it stems from people's attitudes about young things and the instinctual protectiveness that they elicit. When we look at any young and defenseless thing, particularly our own offspring, we are never seeing them with an unbiased eye; instead of seeing their unsteady movements and inability to fend for themselves as a debilitating and pathetic immaturity, it appears cute to us and we are overcome with good will towards this little creature. Of course, this sense that I am using is a limited notion of innocence as being chiefly the province of the young and unformed. When we consider the legal definition of innocence or how the term applies to an animal who kills by instinct, the salient meaning that the divergent senses share is put in to relief. This is, first off, the absence of guilt and, secondarily, the implicit lack of relevant knowledge that would serve as the basis for being culpable. Here, it is instructive to consider how the christian doctrine of original sin contrasts with the intuitive understanding of innocence I have just outlined. The doctrine, what I know of it anyway (I am not a biblical scholar), essentially says that we are all born guilty because Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and got us kicked out of the garden (which I take to symbolize the natural order). This is all fine as it goes, but it does seem to fail to take in to account a baby's complete lack of knowledge and awareness of itself. In fact, they lose a lot potential converts at precisely that sticking point: a baby raised outside the christian fold is condemned to hell, without ever having done anything wrong. When the doctrine of original sin comes up against the intuitive understanding of innocence it often proves to be the worse for wear. To return to the question at hand, what does all this tell us about the moral valence of innocence? Given that the essence of innocence is inculpability and its attendant deficiency of knowledge, I would say that innocence is prior to moral accountability and as such constitutes a gray area of sorts (limbo jibes with this as a mitigating factor on the harshness of the original sin doctrine). The purity associated with innocence should not be confused with the purity of goodness that comes after having tasted knowledge and turning away from the world of vice. That is all couched in the terms of the christian moral order, of course. Nonetheless, most belief systems that pass judgment (whether or not it is explicitly moral judgment) will allow that there exists a gray area where someone cannot and should not be held accountable for what they have done precisely because they lack the capacity to understand what they have done. Lenny from "Of Mice and Men" comes to mind as a paradigmatic case of this. So much for the moral status of innocence, on to the question of where innocence ends and ignorance begins.
Up until now I have been speaking theoretically of innocence as an all or nothing affair; in practice I am more inclined to say that it is a matter of degrees. Most of us are innocent of lots of things in the world (in the senses of both knowing of them and of perpetrating them); but by the same token, we are all also stained by our time on the earth and no one makes it to adulthood without experiencing suffering, shame and (if not experiencing it firsthand) seeing evil done. But how do we know when we are no longer innocent? For some there occurs a definitive moment when they shed their naive views and are ushered abruptly into a world of iniquity and deviance. For others (the majority, I suspect) the process is erosive and subtle, one day we look back realize that we have lost something that we can not get back: the faith in the world being just, the pristine magic of imaginative play, the sense of an invisible safety net waiting to catch us- are just gone.
On the face of it, the difference between innocence and ignorance is clear: an ignorant person should know better whereas an innocent person is not at fault for not knowing any better, whether this is due to a developmental inability to do so, a lack of available information or some other extenuating circumstance. It is interesting to note that the distinction itself undermines the positive aura associated with innocence. If an ignorant person is someone who has no excuse for not being accountable for their actions, then they should be encouraged to correct their deficiency. That much is clear. What of innocence though? The prevailing attitude seems to be that innocence is a special state that should be preserved as long as possible. I take issue with this. This is not to say that we should be explaining the in and outs of sado-masochism to five year olds, or discussing the harsh realities of widespread famine, war and disease with eight year olds. However, if it comes up, i.e. if these grisly realities intrude on a child's life, is it necessarily better to keep them in the dark or lie to them, assuming that they have the capacity to understand the phenomenon, however grisly or perverse it may be? Frankly I am convinced that this sort of situation has no right answer and is another example of the morally ambiguity that surrounds innocence. If we are capable of knowing something that will better equip us for the dealing with the unsavory realities that we will face in world, is it not better to know than not to know? Of course, in some cases, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle and it is not always better to know, particularly when knowing will not change anything. If a situation, problem, atrocity or whatever the case may be cannot be remedied, it is probably better not to know of it.
Let us step back from the moral intricacies and look at the problem with a scientific eye. The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget had a multiple stage theory of children's mental development that sheds some light on the question at hand. We have already established that innocence is connected with knowledge in general and actionable knowledge in particular. In stage two of Piaget's schema (following the sensori-motor stage) the child begins to manipulate symbols and enters the world of language. Concurrently, the child is learning about all of the social relations that are mediated by language (manners, honorifics, promises etc.) I would argue that it is at this point, when we all really bite the apple, that the child starts to lose her innocence. This comes about gradually, not all at once. One day the child over hears her parents arguing and understands that words can wound; on the playground she witnesses (or participates, or is victimized by) bullying; when asked if she finished her dinner prior to eating dessert she lies to get her fix. This process is inevitable and irreversible. Though it is sad in a way, it is also an integral part of growing up. Sheltering a child from these realities is ultimately doing them a disservice. When they do finally enter the world they will more likely be viewed as dumbasses who never learned what is what, rather than sweet little innocent things. Perhaps I show my cynicism when I say that, but there is a fine line between cynicism and realism and I would much rather have a precocious, prematurely wizened child than a perpetual babe-in-the-woods.
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