Kaleidoscope Cherising of Childhood 2

Much of Montagu’s work on neoteny, along with that of Konrad Lorenz took place in the 1950s, as we will see in the upcoming mini-excursion, which is precisely when Disneyland opened. Part of the financing for Disneyland was provided by the ABC television network, and as a condition for financing, Disney supplied two television series, Disneyland and the Mickey Mouse Club. Ten days before the debut of the Mickey Mouse Club in October 1955, Walt summarized his thinking behind the show:

At our studio, we regard the child as a highly intelligent human being. He is characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong sense of excitement, energy, and a healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grownup who manages to carry these same characteristics over into his adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual. Essentially, the real difference between a child and adult is experience. We conceive it to be our job on the ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ Show to provide some of that experience . . . happy, factual, constructive experience whenever possible. (Watts, 1997, p. 340)

Disney intuitively knew the importance of neoteny. He built Disneyland to capture this spirit and keep it alive. I believe neoteny is what we are truly yearning for, but we settle for the pale copy, the corrupted form which mimics the outward appearance of Disneyland but has lost its true essence, which is neoteny.

Bryman (1995) discusses the criticisms surrounding the Disney enterprise and Bryman's (2004) most recent book, The Disneyization of Society, discusses the tremendous impact Disney and Disneyland have had on the world. Bryman (2004) notes that many have copied Walt’s genius of theming, his ability to use different media to cross market his products, and his creation of the park’s performative culture taught at “Disneyland University.” Society has been not only Disneyfied, which other authors discuss, but Bryman argues, that society has also been “Disneyized,” through through theming, hybrid consumption, performative labor, merchandising, and control and surveillance. Walt Disney was a master and pioneer in almost all of these areas, they all are a part of the magic that makes Disneyland successful. From shopping malls to urban restoration to Las Vegas, others have sought to incorporate some of this Disney magic, however, there are also large shadows associated with these different things, and Bryman discusses them extensively. Disneyland works because of these things, but Disneyland is not these things. Without neoteny, our cosmological calling, they are empty and do not really satisfy, however we think that Disneyizing will be satisfying so we continue to replicate the form without the neotenous substance that is the true magic of Disneyland.

Mini-Excursion--The Roots and History of Neoteny

In this mini-excursion, we can look at neoteny’s roots and its beginnings at the turn of the Twentieth Century, quickly touching on some of the major works concerning neoteny and noting the different names by which this concept has been called, including in the 1950s when De Beer coined the phrase “the Peter Pan Effect.”

Neoteny has an interesting history, which Montagu (1983) extensively chronicles in an appendix, and whose synchronisitic highlights will be noted here. The term “neoteny” was coined in 1884 by Kollman, to indicate “sexual maturity while in larval or embryonic form,” although a German embryologist in 1866, used the term paedo (child) genesis (generation) to indicate the same idea. Montague explicates that Kollman took the Greek neos (youth) and teino, meaning Kollman thought,“to retain or delay.” Montague argues that the Latin tenere means hold, while teino, means stretch or extend forward. Either way, both have the same indo-european root, ten I, which encompasses holding and stretching and from which the word entertainment comes as well (Shipley 1984), which Victor Turner (1988) explains is liminal and means “to hold between” (p. 41).

Montagu (1983) explains that the word neoteny made its first appearance in English in 1901 in Gadow’s work on Amphibia and Reptiles. Havelock Ellis, in 1896, in his book Man and Woman clearly described and recognized the importance of neoteny, but did not use that word: “the progress of our race has been a progress of youthfulness” (Montagu, p. 230). The idea of neoteny was also recognized by various biologists at the turn of the century: Boaz in 1896, and Jackel and Giard both in 1901. So, we can again see that this period around the turn of the Twentieth Century, yielded yet another important concept that is integral to understanding play. We will also look at other time periods that are considered in this dissertation, and see what was happening in regard to neoteny at those times.

Ganstang in 1922 called this phenomena paedomorphosis (paedo—child, and morphosis—body formation) “formed like a child”, while Bolk in 1925 called it "fetalization" and recognized that it was primarily a matter of development rather than adaptive change. “He saw anthropogenesis—evolution of man, as the effect of a single functional process, the retention in adult of prehuman fetal or infantile traits” (Montagu, 1983, p. 236).

Gavin de Beer wrote about neoteny in his 1948 book, Embryology and Evolution of Man and in a 1950 BBC broadcast entitled Peter Pan Evolution called the delaying process of neoteny the “Peter Pan Effect”:

Evolution by neoteny or paedomorphosis may be likened to a rejuvenating effect. And that, indeed, is what its effect is. Evolving by neoteny and having moved into a new zone of adaptation, namely the human-made environment or culture, it has become essential to maintain and progressively reinforce this paedomorphic effect. (Montagu, 1983, p. 246)

Later in 1964, de Beer published The Atlas of Evolution, which discussed and illustrated the workings of paedomorphosis as a factor in evolution. Meanwhile Konrad Lorenz published Part and Parcel in Animal and Human Studies in 1950:

the constitutive character of man—the maintenance of active, creative interaction with the environment—is a neotenous environment. Gehlen’s recognition of the unique human trait of always remaining in a state of development, Lorenz remarks, “is quite certainly a gift which we owe to the neotenous nature of mankind.” [emphasis in original] (Montagu, p. 249)

Lastly, Montagu himself, in 1955 and 1956 wore two papers, “Time Morphology And Neoteny In The Evolution Of Man and Neoteny” and “The Evolution Of The Human Mind.” Montagu argues that the transition of ape to man happened through the retention of juvenile brain growth trends and the potential for learning into the adolescent and adult phases of development.

While neoteny has gone by many names over the years, what remains the same is its evolutionary importance, especially to our species. Montagu, as previouslly mentioned, clearly explains that “the goal of development is to retain these childlike qualities into adulthood, not to abandon them as so many of us have done” (Mendizza & Chilton Pearce, 2003, p. 127).

The Face of Neoteny

You will be able to answer the following question correctly if you read the question to the tune of the “Mickey Mouse Club” theme song: Who’s the best exemplar of the word neoteny? Answer: M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E! That’s right! Biologist Steven Jay Gould, uses Mickey Mouse as a model for neoteny, and he applies Lorenz’s schema to Mickey’s evolution. Mickey was not always the adorable creature he has become; like Merlin, he has “youthened,” and has been increasingly neotenized over time in both appearance and demeanor: “Gould demonstrates that the cartoon mouse came to life in 1928 as a somewhat nasty, rambunctious character, but became more loveable as he became a national symbol” (Lawrence, 1986, p.68). Gould believes that intuitively Disney artists understood what changes would make him cuter and more appealing, though they did not consciously realize the biology behind it. Lawrence points out that “in his progressive acquisition of youthful features, Gould suggests Mickey Mouses’s evolution mirrors our own” (p. 68).

Lawrence (1986) notes that Mickey Mouse is one of the most highly anthropomorphized and neotenized of all animal figures, and is viewed as a special kind of ageless youngster, whose hopeful, high pitched voice signals that he has not yet gone through puberty, and thus he serves as an escort back to the state of youth:

“Mickey reflects a wish on the part of his creator to recapture some aspect of lost childhood.” Mickey Mouse has thus been described as “a child’s ego ideal,” who “has a capacity to play,” and “to make play of work.” Like a child, he goes off to explore whatever strikes his curiosity: Action follows seeing without the interpostion of thinking.” (p. 66)

Lawrence (1986) contends that our youth-oriented culture extends to the netotenization of our pets and cartoon characters, of which Mickey is the prime example and:

By making our pet and cartoon animals into perpetual children who never grow old, we undoubtedly come to identify ourselves with their juvenile state. Thus they serve to rejuvenate us and to protect us from the reality of the old age, and the ensuing death that we deny. (p. 70)

Perhaps we might look at the increasing neotenization of our pets and cartoon characters, and the youth orientation of our culture in another way, not only as a way to deny death and old age, but also perhaps as a call to return to our true destiny, the call of the future, neoteny.

Through Mickey, we can reconnect with this part of ourselves and see the world through new eyes, the eyes of childhood, as Walt explained in a radio interviw in the late 1930s:

Everybody in the world was once a child. We grow up. Our personalities change, but in every one of us something remains of our childhood . . . [this] knows nothing of sophistication and distinction. It’s where all of us are simple and naïve without prejudice or bias. We’re friendly and trusting and it just seems that if your picture hits that spot with one person, its going to hit that spot in almost everybody . . . that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall. (Watts, 1997, pp. 160)

Mickey after all put Disney on the map, and his statue appears next to Walt Disney’s at Disneyland’s hub. Disneyland, also sometimes referred to as “the House of Mouse,” just celebrated its Golden Anniversary, on July 17, 2005. Over 500 million people have come to visit Mickey at Disneyland over the years and Disneyland, like Disney’s films, were designed for only one audience, the “Mickey Mouse audience” which Walt described:

that audience is made up of parts of people; of the deathless, precious, ageless, absolutely primitive remnant of something in every world racked human being which makes us play with children’s toys and laugh without self-consciousness at silly things, and sing in bathtubs, and dreams, and believe that our babies are uniquely beautiful. You know, the Mickey in us. (Lawrence, 1986, pp. 70-71)

Disney built Disneyland for the Mickey in us, to help us to reconnect with our neotenous nature, as Thomas (1976) quoting Walt explains:

Disneyland isn’t designed just for children. When does a person stop being a child? Can you say that a child is ever entirely eliminated from an adult? I believe that the right kind of entertainment can appeal to all persons, young or old. I want Disneyland to be a place where parents can bring their children—or come by themselves and still have a good time. (p. 11)

Waldrep (1993) notes that for children, all of history, essentially occurred in mythical time, because they did not personally live history, even the most recent past. Waldrep explains that Disneyland may be an attempt to recreate this utopian, mythical, timeless state:

as the planners tap into something like a Jungian “collective unconscious with innate archetypes” or what Benjamin referred to as the “world of symbols.” The “child’s reception of objects" accomplishes what adults cannot, which is to “discover the new anew.” The Magic Kingdom is an attempt to recreate in adults at least the memory of this discovery and to fuel the original process in any child who visits the park. (p. 149)

Though Mickey is now almost 80 years old, he still retains his youthful good looks and his childlike behavior. Mickey is timeless, like Disney’s classic films. Although timeless, Lawrence (1986) points out that:

Mickey in a fascinating way has always been connected with the element of time, as has one nursery rhyme predecessor, who ran up the clock. Mickey appears on watch faces all around the world and has for decades since his 1933 debut. (p. 70)

Mickey’s association with time is reminiscent of the Heraclitus fragment which Jung carved on his stone at Bollingen to commemorate his seventy-fifth birthday in 1950: “Time is a child playing like a child, playing a boardgame, the kingdom belongs to the child.” Indeed, this kingdom, Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom, belongs to the child in all of us.

Essentially neoteny looks backward to childhood and forward to the future at the same time, and this is just what we are about to do in the next excursion where nostalgia and utopia, two sides of the paradisial coin are considered.

End of excursion, continue to the "Looking-Back Looking-Forward" excursion