One of the smartest people I know is Claire. She’s three years old. Take it easy, other people I know, I’m not saying you lack smarts. Claire just has the advantage right now of fresh eyes. Sadly, I’m sure the world will tell her ‘just because’ and ‘that’s the way it is’ enough times that she’ll catch up with the rest of us on buying what’s put before us. But for now her critical thinking skills are uncluttered and she cuts right through the nonsense.
Her latest victory is rejecting clunky attempts to sway her belief system with a childish premise propped up by dubious and contrived circumstantial evidence. She was shown the recent hidden camera footage of NPR executives talking to fake bad guys and failed to see the outrage. OK, no, it was actually reruns of Scooby Doo cartoons. But there are similarities.
Here’s the transcript of Claire’s investigation into popular belief and why society is willing to suspend skepticism when told there is a monster on the loose:
Claire: “Mom, did you know that the monsters in Scooby Doo are just people in costumes?"
Her mom: "Well, they’re pretend monsters so you don't have to be scared about real monsters."
Claire: "So why do people think they’re monsters if they’re always just people in costumes?"
Her mom: "Good point, Claire."
I laughed when my sister told me about Claire rejecting Scooby Doo. I was proud of my three-year-old niece for seeing through the fakery and cooked-up intrigue to find the whole thing silly, even though it was designed specifically to draw her in. Then I felt like an idiot, because I remember being entertained by Scooby Doo. I got off the phone and went back to reading important news from around the world. People saying other people were doing bad things. Those people saying the other people were really the bad ones. Still more people trying to decide who was doing what – and it all started to look a lot like tired episodes of Scooby Doo.
Thankfully Claire’s schedule is pretty open right now, so I can run things by her before forming my own opinions. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she starts kindergarten. I try to call right after nap time when she’s rested to ask about things like collective bargaining, foreign intervention to remove dictators from power and things like that.
I made a handy reference guide to convert complicated matters into Scooby Doo terms. Oil, lucrative contracts and basically anything financial are Scooby snacks. Contested areas or a theater of operation become the haunted mansion. Occasionally Claire will shift her analysis away from the Scooby Doo model and tackle the problem by using a Blue’s Clues approach – so I’ve had to become familiar with another fact-finding cartoon dog to understand her findings.
So far Claire has the jump on political pundits by arriving at the logical conclusion at least two days before adults sift the details of a breaking news story and unmask the monster, which usually turns out to just be a person. I didn’t even finish explaining the NPR hidden camera controversy before she interrupted and said, “Uncle Jon, this is silly.”
The news was just coming over the wires that an NPR executive was resigning amid the fallout of this cartoon episode so I told Claire I had to get off the phone and make a call to NPR headquarters before it was too late to stop this nonsense.
But it was too late. And following the news just isn’t the same anymore. I tried to sit down and absorb the latest scandal today without reaching out and pulling off the cheap mask…and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling kid. Thanks a lot, Claire. You ruined the news for me. Can I come over and watch Blues Clues instead?
(Wallowa County Chieftain column for March 24, 2011...though in keeping with the Scooby Doo theme, I changed the ending. Claire's mom Jessica pointed out that 'those darn kids' kind of has to be included when there's any mention of Scoob, and she's right.)
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