Adult is No Standard

Children are often accused of thinking the world revolves around them as if believing this was such a "low" or lesser thing--as if it were a behavior divorced from the adult. Believing one is at the center of something important is as human as human, whether it's believing that all one's friends are spending their time talking about them or believing that extra-terrestrials would have any reason to travel endless light years to us for momentary visits. No. Far from being something divorced from adults, it is the very nature of the human ego to assume itself untouched by behaviors it deems low or lesser than it. By so easily dismissing the child's egoism, adults reveal their own.

Advertisements will even exploit this standard, simultaneously depicting children as rambunctious egoists bent on gratifying their passing fancy along with an adult, normally the mother, in desperation for what she deserves--attention to her plight, attention on her struggles and efforts, only to find that her labors are such that only some godsend product can help dissolve. Advertising is the propaganda of its target audience. When adults are the demographic, the advertising is unquestionably adult-centric. Because adults reserve for themselves the resources of society, they are inevitably the main target audience, thus the majority of advertising is adult propaganda.

Adult-centrism is reinforced by this propaganda. Its main tenet being that whatever constitutes adulthood at any time and place is the standard and pinnacle lifestyle, ideology, perspective, culture, and developmental ability of the human race. Indeed, "adult" is often interpreted as meaning or being synonymous with "human." Childhood and youth is considered unfortunate temporary states of being on the way to becoming adult, which is to say, becoming human.

However, all is subject to interpretation, and all interpretation that prevails is a function of power. Alternative positions, whether adult or child, are simply alternative positions--developmentally defined expressions of humanity. One is no more "superior" by virtue of its power and authority as the other is "inferior" by virtue of it's ignorance. No one is inferior or superior. All expressions of humanity are relative to one another. The only thing maintaining the adult as the standard form of human being and all it's various alternative (child-like) positions as "lesser" or "inferior" states of being, is a function of their power to enforce this perspective. This is done through their propaganda.