ごく幼い子供たちに対し,従来のような(伝統的な)性教育を行うことの害については,--もちろん行政当局の側においてではないが--広く一般的に,しだいに気づかれ始めてきた。正しいルールは,単純である。即ち,子供が思春期に近づくまでは,性'道徳'をまったく教えないことであり,また,自然な肉体の機能に何か胸が悪くなるような(いやな)ものがあるという考えを徐々に教え込まないように十分気をつけることである(松下注:ラッセルは,こうしてはいけない,ああしてはいけないといった,性道徳を思春期前に教えるべきではないといっているのであって,性に関する科学的な知識を与えてはいけないとは言っていないことに注意/「性教育」を「性道徳の教育」と同一視してはいけない)。思春期が近づき,道徳(倫理的)教育が必要になったら,道徳教育は,合理的なものであるべきであり,また,いかなる点でも,あなたの言うことに対して十分な根拠を示すことができるようにすべきである。しかし,本書で私がふれたいと考えているのは,教育についてではない。本書で扱っているのは,むしろ,(人間に)不合理な罪の意識をもたせるような’愚かな教育の悪しき効果'を最小限に食い止めるために,おとなは何ができるか,ということである。 |
下記イラスト:第20回「ラッセルを読む会」案内状より But it is above all in the realm of sex that early moral teaching does harm. If a child has been conventionally educated by somewhat stern parents or nurses, the association between sin and the sex organs is so firmly established by the time he is six years old that it is unlikely ever to be completely undone throughout the rest of his life. This feeling is, of course, reinforced by the Oedipus complex, since the woman most loved in childhood is one with whom all sexual freedoms are impossible. The result is that many adult men feel women to be degraded by sex, and cannot respect their wives unless their wives hate sexual intercourse. But the man whose wife is cold will be driven by instinct to seek instinctive satisfaction elsewhere. His instinctive satisfaction, however, even if he momentarily finds it, will be poisoned by the sense of guilt, so that he cannot be happy in any relation with a woman, whether in marriage or outside it. On the woman's side the same sort of thing happens if she has been very emphatically taught to be what is called 'pure'. She instinctively holds herself back in her sexual relations with her husband, and is afraid of deriving any pleasure from them. In the present day, however, there is very much less of this on the part of women than there was fifty years ago. I should say that at present among educated people the sex life of men is more contorted and more poisoned by the sense of sin than that of women. There is beginning to be widespread awareness, though not of course on the part of public authorities, of the evils of traditional sex education in regard to the very young. The right rule is simple: until a child is nearing the age of puberty teach him or her no sexual morality whatever, and carefully avoid instilling the idea that there is anything disgusting in the natural bodily functions. As the time approaches when it becomes necessary to give moral instruction, be sure that it is rational, and that at every point you can give good grounds for what you say. But it is not on education that I wish to speak in this book. In this book I am concerned rather with what the adult can do to minimise the evil effects of unwise education in causing an irrational sense of sin. |
(掲載日:2005.07.23/更新日:2010.3.31)