Language, as usual.
One of the prize-winning article requests was: “engagement/psychological preparation of children/youth in your planning and preparations—what the hell are you going to do with TMO?”
The following article is actually an excerpt from the working draft of the new book. It is not the exact content in the finished book, but pretty close. Mostly, just the layout is changed, to fix contextual issues that only make sense if you’ve read the six and a half chapters that lead up to this point, before getting into the training-specific aspects of the book.
For most people, the mental image that arises with the term “feral children,” is the boomerang-chucking little mute kid in the Mad Max: Road Warrior. Sociologically, the term “feral children” however refers specifically to children who live isolated from human contact from a very young age.
This leads to a lack of cultural behaviors and understanding, including care and language. While historically, many feral children have been abandoned or confined by their parents as a rejection of intellectual or physical handicaps, there are cross-cultural mythological examples of feral children growing into successful adults. From the Roman foundation myth of Romulus and Remus, to the modern fiction examples of Kipling’s Mowgli, and Burrough’s Tarzan, we can reflect back to the earlier point from this book that “myth is history, told better.”
In the mythological examples, we see children with relatively normal levels of human intelligence and physicality, growing into a superior being, because of their enhanced physical attributes and survival instincts that have not been dulled by exposure to social behavioral norms. Of course, this concept is closely tied to the “noble savage,” or “Myth of the Golden Age,” but it also offers an extremely useful approach for developing cultural identity and raising children that will continue the survival of cultural values and tribal identity.
More @ Mountain Guerrilla
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