Gulliver’s Travels Book I, Part II: Established Value Systems

         Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels wrote this book to be sarcastic. It’s supposed to shed light on issues of the human condition in ridiculous ways. Book I is focused on one of Gulliver’s many different journeys. This journey is when he met the Lilliputians.

     In part I of discussing Gulliver’s Travels we discuss how Gulliver came to be with the Lilliputians, and what their kingdom is like. In chapters 4-8 Gulliver is freed from the Lilliputians' captivity under strict conditions and he learns more about the Lilliput society.

     As our narrator, Gulliver takes us through detailed explanations of the Lilliputians, including their schools and how the children are raised. The children’s education is state-run, and they are put through it at the age of “twenty moons” meaning twenty months old.

     The parents of these children are expected to be appreciative and send their infants off to a public nursery where they are cared for until around four or five. At the age of four boys are expected to dress themselves and they are sent to school rather than the nursery. The same can be said for the girls at the age of five. From there the children’s education depends on their parents’ status. They are brought up and taught different levels of literacy, hard work, and manners based on this. The boys are expected to work at a much younger age than the girls, however girls have stricter rules. The parents are only allowed to visit twice a year where they are allowed one hug, and beyond that no physical contact or passing of sentimental items. The children are aged out of the program differently depending on their sex and status.

     So, why weren't the Lilliputian children allowed to see their parents most of the year? The Lilliputian government wanted to groom their children into a certain role in the community, which is why the status of their parents dictated their level and manner of education. A certain level of this systematic grooming is true in all State issued education systems.

     Politicians want to choose value systems for your children, so they get children away from their parents’ values as soon and as young as possible. When the State decided kindergarten wasn’t soon enough, they created pre-k and got more involved with daycare. These value systems built up by the politicians, right or not, are all most people know, especially young people.

    Your aims and goals in life determine your reality. Your aims and goals will always reflect your personality and interests, but it will also reflect your upbringing and value systems. When your values reflect that of the State it is more likely for you to go out in the world defensive of the State, and believing things like when you read in your history books people thought the world was flat before Columbus. People never thought that or at least took it seriously until the 21st century, and “flat earthers” are a great example of what political values being imposed on young minds can do to the culture.

     Most animals’ brains work with “built in settings.” Deer and horses learn to stand upright on their first day on earth. Humans work differently from all other animals, rather than being somewhat dependent from birth and completely dependent within the first years of life if not sooner, humans’ brains aren’t done changing and developing until well into our twenties. This means that babies have a higher intellectual capacity. We come out of the womb before our brains are fully formed because the human brain is so large and complex. This also means less of what we know is automatic compared to other creatures. Politicians use this to their advantage, grooming kids from the youngest starting point that seems reasonable to parents coming from this political culture, and teaching wrong or biased opinions rather than facts, or the opinions parents might actually want their kids to have as food for thought.

     Just like the Lilliputians, parents not only find this normal and acceptable, but it is becoming normal to start even younger than before, and parents defend these systems, because they went through the systems, particularly when they were more tame, and they themselves were groomed to thinking this is good and what is needed. 

     This system is harmful and grows further out of control of families with every generation. The Lilliputians didn’t have a family, or family values, and refused any culture or opinion but their own, they were often wrong, but they became stressed and full of dissonance when told so. The State system in both fiction and modern time allows parents to have less responsibility and the system more influence.