of living in an unintelligible, bewildering, and frightening universe, in which cognitive self-confidence is
impossible. Sometimes, the cause is a volitional default on the part of the child—a disinclination to generate the
energy of thought, an attitude of irresponsible passivity and dependence. Sometimes, the cause is the child's desire
to indulge in wishes or actions he knows to be irrational, which requires that a policy of evasion be instituted —
which requires that the will to understand be suspended.
Often, however, the causes are more complex—as, for instance, in the case of a child who comes up against human
irrationality with which he does not know how to cope. A child may find the world around him, the world of his
parents and other adults, incomprehensible and threatening; many of the actions, emotions, ideas, expectations, and
demands of the adults appear senseless, contradictory, oppressive, and bewilderingly inimical to him. After a
number of unsuccessful attempts to understand their policies and behavior, the child gives up—and takes the blame
for his feeling of helplessness. He may react with anger or hostility or anxiety or depression or withdrawal, but,
consciously or subconsciously, he takes his failure to understand as a reflection on himself; he accepts an unearned
guilt; he concludes that there is something wrong with him, that he is intellectually or morally deficient in some
nameless way. Gradually, he gives up the expectation that he will ever be able to make sense of the world around
him; he resigns himself to living with the permanently unknowable.
A child is vulnerable, because he is not yet able to recognize clearly and unequivocally that his elders are
irrational—particularly when some of the time they are not, but are reasonable, thoughtful, fair, and affectionate.
He cannot grasp their motives, he knows they know more than he does, but he senses, miserably, desperately, and
inarticulately, that there is something terribly wrong—with them, or with himself, or with something. What he feels
is: I'll never understand people, I'll never be able to do what they expect of me, I don't know what's right or
wrong—and I'm never going to know.
So long as a child continues to struggle, so long as he does not give up the will to understand, he is psychologically
safe, no matter what his anguish or bewilderment: he keeps his mind and his desire for efficacy intact. When he
surrenders the expectation of