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9.a. The sociological imagination.

No. Heidegger (and Wittgenstein) had this idea about the absolute origin of words and
the irreplaceable notions that then attach to them. From this, we know the obvious fact that time enters our behaviour as judgment, in that whether we are totally conscious of it or not, we know mortality in the various degrees to which age affects us. The child doesn’t really care about his parents. If you take a two- or a ten-year-old, give him plenty of ice cream and make their lives as comfortable as they were, they are apt to assume you as their parents and not so gradually accept you as such. The life force in the young is really strong and focuses forth, as if there is no death or
mortality in sight. Children in this sense also move between rooms; they never quite move between
countries. So, you see, one has to be adult, educated and refined to suffer the real sense of loss when someone close to us dies. A child is immune from this. It is only the more humanised adults – those who feel what has gone behind and what is in store -- who feel the full brunt of
mortality. So, too, to confront another culture can be a trial and an ordeal for cultured adults. Children just move their toys and their dollies into the next room and are really enamoured at their new environment – not totally or forever, but in general!