“The overcompliant, obedient child has the pleasure of short-term safety; he is keeping the mother going by making demands that are well within what he takes to be the mother’s range (he is not being a difficult child; he is keeping the mother happy, not straining her). The non-compliant child is free to find out what the mother’s range might be, and, by the same token, what his own range might be. The compliant child resigns himself; the non-compliant child risks himself: the compliant child consolidates; the non-compliant child experiments. Rebels keep the world the same so they can go on rebelling against it, Sartre says; revolutionaries change the world. The compliant child runs the risk of becoming a rebel; the non-compliant child runs the risk of wanting a permanent state of revolution, of more or less continual self-overcoming. The compliant child, in this very modern story, will crave ritual and routine; the non-compliant child will want nothing but the shock of the new (anger is hope: hope that things can be different; that frustration can be modified). The non-compliant child is always wanting to extend her repertoire; the compliant child is wanting more of the same.”
From Unforbidden Pleasures by AdamPhillips
