The disenchantment and re‐enchantment of childhood in an age of globalization

Abstract

The ancient Greek story of King Midas is well known: when granted a wish, he asked that all he touched would turn to gold. It was bad enough when trees and food were transformed, but great was his grief when his beloved little daughter became solid gold. Many culture critics today would use King Midas as a parable for globalization in its wholesale idolatry of money. Here, I focus on his little daughter: objectified, commodified and robbed of childhood, she stands as a parable for all children today in a global system threatening to remove all that is precious to childhood. First, I describe how globalization functions as idolatry, then ask how it targets children as both victims and consumers, before exploring the path to the re‐enchantment of childhood.

Keywords:

• Globalisation
• Commodification
• Spirituality
• Re‐enchantment
• Healing
• Spirit of truth

Notes

1. I owe this use of ‘bewildered’ to Thomas Culinan, OSB, from a meditation at the Conference on ‘Globalization and the Gospel of Social Justice’, Ushaw College, Durham, July 2001.