Maturity Equals Conformity?

Stories are written to entertain us, fulfill our fantasies, and stimulate our minds. But those stories that apply directly to our lives are often the most memorable. Hans Christian Andersen has written many wonderful tales for children. But "The Emperor's New Clothes" has a satirical, adult message also. And that keeps it alive and relevant today.

In this story, we are introduced to an emperor who wrapped his life in clothes, physically and metaphorically. He cared so much about clothing, that he frequently spent egregious sums of money for new "threads". One day, two swindlers, impersonating weavers, offered to weave a new outfit for the emperor. He hired them and gave them silk with which to work. They weaved absolutely nothing. But the emperor pretended to see the invisible clothes in order to keep from looking foolish. He put them on and paraded through the kingdom. Everyone in the town acted as if they saw the non-existent clothes. But a little boy spoke up and told everyone that the emperor really wasn't wearing anything. And everyone listened.

The little boy symbolizes the honesty of youth. When we were young, truth didn't scare us. We said what we wanted, when we wanted. If somebody looked fat, we pointed it out. If a person we didn't know had food hanging out of their teeth, we didn't hesitate to shout it at the top of our lungs. If we saw an ugly person, we blurted, "Hey lady, you're icky!", while all the adults sat there with their mouths gaping wide. And, of course, they tried to remedy the situation by saying something stupid like, "Kids say the darndest things, don't they?" But through all of it, our hearts rejoiced in the freedom of expressing our true feelings. We weren't bogged down because we didn't hold anything back; there existed no build-up of unused emotions.

The townspeople, on the other hand, represent conformity and self-consciousness. They worried constantly about accidentally saying the wrong thing. So they hid what they truly felt deep inside, and put on a facade. As we grow up, we become more afraid to be truthful. Sometimes the truth hurts. And as adults, we feel, "If the truth hurts, what good will it do?" So we tell people what they want to hear. Meanwhile, all of our real feelings are building up inside. And build-ups usually lead to break-downs.

Unfortunately, our society has too many people like the swindlers. They're called "the media." They sell us thoughts and phrases. They tell us what "beautiful" looks like, what is good and bad. The swindlers told the emperor that they would weave wonderful clothes for him. So he believed them, because after all, they were professionals. So they "obviously" knew what they were doing. We believe the media. Why? Because they're the media, and they've existed for a long time. "They know what they're doing." As long as our society conforms to the ways sold to us by our "swindlers," they'll never run out of the funds and ideas that perpetuate their own careers. In the end, the media exists only because the people still support it by taking what it feeds us.

Hans Christian Andersen didn't have to deal with the media when he wrote "The Emperor's New Clothes," but someone has always told us what to think and do. Maybe it was the president, maybe government, maybe the king, etc. But Anderson shows us that although we will always have swindlers, we will also have innocent little children. And that remains very important, because the sooner we stop listening to the children, the sooner we start believing the swindlers.



--Copyright 1997 Michael Schmid--
Back to the Editorial Page