Was Peter Rabbit just a nice bunny?

We all know that things are not always as they seem.

Bedposts resemble phallic symbols, the wood in the spiral of the goats horns of the tarot. Peter Rabbit was a villian, I will explain why later.

Is adolescence what it seems? This extension of childhood is a state that has been named and constructed only in the last 60 years or so.

When I think of adolescence I think of the variety of subcultures through which young people express themselves and identify rather than the greater historical truth of, young people working side by side with older people, learning, earning and contributing to the community. The progression of child to adult in the past didnt include the experience of the peculiar phase of restriction and opppression that young people are subject to now and which we call adolescence.

It is obvious that a repressed group is going to identify with subcultures which set them apart from their adult oppressors and through which they release the dam of their repressed energy.

We need educational approaches that liberate rather than oppress our young people. The industrial model of education is not appropriate in the era of the knowledge worker and neither is the construct and status of adolescence and its related restrictions.

In whose interest is it to maintain the status of adolescence? Not the adolescent.

Back to Peter Rabbit - to all appearances he was a nice little bunny. The truth is that he represents persecution by the Church, and he is the villain, rather than Mr. McGregor who is the hero. Ask any Scot and read the Da Vinci code!