An Algebraic Disposition

How Parents Stifle Children's Agency

Human actions are algebraic. Now this is a hard line and topic to unpack. Therefore, I beg the reader who really wishes to understand what I mean to be patient with me as I unpack this topic. Please.

To start with, I could use the maxim “Appearances can be deceiving.” And I fear that it works. But I also fear that it undersells what I wish to explain. It undersells for one reason: that I am trying to tell you three things in one: (1) the nature of human actions, (2) the nature of algebra, and (3) how narrow-minded parenting may stifle children’s agency. This essay then is an effort to show how human actions have a mathematical characteristic which if you can comprehend it, will make your intellectual journey interesting forever. I know the advice is usually to stick to one idea. But for the sake of integrity, I am afraid that I cannot do that. I proceed.

Algebra, as against regular arithmetic, deals with generalities. Algebra uses variables while arithmetic uses integers. Why does this matter?

Algebra is a tool for handling and resolving the limits of knowledge

It matters because we humans love the specific, the concrete, and the particular. For instance, I could not use only abstract terms throughout this essay without losing you. I have to apply examples and instances to demonstrate what I mean so that you do not lose touch with what I have to say. It is more profitable to say “The dog wagged its tail” than to say “The dog was happy.” The former is more vivid than the latter. That is the difference between the concrete and the general (or loosely, the abstract). 

However, there is a problem. Our affinity for concretes and particulars tempt us into reductionism. Where reductionism is taking a part of a thing to represent the whole. For instance, it was reductionist for the blind man (from the story of the six blind men and the elephant) who touched the trunk of an elephant to say it was a snake. When you use a part to represent a whole, you have reductionism. That is the danger of loving—usually sensational—particulars. We buy into a sensation and assume it to be the whole thing.

Another instance is sex, pleasure, and procreation. One may swiftly assume—as hedonists and debauchers do—that since sex is pleasurable, sex is best for pleasure. The other extreme is represented as well in the discourse that if sex is best for procreation, all sex must be for procreation and any sex act done without the motive to procreate is a sin. Both sides make their conclusions on reductionist premises.

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Algebra trains the mind against an unrestrained love of particulars. That is algebra’s “use-case.” We know how to use arithmetic and integers every day but we cannot see how algebra helps daily life. Perhaps because the way it does so is unobvious. Or perhaps because we miss the entire point of Mathematics as a society. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, “Mathematics is principally a tool to meditate, rather than to compute.” And it is a pity that our mathematics teachers, in a bid to make students appreciate the subject, point to physical things in the world that mathematics helped make; but they never mention that mathematics is best used for intellectual stimulation. They never tell us that Mathematics, if done right, changes the scaffold of our thought mechanism and makes the life of the mind richer and more elegant. And you may not blame them: contemporary life has little use and respect for the contemplative life; materialism, “technique,” and the allure of function lures us away from things which have their chief ends as the interesting life of the mind. But I digress.

Mathematics is principally a tool to meditate, rather than to compute.”

Algebra’s function in all these is to teach us how to depart from the sensational specific into the less-sensational general so that we are less deceived by appearances and fall less into the intellectual vice of reductionism.

What algebra, if we practice it well, helps us to do is establish connections without sliding into a hole we cannot exit. It provides a reliable placeholder for thought. Algebra is good for the labelling of a property which lacks a specific value. Just as how a, b, and c may label the sides of a right-angle triangle without giving us their specific values, taking an algebraic disposition allows us to spot and resolve human actions, responses, and patterns that are crucial to know but which still conceal a particular meaning. Algebra is a tool for handling and resolving the limits of knowledge.

Let me explain in another way. Humans hate uncertainty. We would rather accept the wrong answer than wait for the fuller picture to unfold. (“I don’t know” has a way of causing people to shift uncomfortably in their seats.) What algebra does for our intellectual infrastructure in those moments of a haunting uncertainty is to give us a resolvable label until we can determine the specifics of the action. When we ask for “context,” we are assuming that a thing belongs as a part of a whole. An algebraic disposition then will be doing the best with what you have when lacking context or a fuller picture. This is how prudence resembles algebra.

For instance, silence has an algebraic character. I believe (or hope) that you will understand this. Some people say that “silence is complicity.” Others say “Silence is the best answer for a fool.” Some still say that “silence says a lot.” All of them point to silence in general but with different interpretations in particular. You may take silence as variable “x.” In other words, when you don’t know the particular value of silence as “x”, you may safely reside within a general variable and proceed with your calculations. This may be something as simple as walking away or waiting for more explanation. A person’s reason for keeping silent remains within their power to determine. But looking at what silence-as-x may be, you may safely perform algebra in your actions. And this shadows a proposition which I may take time in the future to develop: prudence is the algebra of the moral world. Think about that.

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To the crux of this essay, of which I am tackling the perceived lack of agency in the world, I present a proposition that a deficit in algebraic dispositions of parents is killing agency in their children.

Let’s remember that a way to state this theory of algebraic disposition is that appearances can be deceiving. Here is what I mean—and I will tell a little of my life’s story—that high-agency people are sometimes perceived as threatening and then silenced for it.

Because appearances can be deceiving, people who exhibit insurmountable degrees of agency may appear to others as unhealthily independent, proud, declining help, or arrogant. Again, appearances can be deceiving. A child who begins to show unusual self-determination may refuse help. This is because he delights in, and gains unusual satisfaction from, accomplishing tasks by himself. This may by no means be a child showing contempt for help—the motivating factor is delight, not contempt. However, a parent’s ego may be stung. Or a teacher’s ego may be stung. I would expect that a child showing self-determination means less work for the parent or the teacher—one less hand to hold with little fear that anything may go wrong. Alas, it is not always the case. Those who derive their own dignity from being helpers—controllers, demi-gods, white knights, moral busybodies, helicopter parents, non-governmental organisations, social justice warriors— may feel their own power wane when the people they are in charge of show a spark of agency. Remember C.S Lewis’ quote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

As it was in my case, and in the case of many others, a desire to reach first principles, to dig for things, sheer curiosity, to determine our own direction—not out of contempt for our forebears or instructors—but for an urge to explore, was regarded as prideful and contemptuous of authority. It hurts to be misunderstood this way.

As early as 3 years, I attempted to write my own name at a time when parents and teachers still wrote our names for us. It was something I so wanted to do that I did not understand why my siblings praised me for it. I thought it was normal for everyone to write their own names. What I did not know was that the light of agency was flickering in my soul. I am grateful that despite the external resistance—much of which I admit and recognise came from a place of goodwill—did not quench that flicker. 

Regrettably, however, many parents do not recognise the response of children who wish to self-direct. Given that children are foolish (yes, children are foolish), it is only wise as a parent to assume an algebraic disposition; to realise that the strong urge in a child to direct themselves may be open to interpretation.

True to it a child may be purely proud or arrogant. If that child is Satan’s spawn, the child may have an irredeemable contempt of authority. However, I err on the side of the notion that children who show independence are exhibiting agency that needs guiding and nourishing instead of constricting and stifling. An algebraic disposition will resemble this: parents may let children do non or less-risky things by themselves without interference. It is a straightforward thing. Examine an activity or course and determine the risk involved as well as the cost needed for resolving anything that goes wrong. If negligible, you may allow them to do as they please with little interference. Only intervene when the risks are grave or when intervention teaches a great lesson that the child may miss otherwise. Let kids do. Let them take action while you instil in them the principles of actions and consequences as a virtue.

Because appearances are deceiving, people who have a measure of authority over others have a greater responsibility to take an algebraic disposition—that is to administer authority with prudence. The greatest intellectual vice a person in authority may commit in such situations is to fall for reductionism. This is akin to being Polyphemus—much strength with a limited scope of vision.

Polyphemus the man-eating giant depicts great strength with a small vision

That pride, arrogance, and agency all look alike does not mean that they are the same. You must take reversible actions until you can nail which is which and what is what.

I am tempted to expose when a case is that of pride or arrogance or agency. But that will be a sin on my part as I would be robbing you of an opportunity to think about it yourself. My way of urging my readers to exercise agency is, if you find anything worth thinking about, go ahead and think about it. It is always my hope to have given you something worth thinking about. Thank you for reading.

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I write this essay partly in honor of my late brother whose posthumous birthday I celebrate today. He was the person with the highest agency I ever had the privilege to know. He definitely was an influence on my life and perhaps things would have been a bit different if he were here. He believed in me and I will never waste that belief.