Big Babies: Or: Why Can't We Just Grow Up?

by Michael Bywater

Have you ever had the feeling that, in some hard to define way, we are throwing away two and a half millennia of Western civilization, bit by bit, as our culture becomes more and more infantile? That day by day we grow more and more focused on the quick fix, the ticking-off, the expedient lie, the jingle, the spin, the catchy slogan, the obsession with safety, the horror of risk, the terror of complexity, the preoccupation with surface, the apportioning of blame, the instant gratification? Have you ever wondered what happened to grown-ups? Michael Bywater turns his penetrating eye on the state of Western culture, from politics and the media to show business and science, and concludes we are all Big Babies now. With enormous brio, he argues that the Baby-Boom generation is now running the show, and its own commitment to perpetual infantility is reflected in its unstoppable drive to infantilize the rest of us. Ranging from the White House to Buckingham Palace, from MTV to the BBC, from mission statements to Viagra spam, Bywater examines advertising, music, politics, the health industry, education, religion, fashion, sport and publishing, and makes a fierce and often hilarious case that, in almost every area of our lives, we are inexorably becoming ...Big Babies.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Humor, Society

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny in parts, but he just seems to rant and rant and rant without making any real progress.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good ideas, but not enough for a full-length book
I greatly enjoyed Bywater's Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost And Where Did It Go?, his collection of little elegaic pieces on things that have vanished from the UK (ranging from 'Adolescents, Envy of', and 'Bakelite' to 'Warm, The British' and 'Throat, Cigarette Smoke That Was Kind To Your'). Accordlingly, I had high hopes for "Big Babies", believing that it would be a cut above the rest of the everything-is-rubbish books that are currently all the rage.

It makes a good start, as Bywater presents the thesis that we've become 'infantilized', unwilling to take responsibility for our actions, unable to make sensible choices, not wanting to question what we're told, etc. He backs this up with some standard complaints about things like over-legislation and safety notices; although this has all been said before, it's useful to hear it again (at one point, just after I'd read his indictment of a hot water tap to which had been affixed a "CAUTION: Hot water" notice, I looked up from the book and saw a tap with a label reading... "CAUTION: Very hot water"). He also references my personal peeve in this area - i.e., notices that say things like "Our staff have a right to work in a stress-free environment, and we shall proscute anyone who assaults them" - doubtless well-intentioned, but could anyone seriously imagine that they'd make a would-be assailant (even if literate) think twice about their actions?

However, although Bywater's a good writer, he doesn't really develop this idea, and I got a bit tired of the continued re-iteration of this theme, beginning to think that there really wasn't enough material here to warrant a full-length book. Perhaps the same message could have been delivered more usefully as an article - indeed, his suggestions about how to break out of the infantile condition are crisply presented in his last few pages; if a similar terseness had been used throughout, it would have had greater impact, I think.

Originally reviewed 1 September 2008

[Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this in a second-hand bookshop in South Africa, charmed by the shop owner's recommendation taped to the first page of the book that described Bywater as "a refreshingly bad-tempered git... not for all tastes, but [we] enjoy him."
That's about the most accurate review of Bywater one could write. Big Babies is part trenchantly honest, part V for Vendetta, part your grumpy grandfather complaining about how it was all so much better and simpler in the good old days. I couldn't put it down - it's eye-opening (and embarrassingly enough for the reader) about what should really be very obvious - how we are all being infantilised, how we secretly enjoy it and are relieved we need never grow up - ads, banks, corporations, governments talk "at" us and baby us and we fall willingly (even gratefully?) into their traps.
Bywater is as much recommended reading for a well-rounded awake human as Carl Sagan is, and that's the highest compliment I can pay any writer.

[Harmáa Hyypiø · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jaahas, tämän on kirjoittanut brittiläinen kolumnisti. Se selittääkin, miksi kirja oli niin ärsyttävä. Kolumnit ovat minusta tekohauskan höpinän huipentuma, ja britit vielä osaavat tehdä siitä erityisen rasittavaa. Vaikka monta kertaa teki mieli hakata päätä seinään, jatkoin silti lukemista, koska kirjassa on niin tärkeä pointti. Kirjoittaja kuuluttaa, miksemme voisi olla aikuisia ja lakata olemasta markkinavoimien paapomia kakaroita. Tässä kontekstissa olisin toivonut myös aikuismaista kirjoitustyyliä eikä tällaista hipsterimäistä venkulointia. Tosin kirjoittaja itsekin toteaa, että on itsekin samanlainen iso lapsi mitä vastaan kritisoi, joten kai tämä on parasta mihin hän kykeni. Varsinainen asiasisältö olisi mahtunut puoleen sivumäärään, tai neljäsosaan. Suurin osa sisällöstä on samanlaista toisteista jorinaa, listausta, esimerkkejä, lisää esimerkkejä, lisää jorinaa. Joo joo, viesti meni perille jo parisataa sivua sitten.
Sikatyhmä ja silti sikatärkeä kirja.

[Donald Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book years ago. With UK politics where it is today-with Liz Truss being the new PM but finding her government being attacked by pretty much all sides-is Bywater's book dated out of all recognition, or is his world view still relevant?

[Jd98 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is occasionally funny, occasionaly well-written, and occasionally has a point well-made. This was enough to keep me going to the end, but I'm not sure I should have bothered. He says, at one point, that he's only writing it because it had seemed a good idea when he pitched it, and now he's spent the advance. And you can really tell. There's about enough good material for an essay, but he tries to pad it out to book length with a series of extended and repetitive rants. Some of his targets are deserving of his scorn, but others appear almost incomprehensibly random, like when he pines for the days when industrial accidents were common: ok, so people were maimed and died, but it kept us alert and engaged and at least we weren't being mollycoddled with safety equipment like hard hats on a building site.

He is constantly self-contradictory, but at least has the grace to acknowledge it and not try to defend it. He also seems incapable of considering that not everybody is as smart, and abled and privileged as he is, but I suppose we're all guilty of that at times. Cleverly, he hooked me in at the beginning by complaining about people who dismiss an entire argument because they find one part of it that they violently disagree with, because this book almost ended up in the bin a few times. Like when he slips in a throwaway line about women who are raped when drunk needing to take more responsibility for their own alcohol consumption rather than running to the police like an overgrown child. The generous part of my nature consoles itself with the possibility that he doesn't actually believe half of the things he opines in this book.

Ultimately, if you are a person who feels so patronised by the sight of a 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign that you want to punch somebody, then maybe this book is for you.

[Jaybird Rex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bywater's compelling argument that the English-speaking western world is drowning in infantilism comes with a British slant that's sure to expand Yankee and Canadian vocabularies. Clever and witty, the book runs down a long list of behaviors and beliefs which might previsouly have struck you as mere irritations, but which in fact are facets of a civilization-threatening infantilism: people who easily get offended, fear of omnipresent child-rapists, meaningless ads, being monitored at work, die schoene Leiche, etc.

Having finished the book, you may feel slightly "trained" in the art of exposing infantilism. I know I do. I'm looking down at my laptop and seeing the following: "Have questions about what to buy? Text EXPERT for answers." Smugly, utilizing my training, I say: "It's very presumptuous of you Toshiba people to assume I have questions about what to buy. I'm an adult. I know what I want." But in my head I give myself a couple points for this catch ...and doesn't this last bit seem slightly infantile?

The author seems to have anticipated this in his readers and cautions against the quick and easy, almost fashionable, switche to non-infantilism.

Instead, he carefully reminds that, though adulthood is based on authority and autonomy, the most succinct description of adult behavior is more or less "Watch carefully, ask why, and mind your manners."

[Alice Chau-Ginguene · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts at quite an interesting and funny read. But it starts to get a bit repetitive from the middle towards the end. I honestly had to struggle a little bit to finish the final chapters. It's a light hearted airport read and I finally finished it while on a long haul flight.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

"something has gone wrong" -it says.

[Christine]

So hilaRIOUS so far...Check it out!

[Bobbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny rhetoric/rant on baby boomers and the lack of ownership for their actions.

[Kindah Sanderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of all time. Utterly hilarious. Thoroughly true. An outstanding piece of prose and analysis.

[Sarah]

Abandoned on page 8 of 240. Didn’t like the style. Too busy being humorous and rhetorical to actually get to the point.