While societies which have built upon the traditions of hyper-masculin — Ashis Nandy

"Younger children do not often have the option of breaking out of the social or educational traps set for them. Their physical, emotional and socioeconomic vulnerability does not give them much chance of escape and they have to play out the institutional games devised for them. In many societies, by the time they gain social and economic autonomy, it is already too late for psychological autonomy; they continue to carry within them the passions, hates and loves of their earliest authorities."

"Perfect adulthood, like hyper-masculinity and ultra-normality, has become the goal of most over-socialized human beings, and modern societies have begun to produce a large number of individuals whose ego-ideal includes the concept of adult maturity as defined by the dominant norms of the society."

"Childhood has become a major dystopia for the modern world. The fear of being childish dogs the steps of every psychologically insecure adult and of every culture which uses the metaphor of childhood to define mental illness, primitivism, abnormality, underdevelopment, non-creativity and traditionalism."

"For those who dare to defy the given models of defiance."

"It has been said in recent times that alternative visions of the human future must derive their ideas of spontaneity and play from the child. Implied in this very proposal is the tragedy of Western adulthood which has banished spontaneity and play to a small reservation called childhood, to protect the adult world from contamination."