Conformity is so efficient that even when a kid is fresh out of the womb, they are bombarded with their roles in the system

Our dear and near Social Conformity, as I call it, is undoubtedly excellent at strangling a person and their will, forever. Through the roads they walk, through their soul-sucking work, through counting their dimes and dollars in the store, through their school curriculums and even with the bills issued to them in their deathbed. Most of this strangling and bondage we remember. But tell me, which one of us remembers the most core part of their development, their first interaction with the world with a body that is capable of doing more than crying and sucking? I am talking about toddlerhood and the early stages of childhood, of course! The powers of Conformity start their work not in school, but in playtime.

I saw this clearly a few weeks back, when I visited a newly opened toy museum in my city.

Yes, a toy museum. It was the summer, and I have time to spare.

The museum was amazing, but I will not go into detail about the pieces in this museum. What struck me there was the contrast between the toys from different regions. Or rather, the difference in the roles these toys gave the kids.

The difference between the ones from countries like West Germany and Japan, and those from the heart of Anatolia. The dominant narrative of the western exhibits were almost always focused on trains, cranes, space lasers and construction sets. It consisted of things that would be considered industrial. What struck me was what this collection emphasized. It only consisted of what was new and what could be new, in the light and limitations of capitalist systems, of course.

Then I looked towards the section with the toys from Anatolia. Feudal lords, fair maidens and dolls for little “Mother Candidates.” There was one single modern thing from Turkey, and it was, I kid you not, a police car. Everything else was from the past. And not the Anatolian past filled with Peasant Revolts such as the Celali and the Babai I mind you, the past is filled with feudal roles and a tortured peasantry. Even though the entirety of the museum was interesting, this contrast etched itself onto my mind. I saw a completely adjustable crane with a rope and building blocks labeled “ENGLAND”, and a chieftain and his wife labeled “TURKEY”. No Turkish toys were in the section for space-related toys, only Japanese and American ones were. Intentional or not, I think it is a striking contrast. The system making and marketing different toys to societies designed to have different places in the system. A wife to an Anatolian girl, a specialized worker for a German.

A system so efficient, a system so limiting that even when a kid is fresh out of the womb, they are bombarded with their roles in the system. Dolls for girls for them to consider motherhood not a possibility but an obligation. Trains and lasers for the Europeans, while the Anatolian kid plays with their puppets, imitating a blood feud. Think about it, please. A man that hasn’t seen or eaten a burger can’t exactly crave a burger. For a child, it is extremely hard to imagine new things when the horizon is already chosen for you. Tell me, would it be easy for a girl growing up only with dolls of chieftains to crave a position as an architect?

This grooming still continues today. Now, our toy box is much, much bigger. Infinite, digital even. And it is a toy box with an algorithm designed to limit their horizons and only present them with what Conformity wants them to be.

Our youth is being poisoned day and night in these digital environments of play. Our boys are being groomed to hate the very women that gave birth to them and our girls are being groomed to accept being hated. We can see this in the form of short form videos and Twitter rants. The playtime of our youth is being shrunk despite having the capability to be vast and massive. The system of conformity has once again hijacked the playtime of our youth, this time through algorithms, to create a youth accustomed to only playing with what conformity chooses to be correct for them.

It is our duty, as anarchists, to end this. To at least pull our loved ones out of this systematic grooming and let them play with whatever they want. One cannot and should not limit a kid’s horizon. Our duty is not to indoctrinate the youth, but simply show them that their playground, their environment of play, is much bigger than what the algorithms give them. As anarchists, our duty is to pull our brothers, sisters, nephews and students out of this carousel of limitation and show them everything they could be. A girl or boy deserves not to be limited to the role of a mother or a mindless worker. We need to give them the horizon, the freedom to choose who they want to be beyond algorithms. Only then, Anarchism can truly flourish among the young.