I've no intention of watching Emily Owens M.D., as I've neither the time nor the interest, but I saw a small portion of the pilot this evening. In essence, I walked out (or rather climbed off the couch) after it appeared that this was going to be a show about how adults are just as vindictive and immature as high school students.
Don't you think we've have enough of that?
I've spent the last 9 years or so waiting to finally surround myself with rational people, to no avail. People just won't grow up. I was told to "act my age, and lighten up" by someone 2 or 3 years older than me when I was 13. A few weeks ago, we had a literal overgrown schoolyard bully show his true colors in my dorm.
People are irrational. They don't have to be, but being irrational is irrational, and consequently you cannot simply "convince" them to be rational. You have to ease them into it, helping them eliminate minor contradictions until finally they eliminate the major ones.
Growing up is in some ways an extension of this process. The young mind has plenty of contradictions, many of them planted (intentionally or unintentionally) by adults. But the young child has the ability to resolve these contradictions. Growing up is the process of resolving both internal contradictions and contradictions with reality.
An individual is "mature" when they have resolved all of the major contradictions with them-self and the world around them.
This is not, however, the way the term "mature" is generally used. In my experience, the word "mature" is used to mean "bowing to societal expectations, regardless of their rationality."
Thus, a mature individual is one that behaves the way they're supposed to. Who sets the rules? A collection of somewhat to largely irrational individuals from John Dewey back to Moses. There's no one to argue with (that's another issue entirely), you're just supposed to accept despite the fact that their is no reason nor satisfactory justification.
Thus, we find that to be mature is good, but for others to think you mature is probably bad.
That said, I also want to address the idea of immaturity. Immaturity, in social context, is the refusal to bow to social mores. It can mean anything from laughing with a friend when you fart in the car, to refusing to put clothes on when taken to Buckingham Palace (Sherlock, "A Scandal in Belgravia"). This sort of immaturity can be good: it is an active act of rebellion and independence against the irrational Establishment. It makes people think. It's relatively harmless when practiced among rational individuals.
The other type of immaturity is intellectual immaturity. This is incredibly dangerous.
Intellectual immaturity is the unconscious? refusal to resolve internal contradictions. The intellectually immature have in many cased damaged or destroyed their faculty of identifying contractions, or at the very least chosen not to use it. They cannot be reasoned with in the traditional sense. Handle with care.
The intellectually immature are those people who expect you to forget that they were complete monster to you in high school, or that they can initiate the use of force still be the victim (they're also likely to think that force and violence are synonyms). They are a danger to themselves and others, but are tolerated because they can put on a good facade of social maturity when necessary.
Keep these in mind next time you see someone do something "immature." It probably is, but which kind.
P.S. That overgrown bully in my dorm? I called him immature (among other unprintable things), and his response was mismanaged sarcastic answers about going to "play with his toys." Playing with toys isn't immature, at most a possibly indicator of social immaturity. Immaturity and youth are not synonyms.
