A Stuffed Shirt - Akira the Don, Joseph Campbell

Now that’s not quite the way we educate

Our

Youngsters

We have another idea for them

The traditional notion

Of

A mature adult

Is

A person

Who

Behaves

As he ought to behave

Who behaves as the society has always

Asked him to behave

Grandpa behaved this way

So did great grandpa

And every kid who didn’t was eaten

So we all behaved this way

That is to say

The

Adult

Is the one who accepts

And represents

The order

Of the society

Without question

This you get

In all traditional

Societies

Now you know what we call a person

Who behaves that way

A stuffed shirt

A stuffed shirt

A person

Who

Behaves

As he ought to behave

He has never built

Anything

Particular out of himself

He has simply

Done

As told

He’s sure

Of what’s right

Of what’s wrong

And

That’s that

Now we can’t have this anymore

We don’t want it

Our notion

In our society

Today

Of an adult

Mind

Is a mind

That accepts

Responsibility

For its own actions

That judges

In terms of

Value

Not saying

«Oh, I want this because I like it»

But in terms of

An ordered

Considered

Value scale

The individual is to judge

The individual is to criticize

And the individual is to represent

With courage

And loyalty

His judgments

A stuffed shirt

A stuffed shirt

A person

Who

Behaves

As he ought to behave

Now this asks a lot of the society itself

That wasn’t asked before

This also tends to shatter

The idea

Of authority

Now that idea was formally

Validated by say

It came from God

The Lord of the Universe

Ordered things this way

For the society

For the society

The society

The society