Lecture Halls Ruled by Scholars in Their Graves
Every time I open a developmental psychology textbook in a university lecture hall, a bizarre sensation washes over me. The pages are tightly packed with the theories of white scholars from a century ago, who lived in an era devoid of smartphones, the internet, and the concept of remaining unmarried. Professors claim that "human beings have become too complex to forge new theories," but if that is the case, why do they stubbornly cling to the classics, refusing to update the textbook’s table of contents by even a single millimeter?
If you peer behind the curtain of this contradiction, you find lurking not some grandiose academic anguish, but a thoroughly secular and safe web of "adult politics." The reason textbooks have transformed into museums is not because the world is too complex, but because academia is terrifyingly rigid and drenched in self-preservation.
Academic Protectionism: Terrified of Answer Controversies
The biggest reason academia and university textbooks cannot abandon the classics is that they represent the "safest correct answers." When drafting questions for numerous national licensing examinations and university finals, the absolute greatest fear of examiners is a controversy over the correct answer. Phrases like "According to Piaget" or "According to Erikson" serve as flawless, unassailable shields, thoroughly taxidermied over the past century to leave zero room for dispute.
What would happen if a courageous scholar included "The New Four Stages of Development for the 2020s"—reflecting modern digital environments and single lifestyles—in a textbook and put it on an exam? They would immediately be hacked to pieces by their peers, facing criticisms that "the sample size is insufficient" or "it lacks universality."
In the end, rather than taking the risk of studying the raw, living existence of modern people, scholars chose the convenience of copying and pasting the sentences of dead men to write test questions. Settling into a safe past where there is no fear of being wrong—that is the real reason textbooks are growing old.
A Cowardly Excuse Handed Out in the Name of Diversity
Claiming that "modern lifestyles are too diverse to categorize into stages" is nothing more than a sophisticated dereliction of duty. The history of humanity has always flowed in a direction that becomes incomparably more complex than previous generations could ever imagine. Human lives surged and fluctuated during the transition from agrarian to industrial societies, and amidst the sheer devastation of wars. The reason classical scholars remain monumental milestones is that they dared to take the risk of erecting a "new skeleton" that pierced through humanity right in the middle of those chaotic and complex eras.
In today’s academia, both that kind of grit and a grand, macro-level vision have gone missing. Terrified of facing criticism for putting forward a grand discourse, they simply hide behind the excuse that "the world is complex," mass-producing fragmented, micro-level papers on topics like ‘The Effects of Smartphone Screen Time on Toddler Sleep.’ It is the justification of laziness—protecting one’s livelihood while refusing to take any risks.
When We Boldly Snap the Rusty Ruler
To be sure, classical theories retain their value as reference points, much like a standard meter ruler for developmental psychology. They are useful as a baseline for comparison to explain, "Humans in the past were like this, but modern humans have changed by this much." However, textbooks do not teach these classics as "past data of a bygone era"; they teach them as if they are immutable formulas humanity must still live up to. As a result, a 30-something living alone and delaying employment is branded by Erikson’s ruler as an "immature being who failed to develop and became isolated."
What is broken is not the modern human being fiercely surviving the year 2026, but the arrogance of an academic community attempting to measure humans with a ruler that snapped a century ago.
It is time for us to break the glass windows of the grand museum that is the textbook. We must reject the rusty formulas lazily neglected by scholars and look at raw human beings surviving in their own unique ways within the jungle of civilization. The moment we boldly rip up the old map, the truly magnificent evolution and development of modern humanity—which scholars a century ago could not have even dreamed of—will finally begin.
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