Politics of Maturity

Abstract

What is maturity? In answering this question, Tanya Loughead shows how maturity has traditionally been defined in a conservative fashion—as a patriarchal, heteronormative, pro-nuclear family project. Politics of Maturity challenges existing notions of maturity by raising fundamental questions about society and its structure. Which structures and experiences help us to mature, and which ones block us from maturing? How can we redefine what it means to be a mature person at this moment of capitalist devastation and climate catastrophe?

This book tackles maturity not merely as a problem of individual personality, but as a political and philosophical problem that requires revolutionary rethinking and redefinition. It envisions maturity as collective, liberationist enterprise that requires us to see and live differently. A progressive vision of maturity must define “progress” anew and prepare a ground that cultivates critical, open-minded thinkers.