Innocence

2025-08-04T01:21:12Z

2001:569:58B0:D400:1858:96B5:2B74:1086: Removed un-cited pseudoscience

{{Short description|Absence of guilt, also a legal term, and a lack of experience}}
{{other uses}}
{{Redirect|Innocent}}
[[Image:Bouguereau-Linnocence.jpg|thumb|200px|[[William-Adolphe Bouguereau|Bouguereau]]'s ''L'Innocence'': [[Women]], young [[child]]ren, and [[Sheep|lamb]]s are all symbols of innocence.]]
[[File:Prud'hon, Pierre Paul - Venus Bathing or Innocence - c. 1810.JPG|thumb|''Innocence'' by [[Pierre Paul Prud'hon]], {{Circa|1810}}]]
'''Innocence''' is a lack of [[Guilt (emotion)|guilt]], with respect to any kind of [[crime]], or wrongdoing. In a [[Criminal law|legal context]], innocence is prior to the sense of [[guilt (law)|legal guilt]] and is a primal emotion connected with the sense of self. It is often confused as being the opposite of the guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. In other contexts, it is a lack of [[experience]].

==In relation to knowledge==
Innocence can imply lesser [[experience]] in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale. In contrast to ''[[ignorance]]'', it is generally viewed as a positive term, connoting an [[Optimism|optimistic]] view of the world, in particular one where the lack of wrongdoing stems from a lack of knowledge, whereas wrongdoing comes from a lack of knowledge in children. Subjects such as [[crime]] and [[human sexuality|sexuality]] may be especially considered. This connotation may be connected with a popular [[false etymology]] explaining "innocent" as meaning "not knowing" (Latin {{lang|la|noscere}} — to know, learn). The actual etymology is from general negation prefix {{lang|la|in-}} and the Latin {{lang|la|nocere}}, "to harm".

People who lack the mental capacity to understand the nature of their acts may be regarded as innocent regardless of their behavior. From this meaning comes the usage of ''innocent'' as a noun to refer to a child under the [[Age of reason (canon law)|age of reason]], or a person, of any age, who is severely [[Developmental disability|mentally disabled]].

[[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] described "childhood as a time of innocence" where children are "not-knowing" and must reach the age of reason to become competent people in society. However, as technology advances, children in the contemporary world have a platform where they are referred to as "digital natives", where they appear to be more knowledgeable in some areas than adults.<ref>{{cite book|last=Boyd|first=Danah|title=It's Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2014}}</ref>

==Pejorative meaning==
"Innocence" can have a [[pejorative]] meaning, in cases where an assumed level of experience dictates common discourse or baseline qualifications for entry into another, different, social experience. Since experience is a prime factor in determining a person's, innocence is often also used to imply [[naivety]] or lack of experience.

==Symbolism==
[[File:Vieillard.jpg|thumb|[[Faience]] plate, [[Bordeaux]], {{circa|1840}}, "A shadow which will later become realized"]]
The [[domestic sheep|lamb]] is a commonly used symbol of innocence. In [[Christianity]], for example, [[Jesus]] is referred to as the "Lamb of God", thus emphasizing his sinless nature.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Chalmers I.|last=Paton|title=Freemasonry: Its Symbolism, Religious Nature, and Law of Perfection|year=1873|publisher=Reeves and Turner|location=London|url=https://archive.org/details/freemasonryitss00patogoog|chapter=Masonic Symbols—The Lamb|pages=232–240}}</ref> Other symbols of innocence include [[child]]ren,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=January 21, 2022 |title=Top 15 Symbols of Innocence With Meanings |url=https://www.givemehistory.com/symbols-of-innocence |access-date=August 12, 2023 |website=Give Me History}}</ref> [[virginity|virgins]],<ref name=":0" /> [[acacia]] branches (especially in Freemasonry),<ref>{{cite journal|journal=The Numismatist|year=1903|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WpEUAAAAYAAJ|publisher=[[American Numismatic Association]]|access-date=February 25, 2013|editor-last=Heath|editor-first=Geo. F.|volume=XVI}}{{page needed|date=August 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=32 Masonic Symbols (& What They Mean) |url=https://masonicfind.com/masonic-symbols |access-date=August 12, 2023 |website=MasonicFind|date=24 October 2022 }}</ref> non-sexual nudity, songbirds, and the color [[white]] (biblical paintings and Hollywood films depict Jesus wearing a white tunic).<ref>{{cite book|title=The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge|year=1920|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8BPAAAAMAAJ|publisher=[[Encyclopedia Americana|Encyclopedia Americana Corporation]]|access-date=February 25, 2013}}{{page needed|date=August 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=January 21, 2022 |title=Top 15 Symbols of Innocence With Meanings |url=https://www.givemehistory.com/symbols-of-innocence |access-date=August 12, 2023 |website=Give Me History}}</ref>

==Loss of innocence==
{{Redirect|Loss of innocence|other uses|Loss of Innocence (disambiguation)}}
A "loss of innocence" is a common theme in [[fiction]], [[popular culture|pop culture]], and [[Literary realism|realism]]. It is often seen as an integral part of [[coming of age]]. It is usually thought of as an experience or period in a person's life that leads to a greater awareness of evil, pain, and/or suffering in the world around them. Examples of this theme include songs like "[[American Pie (song)|American Pie]]",<ref>{{cite web |first=Saul |last=Levitt |url=http://www.missamericanpie.co.uk/interpret.html |title= American Pie by Don McLean|publisher=Missamericanpie.co.uk |access-date=2011-02-16 |archive-date=2011-04-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110405094748/http://www.missamericanpie.co.uk/interpret.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> poetry like [[William Blake]]'s collection [[Songs of Innocence and of Experience]], novels like ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'', ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]'', ''[[A Farewell to Arms]]'', and ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'', and films like ''[[Viridiana]]'', ''[[The 400 Blows]]'', and ''[[Stand by Me (film)|Stand By Me]]''.

By contrast, the [[I ching|''I Ching'']] urges a recovery of innocence{{snd}} the name given to [[List of hexagrams of the I Ching#Hexagram 25|Hexagram 25]]{{snd}} and "encourages you to ''actively practice innocence''".<ref>{{cite book|translator-first=B. B.|translator-last=Walker|title=The I Ching or Book of Changes|year=1993|page=53}}</ref>

Innocence could also be viewed as a Westernized view of childhood, and the "loss" of innocence is simply a social construction or viewed as the dominant ideology. Thinkers such as [[Jean-Jaques Rousseau]] used the romanticism discourse as a way to separate children from adults. Ideas surrounding childhood and childhood innocence stem from this discourse.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rousseau's Theory Of Childhood Innocence {{!}} ipl.org |url=https://www.ipl.org/essay/Childhood-Innocence-In-Childhood-PCUJLACL4RU |access-date=2023-08-12 |website=www.ipl.org}}</ref>

==In psychoanalysis==
The [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] tradition is broadly divided between those (like [[W. R. D. Fairbairn|Fairbairn]] and [[D. W. Winnicott|Winnicott]]) who saw the child as initially innocent, but liable to lose its innocence under the impact of stress or [[psychological trauma]]; and those (like [[Freud]] and [[Melanie Klein|Klein]]) who saw the child as ''developing'' innocence — maturing into it — as a result of surmounting the [[Oedipus complex]] and/or the depressive position.<ref>{{cite book|first=N.|last=Symington|title=Narcissism|year=1993|pages=xiv–xv}}</ref>

More eclectically, [[Eric Berne]] saw the Child ego state, and its vocabulary, as reflecting three different possibilities: the clichés of conformity; the obscenities of revolt; and "the sweet phrases of charming innocence".<ref>{{cite book|first=E.|last=Berne|title=What Do You Say After You Say Hello?|year=1974|page=325}}</ref> [[Christopher Bollas]] used the term "Violent Innocence" to describe a fixed and obdurate refusal to acknowledge the existence of an alternative viewpoint<ref>{{cite book|first=S.|last=Cavanagh|title=Skin, Culture and Psychoanalysis|year=2013|page=137}}</ref> — something akin to what he calls "the fascist construction, the outcome is to empty the mind of all opposition".<ref>Quoted in {{cite book|author-link=Adam Phillips (psychologist)|first=Adam|last=Phillips|title=On Flirtation|year=1994|page=158}}</ref>

==Literary sidelights==
* In [[Doris Lessing]]'s ''[[The Golden Notebook]]'', a woman looks back in laughing envy at the innocence that had previously allowed her to submerge herself in the position of the "woman-in-love".<ref>{{cite book|first=Doris|last=Lessing|title=The Golden Notebook|year=1973|page=216}}</ref>
* [[Ivy Compton-Burnett]] had one character conclude dourly of another two that "you are both of you innocent though it is an innocence rooted in your wishes for your own lives".<ref>{{cite book|first=I.|last=Compton-Burnett|title=The Last and the First|year=1971|page=142}}</ref>
==See also==
*{{annotated link|[[Beginner's mind]]}}
*{{annotated link|[[fig leaf|Fig leaf covering]]}}
*{{annotated link|[[Gullibility]]}}
*{{annotated link|[[Ingénue]]}}
*{{annotated link|[[Naivety]]}}
*{{annotated link|[[Three wise monkeys]]}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Virtues}}

[[Category:Religious belief and doctrine]]
[[Category:Legal terminology]]
[[Category:Psychoanalytic theory]]

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Innocence