Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 9:13:40 PM
In the
comments to an
earlier essay, I discussed with
The Crawfish the idea of our modern worship of youth and the consequences. As it seemed interesting to me, I decided to elaborate a little bit.
Historically youth was seen as a period of high spirits and misbehavior, which one would then overcome and join the adult world. One would then adopt adult attitudes and behaviors. Childhood was something one might sometimes remember fondly, but was something one was to outgrow, and society in general was oriented towards the elders, not the young.
At some point, maybe beginning in the 1950's or a bit later, the western world and especially the United States began to idolize the young. Rather than seeing the young as silly, immature people who needed to be molded and guided, the adults began to look to the young for guidance in how to behave. The preferences of the young began to set the course for society, and what appealed to the young became the standard by which everything was judged.
The result should have been obvious to anyone, the culture became more and more immature. But not just immature, we also became less and less restrained. The young always try to push the envelope. In the past, every generation of youth was absorbed into the society of the elders, and the envelope each generation pushed was the same. Now, with the youth defining the standards, the standards became more lax with each generation, and the youth had to go to ever greater extremes to push the envelope. And, as the adults were now following the young, they too became ever more excessive, standards grew lower and lower, and society in general took on the character of a locker room or a gathering of pre-pubescent boys. It became a world of "torture porn", celebrity sex videos, and internet porn.
Since about the 1970's we have been engaged in an ever escalating descent into juvenile behavior. As we gradually lose the last generations raised with the idea of venerating elders, we are left with nothing but adolescents, many now gray haired, but adolescents, nonetheless. And with no adults left to tell the rest to grow up, I have to wonder, will we ever get over our flirtation with immaturity?
Or are we destined to spend whatever time our nation has left indulging in ever more immoderate behavior, trying to find the next excess to break the few remaining rules and shock whoever is left capable of being shocked? In short, will we realize that rule by youth is nothing less than cultural suicide, or will we continue down this road until we finally just wither away or are absorbed by a less frivolous rival culture?