- Epstein, Robert.
The Case Against Adolescence.
Sanger, CA: Quill Driver Books, 2007.
ISBN 1-884956-70-X.
-
What's the matter with kids today? In this exhaustively documented
breakthrough book, the author argues that adolescence, as it is
presently understood in developed Western countries, is a social
construct which was created between 1880 and 1920 by well-intentioned
social reformers responding to excesses of the industrial revolution
and mass immigration to the United States. Their remedies—compulsory
education, child labour laws, the juvenile justice system, and the
proliferation of age-specific restrictions on “adult”
activities such as driving, drinking alcohol, and smoking—had
the unintended consequence of almost completely segregating teenagers
from adults, trapping them in a vacuous peer culture and prolonging
childhood up to a decade beyond the age at which young people begin
to assume the responsibilities of adulthood in traditional societies.
Examining anthropological research on other cultures and historical
evidence from past centuries, the author concludes that the
“storm and stress” which characterises modern
adolescence is the consequence of the infantilisation of teens,
and their confinement in a peer culture with little contact
with adults. In societies and historical periods where the young
became integrated into adult society shortly after puberty and
began to shoulder adult responsibilities, there is no evidence
whatsoever for anything like the dysfunctional adolescence so often
observed in the modern West—in fact, a majority of preindustrial
cultures have no word in their language for the concept of adolescence.
Epstein, a psychologist who did his Ph.D. under B. F. Skinner at
Harvard, and former editor-in-chief of
Psychology Today magazine,
presents results of a comprehensive test of adultness
he developed along with Diane Dumas which demonstrate that in
most cases the competencies of people in the 13 to 17 year range
do not differ from those of adults between twenty and seventy-one
by a statistically significant margin. (I should note that the
groups surveyed, as described on pp. 154–155, differed
wildly in ethnic and geographic composition from the
U.S. population as a whole; I'd love to see the cross-tabulations.)
An abridged version of the
test is included in the book; you can
take the complete test
online. (My score was 98%, with most of the demerits due to
placing less trust in figures of authority than the author deems
wise.)
So, if there is little difference in the basic competences of
teens and adults, why are so many adolescents such vapid, messed-up,
apathetic losers? Well, consider this: primates learn by observing
(monkey see) and by emulating (monkey do). For millions of years our
ancestors have lived in bands in which the young had most of their
contact with adults, and began to do the work of adults as soon as
they were physically and mentally capable of doing so. This was
the near-universal model of human societies until the late 19th
century and remains so in many non-Western cultures. But in the West,
this pattern has been replaced by warehousing teenagers in government
schools which effectively confine them with others of their age. Their
only adult contacts apart from (increasingly absent) parents
are teachers, who are inevitably seen as jailors. How are
young people to be expected to turn their inherent competencies
into adult behaviour if they spend almost all of their time
only with their peers?
Now, the author doesn't claim
that everybody between the ages of 13 and 17 has the ability to
function as an adult. Just as with physical development,
different individuals mature at different rates, and one may
have superb competence in one area and remain childish in another.
But, on the other hand, simply turning 18 or 21 or whatever
doesn't magically endow someone with those competencies
either—many adults (defined by age) perform poorly as
well.
In two breathtaking final chapters, the author argues for the
replacement of virtually all age-based discrimination in the
law with competence testing in the specific area involved.
For example, a 13 year old could entirely skip high school by
passing the equivalency examination available to those 18 or
older. There's already a precedent for this—we don't
automatically allow somebody to drive, fly an airplane, or
operate an amateur radio station when they reach a certain
age: they have to pass a comprehensive examination on theory,
practice, and law. Why couldn't this basic concept be
extended to most of the rights and responsibilities we currently
grant based purely upon age? Think of the incentive such a system
would create for teens to acquire adult knowledge and behaviour
as early as possible, knowing that it would be rewarded with
adult rights and respect, instead of being treated like
children for what could be some of the most productive years
of their lives.
Boxes throughout the text highlight the real-world achievements of
young people in history and the present day. (Did you know
that
Sergey Karjakin
became a chess grandmaster at the age of 12 years and 7 months?
He is among seven who achieved grandmaster ranking at an age
younger than Bobby Fischer's 15 years and 6 months.) There are
more than 75 pages of end notes and bibliography. (I wonder if
the author is aware that note 68 to chapter 5 [p. 424] cites a publication
of the
Lyndon LaRouche
organisation.)
It isn't often you pick up a book with laudatory blurbs by a collection
of people including Albert Ellis, Deepak Chopra, Joyce Brothers,
Alvin Toffler, George Will, John Taylor Gatto, Suzanne Somers, and
Buzz Aldrin. I concur with them that the author has put his finger
precisely on the cause of a major problem in modern society, and
laid out a challenging yet plausible course for remedying it.
I discovered this book via an excellent
podcast
interview with the author on
“The
Glenn and Helen Show”.
About halfway through this book, I had one of the most
chilling visions of the future I've experienced in many years. One of
the things I've puzzled over for ages is what, precisely, is the
end state of the vision of those who call themselves
“progressives”—progress toward what, anyway?
What would society look like if they had their way across the board?
And then suddenly it hit me like a brick. If you want to see what
the “progressive” utopia looks like, just take a glance
at the lives of teenagers today, who are deprived of a broad spectrum of
rights and denied responsibilities “for their own good”.
Do-gooders always justify their do-badding “for the children”,
and their paternalistic policies, by eviscerating individualism and
autonomous judgement, continually create ever more “children”.
The nineteenth century reformers, responding to genuine excesses of
the industrial revolution, extended childhood from puberty to years
later, inventing what we call adolescence. The agenda of today's
“progressives” is inexorably extending adolescence
to create a society of eternal adolescents, unworthy of the
responsibilities of adults, and hence forever the childlike wards
of an all-intrusive state and the elites which govern it. If you want
a vision of the “progressive” future, imagine being back
in high school—forever.
July 2007 