Twenty Three Thoughts About Youth

Everyone (at least everyone above a certain age) knows--it is no more than common sense--that, in every historical era, “youth” cause all, or certainly most, of the troubles of the world. They have no respect for tradition or authority, they do things which harm them physically and, especially, mentally: alcohol and drugs, but also (depending on the era) spending too much time at the movies, watching television, or playing computer games. They take too many chances. They aren’t prudent. They are always a major pain in the ass and it is because of them that our country and the whole world are going to hell.

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Some of these same youth, of the same generation and often the very same people, twenty or thirty years after they have been troublesome youth, run the country, occupy prominent positions in politics and society, enjoy great wealth and influence. Danny the Red. Sir Paul McCartney. Harold Pinter. And so forth. Fill in your own examples.

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This paradox occurs over and over in history. Everyone knows this but it doesn’t stop the older people from finding the same problems with the youth of their time.

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But, in just the same way, everyone (at least everyone below a certain age) knows that in every age “the old folks” are the problem. They have too much respect for authority and tradition. They always vote for the wrong people. They spend too much time at the movies, drink too much, often eat too much as well, and spend too much of the country’s money on their own needs, which wouldn’t require so much special care if they lived more appropriate lives. They avoid risk, worry about the future (especially their own), and saddle us with the costs of their continued well-being.

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Many of these people were exciting in their youth. They showed great promise and could have amounted to something if they hadn’t sold out, or given in, or accommodated to the status quo, to the powerful people who run things.

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This paradox, too, occurs in every age. It gets less attention than the other paradox, because the people who pay for the studies of “problems,” social and political, and for exhibitions like this one, are themselves “old” or at least “older” folks, and don’t think of themselves as pains in the ass. This occurs repeatedly in history, although we hear less about it because it’s mostly older folks who write history.

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We need some symmetry around here.

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What is symmetry? People who study science long ago decided they had to ask every critical question raised about “primitive” science (or “amateur” science or “fake” science”) about modern professional science as well. If we question the foundational premises of the navigational science of the Trobriand Islanders Malinowski described, or point to the flaws in method and logic that characterize the empirical studies of drug use made by users of LSD or marihuana, or deride people who locate good places to dig wells by pointing sticks at the ground or make business decisions based on the position of the stars—then we have to see that modern science doesn’t always avoid these same flaws.

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Social studies of science made great progress by adopting the rule advocated by Bruno Latour, who says that he “believes in science” just as much as scientists themselves do. Close inspection of contemporary scientific practice shows that they always believe in what they believe in provisionally, and will (if the situation demands) take another look at what they believe. They often change their minds. In fact, it’s probably a bad idea for scientists (or anyone else) to “believe” in ideas. It would be better to only accept the ideas evidence supports, as long as it does and no longer.

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Youth have their ideas. Older people have theirs. In almost all societies, older people control the distribution of scarce resources, control the police power of the state and, importantly, control the decision as to which ideas are good, right, sane, sensible, and so forth.

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Young people usually get blamed for society’s troubles. (Said it before, I’ll say it again. Can’t say it too often.) Students don’t work hard enough. That’s why they don’t learn what they should. Yes? Maybe not. Maybe teachers and schools don’t teach properly. Maybe that’s why students don’t learn what someone wants them to.

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Try that out in some area you know about. I did, with this result. Older jazz players complain that younger players “don’t know any tunes,” that is, the tunes the older players grew up playing and regard as the minimal repertoire a literate player must have. It’s true, the younger players often don’t know all those songs, and that makes trouble when a hastily assembled musical group has to perform without rehearsal.

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Older players, however, don’t know the more complex compositions younger players grow up on. But, since older players have more control over employment and performance opportunities, this makes less trouble for collective performances. The older players needn’t know the newer compositions. They can just say “No, we won’t play that.”

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Symmetry: Both groups “don’t know any tunes,” so you can’t use that observation as a “fact” that explains what’s wrong with younger players and why the music business is going to hell.

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Symmetry pays off in a better understanding of the situation, which is good whether you are a sociologist trying to understand social organization, a musicologist trying to understand the development of a musical genre, or a jazz player trying to get along in the world of contemporary jazz.

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“Youth” is a relational term. It doesn’t describe a stable characteristic of someone or some group. It tells you where that person or group stands in relation to some other people or some other group. “Youth” are older than “teenagers” but younger than “adults.” That’s a possible meaning. But this innocuous relational description carries other, less innocent, less symmetrical, and less neutral overtones we should be wary of.

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Is it good to be neutral? Shouldn’t we be engagé? “Take sides” proudly? That sounds like a brave and good thing to do. But I don’t think it’s such a good idea. There will be time to take sides after we really understand what is going on in a situation. If we take sides quickly, later developments will surely trip us up.

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It really isn’t necessary for any of us—scientists, scholars, intellectuals or ordinary citizens—to take sides, decide who is right in these conflicts. When we do, we don’t affect the results in the slightest. Intellectuals and academics often overestimate their influence on things.

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Prudence reminds us that we will all occupy all the positions in the age system some day. We already have occupied some of them. The rest will come soon enough.

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How will what you say and think sound to you when you’re older? Think about what you said when you were younger. I don’t believe in ghosts, but words do come back to haunt us.

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Thinking about youth makes me think about my own age and generation. I will be eighty by the time you read this. I have been wrong more times than I could ever have imagined. My generation, I’m tempted to say, has been wrong even more often than I have. And, you know? It’s not painful. People who aren’t your age aren’t inevitably right, but neither are they invariably wrong.
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Many of us feel like we’re young even when we aren’t. And, of course, the other way around.

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Why did I say “Twenty Three Thoughts”? It was an arbitrary choice and now I can’t think of the last one. Too bad.



. . . . Howard S. Becker


 

Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Paula Jiménez de la Iglesia
paujide@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press