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Title: NO! Against Adult Supremacy Vol. 3 Author: Brian Dominick, Sara Zia Ebrahimi, Kathleen Nicole O’Neal Language: en Topics: adult supremacy, parenting, child rights, child liberation, anti-oppression, youth liberation, ageism, youth, kids, adolescence , NO! Against Adult Supremacy Source: Retrieved on february 29, 2019 from https://stinneydistro.wordpress.com/index/
While most common oppressions, such as sexism, racism, classism,
heterosexism, even speciesism, have been identified, widely
acknowledged, thoroughly discussed and deeply analyzed, one oppression
remains largely untouched. This fact is astonishing given that the group
oppressed by this ignored injustice is one to which every adult human
has once belonged. It is the one oppression with which all humans can
identify, having suffered from it directly. It is not an oppression of a
tiny minority to which few will ever belong. It is not the oppression of
people who can be blamed themselves — by any stretch of the imagination
— for being among the oppressed.
The oppressed group is that of young people — all young people.
As we will further demonstrate, adults and adult institutions in our
society regularly commit acts of abuse, coercion, deprivation,
indoctrination and invalidation against young people. From the moment of
conception, young people are oppressed by their elders, entirely based
on the difference in age, via a process known as “ageism.”
As an oppression in need of acknowledgment and understanding, ageism is
vital to oppression theory. Yet its overall framework has long been
ignored. Sure, many an author has attempted to discuss the relationship
between parent and child, teacher and pupil, detention center officer
and detainee, etc. But when has it been stated that adult society, as an
institution, oppresses the young regularly, consistently, and without
exception? And when has it been stated further, in any detail, that this
oppression is vital to, and largely born of, society’s need for
maintenance at such absurd, atrocious levels?
Let’s face it: when adults look at oppression theory, they do so from a
“grown up” perspective — one which sees right over the heads of even
their own children. While the Left takes great pride in its defense of
women, the impoverished, racial and religious minorities, etc., it fails
to realize that among the most thoroughly and widely oppressed are
society’s young. In our struggle for true liberation, we can leave no
one behind — especially not those to whom the torch of revolution shall
be passed. That is why ageism needs to be recognized.
Which brings us to why ageism is unique among oppressions: we are all
directly its victims. It is not at all presumptuous to claim that the
one oppressive dynamic of which we have all been on the receiving end is
that of ageism. Indeed, we are all victims of every oppression acted out
in our society. But none other than ageism claims each of us like a man
carves a notch on his headboard, like a bombardier a stencil on his
airplane, a capitalist a dollar in his bank account.
That is significant. When we step back and observe the social
engineering performed by society’s institutions upon its members,
oppressions are plainly spotted in the tool chest of the dominant. Among
those oppressions which help maintain the power positions of the wealthy
white Christian heterosexual male elitist adult, ageism is universal. It
is also, unlike the others which are interchangeable, completely
indispensable to society’s maintenance of individual apathy
In order to be a permanent victim of an unjust society’s power structure
— that is, accepting and not resisting one’s own victimization — one
must be engineered as a child to remain docile in the face of
oppression. Certainly young people who are impoverished, female, African
American, gay or otherwise in position to be oppressed, are conditioned
for disempowerment. But what about white male children of upper class
parents? Why do they show the same signs of submission and apathy when
confronted by oppressors? Why do they, by and large, fail to expose and
resist injustices, both in concept and in everyday encounters? Could it
be because, as children, they undergo a rigorous process of
indoctrination, both formal and informal, in schools, on television, at
church, in the home? Could it be because they have been abused and
coerced by legal systems, parents, teachers, police? Because they have
been invalidated by overpowering institutions and individuals whose
purpose it has been to teach them of their “incompetence,” their
“worthlessness”? Could they be so as a result of having been deprived of
their right to self management, of simple needs, indeed of love and
understanding and support? Could it be, at last, because throughout
childhood and adolescence they have been treated as adult society has
seen fit for its young — ignored, conditioned, neglected, brutalized,
violated and compelled?
Then, as adults, they reproduce their own suffering, this time
inflicting it upon those the society of which they are now full members
has traditionally oppressed. As adults, they are offered power over — if
no one else — the people on whose behalf few stand: their children,
their younger neighbors, their adolescent customers, their voiceless
constituents.
It is clear that ageism is not just another oppression. In some cases
(few would disagree) age difference, aside from being the basis for
oppression, is a justification for special treatment. Surely children
require guidance as they learn for themselves about social realities. In
many cases, clear bounds need setting by adults, for the child’s safety
and indeed for her or his benefit. But how much more often than not does
the relationship between adult and young person — between adult
institution and the young population — become counterproductive,
destructive, outright violent? Why are these inequities not exposed,
denounced and struggled against by those of us who regularly fight other
oppressions?
These issues, equal in importance to the full examination of ageism
itself, are in dire need of discourse. With that in mind, we hope to
present, from our own biased perspective as young people, what we see as
the issue: What is ageism? How does it manifest itself in practice? What
are its results?
Few oppressions are more obvious than those perpetrated by governments.
From laws to bureaucracies, the manipulation factor in state systems is
staggering. The most blatant mechanism employed by government towards
the oppression of its subjects is certainly the legal system.
Consistently, it is laws made specifically against young people which
most flagrantly display the state’s contempt for their youthful
attitudes; mindsets which by their nature contradict prevailing social
values and norms. After all, young people are one of the only oppressed
groups which the US government not only discriminates against in an
official capacity, but towards whom it does so unabashedly and without
apology. The list of things the state will not allow people to do based
on their age is seemingly endless. At the same time, the rights and
“equality” of most other oppressed groups are lauded and, at least to
some extent, protected by government agencies.
There is little validity to the argument that young people, due to their
inexperience, need to be protected from themselves by agents of the
state. It is the government’s own interests which require defense from
young people’s natural lack of subordination and submission. Hence,
authoritarian structures are forced to protect themselves by containing
the expression of free thought and activity by children and adolescents.
As a sort of insurance policy, the government stunts self-confidence,
individuality and creativity at the earliest age possible, knowing full
well that its resurgence in adult life will then be unlikely. People
must be trained for submission when they are most vulnerable to
impression, which happens to be when they are young.
The government displays its contempt for young people’s ability to
determine the courses of their own lives by trying to restrict their
access to everything from R-rated movies and ear piercing to alcohol and
tobacco. Conflicting with the concurrent pressures introduced by the
market economy — which encourage participation in “risqué”
entertainment, exotic fashion and drug usage — the imposition of such
limitations is counterproductive at best, probably even devastating. The
mixed messages conveyed by the two wings of the establishment that
possess the farthest-reaching influence pit (commercially manufactured)
impulse against (state-imposed) inhibitions, and the confused results
are ruinous.
Another outstanding and pressingly current example of legal ageism is
the rash of curfew laws which is presently sweeping the nation. While
crime rates hover at mid-1970s levels, violent incidences have become
increasingly concentrated among the young community, particularly in
urban areas. Rather than take an approach which could be labeled even
slightly rational, many local governments have decided to pass new laws
and further restrict the rights of young people. Though laws will never
keep young people indoors, they will surely keep them out of places
where they can safely meet and recreate. Meanwhile, the boredom,
frustration and despair felt by many young people is only fueled and
aggravated. This is a clear example of coercive power used to deprive
young people of the freedom to act as they choose, regardless of whether
harm would be done to themselves or someone else (the usual accepted
criteria for determining legislation).
As few clear-minded folks would dispute, modern states have managed with
alarming success to master the art of indoctrination. Without using
severe and boisterous methods of brainwashing, the government has
achieved the relatively efficient production of numbed minds,
conditioned for obedience, servitude and, in turn, the perpetuation and
magnification of state power. Not only does the state define the
curricula which will be imposed upon any student whose parents cannot
afford private school (and upon many whose can), but it forces them to
attend classes in Eurocentric barbarism, as dictated by powerful adults
who define education standards. Those mental factories which the
government does not control it at least regulates.
In the classroom, the student learns, above all else, that learning is
boring, degrading and difficult. Based on quantitative systems of
instruction, even the most progressive mainstream schools educate young
people of little else than submission, assimilation and conformity. It’s
not what you learn that counts, it’s how much you can prove you know.
More still, as education standards and expectations regress, the rule is
who knows more, not if anyone knows anything of relevance.
The enforced process of hand-raising, through which the student
demonstrates her or his subservience to the teacher, is a classic
display of the demeaning relationship promoted by formal scholastic
activity. The teacher, at the same time, is an adult who is chosen
unpluralistically and given ultimate authority — not only in the sense
of “expertise” but also of “power.” That is, the class is being run by
someone who is vastly different in age from the students, and was chosen
not because of leadership competence but knowledge alone; charisma,
compatibility and attitude being irrelevant.
While the teacher is dictating many rules and little important
knowledge, the students are being stratified and segregated. Young
people begin the process of discrimination by gender, class, race, etc.,
which reflects the attitudes of parents and teachers, before they are in
grade school. “Boys are good at math and science, girls needn’t so much
as try their best.” “Black students do not possess the capacity to learn
as well as whites, so we’d might as well spend less energy trying to
teach them.” The pattern is irrational, but it has been consistent and
unwavering for centuries.
Although experimentation with a progressive concept known as “inclusive
education” is now being undertaken around the country, the separation of
students according to their perceived ability to learn is still dominant
throughout most US schools. Elites are formed of “gifted” students who
display a propensity to learn at a faster pace, while “normal” students
are herded into overcrowded classrooms across the way from those tagged
“disabled.” Do these distinctions haunt the adult lives of students
grouped as such because they were originally accurate or because they
became self-fulfilled prophecies during childhood and adolescence?
Furthermore, in case the labeling system does not sufficiently stabilize
a young person’s self-image, requiring that his or her class ranking be
included on every high school transcript does the trick.
Formal education, whether it be collegiate or secondary, is wonderful
practice for one experience which can be looked forward to by
prospective adults: routinization. School teaches people to fall into
line, obey rules and, most of all, to qualify. Whether one learns
anything or not, one had better pass the final; whether one works a
fulfilling job as an adult, one had better bring home a paycheck.
Other government institutions practice ageism as well. There is little
argument on the Left that the US military — any military, for that
matter — uses severe forms of indoctrination, coercion and invalidation,
whose effects overshadow even those of the most thorough scholastic
“education.” The recruitment practices of the armed forces are
diabolical in their use of propaganda and outright lies, as well as
their focus on young people, not so much for the acquisition of strong,
young bodies as impressionable minds. Save for professional criminality,
the military is often seen by America’s poor to be the only way out of
poverty, a fact illustrated by disproportionate numbers of Latino,
Afro-American and working class recruits. And again, the military
complex instills the same biases and psychological effects as the
education system, only with much greater severity. The broad effects of
military service on the individual young person, not to mention whoever
s/he is manipulated or forced or bribed into killing, are clear and
disastrous.
As our world becomes more and more technologically advanced, it has
become increasingly difficult for individuals to maintain any sense of
individuality. As humanity is herded and oppressed as a whole, it is the
young who receive the most trampling. As if the isolation felt by adults
is not enough, their needs are often fulfilled by the state (over which
adults at least have some power) far prior to the needs of their
children. We live in a system where even those adults whose voices are
allowed hearing receive very little from the power structure which holds
them down. So how can we (especially those of us on the Left) have gone
so long without recognizing that young people, whose voices are seldom
heard if ever, are even more severely oppressed by that same, inherently
violent system of authority and subordination?
Anytime an economic apparatus exists which is not specifically designed
for equity it will oppress certain groups in society. Throughout the
world one of the groups most heavily oppressed by nearly all economic
systems is that of young people. In relation to the work force, young
people are violated in several ways. At times they are excluded from the
workplace; at other times they are forced against their will to become a
part of it. Moreover, at the other end of the assembly line, primarily
in the market system, capital* exploits the paradoxical combination of
young people’s youthful open-mindedness and their desire to assimilate.
In a system of centralized capital, whereby wealth and power are
manipulated by interests other than those of society as a whole, the
individual’s needs are automatically excluded from the concern of those
coordinating the flow of capital. Whether an economy is public but
coordinatorist or “free” but private, young people constitute the last
group to have a say in the management process (again regardless of how
little voice most adults may have). Therefore, as they are ignored by
the rule makers, the economic activity of young people is drastically
restricted, perhaps more so than any other oppressed group.
Where politics collide with economics, the state has substantial
influence over the economic freedom of young people. The system of
compulsory education, whereby young people are forced to work without
pay, is similar to slavery, the product being the student her or his
self. Prior to the age of 16, people are neither allowed to work at a
regular job nor to leave school. Even after 16 adolescents are offered a
limited spectrum of opportunities in the workplace, almost never
including work which could possibly be considered empowering.
Although child labor laws were originally created to protect young
people from exploitation by business and parents, and they undoubtedly
serve that purpose today, in many cases they also prevent adolescents
from obtaining money legally and without soliciting parents. And while
family incomes vary, they are hardly indicative of the amount of money
children will be allowed. Still, when children below age 16 are
permitted to work, most commonly in the family business or farm, their
labor is heavily exploited by parents who treat them as capital. This
demonstrates the importance of a substantially deep look at economic
institutions as a whole in their relationship to young people. Any time
the capitalist system can exploit, it will, and those with no recourse
are by definition most vulnerable.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference between young people and
adults where this matter is concerned. Namely, young people are still
socializing (or being socialized) at a rapid pace, and thus schooling is
of greater importance than the production, through labor, of other
goods. However, the fact remains that the education apparatus is an
industry, and the chief laborers — not teachers or administrators but
the students themselves — are not rewarded for their labor in the same
way workers in other industries are. In this case, the students are not
necessarily alienated from the fruits of their labor (i.e., themselves),
but are alienated from the process by which production takes place.
While young people in the US are kept from earning money, they are
simultaneously bombarded by specifically-geared commercialism and its
introduction of “wants.” Of course, many young people see their wants
fulfilled by parents who are willing to appease the desires of large
corporations as well as those perceived interests newly instilled in
their child (which isn’t to say that such children are not oppressed by
capital simply because they can satisfy their material desires).
However, this process forms a significant group of young people in whom
wants are being commercially conjured but who themselves cannot allocate
the material manifestations of those desires — that is, they simply
can’t afford all the things they’re told they desire.
Such is not meant to imply that society should pity those young people
who cannot afford the latest fashions and the action figure or video
game of the month, so long as they have sufficient clothing and
entertainment. Rather, we should recognize that it is a primary purpose
of private capitalist institutions to take advantage of young people’s
culturally reinforced need to conform and their search for identity, as
well as their relatively free minds whose desires and initiatives are
malleable.
One of the market’s most manipulative and socially-destructive weapons
is its elimination, via the “entertainment industry,” of the community
and family relations which previously raised children without heavy
commercial interference. We have seen the substitution of seemingly
realistic film and television for actual experience.
More subtly, the commercial aspects of the modern market serve to
manipulate or even eliminate the community and family relation as well.
A 30-second douche advertisement on TV, in which an imaginary daughter
confronts her make-believe mother with simulated feminine problems
(e.g., the “not-so-fresh feeling”), actually replaces an entire
conversation between real-life mother and daughter. Not only does the
adolescent woman, as viewer, no longer think she needs to discuss
certain personal things with her mother, but now she even knows the name
of the product she is supposed to use.
The contradiction of want creation and accompanying restrictions from
the ability to satisfy those wants places young people in a position
which is even more blatantly discriminatory than capital’s obvious abuse
of women and minority races. Yet, while the Left adamantly supports the
rights of those oppressed groups to have access to satisfactory amounts
of wealth and privilege, young people’s right to economic independence
is almost nowhere advocated.
As young people are forced into dependence on parents and (often) the
paternal state, their own potential is neglected and invalidated.
Meanwhile, the state system forces them into a subjective conditioning
process while young people are economically manipulated to, in all their
social activity, serve the interests of capitalists.
In an alternative economy, the production of laborers could easily be
taken into account as such, and the producers rewarded for their
efforts. Such an economy could separate young people’s consumption
rights from those of their parents, thus circumventing the problem of
misappropriation of excessive or inadequate amounts of goods to those
young people. Furthermore, by eradicating markets and capital, we could
eliminate misguiding commercial pressures and the inheritance of
intemperate or deficient wealth.
Taking a look at communities in our society, generally identified by
race, ethnicity, heritage or religion, it is plain that the institutions
within these communities oppress young people regularly. Particularly by
respecting coercive and invalidating traditions, whereby young people
are treated as less than whole, groups identified as communities
intimidate and violate their younger members.
Simply speaking, the very fact that young people are so often born into
communities which are identified as somehow separate from others is
oppressive. The idea that differences in race, for example, are even
acknowledged at all is oppressive, as it creates an immediate identity
crisis experienced early on in a child’s social development. That a
child’s skin pigmentation differs from another’s is one thing; that such
characteristics are of importance in life is another matter altogether,
undoubtedly initiating a pattern of heavy distress. Soon, as the child
grows, the race factor becomes accepted, and all the social strife it
causes seems natural. But it remains unnatural, a truth even radical
theorists are still having trouble understanding. We teach young people
of color to take pride in their race, which may well serve to “empower”
them as individuals; but doing so also perpetuates the myth that race is
a rational concept in and of itself. Children do not understand the idea
of race until they are taught it’s perceived importance by adult
society, a kind of informal indoctrination.
Then, of course, there is formal indoctrination. Judaism and
Christianity both contain official structures by which young people are
trained to accept dogmatic “truths” which have relevance to them not
because the concepts are rational per se, but because they are
hereditary. So we have a situation where young people, once again, are
born into oppressive systems, inheriting them from parents who promote
their relevance only because those parents themselves were born into
them.
As children are taught one religion (the religion), they learn that they
must live in accordance with the dictates of that religion — the only
acceptable manner. To do otherwise would yield Hell or worse. Such
manipulative power is highly coercive, and it sees that choice is
removed from the individual student, a quite invalidating condition.
Moreover, many religions have formal “rites of passage” by which young
members are graduated into “adulthood”. This systematically segregates
children from adults in an official capacity, denying the younger
indoctrinees the validity of full-fledged membership in the culture, and
forcing upon the adolescents the responsibilities of religious maturity.
Community identification is also the basis by which parents usually
decide to perform circumcision on male children. Circumcision is among
the most painful acts any human will likely experience, and the
psychological trauma, not to mention physical mutilation, has
deep-rooted effects both psychologically and socially. Indeed, those
circumcised will later be offered positions as oppressors when they
might chastise a fellow young male’s uncircumcised penis in a high
school locker room. Circumcision performed for social reasons is a form
of child abuse, based on cultural standards.
Many community-based programs, in which young people’s participation is
often encouraged if not enforced by parents and other adult community
members, have oppressive aspects. Organizations like the Boy Scouts and
Girl Scouts, despite facilitating some positive learning experiences,
encouraging social activity and introducing young people to diverse
cultures, are noted for their narrow conceptions of community and
family, as well as their strict foundation in Judeo-Christian doctrine.
By forcing young members to wear uniforms, salute the American flag and
pray to the other god, these groups forego their progressive potential
to enter the business of mind-molding.
Formal scholastic sports, again despite their positive potential, also
serve to oppress many young people. By restricting access to
participation based on athletic ability, they invalidate any young
person who cannot “make the team.” Further, among those who are not
excluded, a competitive mindset is encouraged. Winning is rewarded while
losing or even tying is punished, externally by adult coaches and
internally between team members. Instead of encouraging teamwork and
communitarian ethics, school athletic programs teach young people to
look out for themselves, regardless of who else might be hurt.
Many leftists tout the merits of community identification, which no
doubt exist. But the idea that individuals should inherit such
identifications rather than acquire them by personal choice as they grow
is absurd; that skin color or place of birth or bloodline are
determining factors of community identification is a ridiculous and
damaging injustice which must be further addressed.
It is in the kinship sphere of social activity that interpersonal
relations are formed. This sphere also houses the most direct
oppressions of young people, and it is where internalized oppression
among and between young people primarily takes place. Inside personal
relationships, the young person contends not only with oppressions from
adult family members and friends but also siblings and peers.
The most obvious forms of ageism are perhaps those perpetrated by
parents and legal guardians. Not unlike a corporation or bureaucracy,
the family unit is a top-down hierarchical institution. Parents play the
roles of absolute managers in a cell where level of authority is
determined by seniority
Before we investigate the relationship between parent and child, let us
expose a few notions which set the stage for active oppressions but are
rarely identified as oppressions themselves.
First, we must take into account the reasons for which parents typically
have children. While the reasons themselves do not necessarily ensure
oppression during the actual life of a young person, they potentially
promote oppressive attitudes and behavior towards children by their
parents. In this age, parents seldom produce children for economic
reasons (though this is not unheard of), but child-bearing is
nonetheless often carried out largely for the selfish benefit of the
parents themselves.
All too commonly, children are a source of entertainment, toys with
which “mature” adults can play and still be respected by their peers.
Children are also used by parents as cohesion between themselves while
their own partnership is elsewise failing. Parents also intend to live
vicariously through their children, having their offspring achieve
things they never could. And at risk of defying politically correct
normalcy, it is our assertion that single parents or lesbian/ gay
couples often conceive or adopt children in order to make social
statements. That isn’t to imply that such people are incapable of being
suitable parents, but rather that human life should not be produced for
use as political or social protest signs.
Of course, oppression is not predetermined in all cases, and the reasons
for which children are born are not all for the advantage of the parent
at the expense of the child. But there is a significant relationship
between parents’ intentions, which are often just to appease cultural
expectations of adulthood, and the methods by which families socialize
their offspring.
Another component of parenthood which is taken for granted but as such
is no less oppressive is the notion that children are wards of parents
or guardians. “Ownership” of children is determined simply by their
physical origin or by legal documentation which grants control to
otherwise unrelated adults. Certainly children need protection, and to
some extent guidance, but that this should be dictated by one or two or
even three individuals is preposterous. Pluralism is so often lacking in
familial relationships, but this is rarely connected to the narrow
social and personal characteristics of those raised in such an
unpluralistic manner. Again, we clearly see tradition conflicting with
the actual needs of young people, depriving them of diversity for the
sake of parental self-satisfaction via the idea that children exist as
personal property.
In the debate over “family values,” where is the voice of children, the
very people most affected?
It is in the context of family that gender and other roles are first
accumulated. Children acquire their sense of self in large part by
mimicking the actions of their parents, the rationalization coming much
later in life. Hence, when parents exhibit roles of dominance and
submission based on sex, their children will adopt similar roles as they
grow socially. For instance, a young female who repeatedly observes her
mother depending on her father financially, emotionally, etc., is likely
to become dependent on males herself, abandoning any potential for
independence. Similarly, a male who constantly witnesses his father’s
dominance, coercion and abuse of his mother will probably espouse an
overpowerful role in future relationships with women. Role imposition is
a type of informal indoctrination.
While the gender roles delegated to young people have been exposed and
explored by feminists quite sufficiently, it must be noted that gender
assimilation is a process controlled by parents and other adults, thus
making them ageist as well as sexist. Unlike adult women who fall pray
to sexism, the sex roles of girls are directly dictated by adults, those
who society acknowledges universally as having legitimate authority over
young people.
Young people also experience ageism when parents and other adults
inflict feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness, causing
psychological dysfunction, an indisputable example of invalidation.
Using guilt and manipulation as tools, parents coerce young people into
performing tasks which they themselves lack the desire to carry out.
When children are not acting on the dictates of their parents, they are
often called “unhelpful” or “no good,” regardless of the fact that they
are seldom offered or even shown the benefits of equitable participation
in the function of family.
Parents are hardly seen as friends by their children, but rather as
figures of authority. This is a loss for both child and parent,
depriving them of a potentially wonderful and equally rewarding
relationship based on trust, openness and companionship. Instead of this
ideal, mistrust of adults is learned as a defense mechanism (often a
necessary one). Coupled with the “generation gap” (which is not at all
inherent to familial relationships, but is unique to those in which
parents deny their children respect, camaraderie and understanding), the
actual basis of parent-child relationship activity is oppression-ridden.
Sexual abuse between adults and children, during which the elder takes
advantage of the young person’s impressionability and lack of
understanding, as well as physical size, are acknowledged as widespread.
But it must be stated that this is an oppression founded strictly on age
differences. By understanding pedophilia, we can begin to recognize the
extent to which adult dominance over the young actually reaches. More
importantly, knowing how common such abuse actually is, we can realize
how common and widespread less extreme and less apparent abuses must be.
All forms of child abuse must be recognized as something aside from
ordinary violence. Besides being the victim’s first introduction to
cruelty, abuse causes children to inherit a pattern of violence,
prompting them to act similarly towards their peers and, in adulthood,
towards their own children. Even more directly than most oppressive
activities, child abuse has been clinically proven to be
self-perpetuating.
Anyone who believes parents and guardians possess legitimate authority
over “their” children must either overlook the severity and frequency of
these violations or deem them acceptable. The only remedy for this
dynamic, which has likely existed throughout human history, is the
elimination of parental authority. The role of parent as dictator must
be replaced by nurturer. With humans, nurturing consists mainly of
oversight, with guidance and control limited to a minimum.
All known social oppressions can be shown to possess a phenomenal
characteristic known as “internalized oppression” whereby members of the
oppressed group actually oppress each other in unwitting service to
their interested oppressors. The internal self-destructive activities of
the black community are among the most obvious examples of this. Also,
the self-perpetuation of dependent and submissive activity among women,
through defining each other by their relationships to men, is yet
another example of internalized oppression.
Among young people, there are several such examples. Segregated almost
entirely from valuable interaction with adults, much socialization takes
place strictly between and among groups of children — yet they mirror
relationships indicative of adult society. Young people consistently
form cliques at school, practicing exclusion and limiting their own
exposure to variety. They invalidate and even abuse each other verbally,
physically and sexually based on racist, classist and sexist
assumptions. Of late, it has also been noted that the most recent
generation of young people insists on invalidating achievers in the
classroom. Low scholastic achievement is often rewarded with acceptance
while high achievement is penalized by exclusion. All these activities
and many more are carried out solely based on association by age.
This indictment of adult society, the first part to a manifesto of
sorts, is by no means complete. Many volumes could (and hopefully will)
be written on these matters. There is much more to discuss and
investigate regarding ageism in theory and practice. For now,
identifying the most glaring applications and most basic theories will
have to suffice.
Of course, this essay wouldn’t have been written had its authors not
honestly believed there was hope for change and progress. If we can
agree to acknowledge the existence of ageism as a far-reaching, powerful
and thus significant oppression, we can perhaps initiate discourse on
the liberation of young people, an act equal in importance to the
liberation of all other oppressed groups.
Let’s face it: young people are the future; they always have been. It is
the values and perceptions instilled in young people which will carry
over into adult life and dominate social activity therein.
One idea is that adults should instill as few values and perspectives as
possible, thus freeing the “nature of youth” to develop on its own in a
free manner of socialization, in the absence of indoctrination and
social engineering. Already the topic of discussion and debate in
certain, limited forums, this idea has become known as “youthism,”
whereby the free-spirits, open minds, curiosities and reasoning
capacities, along with the desire for freedom, so often found in our
young before they are extensively engineered by the dominant forces of
society, can be nurtured not by dictators or even leaders but by free
association. Indeed, we are all born anarchists, defiant to irrational
oppressions, but are then molded by social forces largely beyond our
control.
What would happen if these dominant forces never were allowed to dig
their claws into the minds and hearts of our young? Would children reach
the conclusions that classism, sexism, authoritarianism, racism, etc.
are rational and just on their own accord? Is it possible that they
might never recognize that power should be inequitably distributed among
individuals and groups?
Might we find that the corruption of adults begins with the corruption
of children, a reciprocal and indeed cyclical process? And might we see
that indeed the nurturing process, delicate yet vital, is in dire need
of revolution?
Some people may wonder why I focus so disproportionately on youth
issues. After all, young people are not the only people oppressed,
either collectively or individually, in our society. Structural forces
and individual prejudices often conspire to keep women and people of
color from being as successful as many white males. Heterosexism is
still inscribed into our nation’s law codes and animates the belief
systems of many people. The situation of disabled and elderly Americans
bears many similarities to that of youth (albeit with some key
differences). People of size are increasingly scapegoated under the
guise of a “war on obesity” that conveniently doubles as a war on them.
Rural people are oppressed both by the condescending attitudes of
non-rural people and the very geographic realities of rurality. The poor
economy is an increasingly oppressive force in the lives of more and
more Americans, including those who would have once been known as middle
class or even wealthy. And individuals of all demographic groups are
oppressed by the military, medical, and prison industrial complexes as
well as social mores which prize conformity over critical thinking and
individuality. So why focus on youth?
I focus on youth because minors are the only group of individuals in our
society that almost everyone - left or right, religious or secular,
educated or ignorant, authoritarian or libertarian - is openly
comfortable treating as a subject class. Youth are the only group of
people in the United States for whom there is widespread consensus that
segregating them from the rest of society, denying them legal rights,
keeping them economically dependent, and turning arbitrary authority for
them over to other people is not a necessary evil but the best possible
way we individually and collectively can hope to relate to them. I focus
on youth because the ills of sexism, racism, heterosexism, ableism,
classism, sizeism, rural oppression, poverty, and the military, medical,
and prison industrial complexes are complicated and exacerbated by the
status of minority. I focus on youth oppression because it is taken for
granted and therefore invisible despite its ubiquity.
I focus on youth because the critical theoretical eye that has
problematized the idea of biologically essentialist gender roles and
racial identities has not problematized much of the ageist pseudoscience
surrounding discourses about child development. I focus on youth because
those who decry the warehousing of our elders and people with
disabilities in nursing homes and assisted living facilities do not draw
parallels with the warehousing of our youth in schools and other
institutions. I focus on youth because most libertarians see no
contradiction in talking about arbitrary and oppressive state power on
the one hand and using the phrase “parents’ rights” on the other. I talk
about youth because a commitment to human liberty and social justice
demands youth liberation and those who claim to support human liberty
and social justice rarely acknowledge this. I focus on youth because
there is a more organized effort in our society to extend liberty and
dignity to animals than to human children. I focus on youth because
ageism is one of the greatest unexamined black marks on American society
in the early twenty-first century. I focus on youth because if I don’t
few people will. And as long as all of these things are true I am a
radical youth liberation supporter first, last, and always.
“Youth rights” can be difficult to pin down. The term itself is vague
(although no vaguer than most terms used to describe more established
social movements and philosophies). Youth rights is difficult to pin
down primarily because there are a number of philosophies similar in
some respects to youth rights that ultimately differ in critical enough
ways to distinguish themselves from youth rights.
There is also a great deal of ideological diversity within the youth
rights movement itself. Those differences may be highlighted in more
depth elsewhere on [The Youth Rights Blog], but this post is intended to
focus on the commonalities that make us youth rights supporters as
opposed to something else. Youth rights is, like feminism, first and
foremost a frame for viewing issues (in this case issues affecting young
people). It emphasizes the prevalence of ageism as a key prejudice
affecting the lives of young people. It problematizes institutions like
the family and compulsory education which are central in the lives of
youth. It calls into question assumptions that most thinkers about
childhood, education, and the family take for granted about children’s
capacities. Most critically, youth rights thinkers tend to regard child
abuse and child protectionism as two sides of the same coin.
In the words of philosopher Howard Cohen, “Child protection has been
concerned with the quality of care of the child, and therefore with the
fitness of the caretaker. It has not been concerned with fundamental
questions about the nature and limits of adult authority over children.
It is the sense that the ways in which adults control children and make
decisions for them are themselves a part of the mistreatment and
oppression of children which is absent from the ideology, and is ignored
by the government when it becomes involved.” To paraphrase psychologist
Richard Farson, we believe that we best protect youth by protecting
their rights. That which undermines the right of young people to
autonomy and self-determination (even under the misguided assumption
that it is for their own welfare) demeans, oppresses, and endangers
them. Child abuse and child protectionism are two sides of the same
coin.
Youth rights supporters believe that youth don’t usually need protection
from themselves - they need protection from the social, political,
legal, economic, and cultural forces that make them a subject class. We
recognize that, as has been the case with people with disabilities, when
youth need protection it is usually from the institutions such as
schools, the family, and social services agencies that were ironically
enough set up for the purpose of protecting them. This is because it is
impossible to truly protect someone within a framework that denies them
liberty, autonomy, and self-determination and thereby deprives them of
the ability to meet their own needs and desires and to protect
themselves.