McLeansboro High School
McLeansboro, Illinois
Teacher: Kenneth Kirkpatrick

 

 

 

An Aristocratic Experiment

By Ezekiel J. Johnson

 

 

 “I don’t like your tattoos, tongue ring, or your dangling shoe laces.  I don’t like your music, the bag you carry, or your idols.  What do you have to offer the community?  You are nothing but a drain on society!  I do not want you behaving this way in my community!”  These statements can be heard from the lips of many community leaders, but is this really aberrant behavior or does it just cross the social boundaries acceptable to the adult community?

 

Communities are governmental organizations consisting of ordinary people.  These people have needs, wants, desires, homes, families, loves, hates, quarrels and vices.  The government must set certain requirements for youths to meet which will provide for the safety and preservation of the rights of the whole community.  Initiating rites of passage for youths which go beyond setting standards for safety and governmental procedures and dictate what are acceptable religious, cultural, political or social practices, in order to become favored members of a community is a dangerous experiment.

 

Most societies have limited civic rites of passage set by the state.  In theory the word “rite” is a term simply used to signify anything involving a transition. Such rites are necessary to mark a point in time when the youths’ physical and mental abilities allow them to function outside of the sheltered family environment.  Laws which deem a youth eligible to obtain a driver’s license, register for the draft, and vote in governmental elections set indispensable marks in time, or rites of passage, needed to maintain order and uniformity within the community.

 

Adults have been trying to understand adolescent behavior for most of the past century.  Social scientists such as Margaret Mead and Arnold Van Gennep have studied civilized as well as uncivilized cultures.  Mead postulated the idea that in less civilized countries such as Somoa, ceremonies, or rites of passage, are effective ways of controlling changes in the lives of young people.  As noted by Monika Vizedom, Mead’s studys of the Mountain Arapesh revealed that, “rituals express values, but by making demands on the young also inculate values and enforce their maintenance.”  The concept of a community rite of passage has become a focus of interest in light of the recent violent behavior of American youths.  Recently, sociologists have reinvented the idea of social control based on a definition of rite of passage which was first introduced by Arnold Van Gennep.  Van Gennep proposed the idea that in primitive societies there are rites that correspond to all recognized stages of life, and these stages in individual lives in turn correspond to clear cut divisions of society; that societies are in fact subdivided into compartments. This definition of rites of passage establishes that all rites operate to preserve the social order or status quo and authority of the community elders.

 

The concept of creating new community rites of passage to control youths’ behavior goes beyond the essential function of government.  Legislated rites of passage would allow the elders of society to compel youths to conform to the ethical goals of those in power.  On the surface this may sound like a positive notion, but it is only positive if everyone shares the values of those in control.  The fallacy in this plan is that not all families share the same beliefs.  The boundaries of belief systems are usually difficult to define.  Social boundaries, unlike physical boundaries are not discernible lines.  They are decisions and rules constructed for some social purpose.  Decisions as to who can belong to certain clubs and who can participate in gifted programs create social boundaries.  Community beliefs can be constructed with a social purpose in mind; for instance, they may determine who is “in” and who is “out” in a community. 

 

The sociology of rituals places some in power and many in servitude.  The social relevance of mandated rites of passage lies in their use to justify or oppose the arrangement of power and positions in order to satisfy the government. Social groups in any given society use rituals for their own ends and purposes.  Rituals have been, and still are used as an effective way of coercing people to conform to values and ways of life which they have not chosen for themselves.  Whenever one group decides what is and what is not “desirable” for another to know, or whenever a “we-they” condition exists, society becomes vulnerable to totalitarianism .

 

A government cannot make up laws of human conduct any more than it can make up laws of science.  A government that tries to control human behavior is playing God. Community rites of passage would force youths to be dependent on external judgment more than internal coherence to personal values.  Every youth asks, “ Who am I?  What am I doing here?  Where did I come from?  What’s right and wrong?”  Answers to these questions should not be dictated by government.  The answers should be allowed to come from the inner soul of each person.  The right to self determination is inevitably connected to personal freedom.

Society must progress past the notion that our youths need to be transformed into idealized personages who are sanctioned by the community.  People need to appreciate the diversity and change that each new generation brings to the world.  The United States was built on the belief that every individual has a right to determine his or her own destiny.  There is no formula that can be used to “grow” people.

Ezekiel J. Johnson

 

Question and Answer

 

1.  What does Margaret Mead say at the start of her 1961 Preface to Coming of Age in Samoa that is reminiscent of a current Army recruiting commercial?

Margaret Mead was concerned that because the role of culture in the development of youths is so poorly understood, youths might not be able to be “all that they could be.”  Mead makes a poor assumption, because youth development has evolved with cultural change throughout the century

 

2.  Which of the following issues of the 1920’s are no longer issues today?

            1.  The importance of the language spoken in the home

            2.  Familial pressures on children

            3.  Misconceptions about race and color

            4.  The effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and death

            All of these 1920’s issues are still, to a degree, issues today.  There are many families living in the United States who speak little or no English and cannot function in “English only” school systems.  Familial pressures on a child are a concern today and will be forever, because it is impossible for a family to raise a child without influencing the beliefs of the child.  Some people try to raise their children in an “ideal world” that is removed from the realities of life.  Sheltering children from knowledge of worldly life creates a very narrow minded individual.  Of all the issues listed in this question, bigotry and racism are the most serious issues today in American society.  The dragging death of a man in Jasper, Texas and the popularity of white supremacist Matt Hale should signal that racism and bigotry are not dead. 

 

3.  Do you agree with Margaret Mead that “culture is man-made and that man is free to design it closer to the desires of his own heart”?  What definition of “culture” do you find in the dictionary. 

Most dictionaries define culture as the concepts, habits, skills, art, and institutions of a given people at a given time.  This definition confirms that culture is man-made, and constantly changing.  One person is not responsible for the entire culture of society and no one has the ability to make culture conform to his or her own needs. 

 

4.  In her writings Margaret Mead was advocating:

            1.  a return to primitive ways

            2.  greater knowledge and control

            3.  an integration of the primitive and civilized

            4.  none of the above

Margaret Mead is apparently promoting the idea of greater knowledge of and control over the civilizing process.  She emphasizes that the influence of culture on youth development is not well understood and that in order to raise children successfully, parents must know more about how environment affects child development. 

 

5.  Comment on Susan’s speech (page 60 A Tribe Apart) Do you and your peers really want adults to recognize what is going on and enforce “boundaries and structure”?

This statement implies that all teenagers wish to behave irresponsibly.  Some, but not all, teenagers choose to behave poorly.  Individuals who choose to break laws, school codes, or household rules may need “boundaries and structure” in their lives, but for persons like myself, who do not indulge in such deviant behaviors, this question is irrelevant. 

 

6.  Write three things that you “absolutely, positively know, saw or experienced concerning drugs and alcohol among” students at your school.

I realize there are members of the student body at my school who use alcohol and illegal substances, but I avoid situations where I might be confronted with such activities.  What I do know about drug and alcohol use I do not wish to pass on, because certain members of my community might become angered and feel the urge to do me bodily injury. 

 

7.  Do you have a solution for the “plight of the black teenager”? (page 88 A Tribe Apart)

People who are trapped in a bad situation are often hesitant to try escaping because they have become accustomed to their problems and they are afraid to venture out into the unknown.  Mr. Al Wolak, a B-24 waist gunner in WW II, was flying a mission in December of 1944 when his plane disintegrated in mid-air.  He remained in the partially intact mid-section of the aircraft as it fell because he felt secure with the familiarity of the metal around him.  Fortunately his instincts told him to bail out in time to open his parachute.  If a teenager is unhappy, uncomfortable, or in a dangerous situation, he or she should not hesitate to escape that situation simply because of fear of the unknown.

 

8.  Would it be a relief if all you had to do was “go to classes and learn”?  Would you be happy if you were home schooled or attended a single-sex private school where academics were presented in an exciting way and learning was admired even by your peers?

Students can make school as interesting and exciting as they want.  Students who choose not to focus on academics will always try to avoid work, skip class, and be disruptive.  Private schools will not be able to correct this problem.  Students who simply want to “go to class and learn” will not let obstacles deter them. 

 

9.  Comment on the line from Pete Seeger: “Schools are like prisons because they don’t teach you how to live.”  Ad Jonathan’s comment “People in school are dulled by the remoteness to the real world.”  Would more classes incorporating community based learning be helpful?  (incorporating activities with relevance to actual real life situations)

Schools offer basic skills which help to build the foundation for future learning.  Each person must learn for him or herself how to properly live in society.  No school can truly fit the needs of all of its students.  Students who are concerned about “how to live,” need to look for experience outside of the school curriculum. 

 

10.  Comment on the “bottom line” (page 364A Tribe Apart)

Parents must cultivate healthy relationships with their children in order to understand them and make themselves understood.  Conflicts may still arise because each generation is raised in a different environment with new experiences.  Parents may influence a child’s morals, for better or for worse, but the child will still create his or her own moral code over time.