Newell-Fonda High School
Newell, Iowa
Teacher: Connie Doonan

 

 

Rites of Passage In American Society

By Christian Overgaard

12th Grade

 

 

 The question that has been brought before my classmates and I is whether or not a rite of passage is required in American society today.  My answer to this simply in one word is no.  There are many reasons for this decision, first and most obvious is what would it be, a test of strength, or intelligence, maybe of bravery?  Second, what would be the criterion for passing or failing, and who would do the grading?  Third, why do we even need one?  Fourth, and the most compelling reason is this:  there is already a testing, or rite of passage as it is called here; this test is called life.

 

Our country is called a melting pot, but this is a blurring of the truth. Our country is more of a stew than a melting pot.  The reasoning is simple, in a melting pot everything is evenly incorporated; in a stew all of the ingredients are there, but they are still separate.  True they lend some flavor to each other, but they are still separate.  This is my point: there is no way that all of the different groups in this country could settle on one single test.  In this country where we slay each other in the streets due to our color, our religion, and our ethnic background it is not conceivably possible that we could share a universal rite of passage.  How is this diverse society going to choose a test for all of it s young to determine whether or not they are adults, when we cannot even create a universal language for everybody to speak. As for the criterion for passing or failing, [it] cannot even be considered if we cannot even create the test first.  Ask any teacher; a student cannot be graded if he or she cannot be given the test.

 

Most of the literature that came with this essay consisted of parents deciding how to help us.  If we really do need this help that they are trying to give to this generation would it be very productive to set forth a test that will determine whether or not we are fit to live among adults in the adult world?  Some of us can barely dress ourselves in the morning without having an anxiety attack about our appearance, much less take a test that will determine our lives.  This test would undoubtedly put more unneeded pressure on those who really do need extra help.  This also brings to mind the question what will we do with those who do fail this test of our life.  Will they put into a camp for failures? Will they be put into institutes? Maybe they will have to go to special classes for the develop-mentally impaired, or will they be forced to repeat childhood like it is the third grade?  The question is, if this test decides who are the winners and who are the losers, what do we do with the losers of the world?

 

The fourth and best reason for not instituting a test is that this test already exists, this test is life itself.  This rite of passage appears to simply be a way to sort out those of us who need help and those of us who don t so that adults may develop some way to treat our defects.  In the current test, it does not take just a year like a confirmation or other religious rites.  It is not quick and easy so as to diagnose our problems and fix them as the adults of the world would like it to be.  This test is the only true test of how well a person will work in the real world.  This test is the real world itself.  Science has taught us that through evolution, Darwinism, and natural selection that only the fittest should survive, and that is the way the world works.  Those of us who survive will succeed and do what we want with our lives, have a wife, children, in short a family.  All of this because we were fit for it, the task of survival.

 

And those of us who fail, it is these people who make the Harry Singer Foundation think that the world is broken, those of us that do not survive, or are not fit for survival.  They are the failures; they are those of us who will become addicted to crack, heroin, and have a short addiction to crank only because it is cut short by death.  These failures are the ones who will spend their lives on welfare and have no plans of ever trying to get off.  They reproduce as much as possible so that it will increase their, monthly payment.  These are the people who know that they are failures but deny it to themselves.  Possibly this country has been too soft to those who fail and that is why our society is crumbling because we are allowing the failures to out number those of us who pass, the inferior is out breeding the superior.  It is the process of leaving the unfit behind that may be the way of fixing our generation, our society, and our civilization.

 

In closing, the rites of passage are not needed because there is no logical way to institute them, but most importantly they are already in use.  There is no quick way to see if a person is fit to go out into the world, the only true way is to let them out and let it be survival of the fittest.

 

Answers To Questions

 

 1.  The current slogan of the United States Army is be all that you can be,  but  Margret Mead states that our youth is not being all that it can be.

 

2.  I believe that all four of these issues are still very prevalent in the average  American home in the year 2000.

 

3.  Yes I believe that culture is man made, but no he is not free to control it  simply  by will.  Culture is created by all of the inhabitants of an area, and all of  these indented beings simply will not decide to change culture.  Culture is   something that is almost created unconsciously by humanity, therefore we cannot  just decide to change it. If Jill wants a kinder and gentler society the entire  civilization is not just going become kinder and gentler because Jill wants it to be.

 

4.  I think that Mead was advocating the second.  Mead does not want to return  to the primitive ways, nor even integrate them, Mead simply wants to make life  less complicated for everybody by controlling the civilizing process.

 

5.  I personally do not want to have structure and rules forced upon me by the  adults of this world.  Some of this generation may need to have rules imposed  upon them, but I do not want that imposed upon me.

 

6.  Students in this school get drunk to the point of falling down, some go up town  to smoke during lunch break even if they are under aged.  And the drugs have  slowly graduated their way out of this school over the past three years.

 

7.  There is no practical solution for his plight.  The only option is for the boy to  try to earn the trust of those around him.

 

8.  No, because here in rural Iowa fashion is not really all that important.  But the  single-sex environment as it was called is not the answer.

 

9.  Yes, these programs would instill the facts of the real world and how

it works,   very good experience for everybody.

 

10.  These adults should look themselves and decide how to fix themselves.  The  best way to lead is by example, and not by just sitting around deciding how to fix  the teenage population.