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Anarchy and teen rebellion...

From "Hooligan, a history of respectable fears":
The word "hooligan" made an abrupt entrance into common English usage, as a term to describe gangs of rowdy youths during the hot summer of 1898
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The word 'teenager' may not have yet been coined, but it was most certainly teen rebellion going on.
 
kyser_soze said:
Tell me, how many teenage fads and fashions do you recall from the 1920s and 30s? There were sub-cultures (hipsters for example) but in terms of being a large, socially defined group in Western societies the term 'teenager' and the associated ideas of rebellion and change only became salient in the post-war period.
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No, it only became profitable post-WW2, There are many many examples of youth cults (identifieds as 'teenagers', that is apart from adults, forming a separate group) in the book cited above and similiar - there's actually quite a lot of serious research into this.
 
kyser_soze said:
Many societies don't even HAVE a concept of 'teenage' - you go from childhood to adulthood in one step, often accompanied with a specific social/religious ritual to mark this rite of passage (watch any 'living with the locals' type docco and they'll have something about it - I remember watching one in which the RoP was to be buggered by an older man before choosing your wife (or something along those lines)).

Go back to the pre-WW2 era and teenagers simply didn't exist as a social group - certainly not one that has the importance and prominence it has in todays society at least - so the notion of teen rebellion didn't exist.
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I think you will find they did and teenage gangs such as the edelwiess pirates opposed the nazis in ww2 germany.
 
But these groups were seen as exceptions rather than the rule - unruly groups to be put down, rather than the notion that rebellion was something that ALL went through and was a part of maturing. It wasn't just because it was profitable either - recognition of the physical changes that humans go through in puberty, education 'extending' childhood up to 14/16/18 years old all went into changing the perceptiopn of the post-childhood/pre-adulthood period.

Funny to find you disagreeing with me here BA since my slightly sarky comments were semi-serious - the 1898 hooligans were closer to criminal street gangs, bearing little resemblance to the definable subculture/s you see today, and my larger point about how contemporary rebellion is to a great extent a reaction against the structures imposed by the wider social hierarchy - I was under the (obviously mistaken impression) that the capitalist family unit - atomised and isolated from the extended family community - helps replicate the wider social system through parents using coecive and oppressive methods to try and achieve 'control' over their offspring and that's why 'rebellion' in a future comanarch society wouldn't happen because the external influences on society, peer group, family and individual would be directed at creating a nuturing understanding environment, not one that is, in the words of every teenager who feels wronged 'Just completely unfair';)
 
Herbert Read said:
I think you will find they did and teenage gangs such as the edelwiess pirates opposed the nazis in ww2 germany.
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Yep, they only became recuperated when they were identified as a useful market - which means that they were already in existence, they weren't invented by the ad man, but as they got involved and changed th dynamics then these sort of groups were then partly a construction. Like most things in capitlaist society they have a dual nature. It doesn't follow that they always did though. Not till they got enclosed anyway. The only real argument is over when this took place though.
 
kyser_soze said:
But these groups were seen as exceptions rather than the rule - unruly groups to be put down, rather than the notion that rebellion was something that ALL went through and was a part of maturing. It wasn't just because it was profitable either - recognition of the physical changes that humans go through in puberty, education 'extending' childhood up to 14/16/18 years old all went into changing the perceptiopn of the post-childhood/pre-adulthood period.
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Exactly, and that's the precise difference between youth culture largely unmediated by capitalism (ecpect the recognition that in a few years you're probably going to have to work) ans that of today that often plays an integral and functioning role in todays society. You're arguing against your own point here.
 
Herbert Read said:
I think you will find they did and teenage gangs such as the edelwiess pirates opposed the nazis in ww2 germany.
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As the 1930s rebelliousness of the HJ became the next generation, the EPs, Navahos and Swing Kids became the new rebellion.

Teens will rebel against the anarchy. In what form, who knows, I outlined one possibility earlier. How would today's thrusting young anarchopunks deal with them when they too become the establishment?
 
But these groups were seen as exceptions rather than the rule - unruly groups to be put down, rather than the notion that rebellion was something that ALL went through and was a part of maturing.
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Throughout the Middle Ages apprentices and students were expected to behave rebelliously and violently, they were an integral component of 'the mob'.
 
butchersapron said:
Exactly, and that's the precise difference between youth culture largely unmediated by capitalism (ecpect the recognition that in a few years you're probably going to have to work) ans that of today that often plays an integral and functioning role in todays society. You're arguing against your own point here.
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What, the one which says that in a future commanarch society teen rebellion wouldn't exist?
 
kyser_soze said:
Funny to find you disagreeing with me here BA since my slightly sarky comments were semi-serious - the 1898 hooligans were closer to criminal street gangs, bearing little resemblance to the definable subculture/s you see today, and my larger point about how contemporary rebellion is to a great extent a reaction against the structures imposed by the wider social hierarchy - I was under the (obviously mistaken impression) that the capitalist family unit - atomised and isolated from the extended family community - helps replicate the wider social system through parents using coecive and oppressive methods to try and achieve 'control' over their offspring and that's why 'rebellion' in a future comanarch society wouldn't happen because the external influences on society, peer group, family and individual would be directed at creating a nuturing understanding environment, not one that is, in the words of every teenager who feels wronged 'Just completely unfair';)
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No, tjis is where you're wrong and a reading of the book mentioned above, or similiar (Hooligans or Rebels? - Stephen Humphries) would put you right. There were a shed load of teenage youth cultures, and they simply weren't just criminal gangs - that's the whole point of all this sort of research.You're taking the 'Punch' line on this, one that no ones takes seriously since the explosion of interest in this area.

As for the family stuff, i think you're largely wrong - of course the family can do that, but then so can many other things - and that's largely dependent upon the context in which it/they operate. The family isn't the main determinant here, though it can often appear as if it is.
 
kyser_soze said:
What, the one which says that in a future commanarch society teen rebellion wouldn't exist?
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No, the one that says that they didn't exist pre-WW2. All you're doing is showing that you can only recognise them when they've become profitable, when they've became a market, when they've been enclosed.
 
I think an anarchist society would deal with 'teen rebellion' by patting it on the head and saying 'that's nice dear, don't stay up too late at the social forum, mind'.
 
jacobs steel said:
Wasn't the navahos a religious rebellion, correct me if I'm wrong.
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No, just teenagers who went round challenging HJ goons, in Cologne I think. One of many gangs.

Can an anarchist address my point? :mad:
 
absinthe said:
How would an anarchist society cope with teen rebellion? Let's say the whole world was a communist anarchy, within one generation would the latest bunch of teenagers turn away from non-hierarchical meetings and community workshops?

Would they decide to forgo agenda-driven consensus-seeking base-touching and go and smash up the communal free-spaces and creative zones?

How would the anarchist adults deal with the rebellious youths, who want none of their societal mores and benefits?

Would corporal punishment or communal service be deployed? Punitive measures against an anti-social bunch of selfish ne'erdowells?
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Same way any other bunch of anti-social of selfish ne'erdowells, really, if they're smashing things or hurting people, then stop them (violently if necessary), otherwise, just ignore them.

Also, while I wouldn't be so silly as to assert that "teen rebellion" (in terms of adolescents pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable) simply wouldn't exist in an anarchist society, it would certainly be far less prominent in a society where young people were listened to and their concerns and needs taken into account instead of dismissed as teen rebellion.
 
What would constitute rebelious behaviour in an anarchy tho - would it manifest in the ways absinthe suggested earlier, with bands of teenager capitalists wandering the streets extracting surplus value from each other, or being rampant consumers? Surely in a society that would be that free and have no laws (well none written down anyway) the actual scope for rebelling would be drastically reduced. I mean routes like drug use, hanging on street corners etc would probebaly be closed...
 
kyser_soze said:
What would constitute rebelious behaviour in an anarchy tho - would it manifest in the ways absinthe suggested earlier, with bands of teenager capitalists wandering the streets extracting surplus value from each other, or being rampant consumers? Surely in a society that would be that free and have no laws (well none written down anyway) the actual scope for rebelling would be drastically reduced. I mean routes like drug use, hanging on street corners etc would probebaly be closed...
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Dunno, they could just get a tattoo like any normal kid. Teen rebellion is most often directed at parents, it doesn't necessarily have to involve breaking the law.

As for "bands of teenager capitalists", who's going to work for them, exactly?
 
Well, having had a read of the précis of the 'Hooligans or rebels' book, these rebellions seem to be as motivated against wider society as against parents - possibly more so. And as we know, social conditions across the whole time period we're talking about have bene ones based around a coercive hierarchy of power. Indeed, the synopsis I read emphasises the rebellion of the poor and the 'untold' stories - but certainly frames it in relation to wider society.

I mean would anarchist parents have the same issue with tattooing as capitalist ones? As Idris says, would the reaction simply be 'That's nice, now run along' as part of a wider acceptance of kids behaviour?
 
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