Youth Liberation

[Sand Castle]

I'm quite upset that I didn't find a thread about this here. I searched for it. Maybe I didn't search hard enough. Whether you realize it or not, communism and anarchism have tenets of youth lib. in them.

"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty." - The Communist Manifesto, chapter 2

“The young are not our inferiors.” - Mao Zedong, quoted from The Youth League in its Work Must Take the Characteristics of Youth into Consideration.

And then there is this nice writing by Emma Goldman.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/socimportms.html

Young people are considered, by society, to be less intelligent and less responsible. If you believe they really are, then you need to stop stereotyping like a dickhead. If youth are as stated above, then it's society's fault. Capitalist society targets youth with its immature bullshit in order to make a profit. Instead of being taught responsibility, they are taught that high-priced clothes and cars are all that matters.

In less developed societies (the third world) youth are taught differently. They are more responsible, but they are also more exploited. At the link below, you can read about a child soldier who rose to the rank of sergeant. Does that sound irresponsible and unintelligent to you? If so, you need to get your head checked. I'm not saying child soldiering is right either.

http://www.messengersaintanthony.com/messaggero/pagina_articolo.asp?IDX=144IDRX=48

My point is, society conditions youth to be the way they supposedly are. In a classless society, we will all be responsible.

Now, lets talk about schools. Schools are set up to indoctrinate young people into being passive patriots. They are also set up to make money for book and supply companies. The young people are forced to supply free labor to schools. Is this not exploitation?

Schools don't teach you much you need to know. Many courses in secondary and below schools are not needed and only set up for the profit of companies. For example, algebra II and higher. Most people will not use such a high level of algebra, yet students in my school are forced to take it. The same can be said about many university classes, only the university gains more of a profit.

[ZeroNowhere]

Well, I'm not entirely sure why this is in Philosophy, but, seeing as I'm an anti-schooler, I'm pretty much in agreement. On the other hand, I would generally see critical thinking as a more important goal than 'responsibility', which is somewhat meaningless after having been thrown around by neoliberal politicians practically daily since the 1970s.
As it is, over here we have a load of the 'cane!!! the bastards!' guys, so we've got loads of ageism around. The problem is that many stereotypes about young people are self-fulfilling prophecies, and others, such as, say, 'teenage rebellion: just a phase' are excuses to give up responsibility for it. For example, unschoolers and free skoolers (see: Sudbury and such, not the reformed free-er schools) don't really have many problems with the 'teenage rebellion' and such, and generally seem to have good relationships with their parents. Now, rather than blaming the teens, perhaps, rather than it being a fact of 'human nature' or whatever, it's due to the fact that most are brought up in highly oppressive schooling environments, and have parents that often put lots of pressure on them to get meaningless grades?

[black magick hustla]

I will say this again. School is not the humanities and unless you are capable of learning math by yourself, please do not say all of it is worthless. I have had a lot of good teachers and the whole anti-school attitude is just dumb.

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't see your point here. Nobody's saying that all teachers are evil bastards, though, to quote Emerson, "If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own." Nor are we saying that going to school is the only way to be taught maths, that would be giving it too much credit (though I find it more effective to use Saxon textbooks and stuff like 'All the Maths you'll ever need', since Maths is a fairly important for somebody with an interest in physics, but anyways). Of course, most people find Maths to be one of the most boring subjects ever, which it is in school, so school doesn't seem to help much there. Hell, most people could have probably finished off the necessary maths faster if they weren't wasting their times with High School English. Or History, which tends to be a load of propaganda. Or competing against each other in order to get higher grades rather than helping each other learn, though, to be fair, it does improve their worth as a part of the workforce. Hell, it must be even more annoying for somebody who doesn't cheat. Anyways, we never said that you never learn anything in school, that would make it a harmless waste of time.
Which reminds me, I find it interesting that loads of people, especially politicians, like to speak about 'democracy' all the bloody time, but when it comes to education... Nah, fuck it, let's just go with the most democracy being electing a 'student council' or whatever that doesn't really do anything other than organize one or two events during the school year. Bloody kids don't deserve it. More interestingly, this also applies to lots that support 15 year olds voting in the US elections.
Also, apparently ephebiphobia exists. Wow.

[which doctor]

I used to be attracted to whole youth lib thing, I guess you could say it was something I grew out of, though I'm still quite young.

One of the most interesting things I read was A Warning to Students of All Ages by Raoul Vaneigem.
http://www.notbored.org/avertissement.html

[Dharma]

Great thread.

You shouldn't hate your teachers just because they are a place in power but you should not blindly follow them. Coming from an eighth grade student, teachers nowadays intertwine their own personal views too much with the lesson. I have gotten into arguments with my history teacher about socialism vs capitalism and the Soviet Union not being communist and he would just yell and yell and yell, then he eventually just cut me off and went on to the next thing he need to complete in order to walk out with a check. From my experience teachers do not care what they fill their pupil's heads with they just care that they get a check.

One thing that worries me is that children do not know what communism is. On some days I see kids in the hallway at my middle school doing the nazi salute, sickening that they do not know the truth and do not wish to find out the truth. In history class we were discussing 9/11 and on a reflection paper some students wrote that the communists hijacked planes and flew them into the twin towers. You are absolutely right when you say that the youth is conditioned. They are conditioned to be blind patriots, christians, learn basic reading, writing and mathematics skills and be a cog in the capitalist system. The school system oppresses any 'radical' thought.

Oh here is another example of the school system conditions the youth's thoughts. In seventh grade I had a teacher who kind of liked me but hated that I was a leftist. [I handed in numerous papers on what it means to be a patriot ect, all anti-American in her eyes, anti-imperialist in mine] but one day when discussing the inaugural processes. Her and I fell into a debate over her statement that "Atheists shouldn't be allowed to run for office" She said that because this country was founded off the principle of having a God, all politicians should be religious. I told her that the founding fathers were also strongly racist and that Ben Franklin didn't believe in god ect then she eventually just cut me off.

If you don't wish to read all of my post, my main point is that teachers shouldn't be hated but the lessons they teach and the points they make should be looked at through a highly critical standpoint.

[black magick hustla]

When I mean that school is not only "humanities", is that math has very little ideological content. I honestly think that in a future society, school should be optional because I sympathize with teachers that have to deal with dumb motherfuckers making fun of them while getting paid like shit. I never thought of school as slavery, perhaps I hated homework, but I always liked learning. School beats work by miles and if youth liberationists want to work a shitty mcjob instead of school then kudos for them

[Sand Castle]

I never said all of math was unnecessary. For certain people, decades of math is necessary. For most of the people I know, it's not. So if your future job involves doing a lot of math, then take the classes. If not, they shouldn't have any right to force them on people.

I never said teachers were evil either. A lot of them are ageists though. Something needs to be done about that.

I'd rather work and get paid than do free work (slavery). Either way it benefits the ruling class, which is why we need revolution.

If the required courses didn't revolve around bullshit and profit so much, then people could begin full-time job training at an earlier age (maybe 15 or 16). So I could be a plumber, or be on my way to being a plumber, right now. It's better than McDonald's by far, but I'm sure we'd all rather have the revolution.

[jake williams]

The notion of youth liberation and its place in anarchist or anti-oppression theory is an extremely important one, and even an obvious one. People who fancy themselves anti-oppression heroes, however, frequently try to push it out of the picture, and that is really ugly.

There are some objective realities that have to be considered. Yes, children are born without social, practical, and technical knowledge, and they have to be taught it. Moreover, in the interim, they need to be prevented from harming themselves or others. However, this is a general fact about people. Chomsky gives as an example of rare legitimate authority that one should stop a 5-year-old from running out into the street. I would agree, but I think it absurd that one would choose to put age categories on it. You'd stop anyone from running out in front of a vehicle, on reflex if nothing else. In fact the extreme of obviously justified authority generalizes like that.

As far as social education goes, the fact is that we live in an oppressive society built around institutions of power. It's just basic sense then that our social education involves education, one might say indoctrination, about our system of power. We are taught in formal and informal institutions to accept a certain value system about power. which doctor comments that, while once attracted to the "whole youth lib thing" is now less interested in it.

This is a perfect example of how indoctrination into a system of power works. Objectively, the oppression of youth is removed with age. You get older, you gain power within the system. This is a main objection to subjective complaints about the unpleasantness of being young. You're told that yes, you're oppressed now, but you will grow up and you will no longer be [so] oppressed. This is precisely analogous to the logic used by capitalists who say, the workplace is unpleasant now, but you will gain experience and you will be promoted and then you will gain power and so on. The difference is that in the former case - which is just educational and not real, except in its subjective effects - the oppressive factor actually is removed. You actually do get older and escape that system oppression, whereas in the second case, you generally don't actually transcend capitalist oppression. But this is significant. You have to be indoctrinated into the idea that if you wait long enough things will get better.

There's this tension, then, between the subjective effects on the oppressed individuals and the function this system places in a larger society of oppression. Its function is critical to the workings of an oppressive capitalist, racist, sexist society. You have to teach oppression, in particular you have to teach the oppressed to accept their oppression, but this education itself inflicts psychological and emotional harm on its recipients. Conscious parents and a number of psychologists can't escape noticing that at least in marginally healthy social contexts, children enjoy learning new things. Especially when it's clear the things are useful, but children even enjoy learning about dinosaurs and space and so on, which are obviously not practical. If school were simply about learning necessary or interesting skills and information, children would enjoy school. Children do not enjoy school because school in its present conception is a system of oppression because that's just the society we live in. So much is almost trivially obvious and it pains me to have to make it explicit.

There's a lot else I could say, but folks don't tend to read very long posts.


one quick comment about personal tensions: There are nice bosses or husbands, but that doesn't mean capitalism and patriarchy are good, or don't exist.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I think this should be in Discrimination.

[jake williams]

I think this should be in Discrimination.
Yeah.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

Conscious parents and a number of psychologists can't escape noticing that at least in marginally healthy social contexts, children enjoy learning new things. Especially when it's clear the things are useful, but children even enjoy learning about dinosaurs and space and so on, which are obviously not practical. If school were simply about learning necessary or interesting skills and information, children would enjoy school. Children do not enjoy school because school in its present conception is a system of oppression because that's just the society we live in.

As someone devoted to gaming and game design, there is a lot i can say about this.
Because the most important question to game design is "what is fun". the answer of course is so simple its easy to overlook, fun is learning in the way the human brain was designed to learn, play is a learning tool. The fact school is -not- fun is of course the important problem, it shows that the game is terribly designed. School probably wins the award for "Worst designed game ever". It is a giant festering pile of shit.

But i won't discount the idea of school totally until we get a well designed school system. On the other hand, it should be entirely voluntary because i agree with the concept of youth liberation, no one should be forced to "work".

[jake williams]

But i won't discount the idea of school totally
I don't discount the idea of school totally. The basic idea of school, where children are collectively taught important skills, facts, and concepts, is a good one. However we live in an oppressive society and so schools are oppressive institutions, for basic reasons I've already explained.


School probably wins the award for "Worst designed game ever".
I don't think it's poorly designed. Given the relative success of Western capitalism despite a number of flagrant contradictions, I think our school system does the job pretty damn well.

[ZeroNowhere]

School beats work by miles and if youth liberationists want to work a shitty mcjob instead of school then kudos for them
False dichotomy. By now, unschoolers getting into top colleges isn't portrayed as spectacular any more, because it happens all the time. The people that drop out of school to work for McDonalds are generally not being unschooled, and we're not just saying, "Drop out of school, and that's it." We're saying, "Get the fuck out of school, and get an education." If your parents are the sort that go, "If you drop out of school, you'll have to be financially independent!" and other silly crap, then that's going to be a problem, and impede your education. Of course, I know parents who have done this when their children went to a private school, which really doesn't make any sense, at all.


I have gotten into arguments with my history teacher about socialism vs capitalism and the Soviet Union not being communist and he would just yell and yell and yell, then he eventually just cut me off and went on to the next thing he need to complete in order to walk out with a check.
Holy shit, that happened to me too. The few differences being that my teacher didn't exactly 'yell', and was female.
As for teachers, some of them can be awesome people too. Hell, the free skool model liberates them too, as well as meaning that they don't have to scold people for not giving in homework, and other crap, and can actually teach (which never actually seemed to happen in our high school IT class, where we were always doing work and never actually learning anything), hell, teach things that are interesting, too. Of course, others seem to only sign up for the power, or simply become authoritarian bastards due to having spent years at the job, and adapting to it.


You have to be indoctrinated into the idea that if you wait long enough things will get better.
Also that youth lib, and such, are 'just phases' that you should be embarrassed of, and grow out of. Hell, the whole 'just a phase' crap happens to anarchism and communism now too.

[The Feral Underclass]

I will say this again. School is not the humanities and unless you are capable of learning math by yourself, please do not say all of it is worthless. I have had a lot of good teachers and the whole anti-school attitude is just dumb.

You've totally and completely failed to understand the whole point of what he's saying. No one is suggesting that we do away with education.

[apathy maybe]

The idea of discrimination against youth has come up before, just not (as far as I can recall) under the name "youth liberation".

Actually, similar threads brings up the following relevant thread:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/youth-liberation-t34397/index.html

Look up "ageism" for further threads on the issue.

[CommieCat]

The youth make up one of the most exploited segments of the working population (UNICEF estimates ~158 million aged between 5 and 14, excluding domestic work, which would cut it significantly). And its not something just limited to an 'out of sight third world country'; it has a systemic basis in most Western economies which make it legal to pay someone less based on their (younger!) age.

It's an example of how prevailing discriminatory attitudes serve the capitalist class in providing cheap labor.

That's not to even mention that most employment opportunities are exclusively limited to older people, whereas the choice for a young person is either fast food, secretary work, waitressing, cleaning and so forth. Not really a 'choice' at all.

So yeah, I would agree with the OP that 'youth liberation' against parents, the schooling system and capitalism is pretty fundamental to any respective revolutionary/emancipatory theory. Leftists who deride that struggle really don't understand the numerous inter-related dynamics of society...

[WhitemageofDOOM]

I don't think it's poorly designed. Given the relative success of Western capitalism despite a number of flagrant contradictions, I think our school system does the job pretty damn well.

The thing is, when the human brain finds learning, even completely pointless learning to be inherently enjoyable. It takes some terrible design to make a place of learning unfun. School is badly designed because it fights how the human mind learns, instead of working with it.

[ZeroNowhere]

The thing is, when the human brain finds learning, even completely pointless learning to be inherently enjoyable. It takes some terrible design to make a place of learning unfun. School is badly designed because it fights how the human mind learns, instead of working with it.
I think his point was: Perhaps it was perfectly designed, but not for the purpose for which you are judging its perfection on.

[Sand Castle]

I think this should be in Discrimination.
Thanks. I wasn't really sure where to post this.

I enjoyed reading everyone's posts here.

[Black Dagger]

Young people are considered, by society, to be less intelligent and less responsible. If you believe they really are, then you need to stop stereotyping like a dickhead.

Whilst there are many unintelligent and irresponsible adults, i'm gonna have to be a dickhead here and say that - yes - young people (if by this you mean under 18's) are generally less intelligent* and responsible than adults but there are reasons for this, it's not the 'fault' of kids and certainly there are young folks who are smarter and more responsible than adults (some of whom are there parents!).

Younger folks have been around for a shorter period of time, and are thus generally speaking more ignorant (it's not really an issue of intelligence) of the outside world than adults - give them a few years and the situation will resolve itself. That really is a point i find hard to refute, the older someone becomes the more knowledge they acquire about the world, that is only logical. So not 'less intelligent' but 'more ignorant' - young folks lack knowledge and experience which is acquired through being alive, finishing school etc. This is also true for 'emotional intelligence' or maturity which is crafted with life experience and not something you have when you're born (though genes undoubtedly influence an individuals abilities at any age) - but young folks tend to lack this compared to most adults.

On the subject of 'responsibility' (not sure what you mean specifically by this) most U/18's are by virtue of their age not required to take on 'adult' responsibilities - or much serious responsibility at all - so they don't develop these skills. I think in most situations this is a good thing, as children taking on adult responsibilities are often in situations of desperation or poverty (like the child soldier example you mentioned). This doesn't make children inherently 'less responsible' than adults, but it does mean that most children are not prepared to take on serious responsibility unless circumstances force this. A lot of this does have to do with the socialisation/infantilisation of young people, but it also stems from a lack of emotional intelligence/xp.



If youth are as stated above, then it's society's fault. Capitalist society targets youth with its immature bullshit in order to make a profit. Instead of being taught responsibility, they are taught that high-priced clothes and cars are all that matters.

Yup.



In less developed societies (the third world) youth are taught differently. They are more responsible, but they are also more exploited.

I think this is a generlisation or stereotype. There is no evidence to suggest that kids in the so-called 'third world' are 'taught differently' or even what this means - ditto for 'third world' youth being more 'responsible' though you are correct for the most part on 'more exploited'. Though it should be noted that children are still exploited in 'western' countries, and that the class system is universal - i.e. there are kids in the 'third world' who live in great wealth, just as spoilt and immature as a kid in a gated US suburb.

This is a problem with this whole 'third world' construction - it disguises the fact that 'third world' countries are like all countries - class societies - there is rich as well as poor, poverty and privilege. It's not all child labour and civil war.



Does that sound irresponsible and unintelligent to you?

Not on the face of it i guess, but that doesn't mean much? I mean if an army is drafting children it probably means they lack numbers - meaning a child sergeant could very well occur because of desperation - i.e. the adult sergeant was killed or simply that they are using this child in order to control the other children etc. To be honest, i don't think it's very intelligent to join an army of child soldiers but this case is obviously not a question of 'is this child responsible/intelligent?' Clearly this child lives in a desperate situation, they might not have had much choice in the matter.



In a classless society, we will all be responsible.

I hope so, yes.



Now, lets talk about schools. Schools are set up to indoctrinate young people into being passive patriots. They are also set up to make money for book and supply companies. The young people are forced to supply free labor to schools. Is this not exploitation?

Sure, not really comparable to wage labour but yes.



Schools don't teach you much you need to know. Many courses in secondary and below schools are not needed and only set up for the profit of companies. For example, algebra II and higher. Most people will not use such a high level of algebra, yet students in my school are forced to take it. The same can be said about many university classes, only the university gains more of a profit.

Sure.

[black magick hustla]

i am all for school being an option for the reasons above (i.e. teachers dont have to deal with disinterested dicks and disinterested dicks dont have to deal with asshole teachers). however if you think calculus is taught in HS just for profit then you are dumb as hell. its not that you are going to find the changing rate of your gas tank but it teaches you how to think analytically. its like saying history is useless because you dont "use it". again i think this type of things are optional but you honestly think public schools teach calculus just to have "good working" proletarians? :rolleyes:

geez man, you should be embarrassed for being such a wilful philistine

edit. this wasnt directed to black dagger, just to the guy who wrote that garbage

[black magick hustla]

heh heh, literature? who needs it. *goes to play videogames*

[Black Dagger]

i am all for school being an option for the reasons above (i.e. teachers dont have to deal with disinterested dicks and disinterested dicks dont have to deal with asshole teachers). however if you think calculus is taught in HS just for profit then you are dumb as hell. its not that you are going to find the changing rate of your gas tank but it teaches you how to think analytically. its like saying history is useless because you dont "use it". again i think this type of things are optional but you honestly think public schools teach calculus just to have "good working" proletarians? :rolleyes:

geez man, you should be embarrassed for being such a wilful philistine

edit. this wasnt directed to black dagger, just to the guy who wrote that garbage

Yeah i agree, human knowledge does not develop in neat boxes with every subject perfectly separated from one another. Advances in one area of human knowledge affects other areas, having a sound understanding of a variety of knowledges and perspectives(logical/mathematical/sociological etc.) helps us understand all knowledge - the world - better. Whilst i hated maths at school (it was the only subject i did not do very well in :blushing:) i'm glad i did it - it added another dimension to my thought processes - essentially increasing my intellectual dexterity. I think the more modes of knowledge we are familar with the better - though obviously if someone wants to drop a class that's fine too.