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4play See other 4play Articles Title: They Ain't Makin' Initiation Rites Like They Use' To All "primitive" societies have forced boys, right at the age of 12, to undergo initiation rites in which they symbolically died as children and then were reborn as adults, under the direction of learned elders (I'm going to repeat that -- learned elders, not just elders). To a much lesser extent, the same thing has been offered girls. In both cases, it happens right at puberty, when the body and brain are changing rapidly. Nowadays, we're lost these rites, at least the good ones. Did we ever have good ones? Not that I know of. We're got bad ones, and the kids and society pay for it. And pay and pay and pay. Here's an example: when I was about 23, and in college, I was sitting in the room of a young woman, about 21 years old. We were just passing time listening to her records. I even remember one of the songs -- Ten Years After's "I'd Love to Change the World." Years later I realized how appropriate that song was for our conversation. I was casual friends with her, but had noticed she was a bit more intelligent, sensitive and creative than the other girls who lived in her house, almost all of whom, in my opinion, was callow and not-very-bright college students. The one I was talking to was an art major, the only one in her house of 11 girls. Most of the others were studying to be grade-school teachers, urp. To this day, I have no idea why she told me the things she did. She starting telling me about her time in 7th grade, when she was pudgy and wore those kind of horn-rimmed glasses that always sit crooked on your face. She showed me a picture; personally, I thought she was rather cute. She was certainly cute at 21, with a body that was much better than the other girls in the house. I always wanted to jump her, but never did. She told me that because of the way she looked, she was ostracized by the other 7th-graders. Twelve years old and an outsider. Just great. No wonder Stephen King's novel Carrie was such a big hit. Public schools, blech. Over the summer, she told me, she grew up, lost the baby fat, filled out, and got contacts. Ugly duckling to swan in less than three months. When she came back for the 8th-grade all the kids who ostracised her now wanted to be her friends. She ignored them. I thought, "Good for you." The way she was treated in the 7th-grade affected her for the rest of her life. She told me she was never attracted to what most people would consider "good-looking" men and was instead attracted to what she called "unusual-looking guys." (It occurred to me: was why I was in her room, unlike the other guys who hung out in the house, and why was she telling me these things? Uh oh.) I got a big laugh out of this one: she told me she liked guys who looked like Peter Noone. Peter Noone? Who's that? You know, Herman of "Herman and the Hermits." They were popular about the time she was being born! I saw her a few years later, after we had graduated, and sure enough, she had married a guy who looked like him. She turned out just fine, but her initiation rites in 7th-grade consisted of a bright, creative, sensitive girl being ostracised and humiliated in public school. And they were unwitting initiation rites, ones that, I repeat, affected her for the rest of her life. She was lucky enough to make it through them, even without wise elders, just teachers, although in a sense she was scarred for the rest of her life. She symbolically died and was reborn courtesy of being treated like crap by a bunch of dim-witted, immature 12-year-olds tossed together helter-skelter in public school. Those are good rites of passage? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. As bad as it was for her, I think this lack of initiation rites is a lot worse for boys. We still have them, to a degree, although they're exactly the same as my friend went through: being tossed into the mish-mash that is public-school 7th-grade. It ain't working. Teenagers have a vague, inchoate, instinctive understanding of their need for initiation rites. That's why they act and dress as they do. I did it when I was a teenager. Almost all of us did. Almost all of us used drugs, although in those days it was booze and marijuana. Looking back on it, I realize my friends and I were rather wild, at least compared to the other kids. Still, there were a lot of us, creating our own initiation rites of drugs and booze and parties. We had no mentors, be it parents or teachers. There was no ritualistic adjustment from childhood to adulthood. Nothing. The way I see it, in American society, the skyrocketing rise of gangs and reckless behavior dramatizes how youth seek some sort of initiation rites, made worse in the absence of anything provided by the culture (read "learned elders" for "culture"). Unfortunately, old geezers fear young people, not realizing their wildness and energy are really just an unending longing for initiation into the adult world. Adolescents hunger for real tests, somewhat risky ordeals by which they can turn into adults, ones with a purpose in life.. What ceremonies and rituals and rites do we have? High school graduation? College graduation? Meaningless. They're not tests. Nearly everyone wants to feel like the Hero on a Quest. Luke Skywalker, you know. Why the hell do you think those movies are so popular? We don't have, and we certainly need, adolescent initiations that meet the needs of kids today, ones that draw on tribal rites, ones that are feasible in a modern, urban culture. Since we live in a highly technical society, we need new rituals appropriate to urban teenagers. Then, of course, the other essential ingredients are elders and mentors willing to devise and perform such rituals and a supportive community into which the initiated teens are brought. The way things are now, we're turning into a society without fathers, and in some cases without mothers. The law has decided fathers are optional, and when they aren't, when a couple has to work to make ends meet and give their six-week-old baby to a pre-school, that's just another way of saying we no longer have elders. When you're looking at young gang members, you're looking at people with no elders. So we either develop elders, or the amount of violence will increase year by year. This is not something that can be replaced by government programs. Sooner or later, we're figure it out. We have to. But until we do, all the Ph.D.s and government studies and programs, are in vain, just chaff flying in the whirlwind.
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#1. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
.. very good article.. I really enjoyed reading this .. thanks..
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