When a movement lacks a theory
With the exception of the interruption of graduate school, I've been involved in the youth rights (YR) movement in some capacity since I was a youth myself. It should be noted that the movement has historically focused on negative rights, or civil liberties that would enable youth (of 18, 16, 14, or any age depending on the faction) to legally act in ways older citizens of a certain age are entitled to do. Positive rights of youth to tertiary education, transportation, health care, and the like have had little influence. Considering the anti-welfarist context of our times, and that many YR activists are themselves libertarians and fiscal conservatives, this lack of attention to positive youth rights in the movement overall is unsurprising.
Splits across different factions invariably afflict new social movements trying to find its exact narrative and explanatory theory. What are our origins? How did the world become so corrupt or flawed that it demands we fix it? What is to be done? The YR movement is different in that the splits haven't occurred over narrative or theory. It has neither. The YR movement has aligned itself with the classical liberalism of Locke and Mill and struggles to convincingly extend this school of thought to the issue of civil liberties of those under 21, 18, 16, or lower. However, the construct of youth is not theorized as a manifestation of institutionalized oppression and invisible privilege. The social libertarian thinkers of the 1970s that the YR movement relies on, much less the philosophes and Enlightenment scholars never got that far. Consequently, these arguments will remain unconvincing to potential supporters still wedded to this construct's hegemony. Mike Males has done a admirable job of tying the current abysmal state of YR with adult privilege and scapegoating by safety activists in need of patronage. However, he leaves the matter of how the YR movement itself is to respond to these conditions for us to address.
So without a narrative or a theory, the splits in YR have occurred largely over marketing classical liberalism for Gen X, and later Gen Y. There's little doubt that the movement as a whole would like to see age restrictions junked entirely on principle. In an age of hysteria over sexual predators and teen alcoholism, this won't sell. We discovered this the hard way in the 1990s when ASFAR (Americans For a Society Free from Age Restrictions - just what it sounds like) became little more than a fringe novelty group on Web 1.0. The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) created itself from the split - not over who we are, but how radical were we going to be over expressing what we really want. Instead of reflecting on who we were within the context of power, culture, and history, we stood for who we were not; namely pedophiles and teenagers looking for a buzz that anonymous critics on message boards accused us of being. Hence NYRA's current half-hearted support for lower age restrictions on more socially congenial issues like voting and free speech as a matter of political expediency.
In short, the YR movement has found itself in relative paralysis because it only reacts to the hegemonic construct of youth. There's no theorizing, reflecting upon, and directly undermining that construct with a narrative. Beyond being "the last civil rights movement" in a post-civil rights era, where does YR fit in that grand scheme? Movements for advancing the interests of women and people of color didn't simply say, "We are equal." They realized many of the reasons why the yoke of inequity was so short, tight, and all-encompassing for so long. This took an enormous project of inquiry and fortitude to not be defined by those holding the yoke.
Commonsensical appeals to the extension of civil liberties for youth aren't doing the job, because the current "common sense" isn't on the side of YR supporters. Rather, the YR movement has to look beyond Locke and Mill and to a whole new world of critical theories to paint a more systematic story that explains why youth in the U.S. face some of the strictest laws in the developed world. This requires a long and hard look at what "youth" and "adult" have meant, what they mean now, and a willingness to allow the intersecting dynamics of political economy, race, gender, religion, and dare I suggest, sexuality and the body to inform these categories.
Splits across different factions invariably afflict new social movements trying to find its exact narrative and explanatory theory. What are our origins? How did the world become so corrupt or flawed that it demands we fix it? What is to be done? The YR movement is different in that the splits haven't occurred over narrative or theory. It has neither. The YR movement has aligned itself with the classical liberalism of Locke and Mill and struggles to convincingly extend this school of thought to the issue of civil liberties of those under 21, 18, 16, or lower. However, the construct of youth is not theorized as a manifestation of institutionalized oppression and invisible privilege. The social libertarian thinkers of the 1970s that the YR movement relies on, much less the philosophes and Enlightenment scholars never got that far. Consequently, these arguments will remain unconvincing to potential supporters still wedded to this construct's hegemony. Mike Males has done a admirable job of tying the current abysmal state of YR with adult privilege and scapegoating by safety activists in need of patronage. However, he leaves the matter of how the YR movement itself is to respond to these conditions for us to address.
So without a narrative or a theory, the splits in YR have occurred largely over marketing classical liberalism for Gen X, and later Gen Y. There's little doubt that the movement as a whole would like to see age restrictions junked entirely on principle. In an age of hysteria over sexual predators and teen alcoholism, this won't sell. We discovered this the hard way in the 1990s when ASFAR (Americans For a Society Free from Age Restrictions - just what it sounds like) became little more than a fringe novelty group on Web 1.0. The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) created itself from the split - not over who we are, but how radical were we going to be over expressing what we really want. Instead of reflecting on who we were within the context of power, culture, and history, we stood for who we were not; namely pedophiles and teenagers looking for a buzz that anonymous critics on message boards accused us of being. Hence NYRA's current half-hearted support for lower age restrictions on more socially congenial issues like voting and free speech as a matter of political expediency.
In short, the YR movement has found itself in relative paralysis because it only reacts to the hegemonic construct of youth. There's no theorizing, reflecting upon, and directly undermining that construct with a narrative. Beyond being "the last civil rights movement" in a post-civil rights era, where does YR fit in that grand scheme? Movements for advancing the interests of women and people of color didn't simply say, "We are equal." They realized many of the reasons why the yoke of inequity was so short, tight, and all-encompassing for so long. This took an enormous project of inquiry and fortitude to not be defined by those holding the yoke.
Commonsensical appeals to the extension of civil liberties for youth aren't doing the job, because the current "common sense" isn't on the side of YR supporters. Rather, the YR movement has to look beyond Locke and Mill and to a whole new world of critical theories to paint a more systematic story that explains why youth in the U.S. face some of the strictest laws in the developed world. This requires a long and hard look at what "youth" and "adult" have meant, what they mean now, and a willingness to allow the intersecting dynamics of political economy, race, gender, religion, and dare I suggest, sexuality and the body to inform these categories.
Labels: cultural studies, politics, social movements, theory, youth rights
posted by Brent Allison | 2:33 PM
1 Comments:
Brent, thanks for your thoughtful critique. It is rare that I come across somebody who has taken into consideration the ample reasoning behind youth rights. However, I want to point out two critical points I think you fail to recognize.
One is the historical foundation of YR, which extends far earlier than NYRA or even John Holt. Instead, it is rooted in the labor movement at the turn of the 20th century, and gained momentum at several different points during the civil rights and the women's rights movements. In that sense it is appropriate for YR advocates to couch their analyses in those earlier efforts, and to rely on them for a pragmatic theoretical basis for action. That is not to excuse current YR fighters from the necessity of creating a coherent theoretical basis for their efforts; rather, it is to say there is a existent theoretical foundation - acknowledged or not - for this work.
The second point I think you fail to acknowledge is the necessary role of adult allies in the development of theoretical frameworks in the YR movement. We have a pragmatic, as well as mutually beneficial, purpose to become involved in the development of YR theory. The pragmatic reasons are obvious: by taking responsibility for the inadequacies of adults in larger society, adult allies concerned with YR can role model appropriate behavior and anti-adultist treatment of young people. In this way we both help foster a new generation of adult allies, and create more positive platforms for collective action within both YR and other movements. As for the mutual benefit, as the adage goes, "no one is free until everyone is free." In its overly simplistic way that saying can be used to paint wide strokes over why adult allies should recognize their integral role in the development of YR theory.
I think its important to acknowledge that the YR movement's collective failure is embedded in our own inability as adult allies to youth; that way we can shoulder appropriate responsibility without foisting blame onto the backs of youth. Popular media does that enough without help from within the movement, right?
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