Friday, October 06, 2006
Goodbye Archie, Veronica, Jughead
There are no teenagers in the Bible*; there are only infants, young children & adults, & the difference between them is rather vague. People are pre or post puberty; either too young to be married, bear children, fight in wars, & participate fully in the life of the community, or old enough to do all of those. In work, Biblical-era people do as much as they can handle at any age. We consider the possibility that Mary was all of 14 or 15 years old when she gave birth to Jesus.
Childhood as we understand it is a western cultural concept that didn't fully emerge until the late 18th & the 19th Centuries. The reform of child labor practices in Europe & America was a contentious, difficult battle between "liberals" & "conservatives" lasting well into the 20th century, still requiring vigilance & fine-tuning. Read Dickens. Children had no "rights."
The idea that teenagers comprise a special category is even more recent, & has more to do with that age group as an economic force. The Cult of the Teenager grew with the percentage of adolescents who completed a high school education. When you dropped out of school & went to work, you were in effect an adult, if not in every legal sense. You no longer had the freedom or leisure to fully participate in the growing teen culture. From watching how Hollywood reflected this culture, we see the concept of the teenager become stronger & more defined as a distinct identity throughout the 30s, 40s & finally the 50s, where it fully established itself via television. Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Sinatra, Johnny Ray, Elvis, & the baby boomer's Beatles were major landmarks in this development of economic & media power. Our laws are not consistant, there are many legal borders one crosses: various ages of consent, working papers, drivers license, required school attendance, military eligibility, voting rights, legal drinking age, cessation of child support in divorce settlements. Yet we give the criminal justice system considerable leeway in how it charges & prosecutes for serious felonies committed by these adolescent "children."
Seems to me that any strictly "Christian" society leaning toward the fundamentalist end of the spectrum would pretty much dispense with teenagers as an "unbiblical" conceit. This is already the situation in many of America's secretive polygamist & other religious cult communities. Girls would be given against their will to marriage as early as the 7th or 8th grade. Children would again be exploited as an unskilled labor pool (greatly eliminating the need for illegal immigrants). & in cases of sexual predation by an older upon a much younger person, both parties might be found responsible for their actions as adulterers &/or unnatural fornicators & stoned to death. An American Taliban, indeed, yes. They're already here, advocating a literal adherence to Biblical law, principles, & history.
* David & Jonathan? Lot's daughters? Several of the 12 Disciples?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Childhood as we understand it is a western cultural concept that didn't fully emerge until the late 18th & the 19th Centuries. The reform of child labor practices in Europe & America was a contentious, difficult battle between "liberals" & "conservatives" lasting well into the 20th century, still requiring vigilance & fine-tuning. Read Dickens. Children had no "rights."
The idea that teenagers comprise a special category is even more recent, & has more to do with that age group as an economic force. The Cult of the Teenager grew with the percentage of adolescents who completed a high school education. When you dropped out of school & went to work, you were in effect an adult, if not in every legal sense. You no longer had the freedom or leisure to fully participate in the growing teen culture. From watching how Hollywood reflected this culture, we see the concept of the teenager become stronger & more defined as a distinct identity throughout the 30s, 40s & finally the 50s, where it fully established itself via television. Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Sinatra, Johnny Ray, Elvis, & the baby boomer's Beatles were major landmarks in this development of economic & media power. Our laws are not consistant, there are many legal borders one crosses: various ages of consent, working papers, drivers license, required school attendance, military eligibility, voting rights, legal drinking age, cessation of child support in divorce settlements. Yet we give the criminal justice system considerable leeway in how it charges & prosecutes for serious felonies committed by these adolescent "children."
Seems to me that any strictly "Christian" society leaning toward the fundamentalist end of the spectrum would pretty much dispense with teenagers as an "unbiblical" conceit. This is already the situation in many of America's secretive polygamist & other religious cult communities. Girls would be given against their will to marriage as early as the 7th or 8th grade. Children would again be exploited as an unskilled labor pool (greatly eliminating the need for illegal immigrants). & in cases of sexual predation by an older upon a much younger person, both parties might be found responsible for their actions as adulterers &/or unnatural fornicators & stoned to death. An American Taliban, indeed, yes. They're already here, advocating a literal adherence to Biblical law, principles, & history.
* David & Jonathan? Lot's daughters? Several of the 12 Disciples?
