Copying our kids Teen-agers have always had their own subculture. But not until the 1960s did it begin to overpower the dominant adult society. That happened because adult culture began to feed off it, to get rich on it and emulate it. The American juvenocracy drives the entertainment industry, the sex industry, the illegal drug industry and have trashed public secondary schools. We are a nation enthralled by fantasies of youthful freedom, an unencumbered life empowered by money.
Social conservatives are right about school climate being rooted in the overall culture.
They are wrong about how to fix it. It is wishful thinking to believe that religiosity will, by some magical osmosis, cure the problem. In nations such as Iran, where social conservatives have forced theocracy down everybody's throats, a very unhealthy phenomenon is arising. Come the inevitable explosion, the ayatollahs will be as responsible for teen mayhem as our dissolute pop culture moguls. Any pendulum, having been pushed too far in one direction, will swing the other way with a vengeance.