The Death of Adulthood in American Culture

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/magazine/the-death-of-adulthood-in-american-culture.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

by L_Rahman • 12 years ago

43 29 12 years ago

ojbyrne• 12 years ago

"Noting that nearly a third of Y.A. books were purchased by readers ages 30 to 44 (most of them presumably without teenage children of their own), Graham insisted that such grown-ups “should feel embarrassed about reading literature for children.”"

When I was a kid adults read lots of books that were very pulpy, low-brow, "genre" kinds of books - mysteries, westerns, etc. I don't see how Y.A. books are in any way a step back from those books.

eplanit• 12 years ago

I agree that it's not necessarily a step backwards in the sense of quality of writing or plot, but I do think the subject matter makes a difference. The detective stories, espionage tales, or even the Harlequin Romance novels were different in that although certainly pulpy and low-brow, the characters were _adults_ facing (moreless) adult situations...not wizards, demons, and dragons.

hhm• 12 years ago

How is that different? There is a lot of "serious / adult" literature that includes wizards, demons, and dragons, and that is not a recent development. (Or in older times, ghosts, spirits, and monsters in general).

tbrownaw• 12 years ago

Why does it really matter if the setting is more-or-less consistent with now or with recent history, vs older history or extrapolated near-future, or speculative advanced technology (sci-fi), or magic aka "sufficiently advanced technology" (fantasy)?

I'd think the part of "subject matter" that would matter, would be what the problems are. Are the characters trying to stay alive, trying to keep their jobs or get promoted, trying to find the best parties to go to, trying to sneak around while avoiding their parent, etc.

donpdonp• 12 years ago

Cory Doctorow's novels are in the Young Adult section and they have a lot to offer for adult readers.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

The main thing to blame for that was WWII, where a lot of people learned to read. When they returned, there was a deluge of inexpensive pulp novels and magazines, in addition to abridged and simplified versions of classic or important works (notably from Reader's Digest.)

Many of the adults consuming these books had just learned to read. I adore that stuff and collect it (for both lurid cover art and lurid content), but the actual gems are not so common and 98% of them are completely unremembered.

kevinmchugh• 12 years ago

What kind of challenges do the characters face? In the YA I remember, characters were struggling to define themselves while figuring out social standing, who their friends were, how to interact with their parents and managing their obligations(typically schoolwork). Those struggles could be abstracted by adding in genre challenges, but were still recognizable, and that was the appeal.

I don't know a ton about pulp genre fiction, but the stuff I read is about people trying to be good at their jobs, take care of their families, meet their obligations, and still end up good and/or alive.

It's still escapist, but I feel more comfortable escaping in to stories where the characters have the same problems I do. I don't judge anyone for reading what they want to, but I don't understand the appeal of reading books about teenagers' problems. and that's fine.

dneronique• 12 years ago

As an adult who reads a large variety of fiction and non-fiction alike within varying degrees of quality, I find myself enjoying the occasional YA book because they're often such shameless, reductionist broth that you're entirely freed from taking it too seriously and just take it at face value. Whether the protagonist is 10, 18, 25 or 40 is somewhat insignificant for me. Anyone of any age will deal with "struggling to define themselves while figuring out social standing, who their friends were, how to interact with their parents and managing their obligations."

At the end of the day, I'm just glad people are still reading.

devindotcom• 12 years ago

Interesting, if rather woolly, little essay. The subversion of adult authority, especially male authority, in media is an interesting topic, though it has (as Scott notes) been happening for a long time. Before it was the successful father figure, it was something else that succumbed to a good hard look that asked whether it had any actual authority, or whether we were choosing to submit to it. That goes back a long, long way.

bkeroack• 12 years ago

I would not expect the average HN reader (foosball-playing, video gamer, etc) to agree with this.

Sometimes I think tech is the epicenter of the "permanent adolescence" phenomena.

xnull2• 12 years ago

Given that the tech sector celebrates having fireman poles instead of stairs, colored ball pits, giant bean bags for chairs and webcomics as regular features in slideshows and the revealing contents of 'intership swag' posted to reddit from various tech companies (NERF guns, USB turrets, etc) - I would tend to agree.

Beyond that, the tech sector is made up of exactly the sort of Louie character described in the article. Mostly pale pasty males that feel obligated to sex with women more attractive than them. Boyish-men that try to out-novelty one other and whose boyish hobby (computers) just happens to be something that makes a _lot of money_ - it's like if we discovered that LEGO construction somehow helped corporate bottom lines. A culture that buys into the myth that computer pioneers,serious and careful mathematicians and technicians all, were 'geniuses' rather than driven and hard workers and that they, by knowing how to code in Python and Angular, are somehow too in that rank of elite men.

The tech industry celebrates adolescence and arrested development. It claims with a straight face it has engineers and is doing engineering, but just look at the difference in ethical standards and responsibility Software Engineering has compared to, say, Civil Engineering or Architecture. Software Engineers have no licensure. If your software kills someone (Therac-25, Great Northeast Blackout) or causes widespread instability (Black Monday, Flash Crash) or has ethically questionable goals, where are the repercussions? As a tech industry member you are shielded from your own ignorance, laziness, and carelessness. (Sure we build software faster. We could build bridges faster without licensure and regulations as well).

cafard2• 12 years ago

Cullen Murphy and one other writer from The Atlantic wrote a book (unless it was just an article) about the notion of "neoteny", the preservation of juvenile characteristics into a mature age. They noted that among North American wildlife the tendency increased as the animals were further from their (presumed) original range. The biologists argued that the younger traits added to the adaptability of the animals and enabled them to thrive in conditions different from those of their ancestors. You could make an argument for the uses of neoteny in the software business.

(I once amused an (extremely grown-up) immigrant acquaintance by proposing this as the explanation for the immaturity he saw in Californians, suggesting that the Eastern US was the home range of the American. But of course he saw Americans as generally immature.)

I do not blame anyone for enjoying it when his chosen work makes him a lot of money. I do not blame any man for aspiring to attract women better looking than he is. (And I think you mean "entitled", in which case, No, nobody's entitled.) But yes, a little consciousness of what it's about wouldn't hurt a bit.

cafard2• 12 years ago

Arrested development has seemed for quite a while to be a main source of movie humor. "Sideways" comes to mind that way.

Considering the way adult male authority appeared in a lot of TV shows (60s and 70s) led me to think that the screenwriters were enacting their own conflict with their bosses, men who made them cut down on risque jokes, nixed plot lines, etc. And those weren't great years for adult male authority in politics.

bitwize• 12 years ago

In many "teen movies" of the 80s you can feel the scriptwriter working out his/her issues with authority. John Hughes was pretty bad about this, however iconic those movies may have been. I learned to be thankful for movies where teenagers were depicted as whiny, know-nothing, irresponsible kids -- and celebrated for it.

happyscrappy2• 12 years ago

This is pompous drivel. Instead of lamenting the reading habits of people that work hard and take care of their families maybe we should try to get everyone with children to be responsible parents. The author mistakes the hard won victories of modern society for some nondescript juvenilism.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

Instead of lamenting the reading habits of people that work hard and take care of their families maybe we should try to get everyone with children to be responsible parents.

I didn't know we had to make a choice.

sebular• 12 years ago

Not only does it sound like you didn't read the article to the end, it sounds like you didn't even bother to skim past the first 1/3.

happyscrappy2• 12 years ago

Updike dealt with infidelity and so did Don Draper. The author contradicts his thesis in the last paragraph. Did you have a point, he didn't.

DickingAround• 12 years ago

This isn't the strongest case for the statement (entirely based on media to represent public will). But let's assume he's right (media is probably a close enough proxy)...

What's interesting to think about is that not everyone is failing to become an adult. I'll assert that a big difference between a 'responsible' adult behavior and childish behavior is delaying gratification and getting the outcome you want. If many people are acting like children now, the few that are acting like adults are going to run circles around them. Perhaps the people acting like children don't realize that they're still under heavy selective pressure, just from the 0.1% and not from nature?

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Your speculation presupposes that 'adults' will be more successful than 'non-adults'. It is an interesting experiment, and everyone who is raising kids is participating in it, I think it is too early to guess on which will be the people in control of the knobs next.

angersock• 12 years ago

For those that to become adults in your scenario, though, the societal markers are stacked heavily against them. Delayed gratification could be something like financial independence, right? How does that square with the heavy push that one should become indebted to others (via credit or loans or what-have-you)?

AngrySkillzz• 12 years ago

I'm pretty sure adulthood has always just been a bunch of people pretending that they know what they're doing, and being able to convince everyone else (peers, children) of it as well.

CamperBob2• 12 years ago

That might not make you a "man," but it will at least get you a job at the New York Times.

denova• 12 years ago

I know lots of people who don't want to get legally married, hate that their lives are built around making money, and can't stand the thought of staying in one place for too long. Traditional adulthood is obviously not very appealing to them, and for good reason. We also aren't too keen on abandoning our childhood dreams, hobbies, and aspirations. Some of them want kids, but having kids tends to make living an alternative lifestyle a lot more difficult. I don't know if any of this has anything to do with patriarchy or feminism, but I suppose the people I surround myself with do hold rather egalitarian views.

DanielBMarkham• 12 years ago

Reading this was like watching a kid make a snowman on top of a mountain, then the snowman fell off the mountain and created a landslide that destroyed the nearby town. The consequences and grand implications seem a bit far-ranging for the central premise.

Kids buy movies. You get the teenagers and young 20-somethings doing your thing, whatever your thing is? They'll drag the rest of society along with them.

Enough with the comic book movies already. I think after 50 or so we should have exhausted the genre for a while.

I think the key question is whether or not eventually people, including teenagers, wise up to this nonsense. Do you really want to be consuming the same old regurgitated boy-who-thinks-he-has-nothing-is-actually-a-great-wizard storyline that grandpa did? At some point, I would think, this edifice has to collapse under its own weight.

seanflyon2• 12 years ago

the same old regurgitated boy-who-thinks-he-has-nothing-is-actually-a-great-wizard storyline

How many comic book movies actually follow this formula? surely not most of them.

seanflyon2• 12 years ago

Try to actually think about it. What movies fit that formula?

Iron man - no, an arrogant man built his own powers Thor - no, an entitled boy temporarily had to cope with the absence of his powers to earn them back The Hulk - no, he is not a great wizard, he is trying to cure himself Captain America - you could make an argument for it, but no, he auditioned for his powers Batman - no Guardians of the Galaxy - no Spider-man - OK, especially in "The Amazing Spider-man" they played the destiny card Superman - sort-of, but he grew up with his powers Green Lantern - yes Daredevil - sort-of, but his wizards power is "not actually blind" X-men - sort of, but their powers are a civil rights race analogy

Most comic book movies do not fit the boy-who-thinks-he-has-nothing-is-actually-a-great-wizard formula and those that do tend to be less successful.

ArkyBeagle• 12 years ago

In American movies and television, there is this uncomfortable silence where the western used to be.

The Death of Adulthood in American Culture

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