The betrayal of teenagers by this government
is a disgrace
Young people are being hammered by austerity in Britain. We need a new vision to end this wilful abandonment of investment in the future
'The American definition of youth’s social role was the teenager: a product-hungry, democratic, pleasure-loving individual.' Photograph: Bruce Fleming/Rex Features
In 1904 an American psychologist called G Stanley Hallpublished a ground-breaking book called Adolescence. Previously youth had been an ill-defined state, but Hall conceptualised a new stage of life: an interregnum between childhood and adulthood that was to be sheltered, shaped and guided to avoid the stresses of puberty.
Hall was an unlikely ambassador of adolescence. Sixty when the book was published, and an austere academic, he was nevertheless a romantic about teenagers. He presented to the US a vision of itself as a young country that would be a beacon for the 20th century: "The very fact that we think we are young will make the faith in our future curative, and we shall one day attract the youth of the world."
His prophecy came true. The conceptualisation of a separate stage of life to mark puberty had arisen because youth were seen as a problem. During the first half of the 20th century adults exerted huge effort to control adolescents – who, having been informed that they were special and separate, began in turn to wonder what that could mean. European nations developed regimented groups, such as the Scouts and the German Bünde (and at the extreme, the Hitler Youth). On the other hand, there were autonomous movements that ranged from back-to-nature groups, such as the German Wandervögel or the British Woodcraft Folk, to consumerist types, such as 1920s flappers or swing kids in the 1930s.
Passing into general use near the end of the second world war, the American definition of youth's social role was the teenager: a product-hungry, democratic, pleasure-loving individual. This consumerist identity has become the principal pubertal ritual in many western countries.
The youth market created a youth culture. From the late 50s through to the 90s this culture co-existed with, and to some extent informed, various movements: the struggle for civil rights, and parity for women and gay people. It was part of a truly mass culture that became prominent in the 60s, a decade that saw liberalising legislation on abortion, homosexuality and women's rights.
The forward-thinking, emancipatory nature of youth culture has been under attack for 30 years. It started in the 1980s with constant attacks by a succession of Conservative ministers on "the permissive society" of the 1960s – the decade, its pop culture and all its associated freedoms – and has continued since then with a consistent whittling away of youth rights and privileges. The introduction, under Labour, of tuition fees in 1998, was a major descent down a slippery slope towards the policies of the current coalition.
At present in Britain teenagers are bearing the brunt of an artificially skewed austerity: 18.6% of the 18-24 cohort are now unemployed, rising to 35.5% among 16- to 17-year-olds. David Blanchflower, a former Bank of England economist, has spelt out the cost of this among youth:depression, self-harming, suicidal thoughts. With cuts to the future jobs fund and the education maintenance allowance, and mooted curbs on benefits to the under-25s, teenagers are being hammered by the coalition. This is a national disgrace. The young are being told that they have no value. That's it: know your place. Quite apart from the human cost, this is both an ideological and wilful abandonment of any investment in the future.
It is a cruel irony that, just as commercialised youth culture seems everywhere – appealing to all ages, and making untold millions for media corporations – the demographic on which this was once based is being excluded from society. Without financial power or overt political affiliations, young people are too often ignored in this costive age. Occasionally they are castigated by their elders for not being radical enough, which is unfair and absurd.
The "teenager" has proved a highly workable rite of passage for the past 70 years. In the recent crisis, however, this definition has become problematic: where consumerism once promised liberation it has now become the engine of an unsustainable lifestyle. It may be that there has to be a redefinition of adolescence in the years to come for youth to begin moving away from pure materialism. That is one possibility.
Right now the status of teenagers is an urgent problem. G Stanley Hall was right: adolescents represent and embody the future. Yet the current coalition model only promises entropy and decay. In contrast to this betrayal of hope and potential, there needs to be a new political and cultural vision of youth that allows teenagers to speak for themselves, grants them social value, and recognises their ability to find innovative solutions to current problems: indeed, to conceive of how the future could be.
