The death of adulthood

A. O. Scott has an article in the New York Times discussing the death of adulthood in America. He makes an interesting case, even claiming that American literature has been curiously “adult free”. But, as the bulk of his evidence comes from entertainment, I think he misses the mark. Worse yet, he embraces his thesis as inexplicably, intrinsically good:

I do feel the loss of something here, but bemoaning the general immaturity of contemporary culture would be as obtuse as declaring it the coolest thing ever. A crisis of authority is not for the faint of heart. It can be scary and weird and ambiguous. But it can be a lot of fun, too. The best and most authentic cultural products of our time manage to be all of those things. They imagine a world where no one is in charge and no one necessarily knows what’s going on, where identities are in perpetual flux. Mothers and fathers act like teenagers; little children are wise beyond their years. Girls light out for the territory and boys cloister themselves in secret gardens. We have more stories, pictures and arguments than we know what to do with, and each one of them presses on our attention with a claim of uniqueness, a demand to be recognized as special. The world is our playground, without a dad or a mom in sight.

I’m all for it. Now get off my lawn.

This does not sound fun for me, and for any other adult. Putting the inmates in charge of the asylum–or the kids in charge of the household–is recipe for disaster, not for “authentic cultural products”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Are there “inauthentic cultural products”?

But what Scott overlooks entirely is that culture and society extends beyond popular media. There are plenty of adults left in America. We’re just not interesting. No one wants to watch us. They don’t make television shows about real families unless they first inject them with inauthentic cultural products to make them more racy, controversial, didactic, ironic, or sensational. The reality is that adults make for boring entertainment, even in reality shows. Even such odd cultural artifacts as “Duck Dynasty”, while about as close as the Entertainment Industry gets to showing real adults, derive their watch-ability from emphasizing the ways the Robertson family are different from the TV execs’ image of “mainstream society”, even while they accidentally present a family quite relatable to the adults in the room. I suspect that the reasons the network put them on the air and the reasons they’ve become a hit do not coincide overly much.

Scott bemoans (he claims he doesn’t, then protests too much) the appeal of Young Adult literature as evidence of his thesis. Again, he fails to understand, even though (or perhaps because) he’s a film critic. If adults are reading YA–and not just to see what their kids are reading–it’s because it’s escapist in nature. Teens read it because it depicts people like them. Adults read it because it depicts people not like them, yet simultaneously validating their adulthood. More often than not, the teen protagonists in these books succeed because they adopt adult behaviors, not by becoming increasingly the “typical teen.” Katniss Everdeen takes a stand and fights for what matters to her; she doesn’t retreat screeching to her room, refusing to come out until it’s all over. Au contraire, from the beginning of the first book she is the adult in their family, forced to be one because her mother refuses to be. It’s a validation of responsibility, maturity, and doing what needs to be done, not a paean to permanent adolescence.

Could it be that YA literature is so popular because it’s one place where teens can find role models of adult behavior? Mainstream adult entertainment is increasingly not the place to look for that–I’ll give Scott that. “Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones”, etc., are all places to look for grown-ups behaving badly, not mature, moral role models.

In crafting his conclusion Scott betrays himself. What starts out as a sober questioning of what happened to adulthood culminates in a gleeful knifing of the cooling corpse. Adulthood is dead, and he’s glad. He wants to be one of the kids. What might have been a serious examination of the decline of American culture instead becomes a self-congratulatory fluff piece with temporary detours to lay offerings at the altars of “men are pigs” and “Feminism rocks”. The height of civilization, he appears to believe, is to toss responsibility and maturity to the wind and spend all day and night in the Beyoncé Nightclub of Eternal Youth.

But since he likes to discuss literature, let’s mention one particular book–a YA book to boot–that he notably avoids: “Lord of the Flies”. Scott avoids this one on purpose; it’s the antithesis of what he seems to believe–putting the children in charge leads to a degradation of civilization and a return to barbarism, not some Romper-Room utopia. But while “Lord of the Flies” shows what happens when two tribes of children compete, it does not show what happens when the tribes of children encounter adults. Assuming the adults don’t just capture the kids and try to reform them, they’d be easily enslaved or wiped out.

America does not exist in a vacuum. There are other countries out there. You can debate whether those countries represent adults or other children all you want, but you cannot debate that not all of them have compatible objectives with the U.S. (though you can also argue that their desire to destroy us runs parallel with our desire to destroy ourselves). If they are children, then Piggy will only be the beginning of those killed. If they are adults we will be easy pickings. You don’t want to be the only country of hedonist children in a world of hyena children or wolf adults. You won’t exist for long.

Oh sure, there is no arguing that America is strong. But I think we may be facing a test of our childish resolve in the form of ISIS. Whether they are children or adults is irrelevant. They are sadistic, fanatical predators, and they are purposely trying to break our will. If we succeed against them it will not because of the perpetual children among us. It will be because there are still enough adults willing and able to stand up and protect the children from themselves. Only the adults have a chance of defeating such an enemy without becoming them. Children may learn to fight back, but they do so by returning violence for violence, depravity for depravity, in an ever-escalating game of one-downsmanship from which it is difficult to recover.

Fortunately for us all, there are still adults to be found and–at least for now–relied on. Unfortunately, the children relentlessly mock and shame the adults, trying to wear them down into becoming like them. It’s only a matter of time before the adults either give up and join the children, or give up and leave the children to their authentic cultural products and their killing fields. My only question is where, in a world of children, can the adults safely hide?

No, Mr. Scott, it will not be a lot of fun. Why don’t you take your ball and go home. You’d better hope there’s still a mommy to kiss it and make things better.