Antipathy is extreme dislike or hate.
Antipathy toward youth is spreading wider throughout our society than ever before. Often
cloaked in cynicism, antipathy is a dangerously current phenomenon. Politicians mocks young people, teachers eschew their jobs, and even parents share a kind of pathetic "buyers remorse" for the people they brought into the world.
There are all kinds of reasons that are expressed and underexpressed for this. Sociologist Mike Males has long contended that the
ephebiphobia- extreme fear of youth- that rips up our society is the product of racism, and the reality that
America is becoming predominately people of color. I believe antipathy has those exact same roots, with an extension beyond obvious skin color and towards the cultures that young people are influenced by, the education that young people are receiving, and the beliefs that young people express.
There is always a fear of the unknown, especially when they're knocking at your door or living under the same roof. The question is whether we are ready to become familiar with that which we don't know, or if we're going to shun, reject, deny, and punish that which we don't know.
The Chinese Communists
apparently have this same struggle. In the face of the aging Party leadership, they are struggling to instill and maintain the interest of young people in Communism, and not simply because they don't know how. Apparently, there is a deep-seeded antipathy toward youth in China, with party leaders long criticizing and demeaning young people. They demanded a kind of social conformity and enforced a rigidity designed to malign the inherently progressive nature of young people while reinforcing the conservativism of their brand of socialism.
The dilemmas of antipathy toward youth are innumerable. Political antipathy toward youth is critically irresponsible, and is echoed across the aisle. During his campaign for president early this year former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
proposed legislated hatred, suggesting that, "It wouldn't be bad to have a test for young Americans before they start voting," making a comparison to the citizenship test new immigrants are required to take. This is a thinly veiled antipathy, suggesting that Gingrich believes all youth are suspect criminals who have to "earn" citizenship rights in addition to the qualification of age.
It's one or the other, not both. It's bad enough that the political infrastructure of the U.S. reinforces second-tiered citizenship for American children and youth; Gingrich seems to believe that adding injury upon insult is more apt. That's hatred at it's best.
At it's worse, antipathy towards youth gets very ugly, very fast. The
War On Youth has been raging in this country for at least 30 years; some would suggest it goes back to the beginning of the Commercial Age. It is definitely the grand reinforcer of discrimination against youth, and certainly calls for a radical redefinition of values in this country if we are to defeat it. Recently we've seen antipathy toward youth take the form of defunding
public education and
healthcare for children; the
criminalization of
youth through
curfews,
dress codes, and
raised driving ages; and
myriad more examples. It's mildly sickening, mostly because we know the outcomes from this type of rage. The 1960s didn't happen by accident.
And ultimately, that is my concern: We are fomenting revolution in the U.S. today. Young people here aren't going to sit idly by and watch the youth of the Middle East demand democracy while they suffer authoritarianism at it's worst. Antipathy toward youth is enforced through
authoritarianism towards young people, and both of those phenomena are on the rise.
Something must be done differently.
Learn how.
