Stanley Hall’s describes the ways
he perceives youth to be at risk of falling prey to criminality as well as some
of the traits of different types of youth and possible solutions to youth
criminality from a “youth-as-an-object-of-study-and-savior” and “youth-as-a
dangerous-class” lens.
He sets the stage by describing the
context of the environment American youth are raised in today. America’s lack
of a “youth” period as a country as well as the influence of urban culture and
poverty partly responsible for the way that youth are developing in addition to
their biological nature.
Learning to harness self-control is
one of the most important and difficult endeavors children have to face as they
become adolescent. This is an example of youth as having diminished capacity. Only
once they have control over it are they perceived as mature and part of the
adult world. This inability for self-control is precisely the characteristic
that puts youth at higher risk of criminality than adults and why so many do
become are criminals.
Both normal and degenerate youth
face this issue although degenerate youth come with a whole other set of
complicated attributes. According to Demoor: “The degenerate condition is not
attained by simply going backward down the line of ascent, but is a new departure,
and retrogression is therefore a somewhat misleading term.” Due to this
“evolution” they tend to have physical abnormalities such as body parts too big
or too body small in comparison to the entire body, atypical muscle or nerve
development and furthermore have paranoid, anxious, and obsessive, and highly
sexual behaviors. Clouston goes as far as saying that facial asymmetry may be
associated with signs of immorality. Interestingly, their heightened interest
in poetry and art is perceived as an aspect of their degenerative condition
unlike Rousseau’s outlook that embellished this aspect of youth.
Hall offers interesting solutions
to the problem of youth criminality, which propose to find new ways to
“harness” the skills and energy of criminal youth for something more productive
and positive for our society - Using youth’s vitality and growth for reform. This
viewpoint offers a way to work with what he perceives as innate traits of youth
to benefit society. Rather than trying to change their biological functions,
find ways to use them for moral causes.
This reminds me of the use of youth’s energy for the state’s interest in
the early 1900’s.
There is a consistent tone of “youth-as-object-of-study-and-saving”
and a flavor of “youth-as-dangerous-class” throughout his text from description
of the youth to solutions to reduce criminality. Though the words “super
predators” were not used to describe youth I felt that the article made them
out to be that. Youth are perceived as dangerous and lacking self-control that
may cause harm (most likely property at first and quickly moving on to persons)
simply because of their age, regardless of whether or not they have actually
committed a crime. And continuing to use an adult centered perspective, the
belief that society’s guidance and punishment is the only way to transform
their criminal nature.
Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to
Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. New York:
D. Appleton, 1904. Print.
This reading was peculiar for its combination of recognized understandings of youth and some very unconventional ideas of their psychology. The author of this post did a great job of summarizing Hall’s points as she constructed her paper. Hall’s study is made during the time period when youth were seen as objects-of-saving-study. As a psychologist he saw youth as objects of study and as such his research is directed at finding how their mind works and what their nature directs them to. The thesis of the author of this post them mentions that Hall’s study is not only an example of viewing youth as objects of study and saving but that his study is made with a perspective of youth as a dangerous class. An observation and claim that is most obvious through Hall’s view of youth as criminals.
ReplyDeleteQuetzal did a good job at demonstrating how Hall’s ideas about youth echoes into how adolescents are viewed today. As mentioned, though Hall does not explicitly call youth “superpredators,” the assumption is clearly there as he describes how they are still developing out of their savage, “animal instincts.” He even deems youth as not “fully human.” Quetzal also brought up interesting points about how biological reasons were invoked to explain why certain youth were normal or degenerative. I think this exemplifies society’s common obsession with wanting to classify youth (or any class, for that matter) into distinct, clear-cut camps; perhaps somehow being able to categorize youth might quell some fears about how to deal with them. There is a clear double standard when dealing with criminal acts of adults and of youth – criminals are deemed “overgrown children,” but Hall fails to take ownership of adult responsibility; he never considers the possibility that children might be influenced by adult actions. Hall’s research exemplifies an adult-centered approach of looking at youth.
ReplyDeleteQuetzal descriptively portrayed Hall's perception of youth. When Quetzal mentioned about Hall's solution for the problem of youth criminality, it reminded me about how Hitler's propaganda drew parallels with his solution. Hall mentioned ways to "harness" skills and energy from youth to do something more productive by which Hitler aligned the energy of youth with the interest of the State. I thought that was interesting to see how Hitler's propaganda was aligned with Hall's solution.
ReplyDeleteQuetzal does a good job at depicting Hall's framework when he conducted this research. Though he was interested in resolving criminality,it can also be argued that Hall's adult-centered framework weakens his argument about the criminality of youth because he is already viewing the through the lense of "objects-of-saving-and-study." However, Hall contributes greatly because he leads us to the more in-depth study of youth which eventually allows us to view youth from more youth-centered perspectives as Koehlberg and Gillian do up until the 1980s.
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