C4SS.org | Leisure, like most areas of life, is expected to be regimented and guided by experts. Leagues, troops, and college-application-friendly “extracurricular activities” take the place of adventure, self-improvement, and spontaneous social development. While some uses of formal organizations may be absolutely beneficial to the individual’s development, the obsessive drive to create designated times and official sanction for everything displaces the individual’s capacity to find meaning in life. As a substitute they are given professional sermons, commercial self-help products, mission statements, professionally-engineered culture, and government-approved drugs to make it easier to digest.
Finding one’s own adventure and meaning cultivates personal initiative, but waiting for others to hand life to you leaves you more vulnerable to dishonest marketing – like the marketing the military does on captive students.
To teen scare manufacturers, any group of young people congregating without official guidance is a threat. They will not consider the possibility that people might be working out their problems and meeting their needs without some exerting authority over others. Whenever a break in the system’s control becomes evident, the break will be used as a justification to clamp down with greater control. Possessions will be confiscated and free time and technology will be further restricted.
Authorities want parents to fear technology for the independence it can foster. They will not honestly evaluate the premises of what growing up is supposed to mean. Instead, any challenge to the official way of growing up – any new way of doing things, whether new music or new technology – is viewed with suspicion or hostility. Read Entire Article
By Darian Worden
