LISTEN, GROWN-UPS!
Means, Margaret Vance
Listen, Grown-Ups! By Margaret Vance Means EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the remarkable testament of a 17-year-old. Peggy Means, who turned 18 in November and is now a freshman at Radcliffe College,...
...I feel more concerned about a tendency which, although it is not so unique or sensational, seems closer to realization —the tendency of human beings to make themselves into mental automatons...
...Natalie was a crack-pot...
...And here the younger generation is found conforming not only within its own ranks but also adhering to the mores of the older generation as unquestionably right and unchangeable...
...As far as we know now, this is technically impossible...
...Jonathan liked algebra, and said so, but it was not the vogue to like algebra, so Jonathan was a goof...
...Education is dealing primarily with the mind—most significantly, with the growing mind...
...Teachers are labeled communistic for attempting to present controversial issues candidly and impartially...
...Except for a sentence or two, it is 100 per cent Peggy Means...
...It is in this respect that education is so important...
...It can teach us to be free and courageous in our thinking...
...People forget their privilege, as individuals, to think and live according to the dictates of their own consciences and convictions, rather than by those of the crowd...
...Perhaps that maladjusted, radical problem child, the American adolescent, has a kind of clarity in his thinking, a clarity of which the world might well make use...
...The word "adolescence" has been flung around too much...
...EVERY NOW and then some writer expresses the fear that human beings, overwhelmed by their own scientific achievements, will transform themselves into a race of physical automatons...
...A young, bold thinker accepts nothing, assumes nothing, and, after passing through the first stage of rebellion, probably starts out as an agnostic...
...Albert practised on the violin every night and never listened to the radio—the creep...
...Natalie wore blue socks while the others wore white...
...It is a paradox, at this time when our minds are opening and growing, that we should suddenly become such conformists within our own ranks...
...We see this situation in the grownup world today, and we tend to follow the pattern that has been set up...
...We notice that to conform is to attain things, and to be inquisitive and curious is to be unsafe...
...We do not seem to be doing much on our own to attain a better system...
...I know that education can do this because I have seen it work...
...Nobody likes whole wheat bread...
...It is not within our power to create a universal brain...
...Then he gradually builds up his convictions, not on the strength of what he has been told to believe, but what he does believe, from his own experience and that of the men whom he respects...
...However, as eggs become counted by the hundred dozen, steel by the thousand ton, and dollars by the hundred million, people too seem to lose their identity as individuals and are counted by the crowd...
...We see that men who go against the crowd on the strength of ^tlieir own convictions are not always safe...
...It was subsequently read at the high school graduation exercises in June...
...Material security ranks high on the American scale of values, and to run risks for the sake of one's convictions is to forfeit that security...
...Then the crowd will not hold sway over the young individual...
...Peggy Means, who turned 18 in November and is now a freshman at Radcliffe College, wrpte this essay for her English class at the George School, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, last spring...
...Isn't it possible that in this way youth has a perspective that is in ways clearer than that of the older generation...
...I am disturbed because this feeling of submission to the ideas of the crowd has come down to people of my own age-, the youth, who by rights should be the most questioning, truth-seeking, and irrepressible group if the future is to be any improvement over the past and present...
...Conscientious objectors are viewed with disdain...
...By nature we are created to think differently...
...Yet they should be encouraged...
...In my Junior High School I first noticed this attitude in about the ninth grade...
...So it is the part of wisdom and foresight to encourage the young non-conformist today, as a potential contributor to the welfare of the world...
...They are our ideas, and because we are the future we deserve the chance to test and try them...
...I have seen what happens when the Natalies and Jonathans are recognized as more than crack-pots, and make their unique and often valuable contributions to a class project, a discussion, a committee or student council...
...it seems better to allow the mind to become a "zone of quiet" rather than to cultivate an active and discriminating mind...
...The Gang" suddenly rises as a dictator of all actions, and those who are different are made to feel ashamed of their individuality...
...In the long run it seems more profitable not to ask questions or raise protests...
...The ardent United World Federalist down the street is termed "crazy" for his ideas...
...It is the right of young people to be energetic, alert, and eager for improvement...
...II It should be remembered that being different has value only when it is the result of conviction and thought...
...I believe it is the popular attitude toward young people which has tended to discourage much of the initiative they may possess...
...Granted that we do incorporate idealism in our thinking, especially in dealing with larger problems the world now faces...
...They are tolerated, yes, but not really respected...
...Education should stimulate the mind which otherwise might become a "zone of quiet," and encourage the independent thinker whose initiative is not appreciated elsewhere...
...For instance, those who have unusually high marks are liable to be called "greasy grinds," so one must be careful not to work "too hard" in order to stay "in the groove...
...he will have the encouragement to think for himself and draw his own conclusions...
...Agnes brought her sandwiches from home in a paper bag, instead of buying them in the school cafeteria like the rest...
...Small wonder that we learn to keep quiet and accept what has gone before...
...But suddenly it became a curse to act in any way that was out of the ordinary...
...For a great many people it stands for a questioning, protesting, radical stage which should be looked on condescendingly as a zany period the kids go through...
...Why does youth hesitate to speak out and make itself heard...
...something must be wrong if we all act alike...
...No, it is not very safe to defy the general public...
...Education must always be the means by which young people are reassured that, although eggs may be counted by the hundred dozen, steel by the thousand ton, and dollars by the hundred million, people, in terms of their personal integrity and conviction, must continue to be counted by the individual...
...It may mean losing a position, a pay-check, a house, friends, social status...
...More often than not, those who are "in the groove" seem painfully and unnaturally alike...
...Yes, probably our ideas are for the most part impractical and impulsive...
...Until then those who were different were considered interesting, and were well-liked for the most part...
...We seem to be falling in line with what has been set up as a society run by mass opinion...
...It is up to education to give birth to more of those fearless minds that seek and inquire continually, and are not satisfied with explanations that satisfy the crowd...
...What are the silent pressures that cause us to tend toward this acquiescent, almost bovine society...
...The city editor is fired for protesting an anti-Semitic article...
...No hoax of any kind is being perpetrated," her teachers assured The Progressive when we wrote to inquire how much help she had had...
...At about the age of fifteen it suddenly becomes very important to dress as others dress, do what the others do, and what is more harmful, to pretend to think as others think...
...This made not only Agnes but her whole family crack-pots...
...But- the spirit and initiative will return to adolescents only when the world looks upon them as wise in questioning, protesting, and changing— when the older generations admire us for our ambitions and ideals far beyond those they have attained, and spur us on to realize our goals...
...The stylish pseudo-individualist is superficial and sometimes harmful, but the non-conformity born of' sincerity and conscience is a constructive force...
...But what was worse, her sandwiches were made with whole wheat bread...
...It can do more than teach us subject matter: it can shape our thought processes and dispel that prevalent fear of opposing mass opinion...
...The city police commissioner is eased out of office when he becomes a little too effective in cleaning up racketeering...
...First of all, perhaps, because we have looked at the adult world today, and we notice that men are more secure who live, think, and aspire as the masses live, think, and aspire...
...We know from history that many of the figures we hail now as men of courage and vision were in their day rejected by their own societies...
...This feeling seems to become more intense in high school, when those who show some initiative in expressing what they think become outcasts from the crowd...
Vol. 17 • January 1953 • No. 1
