Chapter 63 Chapter 11 Cultural Revolution 2

2 If divorce, illegitimate children, and the proliferation of single-parent families (mostly single mothers) indicate that the relationship between the sexes is in crisis; then a strong youth culture that has emerged around the world points to intergenerational A major shift in human relations.Teenagers, as a group with a strong sense of self-group, have developed into an independent social motivation from puberty to about 25 years old. Teenagers in developed countries start puberty earlier than previous generations. years (Tanner, 1962 p. 153). The most striking political phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s was the social mobilization of this age group.In less politically charged countries, this generation has brought enormous wealth to the recording industry; 75 to 80 percent of the total production—rocker music in general—is taken by 14- to 25-year-olds. Consumers buy (Hobsbawm, 1993, pp. 28, 39). In the 1960s, the political intensification expected by various cultural dissident fringe elements was also handled by men and women of this age group.Downward they exclude children, even youth (for them, youth means immature semi-adults); upward, except for a few masters who are still exempt, even Completely deny all human status of people over 30 years old.Between heaven and earth, only my group is the only one.

Radical and extreme young men and women everywhere, except in China, which is led by the elderly Mao Zedong (see Chapter 16), are led by groups of the same age.This was especially true for the wave of student movements that covered the world at that time. Even the labor incidents triggered by student movements, such as the labor movements in France and Italy between 1968 and 1969, were often initiated by young workers.Only young people who have never had the slightest real life experience would put forward such bold and ridiculous slogans as the May strikes in Paris in 1968 and the "hot autumn" in Italy the following year: "We want everything, and we want it now." !” (tutto e subito) (Albers/Goldschmidt/Oehlke, pp. 59, 184).

As a new ethnic group pursuing "autonomous" status, teenagers are a separate social class, and due to certain phenomena, their symbolic meaning has been greatly expanded.Its symbolism is richer than it has been since the romantic period of the early 19th century: the hero's youth ends at the same time as his physical life.This kind of ephemeral hero image is very common, and it started with the singer James Dean who died young in the 1950s.The rock scene, which later became a catharsis for youth culture, found ideal symbols of standards: Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones ), Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and many other widely adored icons have fallen prey to premature lifestyles.The reason why their deaths are tainted with a strong symbolic atmosphere is because the youth they represent has inherent meaning of eternity.An actor may be able to spend his whole life in this industry; but as a "youth idol" (jeune premier), he is destined to only shine for a moment.

Although the members of the youth group are constantly changing—usually it takes only three or four years for a person to cross the so-called "generation" of students—the seats are always filled, and there must be someone to fill them. .Young people realize that they are a factor that promotes social functions, and this phenomenon of growing self-awareness among young people is also increasingly noticed by society.And the businessmen among them spared no effort to welcome them.As for the older generation, although they are reluctant, they can only try their best to accept it.The market is flooded with products aimed at teens, opening up another vast space for those who don't want to choose between "kids" and "adults."By the mid-1960s, even the English Boy Scouts, founded by Baden Powell himself, had to drop the boy part of their name as a bow to the climate of the times. The original wide-brimmed round hat in the uniform was replaced by a less mandatory French beret (Gillis, 1974, p. 197).

In fact, the separation of age groups in society has not started since today. Even in bourgeois civilization, society has always recognized the existence of such groups of people.They have reached maturity in the development of sexual function, but continue to grow in intelligence and other physical aspects, and have no actual contact and experience with adult life.Now, due to the early start of puberty and early adult stature (Floud et al 1990), the age of this group of people is getting smaller and smaller, but this does not change the fact that they have always existed in society.The only change that has been made is the heightened tension between the teens and their parents, who still insist on treating them as children, while the teens themselves feel grown up.The atmosphere of the traditional bourgeoisie often expects its young men to go through a period of tumultuous and frenzied growth, and after this period of "young debauchery" is over, they must "settle down".The new youth culture emerging in the new era is quite different from previous views in three aspects.

First of all, the so-called "teenager fifteen or twenty" is no longer regarded as the preparatory period for adulthood, but it means the completion of the last stage of life growth.Life, like sports, peaks in adolescence (today, how many teenagers hope to become famous in the sports field), once they are over 30 years old, they obviously start to decline, and their interest in sports also declines. greatly reduced.But the reality in society is just the opposite. Power, achievement, and wealth increase with age (only sports and some performing arts are exceptions, or pure mathematics can also be counted as one of them)-this phenomenon, rather It is another proof of the irrational arrangement in the world.Please see that until the 1970s, the post-war world was completely in the hands of the elderly, and the phenomenon of "elder politics" was even more prosperous than the previous generation.In other words, these old men in power—mostly old men, very few old women—were grown-ups as early as the end of the First World War, and some even at the beginning of the war.This phenomenon of the old man is not only in the capitalist world (Adenauer, de Gaulle, Franco, Churchill), but even in the communist world (Stalin, Khrushchev, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Tito), including Great powers in former colonies (Gandhi, Nehru, Sukarno).Even in revolutionary regimes born from military coups, there are few leaders under the age of 40—and in fact, those who achieve political change through military coups are often carried out by low-level military officers, because compared with senior generals, the actions of the former are regarded as failures. The loss is also relatively small.Therefore, when Castro, who was only 32 years old, won the Cuban regime, he was a young hero with high spirits, which caused many shocks internationally.

However, although the world is still in the hands of the old, they have silently, perhaps even unconsciously, given their place to the younger generation bit by bit.As for the thriving industries of cosmetics, hair care products and personal cleaning products, they are even more popular among young consumers.The prosperity of these industries is largely due to the wealth accumulation of a few developed countries. Since the end of the 1960s, there has been a trend of lowering the voting age to 18 in various countries—that is, the United States, Britain, Germany, and France—and there are signs of a general decline in the age at which young men and women start (heterosexual) sexual intercourse.Another trend is that as the average human life expectancy increases, the proportion of the elderly has greatly increased, and—at least among the fortunate upper and middle classes—the aging phenomenon has been delayed; When the business is struggling, "early retirement" has become the best channel for reducing personnel.The executives of large companies who are over 40 years old will find themselves facing obstacles everywhere once they lose their jobs. Finding a job is no less difficult than that of white-collar and blue-collar workers.

The second new feature of youth culture comes directly from the first: that is, this new cultural movement has become the main force of the "developed market economy".One is that today's young generation represents an extremely concentrated and powerful purchasing power; the other is that every new generation of adults today was once part of a self-aware youth culture.Having gone through this journey of socialization, they naturally accept its baptism spiritually and carry its symbols.The most important reason is the astonishing development of science and technology. Young people with strong ability to absorb and learn naturally have the upper hand than older conservatives, or at least have a great advantage over the age group whose adaptability has gradually become rigid.IBM in the United States and Hitachi in Japan, regardless of the age distribution of their management, the designers of new computers and new software are all in the mid-20s.Although the design of these machine programs is based on the principle that "fools can use it", for the generation that has never grown up with new technology, it is obviously more disadvantaged than the new generation. There are more and more new things and new knowledge without concepts. In contrast, it seems that parents can teach their children less and less.The role between the two generations seems to have undergone a major turnaround.American university campuses are more popular, and young students who come and go come and go in a pair of ripped jeans. They want to imitate the dress of workers and ordinary people, and deliberately don't be as noble and elegant as their elders.This attire gradually spread to the outside world, so jeans can be seen everywhere regardless of work or holiday; in some so-called "creative" or hippie work circles, you can even see the owner of the jeans with gray hair. s hair.

There is a third distinctive quality of urban youth culture, which is its astonishing internationalization.Jeans and rock music have become the symbols of modern modern teenagers, and the symbols of the minority who are destined to become the majority.This phenomenon is not limited to countries that officially tolerate their existence, even teenagers in the Soviet Union have followed this cowboy rock style since the 1960s (Starr, 1990, chapters 12-13).Sometimes, English lyrics in rock songs can mesmerize teenagers even without translation.This situation, of course, reflects the hegemony of American popular culture and lifestyle - invincible and invincible - but we must also pay attention to a truth: in fact, the heart of Western youth culture itself is also in opposition to cultural chauvinism position.This kind of countercultural chauvinistic mentality can be seen especially from their choice of music taste.They welcome styles from the Caribbean and Latin America very much. Since the 1980s, they have a soft spot for African styles.

The phenomenon of cultural hegemony did not start today, but the way it works has completely changed.In the interwar years, the American film industry was its main medium, and indeed the only one with a worldwide distribution network.The period after World War II was the peak period for the number of film audiences, reaching hundreds of millions.With the rise of television and the film industry of various countries, and the end of the Hollywood studio operation system, the dominance of the American film industry has been slightly eclipsed, and many audiences have also been lost. In 1960, the annual output of American films, even if India and Japan were excluded, was less than one-sixth of the world's total film output (UN Statistical Yearbook 1961)—but then it recovered a little bit of decline and regained its glory.As for the television industry, due to the wide market distribution and too many language categories, the United States has never planned to establish an international kingdom equal to the degree of monopoly of movies.Therefore, its youth culture style is directly disseminated through some kind of informal penetration; or it can be said that its signal is transferred through the United Kingdom and spread outward.Among them, the medium is the record first, and then the tape; and the marketing channels of the two, no matter in the past, are all based on the old way of radio broadcasting.The growing popularity of international travel among young people has sent a small but growing number of young men and women in jeans and trousers to all parts of the world.Universities in various countries have also established facilities for rapid exchange and dissemination since the 1960s.Therefore, through the cultural image conveyed to all parts of the world, through the personal contact of young travelers on foot, through the increasingly close contact network of college students from various countries; more importantly, through the powerful force of fashion in the vast consumer society and peer pressure , the youth culture was transmitted to all parts of the world, and an international youth culture was born here.

Could the timing of this new culture have occurred earlier?The answer is an absolute no.Because if this point is not reached, the number of converts to youth culture will definitely decrease a lot—whether in terms of absolute or relative numbers, this is the case.Because it was only in this era that the school year was greatly extended, and universities began to admit both male and female students at the same time.From then on, young men and women of the same age live together on campus, and the number of young people in culture has greatly expanded.What's more, those young men and women who leave school early and join the full-time job market (in developed countries, mostly between the ages of 14 and 16), have far more independent financial ability than their predecessors.This is also due to the prosperity of all industries in the golden age and the prosperity of full employment, and thanks to the improvement of their parents' economic ability, the proportion of children's income to the household burden is naturally relatively reduced.The youth market was first discovered by businessmen in the mid-1950s, revolutionizing the pop music industry; in Europe, it completely changed the face of the mass-market-oriented fashion industry.The "teen-age boom" in the UK began at this time; the main basis was a group of young girls with good incomes who suddenly concentrated in the city, and they crowded into the ever-expanding office buildings and shops Working, the disposable income at hand is often more than that of young men, and girls at that time have not yet acquired the traditional male-specific spending habits-tobacco and alcohol-so their ability to spend on other purchases is naturally more impressive.The "strong consumption power of girls first appeared in industries that mainly target women, such as blouses, skirts, cosmetics, and pop songs" (Allen, 1968, pp.62-63).As for the popularity of the pop music concert among girls, it is no problem. They are the most attention-grabbing and the loudest group at the venue.The purchasing power of teenagers' money can be seen from the sales of American records, which started from 277 million US dollars in 1955 when rock and roll came out, soared to 600 million US dollars in 1959, and then to 2 billion US dollars in 1973 ( Hobsbawm, 1993, p. 29).Everyone in the age group 5 to 19 years old in the United States spent at least five times as much on record purchases in 1970 as they did in 1955.Moreover, the richer the country, the more prosperous the record industry: teenagers in the United States, Sweden, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other countries spend an average of money on records, which is as high as other countries that are not as financially capable but are also developing rapidly, such as Italy, 7 to 10 times that of Spain.Now that they can roam freely among the colorful market independently, it is easier for young people to find material and cultural identification marks for themselves.But behind this new symbol of identity, there is an increasingly huge historical gap between the two generations, or it can be said that there is a major gap between those born before 1925 and those born after 1950.The generation gap between parents and children of this generation is far greater than in any previous period. Since the 1960s, parents with teenagers have deeply felt the acuteness and seriousness of the problem.The society in which teenagers live in the new era has severed the umbilical cord with the old era; some have been transformed by revolution, such as China, Yugoslavia, and Egypt; some have been occupied by foreign forces, such as Germany and Japan; some have been transformed by colonial rule. liberated below.The younger generation has no memory of the pre-Flood world.The only common experience between the two generations, the old and the young, may be that they experienced a national war together. For example, the young and old in Britain and Russia once united to tide over the difficulties together.Or beyond that—even when the older generation is willing to talk about the past, as most Germans, Japanese, and French people are reluctant to do—the young people are completely ignorant of the experience and feelings of the older generation. I don't know.For a young man in India, Congress is nothing more than a government or a political machine. How can he understand the feelings of the older generation who used to regard Congress as a symbol of a country's struggle for freedom?How can the talented young Indian students in the economics departments of universities all over the world understand the emotions of the old masters in the classroom? "Looking up" is enough. The advent of the golden age deepened this generational divide, at least until the 1970s.How can young men and women who grew up in the bright era of full employment understand the old state of mind struggling in the dark economic depression of the 1930s?On the contrary, how can the older generation, who are full of trauma and fear, be able to bear the free and easy young prodigal son?For the latter, work is no longer a safe haven (especially a job with stability and pension protection) that was hard to find after years of drifting on the stormy sea. Professionals are always at your fingertips—if you suddenly want Go to Nepal to recharge for a while-it is something that can be discarded at any time.This generation gap phenomenon is not limited to industrial countries, because the large reduction in the peasant population has also created a deep fault line between the two generations of agricultural workers and human machines.The older generation of French history professors, who grew up in a time when every French child came from the countryside or at least spent their holidays in the countryside, now find themselves at pains to explain to their students in 1979 that the milkmaid's job What is it, and what is the farmhouse yard with manure piled up.This huge generational gap extends even to a population that has always lived on the fringes of the stormy waters of this century -- the vast majority of the world's population -- who have been swept away only by political turmoil.Except for the parts that have little impact on personal life, they are not interested in all the excitement and commotion.But now, this tranquility is no longer there. True, the vast majority of the world's population is younger than ever, whether or not the skirts of the new are sweeping past them again.In most Third World countries with persistently high birth rates, between two-fifths and half of the population were under the age of 14 at any one time in the second half of the 20th century.No matter how close the relationship between their families is, how strong the constraints of the traditional network in life are, with such a large population of the new generation, there cannot be a huge gap between the two generations in terms of life experience expectations. In the early 1990s, South African politicians who had been exiled overseas for many years returned to their motherland. Although they waved the same flag and served for the South African National Congress Party, their mood was similar to that of the young "comrades" emerging from towns and cities in South Africa. Big difference.On the contrary, the majority of Soweto, the generation that was born many years after Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, has little in common with him except as a symbol or an icon .In many respects, the generation gap in these countries is actually wider than in the West—because there is at least a permanent institutional and political continuity between the young and old in the latter.