Your Kid is a Deviant

Yep, it's true. The little muckers have grown up to be with few exceptions, deviants; they may even classify as criminals! "What's this", you exclaim indignantly. "Not my kid."

Well, let's check it out. Deviant behavior: departing from some accepted standard of what is normal. Whoa! That's not fair. Fair or not, that's the definition of deviant. Shall we look at some examples?

School: Cheating; and financing it too, no less!. We're not talking about grade school or even high school where attendance is mandatory and subject to the weight of law and therefore cheating conceivably could be seen as an act of defiance of authority. No, cheating at college level. Very common, very strange. To willingly pay for something, maybe even for years afterward(student loans),and then to corrupt the purchase, elective education, by cribbing and not really learning. FAIL! And a process done without (usually, hopefully) parental or societal guidance or approbation. Verdict: Deviant.

Music: Gangsta rap! Enjoyed while costumed to resemble an inmate of State Prison and employing graffiti as hieroglyphics. Celebration through hip-hop of every known antisocial action and many that are only imagined as yet. Most of the content of the lyrics fly well under the radar of the squares and are unknown and invisible to the larger society.But at least break dancing is not disco, yeah! Verdict: Deviant.

With me so far? Okay, on to a biggie.

Sex: Where to start? Certainly not with the 60's toddler steps known as The Sexual Revolution. That 'Revolution' is as much 'today' as is the Roaring Twenties. FAIL! No, these kids are writing a new text on sex. Almost universal participation. Not a cult phenomenon like the last one, limited to hip participants who consciously strove for
shucking of middle class values. No, these are the middle class kids next door and upstairs. They are totally pixelated. In the way some primitives think cameras steal souls, pixelated kiddies think cameras steal reality. Not one in a hundred teens or young adults seems aware or concerned that posting intimate peeks at private stuff can become a personal liability later on in life. That others, not like minded, or being entrusted with enforcing morality or legality, can make life miserable.

The youth culture is so co-opted by viewing and being viewed by peers that only more and bolder counts. Since little is left unexplored in the eros zone the competition for novelty is strong. A passing observer (sic) is advised to wear a wet suit and stay upwind of the action. How Jane or Jill can ever be convinced that it is really okay to say no, even once in a while, is problematic. What inducement can be offered to any modern youngster to someday enter a monogamous long time situation is also problematic. But despite the fact that celebrity trumps all today, kids must learn that notoriety is still not celebrity and smutty pix are still smut and not art. Verdict: Deviant.

Young people are more often than not convinced of personal immortality. This is cool. It keeps military barracks and prison cells maxed out and hospital ER's busy late at night. It requires high schools to have baby sitters available. It's difficult to see how society expects to reconcile deviant behaviors that don't meet its approval but are widespread and pervasive with the norms expected and required.

We know what the 60's behavior led to (no, not Disco); societal backlash. Heaven knows what the next tsunami of repression will resemble. The local Taliban may be gathering scourges and goads for future use and gleefully awaiting their employment.