The Arrogant Cult of Youth

The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences tells us nothing about Youth Movements. This seems especially surprising since such movements have been responsible for some of the major dislocations in the social relations of the twentieth century. Under the heading “Youth” we are told to “see Adolescence; Delinquency; Developmental Psychology; Labor Force, article on Participation; Life Cycle.” That, and nothing else. Rejecting all other references as irrelevant, I looked up “Participation,” only to find it not listed at all. So I tried “Life Cycle.” But here my senses were assaulted by such a barrage of jargonistic sociolotry that I wandered from the Encyclopedia as from a lunatic description of heaven by the man who ascended eighty thousand feet into the skies to describe it. So I searched the periodical literature (there are, it seems, no books on the subject) and found some material that—as they say—is significant.

Writing in the Hibbert Journal in 1924, Dr. Meyrick Booth tells us, in what must be the first such article on the subject, that “although the German Youth Movement is certainly one of the most important factors in the whole German-speaking population, it is as yet very little understood in the Anglo-Saxon world.” It is still not understood in this “world.” From this burgeoning movement of German youth came the Hitler Jugend who acted out in the schools and universities—later in the streets—the same role our student radicals are engaged in today.

MG

About the Author

Max Geltman

The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences tells us nothing about Youth Movements. This seems especially surprising since such movements have been responsible for some of the major dislocations in the social relations of the twentieth century. Under the heading “Youth” we are told to “see Adolescence; Delinquency; Developmental Psychology; Labor Force, article on Participation; Life Cycle.” That, and nothing else. Rejecting all other references as irrelevant, I looked up “Participation,” only to find it not listed at all. So I tried “Life Cycle.” But here my senses were assaulted by such a barrage of jargonistic sociolotry that I wandered from the Encyclopedia as from a lunatic description of heaven by the man who ascended eighty thousand feet into the skies to describe it. So I searched the periodical literature (there are, it seems, no books on the subject) and found some material that—as they say—is significant.

Writing in the Hibbert Journal in 1924, Dr. Meyrick Booth tells us, in what must be the first such article on the subject, that “although the German Youth Movement is certainly one of the most important factors in the whole German-speaking population, it is as yet very little understood in the Anglo-Saxon world.” It is still not understood in this “world.” From this burgeoning movement of German youth came the Hitler Jugend who acted out in the schools and universities—later in the streets—the same role our student radicals are engaged in today.