Centerfield

People who perceive a lack of legitimate opportunity via the paths they've been offered are going to opt for "by any means necessary." especially adolescents. This is not new. It's old. And it's not exclusive to America by any means. so I think you're overdoing it with the "only in America" theme.

And, what do you mean, gangsta hits the mainstream with this just released movie? Have you been living under a rock, or in outerspace?Gangsta hit the mainstream like a decade ago. And apparently now it's finally washing its way up on the shores of the hopelessly out of touch.

Rebellion went corporate a couple decades ago. It's a marketing strategy now, for crying out loud. 50-cent is not the first person to capitalize on a message of rejection of the "do the right thing" wisdom of the establishment generation. And he won't be the last.

You're of course right that there's some upping of the ante here, and that the message should apall many or even most parents. But that's the thing, if it doesn't apall that adult parental mainstream, it won't sell. If you are marketing rebellion, rebellious kids won't buy it unless it genuinely perturbs the parental units.

I don't have an answer here. Kids do need guidance, but I'm not sure what works. Is forbidding any sort of guarantee, or are you better off picking your battles, talking to your kids about the content, and letting them fantasize about the pure will to power? This is a core psychological issue that kids have to sort out as they come of age, after all.

Of all the messages that come to each and every one of us through the combined conduits of media, one of the most powerful is, in one way or another, fear. For adolescents, the greatest fear is that when they become adults and are called upon to support themselves, that they won't be able to cut it, and it's because the world is so cruel and unfair, and those who already have power don't care about you and don't want to share. (I'm saying that's the message as kids find it, not commenting on whether it's true)So if you don't want your kids to get sucked up into this fear, you have to help them process it, and you have to equip them with the tools for making their own way.

I understand why it troubles you. But I really think that you'll be well-served by understanding this as adolescents responding to fear of failing by embracing a "survive and thrive by any means necessary" message.

If you ask me, gangsta has already become a schtick, and its success and acceptance will certainly be its further taming. If you want to add it to the very lengthy list of things tearing apart the moral fabric of the nation, go ahead. This list is a very long and very old list, and it's a great source for fueling nostalgia and righteousness about how much better things were when you were a kid. Kids these days, blah, blah, blah [insert rant].

But kids are going to keep having to face the basic social development challenges related to late childhood and into adolescence, and all parents and other mentors can do is try to point, while the individuals themselves will have to make choices and decide how they themselves feel about the world and their role in it.

From Allpsych here are the most relevant stages of psychosocial development, according to Erickson:

Industry vs. Inferiority. From age six years to puberty, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments. They initiate projects, see them through to completion, and feel good about what they have achieved. During this time, teachers play an increased role in the child’s development. If children are encouraged and reinforced for their initiative, they begin to feel industrious and feel confident in their ability to achieve goals. If this initiative is not encouraged, if it is restricted by parents or teacher, then the child begins to feel inferior, doubting his own abilities and therefore may not reach his potential.

Identity vs. Role Confusion. During adolescence, the transition from childhood to adulthood is most important. Children are becoming more independent, and begin to look at the future in terms of career, relationships, families, housing, etc. During this period, they explore possibilities and begin to form their own identity based upon the outcome of their explorations. This sense of who they are can be hindered, which results in a sense of confusion ("I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up") about themselves and their role in the world.

Virtually all those who market to kids facing these challenges are going to use the kids fears to get their attention. Just like they market to our fears as adults, about retirement, baldness, crime, terrorists, etc. Oh well.

I agree with Dean. While it's true that rebellion has become a part of adolescent culture, that doesn't mean it's right. While I'm sure all adolescents have to successfully navigate the Eriksonian stage of figuring out who they are, it need not involve such dangerous, criminal, and self-destructive behavior. This rebellion-chic is not something universal to all cultures or to all times. Therefore, we need to challenge it.

Sure kids need to test boundaries and chart their own course, but our culture has gone to an extreme--a dangerous one. While middle-class kids may be able to successfully navigate these temptations, not everyone is so fortunate.

So in order to change the culture, you need to speak out against its excesses, which I believe Dean was doing.

And while, given the limited opportunites available to some children, it is to be expected that some some might choose a life of thuggery, that doesn't justify it. It calls for making more opportunities available!

It's not unique to this generation. Look at the original gangster movies starring American icons such as Jimmy Cagney. Al Capone was a celebrity every bit as much in his day as 50 Cent or these other gangsta rappers. He was a hero to a lot of people despite (or maybe because of) his anti-social behavior, especially during the Depression. Gangsters have traditionally been glorified--in part, at least, because they are portrayed as anti-establishment types. I'm not sure Gansta rap is any worse than the glorification of the mafia.

And, let's be honest here. Who are we really concerned about here? I don't really expect that Gangsta Rap is infecting middle-class suburban kids with anti-social attitudes. These kids might listen to Gangsta Rap, but I doubt that many are going to grow up and start abusing women or engaging in shoot outs on the street. To me, Gansta Rap is more a reflection of attitudes that already exist in the inner city--much as the gangster movies reflected, to some extent, the ethos of the white ethnic slums. Does Gangsta Rap actually inculcate anti-social attitudes or does it just reinforce existing ones? I'm not saying there is no reason for concern, but it needs to be put in context. There are problems in the inner cities, one of which is the attitudes and behaviors exemplified by Gangsta Rap.

So in order to change the culture, you need to speak out against its excesses, which I believe Dean was doing.

Right. But the question is, in this case, does speaking out self-righteously against such excesses help? If so, how? Or does it instead make gangsta rap more attractive? That's a catch-22.

Is there any reason to think that speaking out does anything to fix the "problem?" What's the prescription here?

If you want to argue that our affluence and indulgence has led to a culture where many Americans are ever-more content to amuse themselves to death, you won't get much of an argument from me.

But the hypothesis here, at least in part, seems to be that our ever-coarsening culture is leading to more crime in the sense of more gun-totings, thievings, drug-dealings, etc. Do stats bear this out? I know many violent crime stats have shown a steady downward trend over the last decade or more.

Suppose gangsta A has been condoning drive-by shootings, and the incidence in portrayals of such crimes is way up in video games, movies, hip-hop braggings and so on. What about the actual incidence of drive-by shootings...are they up? By how much?

If they aren't up, or if they are pretty stable, ,then this suggests that hip-hop fans by and large have developed a healthy ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and so perhaps some people ought untwist their knickers. If they are up, well then we have a nice little chicken-egg argument...

Here's the thing: the vast majority of adolescents dip their toes in the welcoming subculture/counterculture that fits their temperament. Consider past horror-inducing manifestations of anti-authority pop "rebellion", like acid rock, punk, goth, etc. These have had their day in the sun as the parental horror du jour, and have faded to become an enduring flavor of rebellion. Go to a college and you'll find jam-band stoners, spiked-hair punks, sad doe-eyed goths, and now gangstas. All cross-breeding in a stew of fear about what adulthood holds.

But for most kids it passes. Most people that need to make rent and buy food look for a job, not a gun. In the meantime, let 'em pretend they are the nads and no one better mess with them. It's just another flavor.

I hit a smelly shop marketing to all these kids while I was in P-town, and it might as well have been called rebellions-r-us. Buttons, bumperstickers, t-shirts with every rebel icon of the last 35 years, incense, hemp products, weird knifes, scented oils...

I remember once a punk icon was asked "what are you rebelling against?" His answer was "whaddaya got?

Gasp! Not the "M" word!

Brian;
Maybe statements alluding to "the end of the world as we know" are a bit over the top. But please don't fall into the trap of defending crap because 1) its been done before 2) the side critizing has faults too 3) this is protest for "the man keepin' us down"

It should be ok to say that while he certainly has the right to say it, what Fiddy Cent says is detestable.

Oh, I'm not defending it. I'm just saying that i think that the danger is way overstated, and wondering what the prescriptive solution is.

In a way, this mirrors the debate Pat and I were having over campaign finance regs, with Pat saying that he didn't think the alleged problem was that big of a problem, and that he thought the problem was impossible to fix without unduly trampling the first amendment. And with me saying I thought it was troubling enough that I wasn't ready to just give up.

If anyone has to a good way to combat the problem of corrosive antisocial messages marketed to disaffected rebellious youth, without trampling the 1st amendment, I'm all ears.

But to reiterate, I think it's worth noticing this: It's become a part of American life that the culture market offers disaffected adolescents and young adults a series of choices of little baby training wheel countercultures to try on for size. Hippie, punk, goth, now gangsta. in general, such subcultures are critical of the dominant one, but aren't prescriptive in a way that meets adult needs as based on self-interest: food, rent, etc. They're masturbatory fantasies, either about how people should be better, or about how you should respond to how awful they are by taking what you need and what you want by whatever means necessary.(This latter may a prescription of sorts, but one which lacks practical efficacy for the overwhelming majority.) So kids outgrow 'em.

Notice too that the growth explosion of this market for training wheel countercultures is a post WWll phenomenon, and seems to be a by-product of increased affluence and indeed increased indulgence of adolescents by parents. And I'm not saying there's necessarily no value in that increased indulgence. I'm only correlating the market growth with increased affluence because it at least suggests that there's now a very big market for a training wheel counterculture for black adolescents. I'm just guessing here, but it may mean that the long overdue expansion of the relative luxury of discretionary spending to blacks on a broader scale is underway.

Brian,

I'm leery of accepting your claim that gangsta is just another counter-cultural variety. It seems more violent, more criminal, and more anti-woman than past counter-cultural forms. Furthermore, being a thug actually IS a viable way of making a living in some parts. Only a few rock stars can make a living off "being goth." Whereas middle-class adolescents realize that at some point they are going to have to be contributing members of society, and they're going to have to relinquish these crazy behaviors at some point or another, that is not true of poor, and usually black, adolescents in regards to gangsta. I've read on Booker Rising the comment that "thuggery" is sadly viewed as the most "black" thing to do for a young black male. Being goth is not true for their white counterparts.

As for prescriptions, I think it has to involve society's collective refusal to indulge to such an extent in these things. Parents usually provide the money to buy these kinds of records and can thus influence the market. One parent being strict can backfire if most of that child's friends' parents aren't strict, but if parents band together they can have force in numbers. Kids receive mixed messages; the media and corporations celebrates this kind of behavior, so kids think that their parents are atavistic reactionaries due to the very different standards they see in the media.

Late-night talk shows would never invite a KKK member on as a guest but would have little problem inviting on a gangsta rapper. I know it may be a tall order, but I think there has to be a cultural shift where basically such an invitation would bring shame and collective outrage upon that show. After all a gangsta rapper is endorsing murder, drug use, and exploitation of women.

Kids don't rebel against society per se, they rebel more against their parents.

In parenting research, they distinguish between authoritarian (dictatorial) parents, authorative (stern but flexible and loving) parents, and permissive ones. Both authoritarian and permissive parents lead to screwed-up kids with bad behavior. Basically, I think the culture has to be a little less permissive without becoming authoritarian.

In addition, we need to provide the resources so that the kids who don't have alternatives to thuggery do have alternatives.

I think people tend to think, oh it's no big deal and it's just a rite of passage, but I think it's gotten out of hand. Maybe parents of certain groups of kids could get together in online groups and try to figure out ways to set collective boundaries. And although I am somewhat reluctant to admit it, I tend to think conservative religious communities are doing a decent job of having different collective standards. But it's always a balancing act.

But at base, I think it has to start with the realization that these behaviors are not as innocuous as they appear.

And I should probably add that I speak from first-hand experience--I'm only 24 and so am relatively close to my teenage experience. I very much went off the deep-end but was lucky in that I escaped most negative consequences for my behavior and was able to reverse course at a crucial moment. Nonetheless, many of my high school friends were not so lucky. These problem behaviors often occur at a crucial point for determining that child's future and can long-term consequences. Poor grades, and even worse dropping out of high school, can have life-long ramifications, not to speak of a criminal record.

I think you are right about our affluence having an effect on this. However, this indulgence could lead to a loss of affluence if America falls behind globally because of basically diminishing or throwing away of a lot of youths' potential. I doubt that Chinese or Indian teens rebel like we do--they don't have the luxury. And I'd be surprised if Japanese kids did it as much as ours.

I just think this laissez-faire stance could be quite costly in the future. I think we need to strike some sort of balance between the excessive strictures of traditionalism and the permissiveness of secularism.

So Adam, whose fault is it that you almost went off the deep end, your parents, or the culture's? :-)

I don't disagree with the notion that parents need to balance the authoritarian role with the need to give their kids some rope. I just don't find your prescription, even in its vague form, especially compelling. IMO, the mainstream culture, such as it is, has already become far too fragmented to marshal much force behind the sort of social disapproval you advocate in all but the more extreme examples where harm or the reasonable likelihood of it is demonstrable, such as sexual abuse, or maybe drunk driving.

At this point, I see a lot more complaining about potential harm than I see demonstration of actual harm. You've every right to speak your conscience and oppose whichever messages of gangsta rap you find objectionable. Indeed, that's how the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work. So good for you! Fine. Yet the question remains, what kind of good will that opposition do? Will it really change the market?

Here's the thing, IMO: seems to me that most or all of the most important life lessons are ones many people need to learn for themselves. You have to feel them in your heart to believe that they are true. Now that's not true for all people. Some are happy to accept received wisdom at face value. (Authoritarians in the making, many of them, BTW). But in the set of adolescents, once you subtract out that latter group, you're left with those more prone to rebellion, the alienated and the disaffected, misfits of one sort or another. Those who are in the process of rejecting the mainstream culture are simply not likely to accept the received wisdom of the mainstream regarding the training wheel counterculture of thier choice. In fact, this wisdom only gives the chosen counterculture additional credibility. That's the conundrum.

I don't think what I'm advocating is purely laissez faire,. It's only that vis-a-vis both parents and the dominant culture's semi-parental role, there's little choice but to be a fair bit more laissez-faire that you'd like, or than seems wise. Many parents come to face the hard fact that if you don't finally give your kids the freedom to fail, the freedom to make their own bad decisions and then learn from them, they may not learn much of anything besides dependence. As you suggest, it's a balancing act.

Now were I a parent, I might let my kids try out a gangsta rap CD. But maybe I'd also make them sit in front of me and look me in the eye while they read the lyrics to me. And i might ask them pointed questions and challenge them to defend, say, the alleged wisdom of fifty cent. I have a friend with 3 kids who was a philosophy major, and he lets his son try out various anti-social rants, the usual juvenile ones that are much better at complaining about what's wrong than accounting for ALL the variables. And he makes the kid account for the things such feel-good and feel-bad theories don't address. To me, that's exactly the right way to approach it. But then not all parents are up to this task.

Brian,

Your last suggestion is actually a good one. I'll have to remember that in a few years, 'cuz I know my day is coming.

My problem with this whole topic is that it usually leads to politicians trying to legislate by banning lyrics or even in some cases, trying to ban certain styles of dress. (I.e. wearing baggy pants below the waist.)

This is a parenting issue. Rebellion is always going to be out there. There is absolutely no way it can be legislated away. Is it occasionally violent? Yes. Does this form degrade women? Yes. But, what would we accomplish by clamping down on it? We'd only make it more forbidden, and thus more desirable.

If parents are involved in their kids daily lives, they aren't going to have to worry about their kids being overly influenced long-term by this type of culture. Sure, they may gravitate towards it for a time. But, instead of slamming the door closed on them, talk to them about it. Let them talk. You'll probably find that they pass through the stage rather quickly when it loses its forbidden mystique.

All I have to say is, since when is this a new or "Only In America" occurance (ok maybe the movie deal would be but only cause of the lack of a hollywood in various parts of the world). Al Capone, as an example was a very violent individual who gained his stature from the "Gangsta" (Pun intended)lifestyle, and was well respected and reveared. In fact, this mentality is probably as old as civilization itself, if not older (ie. La cosa nostra, Fuk Ching, and every organized crime syndicate as well as every dictator in the world).
Of course just because its old doesnt make it right.

So Adam, whose fault is it that you almost went off the deep end, your parents, or the culture's? :-)

Well, in truth, inadequate parenting and a corrosive culture exacerbated the normal teenage rebelliousness and my idiosyncratic lunacy. :)

I too like the methodology you proposed for talking to kids. In fact, that, in a loose way, accounted for my pulling back from the brink. But it came from a particularly gifted counselor at school.

I envision the process of purging the forms of adolescent rebellion of their most noxious aspects as a gradual one that follows a shift in the culture. Right now, we have a tension between an old-school traditionalism and a more or less laissez-faire secularism. I hope that society will eventually find a more sane middle-ground. On one hand, you can buy video games where you rape and kill and commit crimes. On the other, we have a real puritanical streak--radical right-wing Christianity. I think once this conflict is resolved it will be easier to rein in these cultural perversions. And I think it's a process that begins one person at a time--perhaps with a greater respect for the damage that these cultural forms can have.

As to actual damage, I have read that the decrease in crime rate etc. is due to a decreasing population and that some expect that crime will rebound when youth population does. Think I read this in my social psych text. But at the very least, I don't think immersion in these cultural forms help any. I believe recent psychological research clearly does show that there is harm from negative and violent media. From my own experience, it seems almost ludicrous to deny that it has an effect. I mean, teens go off into their own little world and can easily confuse reality with fantasy. I think the school shootings reflect this. And besides, it just seems obvious that the beliefs and role models someone has will have an effect on their behavior. It would be quite shocking if it had none. If you assume that what parents teach and model for their kids has an effect, than I think you have to assume that negative role models will too. I'm sure you'll be asking how much, and is it really that much of an concern. Well, I'm too lazy to dig through the literature, but it seems if you reject this notion, you're really undermining a lot of current teaching and parenting practice. If it doesn't matter what kids see, why don't we just model for them horrible behavior?

I dunno, I just take ideas like the coarsening of the culture seriously. It's a gut feeling, just like your GWB feelings. I guess I have too many classical values.

I agree that it's absurd to assume that it has no effect, or even no negative affect.

For the sake of discussion, let's presume that there's always going to be some subset of all adolescents who will be alienated and want to act out, because part of growing up is exploring your own will to power, to take control out of self-interest, because of the facing of the fast approaching necessity of providing for one's self. The percent size of the subset may vary, but its existence will likely endure, especially as long as our culture remains affluent enough to indulge it.

Here's the thing: do things like violent video games and gangsta rap lead to an increase in serious real-world dysfunction, or do they provide a safe fantasy outlet that decreases the perceived need for real-world acting out? I think this is a tremendously interesting question, and I have no clue what the answer is. Does antisocial fantasy leed to an increase or a decrease in antisocial reality?

The following is a fairly unpleasant thought, so fair warning, turn away if you want, or bear with me if you dare. Suppose there's a video game where pedophiles could pretend to do horrible things to children. What happens if we let people play it? Do we get more real-world pedophiles? How does it effect existing pedophiles...does it escalate them and make them more prone to real-world abuse, or does it provide enough of a fantasy outlet that it decreases actual real-world pedophilia? And does the answer even matter? I suspect many would argue that it does not, and I wonder whether I could be persuaded to agree with them.

I seriously worry that such things normalize dysfunctional real-world behavior and make it occur more often. IMO, it's a pretty reasonable application of probability. But where's the data? I'm not willing to act on reasonable presumption unless I can back it up with data that suggests demonstrable actual real-world harm to innocent others.