From: QueeneMUSE@aol.com
Date: Wed Feb 09 2000 - 18:19:16 MST
In a message dated 2/9/2000 3:33:45 PM Pacific Standard Time, sl@TCS.ac
writes:
<<
If it is strong in teenagers (which I doubt) that is a figment of the
way they have been raised, and the the fact that they are incarcerated
in institutions (schools) where conformity can be vital for survival
(or at least for avoiding getting your head kicked in five times a
day). >>
That doesn't make it OK.
Also, figment is not a correct word used this way. If you mean fabrication,
fiction.
I work with gang kids here in LA. The rules and structure and conformity are
not just externally imposed, they are also instinctual and reflexive. They
are so strongly hard wired into these young men that they will not give them
up. They uphold it even when conformity is so strictly enforced that you will
get killed, or be forced to kill someone for breaking those rules. The
institutions of poverty and racism do help to ingrain and pervert the basic
need for conformity and social norms, but as I see it they are useful
instincts gone terribly wrong. Run amok, this basic need is horrifically
harmful to them. I work with them teaching art. Sometimes, as a byproduct,
they learn a bit about personal expression and individuality. Sometimes.
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