Teen Spirit: How Adolescence Transformed the Adult World

by Paul Howe

Teen Spirit offers a novel and provocative perspective on how we came to be living in an age of political immaturity and social turmoil. Award-winning author Paul Howe argues it's because a teenage mentality has slowly gripped the adult world. Howe contends that many features of how we live today―some regrettable, others beneficial―can be traced to the emergence of a more defined adolescent stage of life in the early twentieth century, when young people started spending their formative, developmental years with peers, particularly in formal school settings. He shows how adolescent qualities have slowly seeped upward, where they have gradually reshaped the norms and habits of adulthood. The effects over the long haul, Howe contends, have been profound, in both the private realm and in the public arena of political, economic, and social interaction. Our teenage traits remain part of us as we move into adulthood, so much so that some now need instruction manuals for adulting. Teen Spirit challenges our assumptions about the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood. Yet despite a cultural system that seems to be built on the ethos of Generation Me, it's not all bad. In fact, there has been an equally impressive rise in creativity, diversity, and tolerance within society: all traits stemming from core components of the adolescent character. Howe's bold and suggestive approach to analyzing the teen in all of us helps make sense of the impulsivity driving society and encourages us to think anew about civic reengagement.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 15, 2020

Reviews

[LaanSiBB]

Horrible.

Why would we still rely on the five personality traits and generalise political stands as mere left-right? I see potential in laying out the history of education system but clearly not what this book centred.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much a mixed bag.

On the plus side, the author has an interesting and original thesis. He doesn't have a very good set of tools for INVESTIGATING the thesis, but that could be remedied.

On the minus side:
- There's the usual pathology that it's rather longer than it needs to be.
- There are the usual social science pathologies. Ridiculously gullible acceptance of questionnaire's, total cluelessness as to the meaning of "correlation is not causation" (I mean seriously so, like the guy is constantly surprised when X is correlated with Y, but then increasing Y doesn't increase X).

- Far too much opinionation for what's supposed to be an academic text. Sure, you're allowed to have opinions about what's good or bad about, say, 2020 as opposed to 1970 or 1950, but when you insist on repeating these opinions in every chapter, it starts to look like you're not exactly an unbiased observer trying to explain the world but rather an activist trying to manipulate the world. And if manipulating the world is your goal, then why should I trust a word that comes out your pen?

I'd recommend read the first few pages of each chapter (which will give you the ideas, which are interesting) and skip the rest.