Creative Misinterpretation and Cyclical Studies of Teen Ennui

[Michael Pollak]

A social explanation can't completely -- and hence satisfying -- explain
an individual act, especially a rare one; it can only supply the
background against which it might make sense.  And in the same way, a
gunman on a rampage is always too weird and exceptional an occurrence to
base a good law on.  But unsurprisingly, the same exceptionality that
makes these events bad guides to theory and law -- the fact that they are,
by nature, exceptions to the rules that constitute theory and law -- is
what makes them stand out and grab our imagination.  And so it's possible
for such events make good political rhetoric for passing laws that
wouldn't have had any effect in the particular case (but might be
effective elsewhere); and a good spur to livening up public discourse and
infecting it with thought, both of which are good things in themselves.  

With that in mind, I just wanted to bring up the fact that 10 years ago,
instead of the current craze for going out and shooting up their school,
really alienated kids were instead killing themselves in numbers that
suggested a pattern.  The explanations that made sense of these acts by
putting them into a social context were just as good and as bad as they
are now.  In fact, they were pretty much the same explanations, and the
valid ones are still worth looking at today.  I personally think one of
the best is _Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids_ by Donna Gaines.  
Especially good is her explication of the meaning of despised teen musical
genres in the chapters entitled "This is Religion I" and "This is Religion
II."  Her particular subject is thrash metal (as well as the satanism for
which is was denounced in its the time), which she very lays out as part
of a popular, but intellectually despised tradition stretching back to Led
Zeppelin, and which she calls "white suburban soul music."  But her style
is that of an intelligent stored-up conversation, and she says a lot that
is suggestive for understanding teen culture and popular music in general.

Anyway, I think the whole book is worth reading.  One example of sociology
like it oughta be.

Michael Surtout

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Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com