Yoshie writes
>> I'm simply saying that the past (when the young were
> treated merely
> >> as small adults with their own social obligations, instead as
> >> "innocent children" & "confused adolescents" who should be
> protected>> from the corrupt & dangerous world) is alien to us,
> so we may better
> >> understand that what we have now in the present -- mass
> production of
> >> long periods of childhood & adolescence in rich nations &
> among some
> >> classes of poor nations -- is a historically _new_ phenomenon,
> which>> would not have been possible without capitalist
> development with its
> >> drive toward innovation, high productivity, etc.
In response to this person (Joanna?):
>Is this true? Shakespeare's "Seven Ages" seem to include at
> least two which
> >are recognisably childish (mewling and puking, then whining
> schoolboy with
> >satchel) and one which appears adolescent (composing a woeful
> ballad to his
> >mistress' eyebrow). I'm no expert, but this would imply to me
> that something
> >resemmling our modern concept of childhood existed in Elizabethan
> England,
A lot has been written on this with especial reference to early modern England, part. Shakespeare and part. Romeo and Juliet. Try J franson, Ann Cook, Katherine Dalsimer. For a more focused perspective and one which usefully surveys 'debates' around whether you can talk about 'adolescence' (rather than youth/immaturity) in this context read Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos, but I dobn't have a biblio on me so can't recall all the titles -- dalsimer (which I deplore and which would support Joanna's? argument) is called _Female Adolescence_, Ben-Amos -- I'm going for Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England. Ben-Amos talks about the for and against and comes up with the for me quite acceptable position that we mean a hell of a lot more by adolescence that the attributes/characteristics ascribed to youth in EM ENgland. Esp. they don't have the separate cultural lives, spheres etc. Sorry I have not more time to elaborate, as this is my field, but -- Yoshie is right.
> For all that, it is industrial capitalism with its revolutionary
> productivity that has created the (as yet unrealized) potential
> for
> universalizing the enjoyment of long periods of childhood &
> adolescence. In economies based upon subsistence agriculture
> (except
> perhaps in a few areas perennially favored by natural abundance)
> few
> -- young or old -- could be exempted from work.
Enjoying adolescence. Well yes, clearly, in a way. You can only 'enjoy' what's available to you. I'd be very careful about subscribing to the story about the pleasures of adolescence without thinking about the constraints on it, about the way adolescence functions as a disciplinary category. For an interesting (and 20th-c American) eg. I'd go for Donna Gaines' _Teenage Wasteland_. Not my thing at all but still loved it.
As for what role 'capitalism' has in inventing 'childhood' and 'adolescence' -- yes it's highly significant, but especially with reference to adolescence. The myriad ways in which adolescents are presented as 'not yet' subjects/citizens/workers no matter what they actually do is clearly crucial to the material 'training' in ways to do these things 'properly' -- this is an assertion rather than an argument but I have to go. I will try to look in soon and send something more substantive if there's still a conversation on this.
Catherine