by Richard Sprigg

Created on: June 08, 2009   Last Updated: June 11, 2009

Stereotypes are the product of a limited imagination acting upon a lazy mind.

Many individuals tend to classify people into various groups depending upon the way in which they dress or wear their hair; actually dealing with them as individuals rather than members of an ill-defined group is more work.

This will of course blatantly discriminate against everyone between the ages of 15 and 21 that they have contact with. The source of these impressions will vary by individual: In the case of older individuals, many will draw their impressions from popular entertainment and from the news. In the case of young people, who are quite capable of stereotypical thinking, impressions are drawn from knowledge of popular styles of dress and speech, some of which originate in popular entertainment, and the experience they may have had with individuals who dress or speak in a like manner.

Since movies and television will draw their characters from the news, filtered through the personal prejudices of writers, many of these stereotypes tend to be self-supporting ones. Thus if a movie depicts young gang members wearing a specific style of dress, then older people will associate that style of dress with anti-social behaviour, and treat the individuals accordingly. This may precipitate confrontation.

Young people in the natural state of rebellion may choose to adopt a style that their parent's generation finds offensive in some way, while others will adopt it in an attempt to "belong" to a specific group. This in itself will encourage other groups to adopt a different image to differentiate themselves from the other group; thus we get Jocks and Nerds, Freaks and Frats, Goths and Punks, and all the groups that are so important for a short time.

Older people, seeing these various groups of similarly-dressed young people, feel threatened on several fronts: the major one is that of change. When they were young, teens dressed differently and spoke differently; these teens are comfortable with a technology that many older people find frightening. Faced with these unsettling differences, they ignore the many, many, commonalities that bind them together, and draw away in fear, rejecting the future.

This is manifestly unfair to teens, as it not only treats them as outcasts, but cuts them off from the sense of continuity that they so badly need at that time of life. Society in general needs the influx of young minds to continue to grow properly, and the young need to feel that they have a place in society where they are needed and wanted.

I am reminded of the old TV show "Happy Days": Set in the late 50's, the major character, "Fonzie", was living with a middle class family. This character dressed in leather jacket and blue jeans, considered in the 50's to be "J.D. Uniform". Any middle class family at that time would have called the police if he came within a block of their house.

This demonstrated that the stereotype was faulty. It is no coincidence that the writers went through their teens in the late 1950's, and yet still felt the need to express their outrage at the treatment they had received by making the character warm and human.

"All generalizations are in error" said the Master, jesting.

Those Disciples who saw the joke laughed, while those who saw only the error and recognized it as their own, wept.

Others saw neither joke nor error, but laughed lest others see they did not.

Still others saw neither joke nor error, and wept in self pity.

The Master laughed, yet inside he saw the truth, and wept.

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