What do I have in store for you this month? Well, it has to do with age or, rather, what\u2019s considered age appropriate. I believe this is where I left off in a previous essay, so I think it makes sense to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plus, as you may know, I\u2019m currently employed in a teaching position. I enjoy it. It\u2019s not always fun and games, no, as there\u2019s plenty of stuff that I don\u2019t enjoy, like the usual grind, checking students\u2019 assignments, being all nitpicky about them, just because that\u2019s expected of me, but it has its moments. It\u2019s great when you come across students who know what\u2019s what and aren\u2019t afraid to show it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It just so happens to be that F\u00e9lix Guattari addresses this topic in \u2018The Adolescent Revolution\u2019. Okay, okay, he isn\u2019t talking about students, but, well, neither am I, really, as it\u2019s really all about age or what\u2019s considered age appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what does Guattari have to say about that? Well, first we have to define what it is that we mean when we say adolescence or adolescents. Typically, that refers to people who are no longer considered children, but not yet adults. To some extent, that would also include young adults, people who are, legally speaking, adults, but appear childish to older people. It is, however, exactly that, what\u2019s considered adolescence, as he (131) is keen to point out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cIn my opinion it\u2019s something in adults\u2019 minds, something that exists for them on all sorts of levels, as a fantasy, as a segregative social practice, as a collective social assemblage etc.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d say this also applies to students. It\u2019s something that is in teachers\u2019 minds and it does indeed exist as this segregative social practice. It\u2019s exactly like this, you have the adults and the not adults or the teachers and the students, with a clear distinction being made between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be clear, this is not really about adolescents, like, at all. It\u2019s just like I just pointed out, about one thing and then what that one thing isn\u2019t. Again, you have the adults and the non-adults. There are all these \u201clittle boxes\u201d that people get put into, as pointed out by him (131). To be clear, there are no pre-existing boxes, small or big, only boxes that we create, as acknowledged by him (131-132). That\u2019s how language works. It allows us to create these boxes, of variable size, and give them labels. It can be very useful, yes, but it is often \u201ca segregative social practice\u201d, as noted by him (131).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is, in fact, a pretty tricky thing. I\u2019m happy to be called a Deleuzian, or a Guattarian, or Deleuzo-Guattarian, which is akin to being called a hippie, with all the talk about becoming<\/em>, deterritorialization<\/em> and what not, but, as I\u2019ve pointed out in the past, subscribing to their work, to their philosophy, doesn\u2019t mean that you somehow simply ignore the boxes, as cautioned by Guattari (131):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cI still have to take them into account because that\u2019s what most people do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Just think about it for a moment. If he, or me, in his place, would just talk about nomads and sorcerers, you\u2019d think he is, or I am, ignoring the problems that concern people, like every day, all the time. People are so, so used to the little boxes that ignoring them would make no sense, as he (131) points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cThe little boxes being in nursery school when the little girl jumping rope has to arrange her body in a certain way and progressively submits to all kinds of behaviors and images.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Oh, and it\u2019s not about little girls who go through all that. We all do, and that\u2019s because, as he (131) reckons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cThe boxes are everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
What can we do then? Well, while they can\u2019t be ignored, as that\u2019s how people think, like all the time, the boxes aren\u2019t given, like just there, as he (131-132) goes on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cBut on the level of what I call the economy of desire, obviously, there are no boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Oddly enough, this is why there is a box called adolescence or adolescent. Getting to the point, he (132) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201c[A]dolescence, as far as I can recognize it, constitutes a real microrevolution, involving multiple components, some of which threaten the world of adults.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
How so? Why does it bother the adults? Well, adults find children easy to manage. It\u2019s like they know their place. Adolescents are troublesome. They are the children who do not know their place. To be positive, as he (132) is, adolescents have so much going for them, a world of opportunities, like what if, just what if, yet, to be negative, it is the adults who do their best to make sure that these opportunities vanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is the problem then? Well, in his (133-134) and in my view, the problem is normalization<\/em>. There\u2019s all this potential, all that\u2019s virtual, but it gets funneled through this and\/or that box. This is not to say that all that\u2019s virtual is somehow intrinsically good, no, but rather that a lot of potential is wasted this way. While some of the not so good is eliminated, and you might be like yay, a lot of what might be good never comes to being, not even for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is also rather selective. Some people get to have their way, to see what happens, what comes out, whereas others don\u2019t. He (134) acknowledges this as he notes that this applies to more women than it does to men, which is a concrete way of saying that it applies more to any minority than it does to the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, let\u2019s return to the boxes. So, there are all these boxes that we are expected to fit in. This is, of course, a gradual process, so that by adolescence it is clear that you must fit in, or else. Or what? Well, you\u2019ll be told to fit in or there\u2019ll be consequences. What kind of consequences? The kind of consequences that put so, so much pressure on you that you\u2019d rather fit in than not fit in, if possible. What interests Guattari (135) is how this happens, how we come to adhere to the norms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWhat counts is how people deal with insertion into family, social, sexual, athletic, military, etc., situations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To give you a bit of context, he (134-135) isn\u2019t fond of how we think of human life as involving a number of stages, because, well, that\u2019s boxes for you. This isn\u2019t to say that we don\u2019t undergo all kinds of changes in our life, no, but rather that these distinctions aren\u2019t as sharp as we are led to believe. So, what interests him is how people handle the boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s troubling then? Well, in his (135) view, the issue is that this period of adolescence, i.e., not adult, is extended, so that we have young adults who aren\u2019t, strictly speaking, adults, but more like adults in the making, yet, at the same time, there\u2019s a growing demand to act like an adult. In his (135) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cParadoxically, entry into the workplace occurs later and later, while the entry into adult semiotics occurs earlier and earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I agree. I remember complaining about high school, how the expectations are crazy high. In retrospect, perhaps they were high, but, to be fair, they are nowhere near as high as they are these days. The pressure put on adolescents, be they teenagers or young adults, is super, duper high. What\u2019s the problem then? Well, he (135) does have an answer to this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cIn my opinion this results in ever more precocious forms of sexuality and, at the same time, a chronic immaturity in that same sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To use his lingo, sexuality<\/em> being desire<\/em>, there\u2019s this expectation that you know what you want, like for sure, super early, yet you don\u2019t, because, like, what are the odds that you do. There\u2019s this discrepancy, that he (135) aptly refers to as anxiety. I also like how he (135-136) explains how this isn\u2019t just about how you are expected to get ahead in life, go to school and then move on to working life, but about life in general:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cHave you passed your puberty certificate? Are you sure that you\u2019re normal?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
In other words, you are expected to have normal sexuality<\/em>, by which he means normal desires<\/em>. If you are a man, you act like a man. If you are a woman, you act like a woman. That\u2019s boxes for you. Now, I want to emphasize that this is really about desire and not about sexuality, in the sense that people talk about sexuality. He (136) is very clear about this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cInfantile, adolescent and adult sexuality never cease to be confronted by tests like, \u2018Do you come too soon? Or too late?\u2019 \u2018And your orgasm, is it too clitoral?\u2019 What an idiotic mess.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To be clear, he isn\u2019t against having sex. No. It\u2019s rather that he is against saying what is correct way of having sex. It\u2019s not for or against, like is this too little or is this too much, as he (136) goes on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cNow, a kind of psychological seriousness is conveyed by the media, through educational games… \u2018Does my baby suckle at the right time? Does he masturbate when he should? There is something wrong, Doctor: he doesn’t masturbate yet. What do you prescribe?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Masturbation is often considered something that people shouldn\u2019t do, yet, as you can see, as he points out here, the absence or delayed onset of masturbation can also be considered abnormal<\/em>. Like how dare they (not) masturbate!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, and if you think this is about sexuality, in the sense that it has to do with having sex, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s rather about normalization<\/em> and what he (137) also refers to as infantilization<\/em>. To summarize this, there are the adults, those who consider themselves normal<\/em>, having reached the expected normality<\/em>, and then there are those who aren\u2019t normal, those who haven\u2019t reached the expected normality. These others are the infants<\/em>, i.e., the children and the adolescents. We can, of course, give them all kinds of other labels, such as perverts. I think you get the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is also not against being normal<\/em>, as such. You can be a heterosexual<\/em> couple, no problem. I\u2019m not taking that away from you and neither is he (138):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cI don\u2019t see any reason for condemning couples. What matters is how they work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Why? Well, because what matters is not the couple, two people, but rather how they relate to one another, as he (138) goes on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWhat matters is how they work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
It is that relation between them that\u2019s important. It\u2019s like why do they come together in the first place? Because they are expected to do so? Or is it because they just do, because they gravitate toward one another for whatever reason? That\u2019s what matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the same with students. I\u2019m a teacher, yes. I\u2019m in that box, no matter whether I like it or not. The students are also in that box, no matter what they think of it. Fair enough. But what about it? Is that all there is to me? Is that all there is to them? Are we to judge people according to such criteria? I\u2019m going to say no, as you may have expected, and so does he (138):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cIt can\u2019t be done according to sexual criteria, as a political group, or as an age group. That is what I call a complex multidimensional arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s thinking in terms of assemblages<\/em> for you. There are many, many factors involved, as people are more than that, yet we are led to think in very simplistic terms, like a teacher surely knows what\u2019s what, while a student barely knows anything. It bothers me, a lot, which is why I wanted to write this essay in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what\u2019s there to do? Well, I\u2019ll let him (139) explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cGroups like this, covetous of their autonomy and their singularity, can change the nature of human relationships on a large scale if they can manage to rid themselves of narrow segregationist attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
So, what I must do as a teacher is to avoid thinking of students as mere students. Yes, they\u2019ve been put into that box, I know that, and I can\u2019t ignore that, yet, at the same time, I must go beyond that. I must acknowledge that by treating them accordingly, as being in this and\/or that box, solidifies their position in those boxes, which means that a lot of their potential, what could be, whatever that may be, good or bad, I don\u2019t know, just won\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think he manages to express this so, so well when he (139) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cYour students, your youths, your rockers\u2014their preoccupations are literally imperceptible to \u2018normal\u2019 people. Some might say, \u2018People like that don\u2019t even know what they want. What they want doesn’t make any sense.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Indeed. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to them, to these normal<\/em> people, but that\u2019s the beauty of it. That\u2019s the whole point. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to them because they can\u2019t see beyond the boxes. The problem is, of course, that these, supposedly, abnormal people are treated accordingly, as he (139) goes on to specify:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cAnd since nothing registers in these people’s minds, they consider them completely crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Okay, okay, not always. If this was always the case, then, truly, nothing would ever change, yet that\u2019s not the case. There\u2019s always some change, no matter how rigid you make the system. There\u2019s always something, something subterranean, something that operates in the shadows, something that results in some change, as acknowledged by him (139).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s also the irony of it. A lot of people, the majority, do their best to keep things the way they are, the way they are supposed to be, yet they can\u2019t prevent change. It\u2019ll happen and people then wonder, how did that happen, how didn\u2019t we see that, as noted by him (139). This is why, as a teacher, I let my students do a lot of things that others would let them do. I\u2019m like, okay, let\u2019s see where this will go. Maybe it goes nowhere. Fine. But, what if, what if it goes somewhere and something becomes of it? Isn\u2019t that great? Isn\u2019t that great? It is. I believe it is, even though I have no clue how it will pan out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
- Guattari, F. ([1979] 2009). The Adolescent Revolution (C. Wiener, Trans.). In F. Guattari, Soft Subversions: Texts and Interviews 1977\u20131985<\/em> (S. Lotringer, Ed., C. Wiener and E. Wittman, Trans.) (pp. 131\u2013140). Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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