The Prom

In many traditional cultures there are rituals and ceremonies which lead adolescents into the roles they must take as adults in the society. These events and activities are educational and social and are diected by the society's elders. They include communal gatherings, costumes, rites and dances. At the end of the experience, the adolescents are understood to be adults and are treated as adults with freedoms, expectations and responsibilities. In some cultures adolescents even emerge with a life vision.

In contemporary American culture we really don't have such things. Sometimes the adolescents are more adult than the adults. There is no clear rite or passage which identifies the adolescent as havning become an adult. Is it getting shit-faced drunk? Is it getting a driver's license? Getting a job? Moving out of the house? Sexual encounters? Risky behavior of some kind? In most of these cases, the role of the elder has become marginal. In fact, the adolescents often lead the elders: long hair, tatoos, piercings, unsocial behaviors, etc.

In this context then, consider the prom. Male and female costumes are given great attention for the attention they garner. The limousine and the dimly lit restaurant are the training caves from which the pre-adults emerge. The dancing is raucous and sexually provocative. The hotel room awaits where the entrance into adult sexuality is consummated. The parents defer to the schools as elders, who then must set standards of dress and behavior. The whole experience happens at great expense.

At least that is how the story seems currently to be told. And that story is hard dismiss when we have a culture which is much more interested in producing consumers than in producing citizens and much more interested in  producing workers that in producing human beings.