YOUTH IN REBELLION

foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] the younger generation they used to amuse us now they confuse us most of all they disturb us with an uneasy awareness that their behavior is often just a reflection of Our Own we enter that wildly wonderful world of Youth not with a microscope to peer into its dark Corners nor with a telescope to enlarge its image into the magnitude of a national crisis but with a camera to try as honestly as we can to see it as it really is perhaps we can understand our young people and appreciate them fully only if we start with this premise that they do not live in a world of their own choosing nor of their own making this world running at jet speed and with computer efficiency is the one they have inherited from us purpose of our investigation to learn how Young America is faring in these rapidly Changing Times to ask what adults have done to help or to hinder or even to understand and finally to discover what Christian principles of morality and love and faith are needed to guide our youth to maturity in such a world as this kids want action and they demand it not only in fun and games but in the political and social Arena as well they Gather By The Thousands at youth conferences such as this one called by a state Governor you come in you I came into the class with a basic uh morality if you want to call it that all right now I go into this class not to change my morality not to learn how to do it I come into the class to get a better understanding of what the response my responsibilities are in marriage what my responsibilities are as a human being how I should feel about other human beings what what is their worth I'm not going to change my morals because I get the truth I just came from another discussion group and it was very interesting because we were talking about this problem specifically how the Mexican Americans were not uh joining in the Civil Rights Movement it was Negroes and whites and the Mexican Americans were kind of being left out if I say you should go out to minority groups too because minority groups are prejudiced against white people and they are I mean good people is well good people I know our president's white people a lot of Mexicans are too I feel the prejudices will be solved if we take on a greater aim and United aim we look to the people here and we see Freedom demonstrated but we say what is freedom is it just that people live as they please or is there something more in it we're going to live straight together we're going to have an answer to the immorality in the country the girls and boys we're going to decide we're going to live straight together we're going to answer the divisions in family life we're going to see that our families are living in the United Way I think then we could say we could have something to say to East and to West to the Chinese and the Russians we hash over problems we just keep doing it over and over again the thing we have to try to do is what we're doing now make resolutions you never see any action being taken you never you never see any follow-through all you hear is their resolutions and that's where it stays in black and white on paper and our whole school was just boiling over with um you know but nobody would do anything about it all they want to do was argue and fight we can't just keep talking over them and do nothing about it we have to make these resolutions and we have it yet keep talking you know and really just get a sore throat the sore throat generation and when they don't get action when things don't move and they're made to feel powerless by the status quo they protest they write their complaints on signs and sing them in their songs they shake things up the point in a person's life see many things around you greatly know that it's wrong for your own moral political social views you feel that you have to do something about it because you would feel wrong within yourself if you did not so you become involved in action in an attempt to correct the problems you see young people of today I feel are trying to express their independence from parents and to get away from Law and Order and the proper way of doing things a stressing of rebellion of trying to in some some way tell the world that here I am I I have something to say and the campus demonstrations anymore this is kind of a fad that's of course hit us and in order to be a part of anything it seems like on campus well you have to be running a demonstration of this that or the other thing to try and get your point across is this a healthy sign in our culture or an unhealthy one oh I think it's a very healthy sign having gone through the McCarthy days on a college campus when I was despaired of wondering whether these college students really were interested in anything except the last football game in the next dance because my generation you see was The Depression generation and we were out to make the world a better place for people to live and get rid of depressions and get rid of wars and we were highly idealistic group now many of these kids still are you find many of the same ones that are out there parading for civil rights are also parading against War they feel very strongly there are a lot of others I'm afraid that are out there parading against the war just hoping it'll stop so they won't have to go this is a different kind of idealism and I think we have both kind and they get pretty badly mixed up I feel basically that there's no real real end uh brought about by them that there are other methods of getting the same thing done probably with a lot less fuss and a lot less energy and have it done a lot better some people have indicated that this is not a healthy way to solve a problem there are other ways to solve them however I feel that this is one of the ways which is healthy and which is legitimate within our society and when it becomes necessary to demonstrate we demonstrate as an exercise of our free speech Yes I think it's sort of a back back doorway of getting into a matter which the grown-ups wouldn't let him get into I think it's um I think it's a good uh method or a good way to get into something they won't let you do it and people must look at you and don't recognize you and I don't think it's just a question of youthful Rebellion I think that youth are prominent in this and I think this is a very positive sign and it shows that youth today are more concerned about the world affairs than they were during the McCarthy period of a few years ago in the teen years and in young adulthood there's a great desire to put some of your ideals and put some of your desires into action and these are good ways to direct activity I think they say in essence that you must live in relation to your fellow man in a different way than your parents and your grandparents have that you must get along together that the world simply cannot survive with so much conflict in the kinds of differences that humans have we have to learn acceptance again they're ready for action and I think there is a ripeness at this time particularly in this generation of you to do something about the very things that we've talked about for so long and done so little about what are the outstanding problems confronting the youth in our culture well there are many kinds of problems I think that face you today one of them is the unrest in the world I think gives a Paramount problem that there is great concern about war partly because it gives them a dim view of the future that they wonder if there is a future for them and this creates a pessimism that's very destructive to them as it is to all of us do sensitive kids really have any idea of how complex the world is to us adults yes I think they're very sensitive to this but I do think that they expect adults to be able to cope with it and when they find adults camp they're disappointed in them youth are dissatisfied in seeing the unhappiness and so many of the adults that they want to see a world changed for themselves and for their children in the future they may well be the most idealistic crop of youngsters this nation has Ever Raised the Peace Corps appealing to the kind of dedication and high purpose the church has always called for brings an overwhelming response Don Coleman Peace Corps volunteer recently returned from Guatemala what was your reaction to what you saw in Guatemala whereas your first reaction is one of shock you're you see a situation so completely different than anything that you've seen now I had lived in Mexico during one Summer and the shock wasn't as great for me as it was for some others you see homes with dirt floors you see one room homes you see your first impression as well I'm simply human you know what can I do to change something that's been going on this way for 1200 years how do you change something that has been static in this respect and it can be quite an overwhelming experience to experience this sort of thing and then eventually you come to the realization that you can't do a great deal materially but you work and do with what you can I think the intangible are by far the more important aspects of Your Peace Corps work you go to a country as a stranger having been brought up in this culture you're exposed to something completely different you're a freak for at least half of the time you're in Guatemala or in whatever country you might be in yet finally the people who come to know you as an individual as flesh and Bone just as they are you come to know them as the same a great deal of the prejudices that you've had against people from anywhere break down very rapidly because you work with these people you've got to know them as friends do you feel that you had to sacrifice to be in the Peace Corps the one thing I never adjusted to my great sacrifice was shaving in cold water I never could get used to having to get up in the morning heat the water or shave in cold water but this is what it amounts to you uh you don't think of this in terms of sacrifice because you're there for too many other things there's too many involvements and it's just not that difficult you think that part of the playing up the element of sacrifice is a kind of a hangover of the adult attitudes yes very much because the questions that you get when you come home are not the pertinent questions you are not asked how these people think you are not asked this you are asked well how did you have to live didn't you have electricity and they're horrified that you couldn't have taken your electric toothbrush with you thank you [Applause] [Music] the idealism of American Youth has to withstand a constant barrage of messages from the mass media and advertising which have mounted an all-out attack to turn youth into consumers do you use the right toothpaste the right deodorant hairspray eyeshadow do you buy the right records do you have sex appeal do your clothes do the most for you do you have to fight off the girls do you see the right movies read the right magazines drink the right drinks are you having enough fun kitties why all this interest in their welfare because young people have over 14 billion dollars a year to spend because nearly half the population is under 25 years of age and everybody wants a piece of the action [Music] well I think the mass media has had a tremendous impact upon youths attitudes and feelings I mean there was a time when the home and the school and the church had pretty much of a monopoly on what kids thought was right and wrong and what was good and bad and so on and then the the mass media began to influence the Earth and I think particularly of romantic movies I watched in a movie the other night and it was adult only and this absolutely means nothing that just attracts the teenagers and I hadn't seen anything I hadn't seen before and I knew it was wrong I mean it wasn't that I was going to go do it myself and I knew it was wrong and I've learned this through my church and through my family life dude I was at a motion picture the other night where quite a few things went on and things I knew existed but I was sort of surprised to actually have seen him in the film and they do influence you they don't because you see something it's not a monkey see monkey do type of thing where you see a film and you think okay let's go this type of thing it's not that it's that the movies show what the child thinks to be true or the kid needs to be true you'll see them on Lovers Lane and you think well I wonder if it was on the home or an apartment and then you can see the movie where it does so it tends to prove what a youth May suspect Dr Eckert we've heard that today's youth are very sophisticated about sex is this true well I would say they're very sophisticated in talking about it a college dean recently and introducing me said that very just wouldn't have been talk sex wouldn't have been talked about 20 years ago when he was on campus now he understood they didn't talk about much of anything else I think our whole culture is preoccupied with sex at least Rallo May one of our outstanding psychiatrists and said that our culture is more preoccupied with sex than any since ancient Rome you think that a lot of modern magazines and Motion Pictures really exploit the sex curiosity of young people to make money yes I do I think magazines and advertising and most Motion Pictures put the wrong emphasis on sex they they put instead of something beautiful like it was meant to be and something really great and wonderful it's inside marriage they they put it like some cheap thing that's to be had by anybody at any time anytime they feel that the need how do you feel about that I feel even stronger than this to go back to a previous question I think that just teaching the facts of sex is a little late no matter when we would start in school I know that I had a sophisticated attitude towards sex by the time I was in the fifth grade and in the eighth grade when I finally came to a position of getting some sort of sex education it only gave me clean names to put to all the dirty terminology that I'd already learned and just sophisticated my language rather than my morals I think that Hollywood has exploited it uh to the point where it makes sex an end in itself in a way of life that whereas the Victorian culture tended to glorify love without sex our culture seems bent on glorifying sex without involvement what have you found a way of problems created by this attitude well of course the the problem of introducing sex into a relationship that would otherwise be let's say a casual boy girl friendship tends to put great pressure on the relationship uh in other words when they enter into a sexual relationship there's a tendency almost immediately for the girl to to have an increased pressure toward marriage in other words they usually don't get involved with a boy unless they like the boy very much and and do this really to please him sex doesn't mean that much by and large to most girls and then unfortunately the just the opposite seems to happen to boy that is as they get involved sexually their drive toward marriage seems to be decreased in other words they are meeting part of their sexual needs outside of marriage why rush into marriage and assume all the responsibilities of marriage you don't have to and so unconsciously they sort of say what's a hurry and then the girl begins to wonder well does he really love me or am I just being a sap and apparently the boy sometimes begins to wonder do I really love her or is she just a sap and unfortunately the the young people either even from going steady to becoming sexually involved they never want to break the relationship at the same time and so whichever one breaks the relationship and it can be either way the other tends to feel rejected and hurt and I have within the last few months counseled with both boys and the girls who have threatened or tried suicide parents what can they do in all of this fathers who have good relationship with their daughters it's one of the finest things they can give them in terms of protect them against cheap values and against falling for boys just to prove that they are uh lovable women I mean the father constantly reassures his daughter that she is an attractive person and she doesn't have to settle for anything but the best you see uh and he shows by his attitude and feelings that he thinks she is this the kind of girl who's very secure she isn't the girl who has to accept the first date that comes along or the first offer of marriage it comes along or get involved sexually for fear of losing a boy or something of the sort you see because she has a feeling that she has been able to please a man she can please men well my parents have given me direction and it's mainly from I think being with the children and doing things with them it's not necessarily sitting around every night and singing songs and playing cards or something like that but I do think that it's from having fun together and working as a group it's all too easy in the midst of The Swinging world of Youth to think they just want to be left to themselves the fact is they never needed or wanted adult help more than they do today their plea for help is sometimes as demanding as an ultimatum sometimes it sounds like a child's cry for love I think that the adults don't give the children enough um enough guys to go by and they don't give them enough assurance and uh they just don't help them out enough children aren't so concerned with how much money their parents make as the love that they can provide for their children it seems that that parents are not taking enough interest in them they're they let them do what they want and you can't do this at this age you have to they have to have some kind of guidance I think that somebody along the line has got to give the teenager some direction I know that if somebody had told me in high school I would have appreciated but everybody said think for yourself at a time when I was unable to think for myself well I think the problem is that the lines now between Youth and adulthood frequently have become blurred youth is striving to know where they are who they are and adults seem in many instances are beginning to lose their own identity as adults it's just as important for adults to be adult as it is for you to be you parents uh hardly know what to do you see they're confronted with the pressures of the culture and they don't want their kids to be oddball foreign there is a violent side to the world of Youth police are amazed by the cruel Ingenuity of some of the weapons they take from juveniles this piece of innocent looking pipe fires a 12-gauge shotgun shell youthful violence gets the headlines it sells papers but it doesn't tell us much about the majority of the nation's young people it does suggest however that without adult concern and adult responsibility a simple thing like growing up can turn into a grim battle for survival yet when adults do try to exert some Authority they often meet resistance and they wonder why I think one of the problems is the phoniness of adults I had a young person say the other day my parents tell me not to lie I sit at home and hear them lie on the telephone some often young people don't think that adults really have ideals they think we're rather cynical or that we have surrendered idealism and I think many teenagers of today blame their parents for their own thoughts I don't think everything a teenager or a child does wrong should be blamed on the parent this is strictly an individual process well a large number of things that gripe me I could symbolize them by saying that I don't care for things like aluminum Christmas trees which are false I don't care for tracked houses that all look alike don't allow individuals to be individuals that cause people to feel that they must be the same as everybody else that cause people not to be real to be honest to be human in other words you think that phoniness then shows up in many aspects of the adult world sure does if you can't trust an adult on something as basic as sex which is is something that's quite common you how should you know how to trust them on civil rights human relations or any other facet of life well adults really do funny things and I think youth the Adolescent age particularly see through the foaminess that they are moving out of childhood into adulthood so they're scrutinizing what adults do very carefully and they see some of the inconsistencies in what adults preach or say and what they do and they're quick to point this out Reverend Savage what do you feel the church's role with respect to youth should be oh there are many parts of that role that ought to be considered but I think one is to listen to the young people hear what they're saying because we're in the midst of a social Revolution and young people are looking for solutions to it when you're in church you're very reverent when you get out of church then the same attitudes come right back again it doesn't it's not a real thing it gives you something to think about it shows the opposite side yet it isn't a real deep influence I don't feel on the Youth of today in my case I'm a Christian and I go to God for my morality and I believe he said a Divine standard and if you follow it you'll be much happier religion sets my morals and I keep them not because I'm afraid of God but because I realize that what he has planned is the best and ultimately I will become more happy if I follow his way I think the family in the church here has a lot to do they are the ones who form the basic morals that the child is able to grow on and to to use in his own way church is not relevant when you say the church in general I think there are some congregations that are making breakthroughs but too often the church is maintaining a status quo it's saying to the young people Look Backwards hold on to tradition young people are looking for a purpose in life someday we'll have push button gadgets so they can't find meaning in their work they'll have to find it in their recreation in their homes in their marriages and their families I think the church is uh opening to these channels but it needs to do more to listen to the young people to permit them to Rebel within the church rather than outside it to help them to seek the will of God today and and to be relevant to today and therefore there are just a lot of of kids that are wandering around looking for a reason to exist and many of them even within the church where Christ should be the very center of their heart and their life and their direction or the real Christ occentric approach to life many of them are are still confused at this point of how to tie this into everyday life and in school and their work and their dating and all of these other things and this to me is the great job of the church today is to try in all of this crisis condition uh society in which we live to have young people find real meaning in real Direction with their feet on the ground being able to face life as it comes whatever that might be whether it's the bomb or or whether the bomb never comes or whatever it is that they can handle what it comes knowing that that Christ is Lord that God is Creator and sustainer and that that we are his we've been asking what today's young people want and need perhaps now it's clear that most of them want adults to drop their pretensions and to level with them on every relationship and life whether it be ethics morality or faith today's Youth Challenge every thinking Christian to take another look at the example he sets they challenge the church to examine itself to ask whether it's enough just to have the answers of its gospel they force us to ask whether those answers do not have to be thoughtfully even painfully applied to the problems of Youth growing up in a rapidly changing world If Today We Begin the effort to give our youth the guidance the Integrity of belief and the uncompromising honesty they need perhaps tomorrow their own children will be better able to cope with a golden Calamity of Being Young [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]