596
JEREMY LARNER
sororities, clubs, etc., which have nothing to do with approaching
adulthood but everything to do with preserving the sanctity of the
child. Here are all the games and rites of Tom Sawyer
&
Co. solemn–
ly enacted by people who have enjoyed physical maturity for two to
six years. The result is a deliberately cut-off and enclosed Youth
Culture, which as a matter of principle has nothing to do with the
society that supports it. And indeed, why should our college students
show any concern for contemporary social problems, when they can
tell from the aura of approval that surrounds them that they play an
indespensable role in our society by reason of their very existence?
For the fact is that-with the exception of a small, Dean-plaguing
minority-American college youth is the purest-yet embodiment of
our National Dream: a leisure class involved with nothing but Having
Fun. Small wonder that once out of school the jealous alumnus fights
all his life to get back to the same position.
And, it seems, to the same family. For the Youth family is in
many respects merely an improved version of the family that Daddy
has created in the suburbs. The nice thing about the Youth family is
that Mommy
&
Daddy have been eliminated: there is no pressure to
put content into your parents' lives or to justify the unasked-for
sacrifices they have made for you. There is simply a group of peers,
your honorary brothers and sisters, who value you as an individual
and give you a role to play-even
if
only so that you can do the same
in turn for them. They are not judging you, nor do they have any
stake in your adult achievement: they ,are willing to love you for
your image alone.
But in our society every silver lining has its cloud of guilt, and
even our young adventurers are not unconscious of the crisis which
cannot be indefinitely postponed. For they are mindful of Daddy,
mindful of graduation, harrassed by exams and classes-all warning
that good things must come to an end and when they do one is ex–
pected to pay for them. How easy it is, then, to surrender to the
identification that Salinger offers: to become an honorary member
of his Glass family, where not only are you loved for yourself alone
but where each of your loving brothers and sisters is a brilliant and
talented instance of one of your own (undeveloped) secret resources.
To young adults born in the late thirties it is a dream-corne-true mere–
ly to have many brothers and sisters, rather than one or none. And
there are no pressures, expectations, demands in the Glass family–
oh, some rivalry and resentment, to be sure--but mainly the honorary
brother or sister finds himself vicariously surrounded by loving peers,
