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PARTISAN REVIEW
pathetic confidences might well feel some responsibility to offer judgments
from a mature perspective where there is no one else to do so. But then
there would be no book, or perhaps one of a different kind.
The best of the "moms" are there after school to provide a sense of
security. The "dads" coach their sons' sports teams. Such parents are cer–
tainly at least what Winnicott calls "good enough" parents. No parents can
be called upon to provide more than stability, affection, a sense of direc–
tion. But something is still missing. Hersch, like so many others, thinks
"society" isn't doing its job with respect to the needs of adolescents. Now
what can this mean? Just how can "society" serve "the needs of develop–
ing adolescents"? I can think of only one way: through schooling. Hersch
thinks so too. She wants schools to pay more attention to the emotional
needs of teenagers, to provide more extracurricular activities, more of a
social life, that will keep them off the streets and presumably out of each
others' beds.
Nowhere, for all the talk about school, is there the faintest echo of an
interest in the life of the mind. School for the good students among them
is about getting good grades so you can get into a "good" college, prefer–
ably on an athletic scholarship, but nowhere in the course of 375 pages is
there a word about history, poetry, myth, about anything learned for its
own sake, about a window opened on the world of civilization, the origins
of the universe, the wonders that have been wrought with the English lan–
guage so pathetically impoverished in the discourse of these young people.
They hope to major in subjects like "communication" and " business
administration." When a line of poetry is quoted it's from a pop or folk
song. They haven't fallen in love with any books, don't talk about favorite
authors, never seem to suspect there are experiences beyond the familiar
and mundane. (The exception is a young man who is reluctant to fit in to
his suburban world of home and school, preferring to spend time alone in
the wilderness. At first one thinks he may be right to disdain the lacklus–
ter existence offered him; later one finds he is a schizophrenic who
eventually commits suicide.)
These young people are as ignorant of the culture, traditions, and insti–
tutions of which they are the inheritors as the barbarians were of the world
of the Greeks. Either that, or Hersch is not telling us something about their
lives; but one doubts it. There is nothing at all in this book to suggest there
is an intellectual purpose to their schooling or that the author even notices
it is missing. In this regard she is a perfect voice for the point of view that
characterizes the present system for educating America's young. They
should be given encouragement to think well of themselves and should be
helped to keep out of trouble. They should learn to get along with all
kinds of people. And they should all come out fairly equal in the end.
