Bois Locker Room: Why boys cannot always be boys
The descent into poor taste has taken years, but social media has pushed the adolescents into a permanent quarantine where no teacher or parent has access.
Developing a taste for the higher arts is supposedly a function of a good education. No one will deny it, and I am sure the principals of expensive public schools can easily use the theme for a good solid lecture in the morning assembly. As a word, ‘taste’ has mutated in the meanwhile. Instead of conveying a predisposition for the subtler pleasures associated with aesthetics, ‘taste’ now connotes forbidden pleasures that are now easy to access on-line. Gail Dines, an American crusader against pornography, has been campaigning for years across her country, telling schools and parent groups that once the young develop a taste for pornography, nothing may serve to stop them from cascading into an abyss of barbaric crudity and violence. Many consider this argument a remnant of old-time prudery, and many others feel that the matter is not worth worrying about.
Many half-truths
The recent revelation about a group of teenage boys, and perhaps girls too, using Instagram to send revolting messages and pictures reveals little that one might call new. Every now and then, news of this kind breaks out and invites predictable responses. Some respond by berating teachers, others blame the absence of sex education; the third set of respondents target upper-class parents who are so busy earning money that they have no time for their progeny. I am sure if you were looking for bits of truth, you could find them in all three. Eventually, you will feel that nothing much can be done since the situation is so stuck.
That has turned out to be true in the recent case as it occurred when the city is literally stuck on account of coronavirus. No one seems to care much about objectionable messaging by teenage boys, except the cyber police, of course, and they are looking into the story. The prestigious schools where these youngsters study are, I imagine, terribly busy offering on-line homework for the holidays.
Social media dilemma
The descent into poor taste has taken years, but social media has pushed the young into a permanent quarantine where no teacher or parent has access. Formation of a new kind of community was enabled by the internet. Only thinkers like Manual Castells noticed this and commented on the nature of the new community that promotes collectively guarded secrecy.
Adolescence was highly suited for this tendency to flourish. With the growth of high-capacity techno-devices like smartphones, it became impossible for adults to monitor what the young were doing to amuse themselves. More recently, TikTok and Instagram give a sharper edge to the moral adventurism that had found a firm niche right under the nose of principals and teachers. Many among them who wanted to say something were told to shut up, on the ground that it was pointless.
In the history of education, teachers have been the best friends of adolescents. They were the ones who knew how to ‘handle’ strange, often nasty behaviours germane to adolescence. Their role became especially crucial in our times when both parents have an active working life. Schools, however, did not recognise this role, and the upper-end private schools were especially indifferent in giving credit to their teachers for playing this role. Eminent principal, Dev Lahiri, showed in his posthumously published book, The Great School Bazaar, how the commercialisation of education marginalised the teacher.
The perils of freedom
In the new ethos in which commercialised education thrives, children are left to be nurtured by techno-gimmicks and coaching centres. In a week the story of virtual locker room chat will be forgotten. Between the police and the lawyers, the sexual fantasies saturated by violent thoughts and references to objectified girls will be suitably explained away. The schools where these boys were enrolled have the postponed board exams to focus on. They had little time or room in their purposive curriculum to cultivate better taste in their wards.
We can be sure they all have libraries and art programmes, but all those services were supposed to serve ancillary roles. The key note was success and aesthetic experiences or literary habits don’t offer the kind of success today’s parents demand. Unlimited access to the new technology of personal pleasure is now written into the code of desirable upbringing. Curbs are anathema. It is hardly surprising that the Covid-19 curbs proved so hard on these boys that barbaric fantasies alone could give relief.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)