Word: youthe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Adolescence can be a trying time -- particularly for the teenage boy. He is exultantly proud of his newfound sense of masculinity, but his body, alas, remains an embarrassment. Where are those flauntable biceps and triceps? Earlier generations of frustrated youth sought salvation in Charles Atlas' body-building exercises or strenuous programs of pumping iron. Many of today's teens, however, are subscribing to an ominously simpler solution. Explains Dr. Robert Willix Jr. of Fort Lauderdale: "Before, the 97-lb. weakling on the beach turned to weight lifting. Now he turns to steroids...
...most the new confidence seems only to be centered in the self, and only secondarily in the system. We have become introspective; a nation of ones under God. This is nowhere more apparent than in the youth that has come of age in this decade--even the community minded among them are often preoccupied with personal appearance and success...
...most popular ideologies of youth--punk negativism, resurgent capitalism, and new age intuitionism--all are inward-looking philosophies, aspects of a narcissistic time. Reagan's impermeable sheen, his success through avoiding responsiblity for anything, has become something to strive...
...particular, all youth is mad about appearance. For some, it is the designer labels, for others, a flashy neoprimitivism, and of course, the punk hair and fashion styles (somewhat muted) have diffused to become fixtures of a generation whose members feel compelled to make "statements" with green hair, polo players, crystals, and motorcycle boots, even unto the "artful" ripping of jeans--a message that bespeaks both bodily obsession and an obscene consumerism...
...look at Reagan's proposals a little bit closer, we see them for the useless rhetorical exercises they really are. In calling for parents to teach their children an "unambivalent appreciation of America," Reagan suggested today's youth ought to learn more about the American soldiers who bombed Tokyo and stormed the Normandy beaches...