This is a little bit tangential, but I’m curious if anyone knows of sociology/anthropology of de facto initiation rites (or processes that serve the same functions as initiation rites) in Western cultures that mostly lack explicit initiation rites. What are the processes that really make people into “Western adults”, if one supposes that to some extent initiation rites make people into “traditional adults”? A theory of mine is that the harrowing (but basically safe) experiences of traditional initiation rites, intentionally done as part of some plan by the adults of the culture, are replaced by the random, impersonal processes and accidents, some just as or more harrowing, and more dangerous, that occur when people are left to their own devices in a world that doesn’t directly guide them to adulthood. In the former (traditional) case, you learn “I am an adult, part of a pattern and a community, in which I have responsibilities”, in the latter (modern) case “I am an adult, liable to be betrayed out of nowhere, there is no pattern and I’m lucky to find kin, and I am responsible”.
Also interested in research that might exist about the common passage in adulthood from idealistic to pragmatic (an extreme “myth” of this being in the novel 1984, where through undergoing pain and psychological force someone learns to “love” the status quo).
Fraternities and sororities do hazing in a way that’s closest to the rituals described in the books (and the warm welcome to the group afterward).
My impression is that the passage into adulthood is quicker and more definitive in traditional societies. In my circle, you might graduate high school and leave home, which is the biggest change, then college is sort of a transitional stage where you’re fed and housed communally on someone else’s dime, then you transition to working and finding your own place to live some years later, and then maybe establishing your own family some years after that. All of which gives us more freedom—of what to study, where to live, what kind of work to do, whether and whom to marry—than we would have had in villages where that was all pretty much settled by age 20.
I guess the idea is that we prolong childhood/adolescence but direct it or protect it less. This can mean “a fulfilled, self-directed 20s and 30s and beyond”, with runway in becoming yourself, or “a nightmare of bad decisions and unlucky circumstances that you have to pay for for years, inhibiting your freedom”.
Building agency (the ability to secure your own well-being or liberty) is important, and supporting people in their development of agency might best be done by saying “You are supported, be good at interdependence, not independence.” (And then providing them good people with whom to be interdependent.) People need to make their mistakes in order to develop agency, but social and physical environments that are less dangerous foster that without injuring or killing people, and more supportive environments make injuries less serious so that they don’t get worse.
I think a “Western adult” is into independence more than interdependence, and so initiation into Western adulthood is “being thrown to the wolves”. But “being thrown to the wolves” is the name for when the initiation takes its bleak form, and there’s probably a different name people would use when the process goes more or less smoothly and successfully.
This is a little bit tangential, but I’m curious if anyone knows of sociology/anthropology of de facto initiation rites (or processes that serve the same functions as initiation rites) in Western cultures that mostly lack explicit initiation rites. What are the processes that really make people into “Western adults”, if one supposes that to some extent initiation rites make people into “traditional adults”? A theory of mine is that the harrowing (but basically safe) experiences of traditional initiation rites, intentionally done as part of some plan by the adults of the culture, are replaced by the random, impersonal processes and accidents, some just as or more harrowing, and more dangerous, that occur when people are left to their own devices in a world that doesn’t directly guide them to adulthood. In the former (traditional) case, you learn “I am an adult, part of a pattern and a community, in which I have responsibilities”, in the latter (modern) case “I am an adult, liable to be betrayed out of nowhere, there is no pattern and I’m lucky to find kin, and I am responsible”.
Also interested in research that might exist about the common passage in adulthood from idealistic to pragmatic (an extreme “myth” of this being in the novel 1984, where through undergoing pain and psychological force someone learns to “love” the status quo).
Fraternities and sororities do hazing in a way that’s closest to the rituals described in the books (and the warm welcome to the group afterward).
My impression is that the passage into adulthood is quicker and more definitive in traditional societies. In my circle, you might graduate high school and leave home, which is the biggest change, then college is sort of a transitional stage where you’re fed and housed communally on someone else’s dime, then you transition to working and finding your own place to live some years later, and then maybe establishing your own family some years after that. All of which gives us more freedom—of what to study, where to live, what kind of work to do, whether and whom to marry—than we would have had in villages where that was all pretty much settled by age 20.
I guess the idea is that we prolong childhood/adolescence but direct it or protect it less. This can mean “a fulfilled, self-directed 20s and 30s and beyond”, with runway in becoming yourself, or “a nightmare of bad decisions and unlucky circumstances that you have to pay for for years, inhibiting your freedom”.
Building agency (the ability to secure your own well-being or liberty) is important, and supporting people in their development of agency might best be done by saying “You are supported, be good at interdependence, not independence.” (And then providing them good people with whom to be interdependent.) People need to make their mistakes in order to develop agency, but social and physical environments that are less dangerous foster that without injuring or killing people, and more supportive environments make injuries less serious so that they don’t get worse.
I think a “Western adult” is into independence more than interdependence, and so initiation into Western adulthood is “being thrown to the wolves”. But “being thrown to the wolves” is the name for when the initiation takes its bleak form, and there’s probably a different name people would use when the process goes more or less smoothly and successfully.
Graduation ceremonies?
Another that comes to mind is basic training.