The article gives a description of informal youth associations currently operating in the Russian Federation, their features, classification, attributes and symbols, prerequisites for formation.
CONSULTATION FOR TEACHING WORKERS “INFORMAL YOUTH ASSOCIATIONS”
Shadrina N.G., methodologist
MBU DO "Center for Artistic Crafts"
Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region.
Today, when terrorism is becoming a threat to the whole world, when concern for the future of the younger generation is especially urgent, teachers need to be oriented in how children not only learn, but also spend their leisure time. It is good if the child attends additional education organizations or is included in the activities of official children's public associations. But very often, neither teachers nor parents notice how a teenager falls under the influence of informal youth structures and himself becomes an active participant in an informal association.
In our country there are tens of thousands of informal youth associations of various directions, the activities of which are impossible to monitor. The attitude towards informal youth associations is ambiguous. Much is said and written about the attributes of the street subculture, about the risk that this very subculture poses for the morality and lives of children, and advice is given on how to interact with informal youth associations. Almost all existing informal teenage and youth associations (with the exception of radicals) can be classified as leisure, that is, focused on free time.
Leisure is time free from professional employment and household responsibilities. The life of young people is organized mainly around leisure. To a large extent, the forms of such leisure are determined by the cultural potential of adolescents and young people.
The great potential for using amateur associations for the purpose of civic development of young people is evidenced by the fact that in practice they sometimes quite successfully participate in the social rehabilitation of the so-called “difficult”, including representatives of spontaneous teenage and youth groups. A very important conclusion is that with the right influence, informal associations are a kind of school of social creativity for a young person, due to the possibility of a systematic educational influence on the individual. At the same time, they contribute to the development of collectivism and the formation of a socio-psychological community of people. Finally, participation in associations provides an additional opportunity for personal self-realization. This is especially important for those young people who, for various reasons, do not have such an opportunity at school, that is, with the correct organization of work with informal associations, we can in some cases talk about the compensatory function of such associations. Children are constantly looking for ways to satisfy their needs.
The ability to cooperate with informal associations presupposes, first of all, the ability to find an accurate measure of one’s activity in relation to the participants of these associations. D.V. Olshansky offers the following formula for informal cooperation: “Understand - help - do not interfere.” When working with informal associations, the main cause of conflicts between teachers and informal groups is basic ignorance of the subject of youth hobbies, incompetence and disinterest.
Informal youth association- a unique cultural movement, including a large number of young people, existing for several decades, often having an international character.
Informal associations for children there is a way of free self-expression, unlimited manifestation of initiative and uncontrolled (by adults) communication. They can take on larger or smaller quantitative dimensions, have the character of an unhealthy epidemic, and have both socially significant or indifferent, as well as asocial goals. The orientation of informal youth associations is represented by a wide spectrum: from clearly asocial groups to completely harmless and law-abiding ones. Various informal youth associations have their own ideology, specifics of typical activities, symbols of clothing, slang, etc. Informal youth associations should be distinguished from such related entities as an informal group, an informal group and an informal organization.
Informal group- a group whose activity is determined primarily by the activity of its members, and not by instructions from any authority. Informal groups play an important role in the lives of children, adolescents and young people, satisfy their informational, emotional and social needs: they provide the opportunity to learn things that are not so easy to talk about with adults, provide psychological comfort, and teach them how to fulfill social roles. As noted by V.V. Voronov, the less a student is involved in official structures, the more he strives to join “his company,” which indicates the need for developmental contacts and recognition of the value of his personality. Typically an informal group numbers from 3-5 to several dozen people. The contacts of its members are of a clearly personal nature. This group does not always have a clear organization; more often the order is based on tradition, respect and authority. The factors of its cohesion are the sympathies, habits, and interests of its members. It has one or more informal leaders. The main form of activity is communication between group members, which satisfies the need for psychological contact. As a rule, schoolchildren communicate in small contact groups of 5-10 people, often consider themselves to be supporters of one movement or another, which are characterized by different characteristics: age and social affiliation, form of organization, orientation.
So, according to the orientation of the groups there are prosocial, asocial, antisocial. Prosocial groups are characterized by socially approved activities, for example, participation in solving environmental problems, protecting monuments, etc. Asocial groups stand aloof from social problems. They are characterized by the presence of a more or less clearly expressed motive for gathering: to drink alcohol, sort out relations with a neighboring group, etc. Antisocial are criminal, aggressive nationalist groups. A particular social danger is posed by the obvious growth of nationalist youth and teenage organizations - either informal or hiding behind the guise of “patriotic” activities. Belonging to one or another informal group is often an obligatory element of the socialization process in adolescence. It is by joining one or another peer group that a teenager has the opportunity to master models of interpersonal communication and “try on” various social roles. It is well known that children, adolescents and young people, for various reasons, who did not have the opportunity to constantly communicate with peers (disability, psychological personality characteristics, living in a place remote from people, etc.), later in life experience difficulties in starting a family , in relationships with co-workers, intrapersonal problems, etc. According to V.D. Ermakov, the majority of members of informal associations, in contrast to their peers who are not members of such associations, are characterized by maturity in social terms. They are less susceptible to youthful infantilism, independently determine the truth of social values, are more flexible in their behavior in conflict situations, and have a strong-willed character. The process of the overwhelming majority of adolescents entering one or another informal youth group is a process of consistent satisfaction of basic human needs: the needs for self-affirmation, communication and self-realization. The informal communication environment is sometimes the only area of socialization for a teenager (especially for a teenager at risk). Often, having difficult relationships in the family or not regularly attending any out-of-school institution, a teenager is forced to join one or another group (cluster), automatically accepting its system of norms and values, which is not always socially positive. For a very large number of adolescents, the value orientations and moral principles preached by the reference significant group are personally significant, and this significance far exceeds “family” and “school” norms and values in the adolescent’s mind. This largely explains the low effectiveness of educational measures on a difficult teenager: in his mind, the negative action he has committed is not such, since it is approved from the point of view of the reference group (for example, rudeness towards a teacher at school is not regarded by him as a violation of norms behavior, but as a feat that will be supported and approved by peers). Informal associations influence the socialization of adolescents and young people depending on their composition, orientation, leadership style, and most importantly, on the degree of significance for one or another of their members.
I.P. Bashkatov identifies four types of informal associations.
I type: socially neutral (mischievous) communication groups. The main types of these groups are self-emerging “mischievous” groups of children and adolescents, formed according to the house, yard or street principle at the place of residence. The main goal of these groups is to satisfy the need for intimate and personal communication with peers, most often expressed in games, in conversations about anything. A characteristic feature of these groups is that the relationships between adolescents in them are not actually mediated by joint activities. There is no preparation for group activities. Immoral actions and misdeeds are committed by individual members suddenly on the initiative of the most mobile and active members of a spontaneously emerging group. There is no intra-group structure either. Interests, norms and values exist only at the personal level and can be both positive and negative. The general direction of activity and communication in these groups is socially neutral, with a tendency to develop in an asocial direction. Much depends on the previous experience of each teenager, on his involvement in socially useful activities. It’s good if teenagers in such informal associations are included in positive socially significant activities, but if yard and street groups of teenagers find themselves outside the control of adults, schools and public organizations, and left to themselves, then we can confidently say that they will develop along criminogenic lines. ways.
II type: pre-criminal or asocial role model groups. These are asocial groups of teenagers and young men who were formed on the basis of an imitative interest in foreign rock music, “heavy metal” - a group of “metalheads”; technology - groups of “night motorcyclists-rockers”; politicized fashion - groups of "hippies", "punks", "blackshirts" and "brownshirts"; groups of sports fans - “fans” and others. The nature of their group activity is asocial and has an intimate and personal bias. The main thing for teenagers is to be noticed, to be distinguished from adults and peers. Therefore, everyone, to the best of their strength and capabilities, tries to stand out and attract attention: some with clothes, some with hairstyle, some with behavior, some with knowledge of technology, music, etc. Most often, their joint activities are of a hooligan nature, resulting in a violation of public order. Individual members of groups can commit more serious crimes: use, sale and storage of narcotic substances, theft of personal and state property, etc. But these crimes are not group crimes, since they are not committed by the entire group, but only by individual members. Behavior deviating from moral norms and an asocial orientation in outlook on life indicate that these groups are on the verge of illegal activities. If preventive measures aimed at preventing the emergence of pre-criminal groups are not taken in a timely manner, then they will soon develop into unstable criminal groups.
III type: unstable criminal or antisocial groups. The main types of these groups are groups of hooligans, thieves, rapists, tramps, drug addicts, substance abusers, etc. Utilitarian interests and inclinations, base needs of group members are satisfied in antisocial or criminal ways. Members of such groups already commit crimes in full force and immediately disintegrate. But over time, groups can meet again. The leader and the antisocial core of the group are clearly identified, around which the remaining members rally. The distribution of rights and responsibilities is noticeable. A characteristic type of activity is antisocial behavior and the commission of various crimes in order to satisfy base personal interests and needs. If unstable criminal groups are not identified in a timely manner and preventive measures of corrective labor and medical treatment are not applied to them, then they can develop into stable criminal groups.
IV type: persistent criminal or criminal groups. These are stable associations of teenagers, which, as a rule, are well organized. The successful commission of crimes is facilitated by the high preparedness of criminal groups for illegal actions. They show a clear organizational structure. The quantitative composition of stable criminal groups is more or less constant. A “guiding center” is identified - the leader, preferred and performers. These criminal groups have their own “laws,” norms and values, which are carefully hidden from others. Failure to comply with or violate these “laws” leads to the disintegration of the group, so violators are prosecuted and punished. In groups there is always a cruel dependence of members on each other, mutual responsibility. The activities of such a group are clearly negative and antisocial in nature.
There is a large number classifications of informal teenage and youth associations on various grounds. Currently, the most pressing issue in working with teenage groups is maintaining public peace and preventing crime. In this regard, the most acceptable classification is proposed by V.T. Lisovsky. Based on psychological and pedagogical criteria, adolescent formations are divided into antisocial and prosocial, asocial.
Under antisocial or delinquent(Latin “delinquo” - to commit an offense, to be guilty) behavior implies a chain of actions, offenses, minor offenses that differ from crime, that is, punishable in accordance with current legislation. The main features of this behavior are the commission of actions that are contrary to ethics and morality, irresponsibility, and disregard for laws and the rights of other people. In medicine, antisocial behavior is considered within the framework of “antisocial personality disorder.” Its signs appear already in childhood: lack of emotional attachment to parents and loved ones, lies, cruelty towards animals and weaker children, aggressiveness. Such children often get into fights, commit hooliganism, skip school, wander, and commit petty thefts. Antisocial teenagers are irritable, impulsive, prone to aggression, which is especially often manifested in the home (beating animals, younger peers, etc.).
TO prosocial include social assistance clubs, environmental, ethnic, historical and patriotic associations and other formations.
Of the prosocial ones, from the point of view of public peace, only movements and formations that implement prosocial activities in extremist forms are of interest.
Youth movements and formations are also divided in accordance with the existing social stratification, manifested both in inequality of material opportunities and in the nature of life plans, the level of aspirations and methods of their implementation. In terms of this division, the most representative movement among disadvantaged teenagers was the punks, and the most representative movement among middle-class teenagers was the rapper.
For the purposes of prevention and correction of antisocial behavior of adolescents, the most convenient classification was based on the questions aggressiveness and intellectuality formations.
Aggressive formations- those that pose a physical danger to the personal safety of citizens. Aggressive teenage groups are socially dangerous, but they do not have a specific independent goal - to “beat and rob” people.
Extremists (radicals) try to change the situation (really negative, or negative in their group understanding). Extremist (radical) organizations usually declare what they are fighting against and what legal and/or illegal methods they intend to use.
Extremist (radical) formations may or may not have an aggressive orientation.
For example, environmental extremists (contrary to the cliches propagated by feature films) are non-aggressive. They don't attack people on the street. At the same time, skinheads (skinheads) often combine the qualities of an aggressive movement and an extremist formation. There are also formations, such as “Satanists,” that are difficult to classify as aggressive or non-aggressive movements. A number of third sector youth groups (non-governmental organizations), such as, for example, the “greens,” also have their own specific subculture.
There are also radical and radical-criminal teenage and youth groups: skinheads (skinheads), mimics - devil worshipers; political radicals: “National Bolshevik Party” by E. Limonov, youth groups of RNE and the Freedom Party, which considers itself a youth organization.
For intellectualized protest movements are expressed in philosophy, social activity (both prosocial and antisocial) and a bohemian lifestyle. Moreover, the status of a teenager in the group hierarchy largely depends on these factors. For participants in other movements, status largely depends on physical strength and criminalization.
Prerequisites for the formation of informal youth groups
Childhood and adolescence are characterized by the appearance of such a property as emancipation. Emancipation is the desire to free oneself from leadership, guardianship, and to oppose oneself to one’s elders. In the case of psychological opposition to everything “elder,” family dysfunction and (or) a low level of intelligence, “freedom poisoning” can be complicated by antisocial behavior. The latter may include criminal activity, substance abuse, vagrancy and sexual promiscuity in various combinations.
Informal groups perform a number of important functions:
adapt the teenager to society;
assigned primary status;
facilitate the loss of ties with the parental home;
convey value ideas specific to adolescence and a given youth sociocultural layer;
satisfy the need for sexual contact.
The socio-psychological mechanism for the formation of informal youth associations is approximately the same and depends little on the direction of the association’s activities. And also from the sociocultural environment. In teenage protest movements, "protest" is usually expressed in the form marginalism and permissiveness(permissiveness). Marginalism - (from the Latin “margo”) - edge, line, that is, “beyond the line.” Marginalism is a bloodless social protest, expressed in an individual’s ignoring the requirements of official morality and the desire to escape the control of public institutions. Marginalism originated in the depths of the radical left. He condemns everything in the capitalist system - official culture, the cult of work and family despotism, conservative dogmas, the profit structures of multinational corporations, urbanism for slaves. Leaving society leads to the creation of one’s own subculture, one’s own norms of behavior, ethics and ethics. At the same time, the culture formed in the movement can have any specific characteristics (subculture), or be rebellious in nature, opposing itself to the generally accepted culture (counterculture). Permissiveness - from the English “permission” - permission.
Addiction. It is now emerging that for adolescents, when they do not have to express their position to adults, attitudes towards drug use range from neutral to poor. For them, this is not a crime, like for adults, but simply a bad act. At the same time, the category “trying a drug” is highlighted separately, in which using a drug one (first and last) time is often not considered at all as a condemned act.
The youth subculture develops on its own. Each subculture has its own stereotype of substance abuse. For example, hippies - supporters of “free love” - preferred hashish and hallucinogens to alcohol. “Punks,” along with alcoholism, are prone to drug abuse (tranquilizers, cyclodol). Connoisseurs of modern pop music are prone to using hallucinogens and psychostimulants. Fans of football teams abuse alcohol. There are movements such as acid ravers, for which certain drugs (LSD) are cultic, and their use and exchange of drug experiences are the main activity. In other youth movements, even with a harmless ideology (rappers, metalheads), drugs simply exist as a normal element of life.
Substance abuse is the consumption of toxic substances to achieve intoxication (close to alcohol). In the pre-perestroika period, gasoline addiction was widespread among teenagers coming from the working class. Subsequently, organochlorine solvents and stain removers (such as the SOPLS stain remover produced in the Baltics in the 70s based on carbon tetrachloride, the strongest liver poison), gained great popularity. Dichlorvos was occasionally used and added to beer. In the 90s, the most common types of inhalation toxins were Moment and Sprut glue. “Moment” was so popular among teenagers that it became part of the name given to child substance abusers: “momentists.” After 1998, when the manufacturer of Moment glue changed its recipe, removing toluene from the composition, Moment ceased to be of interest to substance abusers. They switched to Sprut, 88 and gasoline adhesives. Since 2001, the cream-paint for shoes “Karat” has become most widespread.
Sexual freedom. Around the world, ages between 14 and 16 years are sexually active. Adolescent hypersexuality is a universal biological phenomenon. No restrictions can cope with it. 14-15 year old teenagers not only have clearly expressed sexual interests, but also take initiative in this regard. External manifestations of a teenager’s hypersexuality are expressed in behavior: rudeness, rudeness, obscene language, etc. Traditional pedagogy, as a rule, tries to distract a teenager from thoughts about sex. Most often, this comes down to carefully avoiding any questions related to gender issues, so as not to “arouse unhealthy interest” among teenagers. Sex education campaigns have been quite aggressive since the early 90s. It should be noted that all the functions of sexual education have now been taken over by the porn-sex industry, which does not recognize any moral or ethical restrictions at all. Schools and churches could seriously compete with it. Shifts that have occurred in the sphere of sexual and erotic values as a result of the “sexual revolution”: earlier sexual maturation and the awakening of erotic feelings in adolescents; earlier onset of sexual activity; social and moral acceptance of premarital sexuality and cohabitation; narrowing the sphere of the forbidden in culture and growing public interest in erotica; increased tolerance towards unusual, variant and deviant forms of sexuality, especially homosexuality (mainly among younger people - 18-24 years old); the widening gap between generations in sexual attitudes, values and behavior - much of what was completely unacceptable for parents is considered normal and natural by children.
Now it is difficult to predict in what directions the youth sexual revolution will develop. However, it is possible to assume: firstly, the decriminalization of pedophilia has already begun; those children and adolescents under 14 years of age no longer consider sexual relations with adults something terrible. And, although legally it will remain a criminal offense, we can expect a noticeable increase in pedophilia. Secondly, it is most likely that children themselves will attempt to enter into sexual relations at an even earlier age. For example,6 in Los Angeles there is the Rene-Gougnon Society, which operates under the motto: “Sex begins at 8 years old, otherwise it will be too late.” The purpose of this organization is to legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Thirdly, teenagers very often make the successful “new Russian” their ideal. At the same time, an idealized overall image of such a “new Russian” appears, which they are trying to imitate.
There is also a tendency to increase the popularity of sadomasochism with a focus on sadism. Sexual violence is gradually becoming the norm among young people. This has not yet found widespread acceptance. However, the mass scale of such violence within teenage groups is so great that the question of the “acceptability” of violence in one’s own environment is only a matter of time.
Symbols and attributes in youth informal associations
Attitude to any youth movement is understood by teenagers primarily as a sum of external signs, like fashion.
That is why participants in various youth movements attach such great importance to hairstyles, the cut of clothes and all kinds of decorations. Formation, starting with association, is visibly overgrown with attributes called “unification centers.” These are meeting places, characteristic details of appearance, symbolism, specific words and expressions, conventional signs - everything that, at the external level, distinguishes this formation from others.
Attributes are a means of communication and identification: visible (clothing, hairstyle, jewelry) or audible (language, music) signs serve a young person as a means of showing who he is and recognizing “their own.” In addition, it is a means of acquiring status in one’s environment: since the norms and values of a youth subculture are group ones, mastering them becomes mandatory and serves as a way of self-affirmation. Each youth subculture is characterized by its own specific set of attributes. Moreover, it is the combination of several attributes that shows the teenager’s attitude towards a specific movement.
For example, skinheads, despite the apparent (based on the name: skin - “skin” and head - “head”) obligatory presence of a shaved head, a “hedgehog” or any intermediate hairstyle is allowed. But the presence of light jeans or military pants, rolled up or tucked into high Dc combat boots. Martens (or similar) are a must.
A characteristic attribute of punk in the West - a comb of hair on the head with shaved temples - turned out to be little common among punks in Russia, and almost completely absent among underground punks. But our punks are easy to confuse with our not quite shaved skinheads. Here, distinctions are made based on the presence/absence of piercings. Skinheads in Russia (unlike their Western colleagues) ideologically do not accept piercings, including in the ears. Punks have a lot of piercings.
The symbols are usually specific symbols (logos, labels) of various rock groups, groups, public associations, political and non-political movements. The peculiarity of general youth paraphernalia is to indicate the difference from adults. Moreover, each age group of teenagers tries to form its own youth fashion, distinguishing it from the previous age group. This leads to very rapid dynamics of changes in generally accepted youth attributes for each specific period of time.
General youth paraphernalia actively absorbs traditional elements of the paraphernalia of youth subcultures. All this makes it difficult to clearly distinguish between representatives of informal movements and persons not related to them in terms of external characteristics.
Types and types of informal youth groups
There are a number of youth public organizations with a positive orientation. All of them have great educational opportunities, but recently the number of informal children's and youth associations of various orientations (political, economic, ideological, cultural) has sharply increased; among them there are many structures with a pronounced antisocial orientation.
In recent years, the now familiar word “informals” has flown into our speech and taken root in it. Perhaps it is here that the overwhelming majority of so-called youth problems are now accumulated.
Informals are those who break out of the formalized structures of our lives. They do not fit into the usual rules of behavior. They strive to live in accordance with their own, and not other people’s interests imposed from outside.
A feature of informal associations is the voluntariness of joining them and a stable interest in a specific goal or idea. The second feature of these groups is rivalry, which is based on the need for self-affirmation. A young man strives to do something better than others, to get ahead of even the people closest to him in something. This leads to the fact that within youth groups they are heterogeneous and consist of a large number of microgroups united on the basis of likes and dislikes.
They are very different - after all, the interests and needs for the sake of satisfying which they are drawn to each other are diverse, forming groups, trends, directions. Each such group has its own goals and objectives, sometimes even programs, unique “rules of membership” and moral codes.
There are some classifications of youth organizations according to their areas of activity and worldview.
Musical informal youth organizations.
The main goal of such youth organizations is to listen, study and distribute their favorite music.
Among the “musical” informals, the most famous organization of young people is metalheads. These are groups united by a common interest in listening to rock music (also called “Heavy Metal”). The most common groups playing rock music are Kiss, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Scorpions, and domestic ones - Aria, etc. Heavy metal rock contains: a hard rhythm of percussion instruments, colossal the power of the amplifiers and the solo improvisations of the performers that stand out against this background.
Another well-known youth organization tries to combine music with dance. This direction is called breakers (from the English break-dance - a special type of dance, including a variety of sports and acrobatic elements that constantly replace each other, interrupting the movement that has begun). There is another interpretation - in one of the meanings, break means “broken dance” or “dance on the pavement.” Informals of this movement are united by a selfless passion for dance, the desire to promote and demonstrate it in literally any situation.
These guys are practically not interested in politics; their discussions about social problems are superficial. They try to maintain good athletic shape, adhere to very strict rules: do not drink alcohol, do not drink drugs, and have a negative attitude towards smoking.
Beatlemaniacs also fall into the same category, a movement in whose ranks many parents and teachers of today’s teenagers once flocked. They are united by their love for the Beatles ensemble, its songs and its most famous members - Paul McCartney and John Lenon.
Informal organizations in sports.
The leading representatives of this trend are famous football fans. Having manifested themselves as a mass organized movement, the Spartak fans of 1977 became the founders of an informal movement that is now widespread around other football teams and around other sports. Today, in general, these are fairly well-organized groups, distinguished by serious internal discipline. The teenagers included in them, as a rule, are well versed in sports, in the history of football, and in many of its intricacies. Their leaders strongly condemn illegal behavior and oppose drunkenness, drugs and other negative phenomena, although such things do occur among fans. There are also cases of group hooliganism on the part of fans and hidden vandalism. These informals are armed quite militantly: wooden sticks, metal rods, rubber batons, metal chains, etc.
From the outside, fans are easy to spot. Sports caps in the colors of their favorite teams, jeans or tracksuits, T-shirts with the emblems of “their” clubs, sneakers, long scarves, badges, homemade posters wishing success to those they support. They are easily distinguished from each other by these accessories, gathering in front of the stadium, where they exchange information, news about sports, determine the signals by which they will chant slogans in support of their team, and develop plans for other actions.
Those who call themselves “night riders” are also close to sports informals in a number of ways. They are called rockers. Rockers are united by a love of technology and antisocial behavior. Their mandatory attributes are a motorcycle without a muffler and specific equipment: painted helmets, leather jackets, glasses, metal rivets, zippers. Rockers often caused traffic accidents that resulted in casualties. The attitude of public opinion towards them is almost definitely negative.
Philosophizing informal organizations.
Interest in philosophy is one of the most common in informal environments. This is probably natural: it is the desire to understand, to comprehend oneself and one’s place in the world around him that takes him beyond established ideas and pushes him to something different, sometimes alternative to the dominant philosophical scheme.
Hippies stand out among them. Outwardly, they are recognized by their sloppy clothes, long unkempt hair, and certain paraphernalia: the obligatory blue jeans, embroidered shirts, T-shirts with inscriptions and symbols, amulets, bracelets, chains, and sometimes crosses. The Beatles and especially their song “Strawberry Fields Forever” became the symbol of hippies for many years. The views of hippies are that a person should be free, first of all, internally, even in situations of external restriction and enslavement. To be liberated in the soul is the quintessence of their views. They believe that a person should strive for peace and free love. Hippies consider themselves romantics, living a natural life and despising the conventions of the “respectable life of the bourgeois”. Striving for complete freedom, they are prone to a kind of escape from life, evasion of many social responsibilities. Hippies use meditation, mysticism, and drugs as means to achieve “self-discovery.”
The new generation of those who share the philosophical quest of the hippies often calls themselves “the system” (system guys, peoplez, people). The “system” is an informal organization that does not have a clear structure, which includes people who share the goals of “renewing human relations” through kindness, tolerance, and love for one’s neighbor.
Hippies are divided into “old wave” and “pioneers”. If the old hippies (they are also called the old ones) mainly preached the ideas of social passivity and non-interference in public affairs, then the new generation is prone to fairly active social activities. Outwardly, they try to have a “Christian” appearance, to resemble Christ: they walk the streets barefoot, wear very long hair, are away from home for a long time, and spend the night in the open air.
The main principles of hippie ideology were human freedom. Freedom can be achieved only by changing the inner structure of the soul; drugs contribute to the liberation of the soul; the actions of an internally uninhibited person are determined by the desire to protect his freedom as the greatest treasure. Beauty and freedom are identical, their realization is a purely spiritual problem; everyone who shares what has been said forms a spiritual community; spiritual community is an ideal form of community life. In addition to Christian ideas. Among the “philosophizing” informals, Buddhist, Taoist and other ancient Eastern religious and philosophical teachings are also common.
Political informal organizations.
Neo-fascists (skinheads).
In the 20-30s of the 20th century, something appeared in Germany that killed millions of people, something that makes the current residents of Germany shudder and apologize for the sins of their ancestors to entire nations. The name of this monster is fascism, called by history the “brown plague.” What happened in the 30s and 40s is so monstrous and tragic that some of the young people sometimes even find it difficult to believe what those who lived in those years tell them.
More than 50 years have passed, and history has taken its new turn, and the time has come to repeat it. In many countries of the world, fascist youth organizations or so-called neo-fascists are appearing.
“Skinheads” were born in the mid-60s as a reaction of a certain part of the British working class to hippies and motorcycle rockers. Then they liked traditional work clothes, which were difficult to tear in a fight: black felt jackets and jeans. They cut their hair short so as not to interfere in fights.
By 1972, the fashion for “skinheads” began to wane, but unexpectedly revived 4 years later. A new round of development of this movement was indicated by already shaved heads, army boots and Nazi symbols. English “skinheads” began to get into fights more often with the police, fans of football clubs, fellow “skinheads”, students, homosexuals, and immigrants. In 1980, the National Front infiltrated their ranks, introducing neo-Nazi theory, ideology, anti-Semitism, racism, etc. into their movement. Crowds of “skinheads” with swastikas tattooed on their faces appeared on the streets, chanting “Sieg, Heil!”
Since the 70s, the uniform of the “skins” has remained unchanged: black and green jackets, nationalistic T-shirts, jeans with suspenders, an army belt with an iron buckle, heavy army boots (such as “GRINDERS” or “Dr. MARTENS”).
In almost all countries of the world, “skins” prefer abandoned places. There the “skinheads” meet, accept new sympathizers into the ranks of their organization, become imbued with nationalist ideas, and listen to music. The basic teachings of the “skins” are also indicated by inscriptions that are quite common in their habitats:
Russia is for russians! Moscow is for Muscovites!
Adolph Hitler. Mein Kampf.
“Skins” have a clear hierarchy. There is a “lower” echelon and a “higher” echelon – advanced “skins” with an excellent education. “Unadvanced skins” are mainly teenagers 16-19 years old. Any passer-by can be beaten half to death by them. There is no need for a reason to fight.
The situation is somewhat different with “advanced skinheads,” who are also called “right-wingers.” First of all, these are not just loose youth with nothing to do. This is a kind of “skinhead” elite - well-read, educated and mature people. The average age of “right-wing skins” is from 22 to 30 years. In their circles, thoughts about the purity of the Russian nation are constantly being circulated. In the thirties, Goebbels advanced the same ideas from the rostrum, but only they were talking about the Aryans.
Functions of youth organizations.
A conversation about the informal youth movement will not be complete without touching on the question of what functions amateur associations perform in the development of society.
First of all, the very layer of “informality” as an unregulated social activity will never disappear from the horizons of the development of the human community. The social organism needs a kind of life-giving nourishment, which does not allow the social fabric to dry out and becomes an impenetrable, immobilizing case for a person.
It is correct to assess the state of the informal youth movement as a kind of social symptomatology that helps to diagnose the entire social organism. Then the real picture of modern, as well as bygone, social life will be determined not only by the percentage of completion of production tasks, but also by how many children are abandoned by their parents, how many are in the hospital, committing crimes.
It is in the space of informal communication that a teenager’s primary, independent choice of his social environment and partner is possible. And instilling a culture of this choice is possible only in conditions of tolerance from adults. Intolerance, a tendency to expose and moralizing primitivize the youth environment, provoke teenagers to protest reactions, often with unpredictable consequences.
The most important function of the youth movement is to stimulate the germination of social fabric on the outskirts of the social organism. Youth initiatives become a conductor of social energy between local, regional, generational, etc. zones of public life and its center - the main socio-economic and political structures.
The influence of youth groups on the personality of a teenager.
Many of the informals are very extraordinary and talented people. They spend days and nights on the street, not knowing why. Nobody organizes or forces these young people to come here. They flock together on their own - all very different, and at the same time somehow elusively similar. Many of them, young and full of energy, often want to howl at night from melancholy and loneliness. Many of them lack faith in anything and therefore suffer from their own uselessness. And, trying to understand themselves, they go in search of the meaning of life and adventure in informal youth associations.
Why did they become informal?
Because the activities of official organizations in the field of leisure are uninteresting. 1/5 – because official institutions do not help in their interests. 7% - because their hobbies are not approved by society.
It is generally accepted that the main thing for teenagers in informal groups is the opportunity to relax and spend free time. From a sociological point of view, this is wrong: “bullshit” is one of the last places on the list of what attracts young people to informal associations - only a little more than 7% say this. About 15% find an opportunity to communicate with like-minded people in an informal environment. For 11%, the most important thing is the conditions for developing their abilities that arise in informal groups.
Features of the psychology of informality.
The psychology of informality includes many components. The desire to be yourself is only the first of them.This is precisely the desire in the absence of the ability to be oneself. The teenager is preoccupied with finding the meaning of “I,” separating the “true” self from the “untrue” self, determining his purpose in life—he persistently takes him on the path of searching for something unusual. And identifying this unusual thing is very simple. If adults don’t prohibit it, it’s a common thing and therefore boring. If they prohibit it, here it is, that same sweet fruit.
The second component of the psychology of informality is the emergence and maintenance. He begins to imitate, without even noticing that his masquerade is gradually becoming commonplace. Origin and maintenance make it easier to isolate from the environment - only the first ones have to puzzle. The rest, like an obedient herd, follow.
The third term is the herd instinct.It seems like a group only in appearance. Deeply, psychologically, this is herd behavior. And even if the desire to stand out, to gain autonomy and independence is of an individual nature, it is difficult to stand out alone. And in a heap it’s easier. Infection and imitation, layered on the individualistic desire to stand out, distorts the purpose for which the teenager takes informal actions, and ultimately does not single out, but dissolves the teenager in a crowd of his own kind. The vast majority of informal groups are based not on conscious unity - this rarely happens among teenagers - but on the similarity of loneliness of its members.
An indispensable attribute of almost any herd and at the same time another component of the psychology of this type is the presence of competitors, opponents, ill-wishers and even enemies. Almost anyone can become them: teenagers from the neighboring yard, and fans of other music, and just adults. The same separation and isolation are at work here, but not at the individual, but at the group level. Disagreeing with the adult world, the teenager joins an informal group, and his spontaneous protest begins to spread to other informals. There can be a lot of “enemies”. Maintaining the image of the enemy is one of the conditions for the existence of such groups.
The psychology of informality is by its nature dual, active-reactive in nature. On the one hand, this is in many ways a natural outburst of youthful energy. On the other hand, we ourselves often provoke this energy to be directed in a negative direction. By prohibiting even what is useful and beneficial to society, we confuse them and push them to blind protest in clearly negative forms.
Another feature is inflated claims. This is the same “consumerism” that is so often blamed on young people. Publicity and openness make it possible to compare our life with the West, and then loudly express the results of this comparison, which is absurd for us.
Senior teacher of the 6th company of Suvorov students of the UGSVU P. Skvortsov
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Situational ethics
1. Youth subculture: moral problems
2. Types and types of informal youth groups.
3. Ethical issues of virtual reality
Situational ethics – set of moral problems, arising in certain life situations, as well as possible options rules and regulations their solutions do not pretend to provide unambiguous answers, especially since they may not exist. Situational ethics “reveals” these problems, leaving them “open”. Problems can be of a very different nature, determined by time parameters, for example, modern moral problems that have arisen recently in connection with the widespread use of computers; or moral problems of a particular age group - for example, within the youth subculture.
Youth subculture: moral problems
In the middle of the twentieth century, such a phenomenon as a youth subculture appeared, the main features of which – isolation and alternativeness. Youth subculture - this is a system of values and norms of behavior, tastes, forms of communication, different from the culture of adults and characterizing the life of young people from about 10 to 20 years old.
The term “subculture” itself exists in order to highlight in the system of material and spiritual values - that is, in the general, “big” culture - stable sets of moral norms, rituals, features of appearance, language (slang) and artistic creativity (usually amateur), characteristic of individual groups with a specific way of life, which are aware of and, as a rule, cultivate their isolation. The defining feature of a subculture is not the number of adherents, but the attitude towards creating their own values, differentiating and distinguishing “us” from “strangers” by external, formal characteristics: by the cut of pants, hairstyle, “baubles”, favorite music.
The youth subculture has developed due to a number of reasons: extension of study periods, forced absence from work. Today it is one of the institutions and factors in the socialization of schoolchildren. The youth subculture is a complex, contradictory social phenomenon. On the one hand, it alienates and separates young people from the general “big” culture, on the other hand, it contributes to the development of values, norms, and social roles. The problem is that the values and interests of young people are limited mainly to the sphere of leisure: fashion, music, entertainment events. Therefore, its culture is mainly entertaining, recreational and consumer in nature, and not educational, constructive and creative. It focuses on Western values: the American way of life in its lighter version, mass culture, and not on the values of high, world and national culture. The aesthetic tastes and preferences of young people are often quite primitive and are formed mainly by the media: television, radio, and print. Youth culture is also distinguished by the presence of a youth language, which also plays an ambiguous role in the upbringing of adolescents. It helps young people to master the world, express themselves and at the same time creates a barrier between them and adults. Within the youth subculture, another phenomenon of modern society is actively developing - informal youth associations and organizations.
And even though emerges youth subculture as an independent phenomenon back in the late 1940s (with the advent beatnikism), but her legalization And cultivation in the West dates back to the student revolution of 1968, the main slogan of which was the struggle for the rights of youth. At its crest were some cultural phenomena and even a whole type of musical art - rock music, which were formed and spread mainly among young people.
But it is precisely in the youth environment that the foundations of that attitude towards life and towards other people are laid and formed, which will subsequently determine the face of the world. Therefore, it is advisable to specifically focus on the consideration of moral norms and values that characterize the behavior and attitude of young people towards the world and towards each other in the second half of the 20th century.
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Types and types of informal youth groups.
There are a number of youth public organizations with a positive orientation. All of them have great educational opportunities, but recently the number of informal children's and youth associations of various orientations (political, economic, ideological, cultural) has sharply increased; among them there are many structures with a pronounced antisocial orientation.
Each such group or organization has external distinctive features, its own goals and objectives, sometimes even programs, unique “rules of membership” and moral codes. Today there are more than 30 types of informal youth movements and organizations. In recent years, the now familiar word “informals” has flown into our speech and taken root in it. Perhaps it is here that the overwhelming majority of so-called youth problems are now accumulated.
Informals– these are those who break out of the formalized structures of our lives. They do not fit into the usual rules of behavior. They strive to live in accordance with their own, and not other people’s interests imposed from outside.
A feature of informal associations is the voluntariness of joining them and a stable interest in a specific goal or idea. The second feature of these groups is rivalry, which is based on the need for self-affirmation. A young man strives to do something better than others, to get ahead of even the people closest to him in something. This leads to the fact that within youth groups they are heterogeneous and consist of a large number of microgroups united on the basis of likes and dislikes.
They are very different - after all, the interests and needs for the sake of satisfying which they are drawn to each other are diverse, forming groups, trends, directions. Each such group has its own goals and objectives, sometimes even programs, unique “rules of membership” and moral codes.
There are some classifications of youth organizations according to their areas of activity and worldview. Let us name and characterize the most famous of them.
The associations that will be discussed below arise and live according to different laws than those in which a young man finds himself, willy-nilly, as a member of a student group, work collective, etc.
More often, the problems of informal youth associations are considered on the basis of teenage and youth groups, the important functions of which are to satisfy the need for affiliation, specific assistance in self-determination, in acquiring identity, in particular through joining a certain “We” in opposition to “They”, etc. . It is well known that most teenagers have an urgent need to be members of various types of groups, mainly informal ones. Is there such a need among those who are older – among young people? What is its nature? It cannot be said that this problem has been well studied. At the same time, it worries many, and this interest is not only of an academic nature. But before moving directly to the consideration of the problem of youth associations, let us dwell on the closely related topic of youth culture (subculture).
In the summer of 1968, thousands of young people took to the streets of Paris, behaved violently and terribly scared not only other residents of the French capital, but also the whole of Europe, the entire Western world, especially since a wave of similar youth actions swept through many cities in different countries. The essence of the slogans, statements, declarations that the demonstrators came out with boiled down to a statement that there are such special people - young people who are not satisfied with the orders invented and preached by adults, who want to live differently and intend to rebuild the world in their own way. Young people have declared themselves as representatives of a special culture, or subculture - youth. The youth subculture presented to the world its ideas about what is important and what is not important in life, new rules of behavior and communication of people, new musical tastes, new fashion, new ideals, a new lifestyle in general. We can say that young people have declared their rights to cultural dominance.
The concept of “youth culture” was created to describe a special type of social space inhabited by people who are in a relatively powerless and dependent position. The dependence of young people is manifested in the fact that they are considered by “socially mature” adults not as a valuable group in their own right, but only as a natural resource of the future society, which must be socialized, educated and used.
The description of youth as a separate socio-age group began with the works of S. Hall, K. Mannheim and T. Parsons, in which the foundations of the so-called biopolitical construct. The origin and stages of development of the biopolitical construct of youth are analyzed in his book by E. L. Omelchenko. The bottom line is that the characteristics of youth (understood in this case broadly, with the inclusion of adolescence in this age) are determined by the collision of the forces of nature (“hormonal awakening”) with the “immovable” barriers of culture, i.e. social institutions, which determines the need for socialization. These two circumstances - awakened sexuality (biological prerequisite) and the need for generational socialization (political prerequisite) - set the formula for the biopolitical construct.
These ideas became especially popular in the West after World War II. Youth culture was imagined as an independent social space in which people can find authenticity and identity, whereas in the family or school they are deprived of real rights and are completely controlled by adults. If in pre-industrial societies the family fully performed all the necessary functions of social reproduction (biological, economic, cultural), then in modern industrial societies the family loses these traditional functions, primarily in the field of culture - education and professional training of the young man. Young people in such conditions begin to occupy the most vulnerable position, being between two value worlds: patriarchal models of family socialization, on the one hand, and adult roles, which are set by market rationality and an impersonal bureaucratic structure, on the other. Youth, according to T. Parsons, is a period of “structured irresponsibility,” a moratorium inserted between childhood and adulthood. This spatio-temporal position of young people in the life cycle leads to the formation of peer groups and youth culture, which, in turn, contributes to the development of models of emotional independence and security, changes in the role characteristics of primary (children’s) socialization through the assimilation of norms and values accepted in the company of peers , technicians, behavior patterns, etc.
Similar ideas were and are shared by many scientists, both foreign and domestic. However, empirical studies conducted in our country for a long time did not identify any specific teenage or youth subculture. A striking example is a comparative study of moral norms and behavior regulated by them among adolescents in the USSR and the USA, which was conducted in the early 1970s. American psychologist W. Bronfenbrenner and laboratory staff L.I. Bozhovich and described in his book published both in the USA and here. Our teenagers of those years were steadily guided by the norms of adults, while their American peers based their behavior primarily on moral norms, rules, and values developed in their teenage community.
However, gradually, with the weakening of patriarchal orders, the decline in the socializing function of the family, and the growth of pluralism in various spheres of public life, youth culture and numerous teenage and youth groups began to emerge in our country. And if earlier, in the 1950s, the only informal people were the “hipsters” (our version of those whom the West called “Teddy Boys”), who were mercilessly criticized by the media, Komsomol and party organizations, heads of universities (up to exceptions), then gradually punks, skinheads, goths, etc. appeared among us. youth groups that contrast their culture with the culture of the majority (as they now say, the mainstream).
In the modern history of Russia, i.e. Over the past two or three decades, the situation with youth associations has changed at least three times.
A rapid surge in the informal youth movement arose in the 80s. last century, during the era of Gorbachev's perestroika. Then the community of young people was divided into Komsomol members, on the one hand, and informals, on the other.
The very term “informals” was introduced during this period by Komsomol bureaucrats to designate self-organized youth groups that put themselves in opposition to formal structures - pioneer, Komsomol. Later, this term began to denote not only youth, but in general all kinds of movements and organizations that arise on the initiative “from below.” Subsequently, the content of the concept of “informals” changed more than once. The paradox is that the term, introduced “from above,” was accepted by the youth themselves. Today it most often refers to various youth groups, primarily subcultural formations.
The next stage is the 1990s. The informal movement began to decline during this period. The Komsomol collapsed, so there was nothing to resist. Youth groups virtually disappeared into the gangster or semi-gangster environment and began to actively conquer club and disco spaces in Russian cities.
The new century brought new changes. According to researchers of modern trends in the informal movement, today the youth associations representing it are characterized by the complex nature of the relationship between various stylistic components. For modern heterogeneous informals, as well as for their predecessors, it is important to designate the force that they are opposing - this is an almost mandatory condition for the formation of an appropriate group identity. Today, the place of former Komsomol members has been taken by the so-called Gopniks. The confrontation between informals (their own, advanced) and gopniks (strangers, normal) constitutes the main stylistic tension in this area today.
E. L. Omelchenko notes that youth culture, as it was understood in the middle of the 20th century, has left the stage. She agrees with the American researcher J. Seabrook that today it is possible to understand the nature of youth associations only by taking into account the new sociocultural context. But it changed noticeably at the end of the 20th century.
Currently, the determining factor is what J. Seabrook called "supermarket culture" The central actor in this culture is constantly constructed through commercial networks teenager consuming. The mainstream becomes the core, the center of supermarket culture, and individuality occupies peripheral positions. Cultural power shifts from individual tastes to the authority of the market, and the key figure in this market becomes a teenager, generally a young man who knows what will be fashionable tomorrow.
E. L. Omelchenko names the formation of a new “room culture” of youth as the main trend of recent years. Once upon a time, young people took to the streets, giving rise to the idea of youth as a special social group and a special social problem. Today, youth is becoming a brand that is being appropriated by ever new segments of the consumer market. The following hypothesis is put forward: modern youth are socialized not so much through various types of peer groups, but within the framework of global images. In this situation, globalization gives rise to a new type of social differentiation - a gap between those who are well acquainted with technological innovations and those who do not have full access to them.
When neither youth associations, nor friendly companies, nor, especially, social institutions allow one to find one’s own identity, the most important thing for a modern young person is the presence of a protected personal space. This turns out to be your own room, almost always with your own computer.
So, youth culture has recently become more and more part of the general consumer culture. Even when young people begin to create something of their own, sooner or later they are overtaken by the mass youth industry. There is a degeneration of youth culture into its commercial form. Western scholars increasingly speak of this as a form of “collective extinction” or even “the death of youth culture.” The classic youth subcultures that flourished in the second half of the 20th century were replaced by the so-called rave culture, which is based on an openly hedonistic attitude towards life aimed at momentary pleasure, which contributes to the dissolution of youth in the dominant mass culture.
Shopping (shopping) for a significant part of young people becomes a form of cultural activity, making up for the lack of collectivism. The search for identity in this case does not proceed through role-playing experimentation in different peer groups, as was the case some time ago, but through the search for one’s own style in a supposedly completely free choice of goods. True, this freedom is not available to everyone and not equally, so for many it turns into a source of negative emotions, into a war to maintain their style and not become an outsider. As E. L. Omelchenko notes, this consumer struggle is especially acute and important for Russian youth, who are growing up for the most part in poor or not very wealthy families Omelchenko E. The death of youth culture and the birth of the “youth” style.
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