Impact On Society in General
Young people can be a powerful force in precipitating change in society. Youth-led revolutions in the 20th and 21st centuries attest to this fact. Organizations of young people, which were often based on a student identity, were crucial to the American Civil Rights Movement. These include organizations such as the Southern Student Organizing Committee, Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, whose role in sit-ins, protests, and other activities of the Civil Rights movement were crucial to its success. The Freedom Summer relied heavily on college students; hundreds of students engaged in registering African Americans to vote, teaching in "Freedom Schools", and organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
The American protests in the Vietnam War were also student-driven. Many college campuses were buzzing during the war with protests, sit-ins, and demonstrations. Organizations such as the Young Americans for Freedom, the Student Libertarian Movement, and the Student Peace Union were based on youth status and contributed to participation in anti-war activities. Some scholars have claimed that the activism of youth during the Vietnam War was symbolic of a youth culture whose values were against those of mainstream American culture.
More recently, the Arab Spring has drawn attention because of the role young people have played in demonstrations and protests. The activities of the movement have been initiated primarily by young people, often college students who are unsatisfied with the opportunities afforded to them in the current political climate. The participation of young people has been so crucial that it led TIME magazine to include several youth members of the movement in its 2011 list of 100 most influential people. Additionally, the movement has relied heavily on social media (which can be considered an aspect of youth culture) to schedule, coordinate, and publicize events.
Some scholars have studied the trends that accompany social unrest, and have suggested ties between youth and revolt. Most notable is Gunnar Heinsohn’s theory of the youth bulge. According to this theory, an especially large population of young people, especially males, is associated with social unrest, war, and terrorism. The rationale that Heinsohn gives is that that these population trends leave many people unable to find prestigious places in society, so they turn their attention to creating change in society.
Read more about this topic: Youth Culture
Famous quotes containing the words impact on, impact, society and/or general:
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“... married women work and neglect their children because the duties of the homemaker become so depreciated that women feel compelled to take a job in order to hold the respect of the community. It is one thing if women work, as many of them must, to help support the family. It is quite another thing—it is destructive of woman’s freedom—if society forces her out of the home and into the labor market in order that she may respect herself and gain the respect of others.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Any general statement is like a cheque drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)