Blood & Ink: Adolescence was Manufactured

If you’ve never read ‘Sand Talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta, I highly recommend it…

It’s a phenomenal exposition of Indigenous thinking and ways of relating to land and life.

But that is not the focus of this piece. Here I want to share a devastating revelation in Yunkaporta’s writing:

Adolescence was manufactured.

Yes, the years-long transitionary period that modern ‘tweens go through was designed, implemented and mass-produced no differently than the iPhone.

Yunkaporta elaborates:

[…] Prussia even adopted the Roman symbol of the eagle as a logo, which was later picked up by the Nazis and the United States. Rome introduced mesmerising dreams of power and control that have not been easy to shake even in modern history.

This was the point in history that ‘adolescence’ was invented—a method of slowing the transition from childhood to adulthood, so that it would take years rather than, for example, the months it takes in Indigenous rites of passage. This delayed transition, intended to create a permanent state of child-like compliance in adults, was developed from farming techniques used to break horses and to domesticate animals. Bear in mind that the original domestication of animals involved the mutation of wild species into an infantilised form with a smaller brain and an inability to adapt or solve problems. To domesticate an animal in this way you must: 1. Separate the young from their parents in the daylight hours. 2. Confine them in an enclosed space with limited stimulation or access to natural habitat. 3. Use rewards and punishments to force them to comply with purposeless tasks.

The system they invented in the early nineteenth century to administer this change was public education: the radical innovation of universal primary schooling, followed by streaming into trade, professional and leadership education. It was all arbitrated by a rigorous examination system (on top of the usual considerations of money and class). The vast majority of Prussian students (over ninety per cent) attended the Volksschule, where they learned a simple version of history, religion, manners and obedience and were drilled endlessly in basic literacy and numeracy. Discipline was paramount; boredom was weaponised and deployed to lobotomise the population.

Germany’s compulsory education system expressed six outcomes in its original syllabus documents: 1. Obedient soldiers to the army. 2. Obedient workers for mines, factories and farms. 3. Well-subordinated civil servants. 4. Well-subordinated clerks for industry. 5. Citizens who thought alike on most issues. 6. National uniformity in thought, word and deed.

This is part of why we're gobsmacked when we look back at stories of Alexandar the Great leading an empire at 17.

How could a 17-year-old be ready for such things?

Because at that point in history, he’s been a man for years. With adult responsibilities following a significant rite of passage into mature masculinity.

I emphasize again the 3-step process of domestication:

1. Separate the individual from parents/others in daylight hours.
2. Confine them in small spaces with limited natural environmental input.
3. Use reward/punishment to mould behavior.

Sounds a lot like the waking existence of most people.

Re-wild yourself. Undomesticate your mind.

The beautiful life waiting for you requires it, and perhaps if we may be so bold, the very future hangs on our ability to do this for ourselves and others.

Free your mind,
EB.