Cult of teenagers
Sir: John Rowan Wilson is probably right in asserting that psychoanalysis had never exerted such an influence here as in America. Nevertheless an oversimplified and distorted brand of Freudian theory has undoubtedly taken root in the minds of far too many parents and others in recent years in this country. As a result authority is too often hopelessly confused with authoritarianism and any form of discipline or restraint of the young rendered oddly suspect. This 'has fostered the cult of the teenager whose every whim is sacred — and has played into the hands of the permissivelyminded and the libertarians who seek apparently to undermine traditional socity.
In the end every age must learn to distinguish between its wise men and its wizards. Our pragmatism has perhaps exposed us to one particular peril: the cult of the sociologist which has taken the place of the earlier worship of the psychologist. The high priests of sociology are only too ready to reshape our daily lives. Nowhere has their influence been more deadly than in the field of education — in the primary field this has threatened training in basic skills and at the secondary level it has helped to create that misguided enthusiasm for that apotheosis of mediocrity, the comprehensive school, where quality is sacrificed to vain egalitarian dreams.
J. H. K. Lockhart 21B King's Avenue, London W5
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