Here's an article about the amoral disparity between puberty’s onset and the brain’s maturation, and the clash between nature's preoccupation and humanistic morality.
All age restrictions come off as nothing more than posturing to me. Regardless of what the laws prescribe, the fact is that scarcely anyone waits until they are 21 to try alcohol or 18 until they have sex. Whenever an adult lectered me on such things when I was a teen I took great delight in asking them how old they were when they first did x. That shuts them up.
And this insistence they like to make that our brains aren't fully developed as teens strikes me as nothing more than a rationalization. Not being a neurologist, I am in no position to refute that theory in scientific terms. I will only say that it seems to resemble some of the chatter that was made around the turn of the 20th century concerning the inferiority of the brains of africans and women. It was alleged by 'experts' of the time that black men had smaller anterior neo-cortexes than white men and woman just had significantly smaller brains overall. Now, it is true that if you hold the brain of the white man as the nay-plus ultra of brains then, obviously, anything that deviates from it would be 'inferior'. Likewise, if modern neurologists assume that adult brains are 'mature' then any differences between the adult brain and the adolescent brain will be seen as signs of 'immaturity'. In other words, the argument that adolescents are neurologically immature and thus unworthy of the same rights that adults take for granted is the scientific equivalent of a tautology and deserves the ridicule that, I predict, it will one day receive from future scientists.
A truly modern approach to the matter would be to admit that age is no more relevent to personal freedom than sex or race. An even better policy, in my opinion, would be to recognize the obvious fact that different people mature at different rates and then simply enact a series of legal reforms that would put a licensing system in place. Just as the government requires citizens to earn a license to operate vehicles and handle firearms, so should they get the right to have sex and enjoy recreational drugs only after they have demonstrated their capacity to do these things with a modicum of knowledge and responsibility. It would not be a perfect system, but it seems more reasonable than simply handing out these rights at some arbitrary age and letting the dices fall where they may.
A license based on individual merits might make sense, although it's likely easier just to pass a law that compromises and applies to everyone.
But if many teen brains are developed enough for young teens to rationally judge whether they should be having sex, then laws against adults having sex with young teens should be rejected too. And that's a more deep-seated taboo. Why should we think young teens are generally old enough to think for themselves? We know the brain develops late in our species, which is why infants are helpless.
I do not think the reforms I suggest would violate any taboos so much as they would free our society of yet another useless pretence. We would no longer need to simulate indignation every time a Romeo & Juliet makes an indiscretion. We, as a society, could just refuse to play our part in that perennial tragedy. Stolen waters may be sweet, but that hardly justifies our prosecuting the thirsty. Forbidden love makes for great entertainment, but the spectacle of a man in his ealy 20s having his life ruined for falling in love with a teenager is not romance, it's a farce.
You might be right after all about teen brains — not every tautology lacks merit — but wouldn't that be all the more reason to not interfere in the sex lives of teenagers? I think my forebrain is as big as it is likely to ever get. If I did not succumb to my lusts when I was an adolescent, then surely I will not now that I've reached the pinnacle of self-control. And while that is a good thing for me, it's not so good for the children I never had, for the long line of descedents, for hundreds or even thousands of unique individuals who might have lived and loved if I had only been endowed by nature with a little less forebrain. As it is, I'm the last of my line. l really do believe that you have to be at least a little reckless to repoduce in this world. Maybe that is why humans become nubile at such a younge age.
In any case, I personally reject this idea that any biological category of people are inferior to any other. If I were to give ground to ageists, then I'd be forced to concede that racists and sexists might also have a point. After all, there is much greater difference, anatomically speaking, between a man and a woman than exists between a boy and a man. But even if it were true that some groups of people were superior (in aggregate) to others, the fact would never justify any individual within those inferior groups being deprived of their human rights. In that light, why even bother with the question of whether or not adolescent brains are any more disfunctional than those of adults? It is an academic question without any legal or ethical implications.
All age restrictions come off as nothing more than posturing to me. Regardless of what the laws prescribe, the fact is that scarcely anyone waits until they are 21 to try alcohol or 18 until they have sex. Whenever an adult lectered me on such things when I was a teen I took great delight in asking them how old they were when they first did x. That shuts them up.
ReplyDeleteAnd this insistence they like to make that our brains aren't fully developed as teens strikes me as nothing more than a rationalization. Not being a neurologist, I am in no position to refute that theory in scientific terms. I will only say that it seems to resemble some of the chatter that was made around the turn of the 20th century concerning the inferiority of the brains of africans and women. It was alleged by 'experts' of the time that black men had smaller anterior neo-cortexes than white men and woman just had significantly smaller brains overall. Now, it is true that if you hold the brain of the white man as the nay-plus ultra of brains then, obviously, anything that deviates from it would be 'inferior'. Likewise, if modern neurologists assume that adult brains are 'mature' then any differences between the adult brain and the adolescent brain will be seen as signs of 'immaturity'. In other words, the argument that adolescents are neurologically immature and thus unworthy of the same rights that adults take for granted is the scientific equivalent of a tautology and deserves the ridicule that, I predict, it will one day receive from future scientists.
A truly modern approach to the matter would be to admit that age is no more relevent to personal freedom than sex or race. An even better policy, in my opinion, would be to recognize the obvious fact that different people mature at different rates and then simply enact a series of legal reforms that would put a licensing system in place. Just as the government requires citizens to earn a license to operate vehicles and handle firearms, so should they get the right to have sex and enjoy recreational drugs only after they have demonstrated their capacity to do these things with a modicum of knowledge and responsibility. It would not be a perfect system, but it seems more reasonable than simply handing out these rights at some arbitrary age and letting the dices fall where they may.
A license based on individual merits might make sense, although it's likely easier just to pass a law that compromises and applies to everyone.
DeleteBut if many teen brains are developed enough for young teens to rationally judge whether they should be having sex, then laws against adults having sex with young teens should be rejected too. And that's a more deep-seated taboo. Why should we think young teens are generally old enough to think for themselves? We know the brain develops late in our species, which is why infants are helpless.
I do not think the reforms I suggest would violate any taboos so much as they would free our society of yet another useless pretence. We would no longer need to simulate indignation every time a Romeo & Juliet makes an indiscretion. We, as a society, could just refuse to play our part in that perennial tragedy. Stolen waters may be sweet, but that hardly justifies our prosecuting the thirsty. Forbidden love makes for great entertainment, but the spectacle of a man in his ealy 20s having his life ruined for falling in love with a teenager is not romance, it's a farce.
DeleteYou might be right after all about teen brains — not every tautology lacks merit — but wouldn't that be all the more reason to not interfere in the sex lives of teenagers? I think my forebrain is as big as it is likely to ever get. If I did not succumb to my lusts when I was an adolescent, then surely I will not now that I've reached the pinnacle of self-control. And while that is a good thing for me, it's not so good for the children I never had, for the long line of descedents, for hundreds or even thousands of unique individuals who might have lived and loved if I had only been endowed by nature with a little less forebrain. As it is, I'm the last of my line. l really do believe that you have to be at least a little reckless to repoduce in this world. Maybe that is why humans become nubile at such a younge age.
In any case, I personally reject this idea that any biological category of people are inferior to any other. If I were to give ground to ageists, then I'd be forced to concede that racists and sexists might also have a point. After all, there is much greater difference, anatomically speaking, between a man and a woman than exists between a boy and a man. But even if it were true that some groups of people were superior (in aggregate) to others, the fact would never justify any individual within those inferior groups being deprived of their human rights. In that light, why even bother with the question of whether or not adolescent brains are any more disfunctional than those of adults? It is an academic question without any legal or ethical implications.