Participle

The fear of young people is called Ephebiphobia. At first it was coined he “fear and loathing of teenagers” but is today recognised as the “inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterisation of young people.” This complements the fear of street culture and crime, and is time immemorial; it is not just today’s generation that holds this sort of view but has been an issue for centuries. Millenia even. Machiavelli is said to have noted the fear of youth is what kept the city of Florence from keeping a standing army. Plato attributes to Socrates in the Republic:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company and, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannise their teachers.”

Similarly, the ancient Greek poet Hesiod noted:

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint”

The twentieth century through sensationalism and media has seen the image of youth as embodying adventure and enlightenment, and therefore susceptible to a malleable, despiritualised version of morality. 60s student rebellions, drug taking, hippie culture, the Beat generation, and general ‘untoward’ behaviour seems to have come and gone for this generation; are the hippies of the sixties, now in stable jobs, the ones categorising our youth? Because the way that it’s seen now, this generation, more than any generation before it, is seen to be the most dangerous of them all.