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08937_Field_TCGG T702.txt
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1996-04-10
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16 lines
Friedenberg casts the adolescent in the role of Don Quixote:
The process of becoming an American, as it goes on
in high school, tends to be a process of renunciation of
differences. This conflicts directly, of course, with the
adolescent need for self-definition; but the conflict is so
masked in institutionalized gaiety that the adolescent
himself usually does not become aware of it. He must still
deal with the alienation it engenders. He may do this by
marginal differentiation, like Riesman’s glad-handing boy
with the special greeting style. He may do it by erupting
into bouts of occasionally violent silliness, which does not
make him seem queer to other people because it is
unconsciously recognized as a form of self-abnegation
rather than self-assertion, and is not, therefore,
threatening. He may, if he has sufficient ego-strength,