I mentioned the Internet Archive in the last post, so I thought I would use this moment to recommend something for you to watch from it. Put out somewhere around 1960, Ask Me, Don't Tell Me is a short documentary about early street gangs, before they would become the problem they are today. This is a very interesting short film in how it applies to how things are today, and how they might even change for us in the future.
Much of the issue back then came from multifold sources. The first being immigrant kids with no identity or community to latch onto, the other being homegrown kids feeling detached from a society that didn't seem to want them around. All of it centers on the truth of early stage alienation that we are infected with today.
What you might not know is that gangs were originally "social clubs" of teenagers and young adults who formed their own mini-communities where they belonged, centering in places like pool halls where they could blow off steam and have fun. It is from this that the more disaffected could be dragged into worse things, such as in the movie City Across the River (this one is just a movie from 1949), or might be guided into more positive directions such as in the autobiographical Cross and the Switchblade. The important thing is to find the place one belongs, and that is easier to do when one has a sense of place where they are raised and grow.
If there is one issue of modernity that needs to be fixed over all others, this is near the top of the list. Thankfully, it appears this is changing more and more every day. Hopefully this hallmark of the previous century will be a thing of the past sooner than later.
Ask Me, Don't Tell Me is public domain, and you can watch it on the Internet Archive here! Watch it in tandem with City Across the River and you might be amazed at how little the core problem has changed over the last half century. The Cross and the Switchblade is also available, if you want a more radical example of what can happen in these sorts of places. I recommend all three for a more complete understanding of exactly aspects of the previous century not talked of more.
Nonetheless, things have begun to turn around. Oddly enough, the internet has allowed more tools for communication than ever before, and avenues to seek help that were never available before. To rebuild the community, one must rebuild the self.
It all starts with gratitude!
Now a Helicon Award Winner!
One of the worst myths of the previous century was that you had to leave home, possibly never to return except to visit, in order to be successful. We took the legitimate scenarios of when one truly is escaping abuse, or socio-economic dead end, and projected them on all of society. Same as the damaged goods screenwriters and songwriters who convinced themselves that just because they were miserable in where and how they grew up, so was everyone else.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame, because it also effects those who don't even leave home. They just disassociate and put it off and spend their time avoiding those they love. They are still beside them, but spend so much time and energy in resentment or avoidance.
DeleteHopefully the 21st century leads to the death of this mentality.