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The author explores the refreshingly radical aspect of adolescent subversiveness. This article first contrasts subversiveness with rebelliousness in its more satiric and questioning quality. The author then contends that adolescent subversiveness is related to the gradual development in adulthood of an independence of mind. The author relates a vignette regarding the founder of the Wright Institute in Berkeley, Nevitt Sanford, who refused to sign a draconian loyalty oath required of University of California, Berkeley, faculty during the McCarthy era to convey the positive aspects of subversion. The article relates developmental aspects of subversiveness to uses of the concept in other disciplines such as social theory, queer and feminist theories, and literary criticism.