The Loss of Ideology in The Adolescent's Search for Identity

When the curtain finally descended on the '70's, the news media journalists hailed the end of that decade almost with a vengeance as they made their traditional assessments of the way the sociopolitical climate of that period influenced behavior in various segments of society. As is usual, adolescent behavior received its disproportionate share of commentary. Many of these instant historians or perhaps better-named decade theorizers, both professional and lay, noted the decade's passing with relief, commenting that nostalgia for the '60's had set in well before the official end of the '70's and pronouncing that certain decades are more vivid than others, imbued with more distinct character and consequently influence behavior more directly. Decade theorizers are likely to have in mind college students as subjects for decadal characterizations since they constitute a contained and observable population almost preternaturally eager to be frontrunners for the larger society.

In the last three quarters of the '70's, college campuses were peaceful, in marked contrast to the turmoil of the preceding decade, and thus reminiscent of the '50's. The narrow range of ideological diversity that existed up to the '50's was abruptly shattered by the emerging student movement of the '60's. Although the challenge raised by that movement, as seen from today's perspective, has not proved very effective, it did manage, with limited success, to provoke, in Noam Chomsky's words, “an opening in the ideological fields,” bringing slightly greater diversity