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Perusing Dr. Solomon's paper, I feel that I am on familar ground because his description of American youth would apply equally well to Japanese youth. As a matter of fact, I too once wrote a paper on this world-wide phenomenon of youth unrest (trying, however, to explain it from a different angle from his).
I would like to state my basic agreement with Dr. Solomon's viewpoint, which perhaps proves that I belong, like him, to the older generation. At any rate, I am glad to know that he has had the courage to call a spade a spade and that he
didn't yield an inch to the audience who greeted him with open resentment and sarcasm when he lectured on the subject of this paper. It is indicative of our present age that the psychoanalyst is forced to take a moral stand almost against his will—a trend quite opposite to that which Freud faced in the Victorian age.
Much as I admire the strength of this paper as reflecting the author's moral fiber, it has a weakness, too. The weakness lies, in my opinion, in the fact that Dr. Solomon makes much too sharp a dichotomy between mental health and pathology. He says that he describes pathology because he sees mainly patients, that all is not psychopathology, and that there is also a spirit of a healthy morality and aspiration for improvement. But then he doesn't provide a viable concept that can embrace both the pathology and the health of contemporary youth. I think that is why this paper gives the impression of being only “descriptive,” in spite of the author's concern with the psychodynamics of young people.
I shall explain my point by taking up Dr. Solomon's three categories: existence versus nonexistence, identity versus identity confusion, and intimacy versus pseudo intimacy. It is obvious that in all three categories the first term signifies a positive value and the second a negative, and that contemporary youth often distinguish themselves by negative values. I don't dispute this, but would like to emphasize—as I think the auth