Grandchildren of the Transition
Translated by Jeanette Anderson
For my final project I wanted to do something related to the medical field because of my interest in becoming a medical translator. So I went onto Spain’s Ministry of Health website to see what kind of materials were available and I came across this research presentation related to youth drug use and abuse in Spain. It talks about cultural issues that are related to the current situation in Spain, as well as historical changes that have taken place over time and have had a direct impact on this situation.
Source text: Salir de marcha y consumo de drogas. Plan nacional sobre drogas. Madrid: Ministerio del Interior.
Grandchildren of the Transition
Young people today have been socialized by a generation who grew up during the democratic transition in Spain. This generation of people, who are now between the ages of 35 and 50, entered into adulthood pursuing certain dreams, such as personal and individual freedom, because they were so repressed by the ruling morality of the time when they were growing up. There was also this idea of taking different substances and indulging in different pleasures that Spain, as a country behind the times, saw in its neighbouring European countries. These ideals that today’s adults share have evidently been passed onto their children, and young people today have taken these ideals and given them a meaning of their own.
The generation of young people from the transitional period has given rise to very tolerant and permissive parents and teachers because they want to make it easier for today’s youth to have a lot of life experiences, which is something they fought for but were somehow denied. The parents of today’s youth have tried to overcome their parents’ moral prejudices which made them repressive and intolerant towards aspects related to sexuality, recreation and having fun. Andrés Sopeña published two books that give us a better picture of the era in which the parents of today’s youth were socialized.
However, this tolerance for young people’s actions when it comes to sex, recreation and having fun also has its limitations and paradoxes. To be young, according to the adults, is to be ready for fun and excitement, and experimentation . This same concept of youth is in itself a reflection of reality. According to official organizations, this category encompasses anyone between the ages of 15 and 29 years old. It’s likely that this age range seems quite extensive and we have probably never had the definition of ‘youth’ extend quite this far in the history of mankind. We could also go as far as to say that adolescence begins at 13. Despite all of this, if we consider that someone is no longer ‘young’ once they have passed through a serious of stages that Gil Calvo proposes, many young Spaniards would still be considered ‘young’ even though they are already in their 30’s. Calvo proposes that “someone who is physiologically mature and still does not have a steady, productive job, a spouse, their own home or dependants is considered young.” (1984). In fact, the concept of youth has not changed much since the age of feudalism, when the youngest sons of the royal families, who were excluded from the family wealth and any decision-making, were considered young, regardless of their age. Many of them were allowed to live pleasant yet dissolute lives, dedicated to courting and pleasing the romantic desires of many bored ladies . (Turner 1989).
With regards to recreation, some social scientists consider that today’s youth is the result of the adult population’s imagination coming to life. (Comas, 1995, 1996). The adults’ attitudes are not passively tolerant; they encourage the young people to have fun. They tell them to go out at night and to go after this idea of freedom which includes being spontaneous and daring. They even allow them to be disobedient, they excuse them from their responsibilities, they encourage them to drink , and when they start acting like narcissists, which is common for their age, they make excuses for them. The parents and teachers of this generation, as well as the media, have all contributed to developing and giving off this idea of what it means to be young, which is very much like the current phenomenon.
The way in which Gil Calvo expresses the paradox of young people today is very descriptive. He states that the adults insist that they be disobedient, in such a way that when the young people go out at night to overstep the boundaries, they are actually obeying their parents’ wishes. But this kind of obedience is not exactly what the adults had in mind. However, the young people are not passive either. They have taken the adults’ ideals and given them a meaning of their own. It is true that this gives way to a “double bind,” as Gil Calvo proposes, because during the week the young people are obedient at school or at work, and during the weekend they are disobedient, partially because the adults encourage them to be that way. When it comes to obedience and disobedience, young people contribute to and develop their own ideals and strategies for life. In the adults’ idea of fun, recreational drug use and abuse was not what they had in mind. They fear heroine, which wreaked havoc in their generation, but they are not overly alarmed when it comes to recreational drugs, either because they don’t know enough about them or because they value their own experiences from when they were young and used to do drugs. What they don’t realize is that drug use is changing and becoming commonplace in the recreational lives of many young people today; something which is only made possible by the generous financial support of their parents. Recreational drug abuse is the evil consequence of extreme partying , which is also the focus in young people’s minds. What we have here is a paradox of the adults. On the one hand, they have promoted this idea of what it means to be young, and on the other, they are surprised when they find out the consequences. The adults find it hard to understand and conceptualize some of these changes, which is something they need to do in order to take over their role again and recreate the process.
The New Drug Culture
Parties, music and dancing are all key elements that define youth in Europe and in Spain, and something that has taken centre stage in all this is drug use, including both legal and illegal substances. Young people, as part of the social structure, rely on these drugs, use them on various occasions and therefore they take what society has created for them, and it helps them achieve their goals. Drugs are readily available , just as there are a wide range of recreational activities available . Young people have been socialized to believe that fun should be taken to the maximum; an ideal that has been developed through the various generations that overcame limits and repression to achieve this. Therefore, going out partying is not something that the young people invented, but what they do is use this socially acceptable freedom that they have to develop their own language, identity and strategies.
What is happening in Spain is very similar to what is happening in the rest of Europe and in other industrialized countries. Shapiro (1999) analyzes a substantial change in the role of drug use in social life, basing the study on the situation in England. He states that compared to studies carried out in the 70’s, drugs are no longer something that people use to escape from ordinary life; drugs have become a part of daily life. This change is fundamental to the growing importance of nightlife, partying (club culture) and the new trend of raves, where a lot of young people are developing their own new fun culture.
Recreation, which has always been important to young people, is now the focus of social research. In recent years, in England, Germany and Holland, different studies have been carried out on the connection between young people, recreation and drug use (Klee 1998, South 1999, Tossmann 1996, 1997). A longitudinal study carried out in Manchester (Measham et al. 1998) presents the importance of drug use in the transition from adolescence to young adulthood . It concludes that drug use is becoming acceptable as a part of recreational activity, not only by the ones who do drugs, but also by the non-drug-users as well. This situation shows how recreational drug use is becoming more commonplace.
One of the characteristics of these different studies is that they are confined to local and national areas. However, we must also keep in mind that in this day and age, there is a real interconnectivity between the different European countries. Through cyber communication or at recreational facilities across Europe, thousands of young people become cultural ambassadors and diffuse cultural interests.
