Rich: I forgot for a moment there that marriage is considered to be “emancipating” for minors and thus makes them adults for the purposes of the marriage and its attendant events (such as coitus).
“a married 14-year-old CAN consent to sex with his/her spouse, even if AOC is 18.”
—Rich Barr
How about with someone not his/her spouse? I think yes, but I’m not sure.
Peace,
mangeorge
Well, I don’t see anything to aaronp’s assumptions and line of argument. Why are we supposed to accept that people in the military are stable adults? They have always seemed less so, on average, than those not in the military. The draft or acceptance age for the military wasn’t set on the basis of responsible adulthood, but rather on the physical ability to fight. (I guess that’s the basis for electing governors in Minnesota also.) On average, fighters are not particularly responsible.
What does that say? You were adult all during high school, and high school is for children? Or there was no way they could’ve put any sense in a brain like mine during my high school years (and they probably never will be able to?)?
Then I started thinking about the trend in courts to prosecute 15 and 16 year olds as adults. There seems to be a lot of ethical and moral debates over the court issue, so my natural reaction was to suggest that turning the age of adult back a few years would be an easy solution.
You don’t want to consider that trial of a minor as adult intentionally rests on facts of the crime that indicate responsibly recognized malice in the particular offender, not a society-wide earlier maturation in youthful criminals? Not that there couldn’t be an element of this.
“Accept their identity”? Kids don’t accept their identity? And those that are to go on to college to prepare for a future profession accept their full identity before entering college? It seems to me reasonably stable people always have an identity; they just modify it from one time to the next to varying degrees (including college degrees).
I’d say most people don’t have a lot of self-conflict at any age, and those that have a lot of it have it at a lot of ages. I don’t see how you can define ‘adulthood’ on that basis.
‘Success-minded’? Define that. Five-year-olds often want to be President.
So you’re saying the high school norm is that whatever is forbidden is interesting? I never saw it that way.
Yeah, they locked you in a room full of liquor and party decorations. . .and what else could you do? They forbade your going to the library and you never checked out any other local groups/institutions/facilities / natural environment or hobbies.
Yeah, I mean, it’s only part of the definition of “adulthood”, which is what you included in your “issue”.
Of course. . .if I kill someone at the age of 6, they should give me all the booze I ask for, so I can more efficiently become a serial killer. (Can’t you tell what a fan I am of Aaron’s brand of logic.) There are statistics on how alcohol affects brains – or different ages, genetics, etc., independent of all the particular nice and not-so-nice activities and talents of various individuals. Hey, if I’m a musical prodigy at 4, I should drink wine 6 times a day. . .in order to play more naturally. If I’m a perfect shot at the rifle range at 10, booze me up and send me packing to school or church to try some shots on trickier targets.
Well, being a fraternity drunk never appealed to me. I used to see them lying out on the grass all of almost every Sunday morning, and sometimes into the afternoon, while in an Ivy League college; but, of course, they’re the ones who later took over running the country; so what do I know. Well, I did know that I didn’t want to run this sort of country. Of course, I didn’t want to be in the army either, but they got me in in a peacetime draft. That was their bad luck though.
Ray (no money for DUIs)
NanoByte said:
Get a clue we are not a bunch of psychotic children running around with guns. To be in the military we have to go through extensive background checks, psychological evaluations, years of training. We are held to a higher standard of personal integrity and responsibility than civilians. My personal life is a matter of an open record to my supervisor on and off duty and any ratings or promotions are reflected in it. Anyone who appears to be the least bit unstable is referred to mental health evaluated treated and if necessary discharged. If your experiences with military personnel have been with some individuals acting stupid take them for what they are individuals. Don’t dump us all into one category, look around you in order to not be in the military you need only to be born.
I calls 'em as I sees 'em, statistically. I haven’t had a lot of personal contact with the military and I served my required two years in a college-educated/tamed outfit. But I read the papers. I also grew up during WWII near, but not too near (Salinas), the now-essentially extinct Ft. Ord, CA, US. One sees, worldwide, the results of the military on communities around their bases and in seaports frequented by navies.
The military figures that, at 18, recruits or inductees may not be responsible adults, but what they’re looking for is zombies to order around, in any case, not responsible individuals.
Ray (way it is)
Nanobyte: your last posting above is extremely uninformed, at best; at worst, it’s an outrageous example of bigoted rhetoric.
Pray tell, exactly how do you draw the (incorrect) conclusion that the Armed Forces are looking for mindless zombies?
It is my firm opinion that you are an adult when you can consent, not the other way around. I could consent to sex at age 16, which I know because I did. Other people can consent at younger or older ages.
Monty:
I didn’t say they were looking for mindless zombies. The zombies they’re looking for have to have minds, but minds in shape only for ordering around. Such minds don’t have to be responsible, which puts them in the zombie category. This shows up off duty.
Ray
I’ve thought for a while that there are possibly four ways to define adulthood:
Maturity. If you take responsibility for your actions, you are an adult. (How can you tell whether someone takes responsibility?)
Age. If you are at or above a certain age, you are an adult. (What age? And who chooses the age?)
Biology. If you can father or mother a child, you are an adult. (But what about parenting?)
Skills. If you can demonstrate the skills needed to survive in your society, you are an adult. (What skills? And should they be the same for everyone?)
In RL, of course, adulthood may be a combination of these. I suspect that age was chosen as the criterion simply because it is by far the easiest to implement.
BTW, Michael Ventura wrote an essay about the transition to adulthood on tribal cultures, and how, at puberty, the young people of the tribe need intense experience, and the adults responded with intense experiences to provide needed knowledge and to initiate the young people into adulthood.
He contended that we (the dominant worldwide culture) do not have a formal initiation into adulthood. Many of us therefore never truly know or feel that we are adult, and we have as a result extended our time of intense experience, that we call “adolescence”, into our twenties and thirties. As a result our culture and the world is going crazy…
There is a lot more to Ventura’s essay. I highly recommend it; I think it was called “The Age of Endarkenment”. It was published in “Whole Earth Review” a while back. Ventura had two books called “Shadow Dancing in the USA” and “Letters At 3AM”. I think the essay was in one of them. A quick web search revealed no online citations, but Indigo.ca, Chapters.ca and Amazon.com have the books.
-Scott
Parolu Esperante!
Certe, se vi volas, sed mi timas ke aliaj ne komprenos nin, chi tiu estante anglalingva afishejo…
Nanobyte, I don’t understand what your motivation is. I do understand that you took my innocent question and tried to tear it apart line-by-line as if it were some sort of passive-aggressive argument. Really though, it was just a question, and by me following it with a few statements I was trying to show how my curiosity formed. I wasn’t trying to say it was an argument at all, only an observation of something that seemed ambiguous to me.
So, that said, please enlightens me with an answer to my question before any argument takes place. Otherwise, I won’t exactly know what we’re arguing over. Some people have suggested that the age of 18 being an adult is just arbitrary law. Others have said it’s the age that males are militarily able. Others have suggested that it’s the age when a person is responsible for their own actions. Others have even thrown out other tidbits of information that makes the question that much more interesting.
Let’s assume that one thing is true: all cultures define age thresholds at different times. Why does the U.S. or western nations in general define adulthood to be around the age of 18? Is there real basis, or only opinion?
Sunspace, thanks for the references. I’ll check them out.
Nanobyte: your attempt to describe the military as zombies is transaparent prejudice. The Armed Forces do not require zombies; they require folks with functioning minds and bodies. There’s a heck of a lot more to serving in the Armed Forces than just “do or die” and “yes, sir.” But then, you wouldn’t know that, would you? Nice of you to make such a sweeping generalization based on exactly zero knowledge.
Mi ne havas mian vortaron cxi-tiu; sed mi kredas, ke vi diris “without there being English-language posts here.”
Mia vortaro estas mia plej bone amiko. Mi devas vivon 
But maybe that belongs in another thread.
Until I turn 18, I’m just running around making contracts I can hold people to that are >18 but that they can not hold to me.
There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.
–Edmund Burke