Abstract
The subject of this paper is a certain strength inherent in the age of youth. I call it the sense of and the capacity for Fidelity. Such a strength, to me, is not a moral trait to be acquired by individual effort. Rather, I believe it to be part of the human equipment evolved with socio-genetic evolution. This assertion I could not undertake to defend here; nor could I make plausible the fact that, in the schedule of individual growth, Fidelity could not mature earlier in life and must not, in the crises of youth, fail its time of ascendance if human adaptation is to remain intact. Nor (to complete the list of limitations) could I review the other stages of life and the specific strengths and weaknesses contributed by each to man’s precarious adaptation. We can take only a brief look at the stage of life which immediately precedes youth, the school age, and then turn to youth itself. I regret this; for even as one can understand oneself only by looking at and away from oneself, one can recognize the meaning of a stage only by studying it in the context of all the others.
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References
For an evolutionary and genetic rationale of this concept of the life cycle, see the writer’s “The Roots of Virtue,” in The Humanist Frame, Sir Julian Huxley, ed. London: Allen and Unwin, 1961; New York: Harper and Brothers. 1961. Also Chapter IV of the author’s “Insight and Responsibility”, New York: W. W. Norton, 1964; London: Faber and Faber, 1966.
Ernest Jones, Hamlet and Oedipus. New York: Doubleday, Anchor, 1949.
Saxo Grammaticus, Danish History, translated by Elton, 1894 (quoted in Jones, op. cit., pp. 193–164.
The classical psychoanalytic works concerned with psychosexuality and the ego defenses of youth are: Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, standard edition, (London, The Hogarth Press, 1953), vol. 7; and Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence, New York, International Universities Press, 1946. For the writer’s views, see his Childhood and Society. New York: W. W. Norton, 1950, sec. ed. 1963; also in Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.
B. Inhelder & J. Piaget, The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence. New York: Basic Books, 1958.
Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.
See the writer’s “The Problem of Ego-Identity” in Identity and the Life Cycle: Psychological Issues (New York: International Universities Press, 1959), vol. I, no. 1.
Young Man Luther. New York: W. W. Norton, 1958; London: Faber and Faber, 1959.
Sigmund Freud, Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, standard edition (London: The Hogarth Press, 1953), vol. 7.
Ibid., p. 50.
Erik H. Erikson & Kai T. Erikson, “The Confirmation of the Deliquent,” The Chicago Review, Winter 1957, 10: 15–23.
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Erikson, E.H. (1966). Youth: Fidelity and Diversity. In: Mudd, S. (eds) Conflict Resolution and World Education. World Academy of Art and Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6269-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6269-4_6
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