Dear plutarch: When we are small, we need to be able to feel that our parents are very powerful, and able to protect us. As we get into adolescence, and begin to feel less dependent on our parents and other power figures, many of us go too far and overestimate our capabilities, and reject any and all authority, reject all the values of the older generation. We may become NeoNazis to emphasize the width of the gulf between our position and that of the conventional authorities. We can become anarchists to emphasize our refusal to accept any higher authority.
Fortunately most adolescents don't go this far. Mark Twain said that when he was fifteen, his old man was so stupid he hardly stand to be in the same house with him. But when he was twenty, he was amazed to see how much the old guy had learned in five years.
