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Having published “Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath” a decade earlier, Robert Lindner served as one of the nation’s preeminent scholars on juvenile delinquency, a trend that baffled and terrified the nation. Interviewed by Time in 1954, he recounted a laundry list of gory crimes committed by the teenaged, what he termed “a devil's rosary of crimes ranging from rape to murder, and all stamped with an unbelievable degree of sadism." One of the causes of this spike in violence was the advent of a mass youth culture, according to Lindner. While others tried to combat the problem by taking away comic books, turning off the television, separating teenagers from their friends, and spending more time with their children, Lindner notes that these methods are largely futile. More than that, what was required of the older generation was an understanding of their child’s warped psychiatric condition which caused them to act out. The new mass culture, had the effect of weakening one’s conscience, creativity, and sense of self, and replacing it with a cold, and potentially violent member of the mob. As conformity with the mob caused the loss of personal identity, it created a wave of rebels without causes and without restraint. The only answer offered is in Lindner’s advocacy for psychological therapy.
Articles on juvenile delinquency pervaded publications in the 1950s, and Lindner’s interview with Time reflects the extreme crisis of the situation the media aid in creating. Lindner predicted that the conscienceless perpetrators of juvenile crime were part of an epidemic that would become worse before it got better, if it did. While supplying colorful and dramatic descriptions of crime and history, he offers remarkably few solutions or examples of positive progress. The piece is prime example of the hysteria and paranoia that permeated the time.
belongs to Rebel Without a Cause project
tagged juvenile_delinquency 1950s psychoanalysis
by lanean
...on 11-APR-08