Woundweavr's writeup is all too true. While there are some
mosh pits that are violent, and some people do
go to shows looking for fights, those are a rare minority. I've been incredibly impressed with
mosh pit mentality. If someone falls in the pit, a circle forms immediately, turned backs withstanding the force of an entire crowd, a dozen arms simultaneously pulling that stranger back to his feet. Same goes for
crowd surfing -- pits take extra care to prevent anyone from falling down
head first. The couple times that I've seen someone go down head first, they've remained suspended in mid air by friendly hands, then slowly and safely lowered to the floor. I'm talking about your so-called "aggressive youth" working as a single instinctual entity to help each other. And as for people who pick fights, or
cop feels, that's when you see "aggressive youth". Anyone doing these things will be thrown out, not just from the crowd, but often from the club as well.
My
practical law teacher was one of the few adults who could talked
sensibly about "
youth of today". My parents' and teachers' generation entertained themselves by lighting dogs' tails on fire, putting fireworks in small animals, and beating each other up. Yes, I'm making unfair generalizations. Those are
some things that
some of that generation did. The only difference between then and now is that kids get less attention due to double-income families. Is the effect a generation of irresponsible kids who don't know how to behave? Obviously not, considering youth violence is at a
record low. If anything kids are maturing faster and learning responsiblity through experience.
Actually, the biggest difference is just the media. Never before could we watch the bloody details so quickly. Parents, the majority of our population, are, as always, obsessed with the imperfections of youth. So we get to see the bloody details about youth violence every time
anything happens. But in reality, while awareness of youthful aggression is amazingly high, youthful agression itself is amazingly low.
I blame violent video games.
That takes care of the
brazen generalizations about youth...I'm not sure about America in general. There have always been assholes. There always will be, won't there? Are we assholes as well, and just don't realize it? Or is there really a sub-population of
llamas and
trolls in human skin?