flapping their tongues. Specialization means a movement away from sameness.
Despite much loose talk about the need for 'generalists,' there is little evidence that the technology of tomorrow can be run without armies of highly trained specialists. We are rapidly changing the types of expertise needed. We are demanding more 'multi-specialists' (men who know one field deeply, but who can cross over into another as well) rather than rigid, 'mono-specialists.' But we shall continue to need and breed ever more refined work specialties as the technical base of society increases in complexity For this reason alone, we must expect the variety and number of subcults in the society to increase.
Even if technology were to free millions of people from the need to work in the future, we would find the same push toward diversity operating among those who are left free to play. For we are already producing large numbers of 'fun specialists.' We are rapidly multiplying not merely types of work, but types of play as well.
The number of acceptable pastimes, hobbies, games, sports and entertainments is climbing rapidly, and the growth of a distinct subcult built around surfing, for example, demonstrates that, at least for some, a leisure- time commitment can also serve as the basis for an entire life style. The surfing subcult is a signpost pointing to the future.
'Surfing has already developed a kind of symbolism that gives it the character of a secret fraternity or a religious order,' writes Remi Nadeau. 'The identifying sign is a shark's tooth, St. Christopher medal, or Maltese cross hung loosely about one's neck ... For a long time, the most accepted form of transportation has been a wood-paneled Ford station wagon of ancient vintage.' Surfers display sores and nodules on their knees and feet as proud proof of their involvement. Suntan is
Surfers are only one of many such play-based subcults. Among skydivers, for example, the name J. J. Moon is virtually unknown, and so are the peculiar rituals and fashions of the wave-cresters. Skydivers talk, instead, about the feat of Rod Pack, who not long ago jumped from an airplane without a parachute, was handed one by a companion in mid-air, put it on, opened it, and landed safely. Skydivers have their own little world, as do glider enthusiasts, scuba-divers, hot rodders, drag racers and motorcyclists. Each of these represents a leisurebased subcult organized around a technological device. As the new technology makes new sports possible, we can anticipate the formation of highly varied new play cults.
Leisure-time pursuits will become an increasingly important basis for differences between people, as the society itself shifts from a work orientation toward greater involvement in leisure. In the United States, since the turn of the century alone, the society's measurable commitment to work has plummeted by nearly a third. This is a massive redeployment of the society's time and energy. As this commitment declines further, we shall advance into an era of breathtaking fun specialism – much of it based on sophisticated technology.
We can anticipate the formation of subcults built around space activity, holography, mind-control, deep- sea diving, submarining, computer gaming and the like. We can even see on the horizon the creation of certain anti-social leisure cults – tightly organized groups of people who will disrupt the workings of society not for material gain, but for the sheer sport of 'beating the system' – a development foreshadowed in such films as
Bizarre as some of this may sound, it would be well not to rule out the seemingly improbable, for the realm of leisure, unlike that of work, is little constrained by practical considerations. Here imagination has free play, and the mind of man can conjure up incredible varieties of 'fun.' Given enough time, money and, for some of these, technical skill, the men of tomorrow will be capable of playing in ways never dreamed of before. They will play strange sexual games. They will play games with the mind. They will play games with society And in so doing, by choosing among the unimaginably broad options, they will form subcults and further set themselves off from one another.
Subcults are multiplying – the society is cracking – along age lines, too. We are becoming 'age specialists' as well as work and play specialists There was a time when people were divided roughly into children, 'young persons,' and adults. It wasn't until the forties that the loosely defined term 'young persons' began to be replaced by the more restrictive term 'teenager,' referring specifically to the years thirteen to nineteen. (In fact, the word was virtually unknown in England until after World War II.)
Today this crude, three-way division is clearly inadequate, and we are busy inventing far more specific categories. We now have a classification called 'pre-teens' or 'sub-teens' that sits perched between childhood and adolescence. We are also beginning to hear of 'postteens' and, after that, 'young marrieds.' Each of these terms is a linguistic recognition of the fact that we can no longer usefully lump all 'young persons' together. Increasingly deep cleavages separate one age group from another. So sharp are these differences that sociologist John Lofland of the University of Michigan predicts they will become the 'conflict equivalent of southerner and northerner, capitalist and worker, immigrant and 'native stock,' suffragette and male, white and Negro.'
Lofland supports this startling suggestion by documenting the rise of what he calls the 'youth ghetto' – large communities occupied almost entirely by college students. Like the Negro ghetto, the youth ghetto is often characterized by poor housing, rent and price gouging, very high mobility, unrest and conflict with the police. Like the Negro ghetto, it, too, is quite heterogeneous, with many subcults competing for the attention and allegiance of the ghettoites.
Robbed of adult heroes or role models other than their own parents, children of streamlined, nuclear families are increasingly flung into the arms of the only other people available to them – other children. They spend more time with one another, and they become more responsive to the influence of peers than ever before. Rather than idolizing an uncle, they idolize Bob Dylan or Donovan or whomever else the peer group holds up for a life style model. Thus we are beginning to form not only a college student ghetto, but even semighettos of pre-teens and teenagers, each with its own peculiar tribal characteristics, its own fads, fashions, heroes and villains.
We are simultaneously segmenting the adult population along age lines, too. There are suburbs occupied largely by young married couples with small children, or by middle-aged couples with teenagers, or by older couples whose children have already left home. We have specially-designed 'retirement communities' for retirees. 'There may come a day,' Professor Lofland warns, '... when some cities will find that their politics revolve around the voting strength of various age category ghettos, in the same way that Chicago politics has long revolved around ethnic and racial enclaves.'
This emergence of age-based subcultures can now be seen as part of a stunning historical shift in the basis of social differentiation. Time is becoming more important as a source of differences among men; space is becoming less so.
Thus communications theorist James W. Carey of the University of Illinois, points out that 'among primitive societies and in the earlier stages of western history, relatively small discontinuities in space led to vast differences in culture ... Tribal societies separated by a hundred miles could have ... grossly dissimilar systems of expressive symbolism, myth and ritual.' Within these same societies, however, there was 'great continuity ... over generations ... vast differences between societies but relatively little variation between generations within a given society.'
Today, he continues, space 'progressively disappears as a differentiating factor.' But if there has been some reduction in regional variation, Carey takes pains to point out, 'one must not assume that differences between groups are being obliterated ... as some mass society theorists [suggest].' Rather, Carey points out, 'the axis of diversity shifts from a spatial ... to a temporal or generational dimension.' Thus we get jagged breaks between the generations – and Mario Savio summed it up with the revolutionary slogan, 'Don't trust anyone over
