Younger Than That Now: The Politics of Age in the 1960s by Holly V. Scott (review)

Holly Scott begins her study of how youth served as a political identity during the 1960s by suggesting that there is "something distorted and ahistorical about our memory of youth radicalism and the 1960s" (3). In Scott's view, popular fascination with the generation gap and a pervasive assumption that 1960s radicals inevitably grew more conservative as they aged have perpetuated an inaccurate picture of the 1960s. This picture, she argues, risks dismissing the political convictions of young, 1960s activists as an immature, adolescent-like rebellion that the baby boom generation soon outgrew. Readers who are familiar with the historiography of the 1960s may recognize this as a familiar lament; scholars such as Todd Gitlin, Van Gosse, and Edward Morgan have targeted similar misconceptions, and Scott acknowledges that "there is no end" to scholarship disproving these popular caricatures (156).

Nevertheless, popular misperceptions of the 1960s persist, and Scott's study demonstrates that it is still possible to reinterpret the history of the New Left in interesting ways. Scott's primary innovation is her narrow focus on how youth and youthfulness came to serve as a political identity for young, white radicals during the 1960s. She applies social movement theory and the concept of movement framing developed by sociologists David Snow and Robert Benford, in particular. Focusing primarily on young, white activists between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Scott argues that these activists created a "youth frame" for their movement—a "collective, overarching narrative" that gave young activists a common identity, defined their movement, and explained its goals (2). This frame was not an inherent or inevitable product of young activists' age. Rather, New Left activists' decision to represent themselves as youthful was a conscious political choice, which was "intrinsically tied to the broader politics of the 1960s" (3).

Young black, Chicano, and feminist activists also challenged the status quo and felt intergenerational tension during the 1960s. Scott argues, however, that these other young activists were too focused on uniting and liberating all members of their group—regardless of age—to embrace a potentially divisive focus on youthfulness. Young, white activists, in contrast, often found their identity as youth to be politically useful. A youth frame allowed them to contrast romanticized notions of youth as innocent and energetic with a mainstream "culture of war and death" and could be used to shock and unnerve adult adversaries (95). Most importantly for a movement that sought to invert existing power structures, the youth frame offered these activists a way of "organizing around their own oppression" (94).

Picking the news media, young activists, and even folk singers' use of youth and youthfulness apart, Scott suggests that these labels had complex and often contradictory meanings, which changed over time and in different contexts. Some of her findings are surprising. Scott argues, for example, that it took New Left activists most of the 1960s to fully realize the political potential of their own youthfulness. Young, white activists, she suggests, were only "starting" to see youth as a segment of society that needed liberation during the free speech movement protests of 1964 and did not fully embrace a youth-based identity until after 1967 (54). Earlier young activists did not necessarily consider students to also be youth and resisted media portrayals of their protests as childish rebellion—what Scott calls "youth baiting"—by arguing that they were "full citizens" who ought to be treated as adults (73, 39).

When they did begin to adopt a youth frame during the late 1960s, young activists' relationship with their own youthfulness remained "remarkably fraught" (163). Their decision to embrace a youthful identity subtly reinforced negative age-based stereotypes, and inadvertently shored up existing hierarchies. It also posed practical problems. Some young activists recognized that they needed to attract support outside their age group and that they would eventually outgrow a youthful identity, but their attempts...