rites of passage.................

      The youth culture prides itself on its inclusiveness.  That is to say, it removes all barriers to membership—all obstacles in the form of learning, expertise, allusion, doctrine, or moral discipline. For these would be rites of passage, constituting a tacit admission that to be young is not enough, that the world expects something, and that there is a higher stage of existence to which we all must eventually proceed.  This very inclusiveness, however, deprives the youth culture of human purpose.  It remains locked in the present tense, looking for good causes, spiritual icons, ways of representing itself as legitimate, but without crossing the fatal barrier into responsible adulthood.

-Roger Scruton, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture (1998)