This reaction essay responds to two arguments from Murray Milner Jr.'s Freaks, Geeks and Cool Kids, which link the structure of American secondary education to teenage status preoccupation and the reinforcement of consumer capitalism. The paper applies sociological imagination to explore the historical persistence of status hierarchies, the role of peer culture in shaping worldviews, and how learned consumer behavior is transmitted from adults and institutions to youth. The author challenges Milner's optimism about behavioral change while affirming his core insight that schools function as training grounds for consumption. The essay draws on personal observation and broader cultural commentary to ground these arguments.
In Freaks, Geeks and Cool Kids, Murray Milner Jr. offers a number of provocative arguments about the relationship between American secondary education, teenage status preoccupation, and consumer capitalism. Two of his claims are especially worth examining closely. The first concerns how the isolated structure of secondary schooling produces status-obsessed teenagers who, in turn, fuel consumer capitalism. The second concerns how peer culture teaches young people to consume — and how that lesson ultimately reflects the choices adults make about their own lives.
Milner argues that "the structure of American secondary education — keeping teenagers in their own isolated world with little economic and political power and few non-school responsibilities — results in the status preoccupation of teenagers," and that these status concerns "play a significant contributing role in the development and maintenance of consumer capitalism" (p. 156).
After reading this, one is compelled to ask: when was status not a preoccupation — for teenagers or adults? As long as humans have existed, status has been an integral factor in determining the de facto hierarchy of society. Of course, status was not always determined by the conscious choices of a community or its "opinion leaders." At various points in history, hierarchical structures were simply enforced on communities — through monarchical rule, caste systems, and similar arrangements. Nevertheless, status has always been a critical preoccupation governing the ebb and flow of a society's norms and values.
That said, what constitutes "high" status has evolved considerably over time. In the Victorian era, high-status beauty meant pale aristocrats with high foreheads. Today's ideals look entirely different. The point is that status has many components beyond the economic, and as society grows more fragmented, each subgroup defines its own unique criteria for what counts as desirable or high status. This is one dimension that Milner addresses only tangentially — the fact that society is becoming increasingly fractured and heterogeneous, making any single account of teenage status culture necessarily incomplete.
Certain structural realities, however, remain stubbornly constant. The wealthy continue to hold disproportionate power and enforce their interests upon those with fewer resources. The main difference today is that the shrinking middle class and the poor are more conscious of their exploitation. Yet there is a profound irony here: despite awareness of how much they are taken advantage of, the poor and the middle class rarely seek to dismantle or even negotiate with the ruling class toward a more egalitarian arrangement. Instead, they want to join the wealthy. This is precisely the seductive power of status that keeps existing hierarchies intact — nearly everyone believes they can change their own position within the system.
Being taught how to consume is the American way. Consider a striking contrast: the average U.S. citizen carries roughly 20% debt, while the average Chinese citizen maintains roughly a 20% savings rate. Credit card companies are not camped outside college campuses in China, and the notion of "buy now, pay later" has historically been foreign to Chinese consumer culture — though this may be changing as China trends toward capitalism and its burgeoning middle class grows exponentially, making it increasingly resemble American consumer society.
"American schooling trains students to consume"
"Consumer habits are deeply ingrained and hard to reverse"
Milner is right that peer culture and adult behavior powerfully shape how young people relate to status and consumption. The structure of American secondary education does create conditions in which status preoccupation flourishes, and that preoccupation does serve the interests of consumer capitalism. The deeper problem, however, is that meaningful change requires people to want to change — and as both history and everyday observation confirm, that desire is far less common than optimists tend to hope.
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