Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 60

58
ONCE WERE MEN
Pragmatic men would never defíne them-
selves as a group or category. They prefer
to be outsiders working inside.
Conclusions
Faroese youths live in an advanced, open
and media-rich society that-even ifwecall
it latemodern - is in a fragile transitional
phase with contesting interests, values and
attitudes in loud public discourse clashes.
Even if the youth is well-adapted to the chal-
lenges and opportunities of the new era,
there are indeed groups in Faroese society
distrusting and resisting globalisation proc-
esses guiding changes in society and culture.
The Faroe Islands are too small to em-
brace elaborated and demarcated youth cul-
tures, even if most styles and symbols are
present in society. Young people’s family
bonds and social networks are crossing sub-
cultural boundaries so that young people
often have connection and affíliation to sev-
eral youth groups. Religion is also an im-
portant factorjustifying values and lifestyles
of teenagers. Young people actively engaged
in free churches often make their own
groups relatively isolated from others. So-
cially marginalized youth is also often or-
ganized as a separate youth group with lim-
ited interaction with other youth groups out-
side school.
Leisure is considered as an important
capital in the life of people in latemodern so-
ciety, and working and family life are sup-
posed to fit into the leisure life; leisure ac-
ti vities are - if avoidable - not sacrificed be-
cause of possible working conditions. Many
young people choose working careers di-
rectly linked to their youth leisure life.
Leisure is today even treated as some kind
of learning arena and education, much
prized by latemodem society that also gives
fonual education a very high priority. Learn-
ing is going on everywhere, e.g. in relation
to new computer technologies where the
children are more advanced than their teach-
ers. This was unthinkable only a few years
ago.
Tradition is an important capital in most
contemporary youth cultures. It is often ar-
gued that cities are modern and global while
villages (the periphery) are traditional and
local. This might sound plausible but is re-
jected in many inquiries. “Villages are”, says
Fornás, “also modern - it is a myth to think
that they are a premodern reserve. New
media have influenced life in rural areas as
much as in big cities” (1994: 56, my trans-
lation). Geographical distance and urban-
rural contrasts do not in themselves explain
what the modem life of young people and
adults is like, even if the information might
give a vague idea of the situation. In high
modernity, says Giddens (1991), remote
events influenced by near-by events or the
intimacy of self become more and more
common. The situation is much more com-
plex than often portrayed, because local and
global, traditional and modern are in inter-
play and the flow of influence is going in
both directions.
The four categories described above
have interesting differences and similarities,
but the groups’ internal variation is, as
demonstrated, signifícant. The groups of
men are indeed mutually interdependent as
analytical categories, as the defmitions are
based on structural contrasts as in most other