ABSTRACT
A social system is devised around a need, a need that is common enough to justify a pooling of resources, a social as well as an individual response. The cultural emphasis on self and identity, the basis of a consumer society, acts as a defence against our awareness of our vulnerability, and the negotiations that we make all the time to confirm our sense of self are crucial to our sense of worth. Extremes of relativism and social constructionism—where in fantasy you can be whatever you choose—are sometimes explained in the language of post-modernism and are linked to ways that society has become acculturated to what we may recognize as adolescent behaviour. The characteristics of adolescence have to do with transition and transformation. The only makeover that used to matter was puberty, when the body changed from that of a child to that of a women or man.
