We often hear that the instrumentalization of children is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. That is not entirely wrong—but it is not quite right either. Yes, totalitarian systems frequently deploy children in propaganda, and their supporters are expected to marvel when children adore the leader or flawlessly recite ideological slogans. Anyone who wants to study this phenomenon in its purest form need only observe certain modern propagandists who manage to synthesize the most grotesque features of multiple dictatorships at once. Their staged conversations with children are almost laboratory-grade examples of the totalitarian genre.
But the deeper point is this: the political use of children is not unique to totalitarianism. It is far older than that. From antiquity onward, political and religious imagination has repeatedly elevated the figure of the pure virgin—often a girl barely in her teens—or the innocent youth as a vessel of truth, revelation, or moral authority.
Why this fascination with puberty? Because it carries a powerful implicit message: competence does not matter. Intelligence does not matter. Education, experience, and analytical judgment do not matter. What matters is not reason but “purity,” divine inspiration, or the mere act of declaring allegiance to the right cause. The more naïve and intellectually undeveloped the messenger, the more convincing the claim that the message must come from some higher authority—after all, it clearly did not originate in his or her own mind.
The symbolism is unmistakable. Judgment, prudence, and rational deliberation are treated as obstacles rather than virtues. Either revelation speaks directly through the innocent brain, or simple, primitive loyalty substitutes for thinking altogether.
Even the age itself is not accidental. Our ancestors grasped this intuitively, and modern experimental psychology confirms it with greater precision: around early adolescence—roughly from twelve onward—several cognitive and self-regulatory capacities temporarily deteriorate before stabilizing again in the early twenties. The practical judgment of a fourteen-year-old is often worse than that of a ten-year-old. Adolescence is not a season of clarity but of volatility, impulsiveness, and susceptibility to emotional contagion.
None of this necessarily implies a formally totalitarian movement. But it does reveal something important about the kinds of movements that place adolescents on political pedestals. These are movements in which reason plays little role. They thrive on excitement, moral intoxication, and collective fervor—or, in plainer language, on blindness and foolishness. Where arguments are weak, innocence becomes a substitute for truth.