I recently heard someone not much older than me talking about how he thought that the current generation is fucked up. This was a fairly well-to-do guy who seemed fairly smart. But I think that his perspective on the “new generation” was dumb. It was superficial. For one thing, he’s judging a large group of people based on limited information. Additionally, parts of both the good and bad of each generation are outgrowths of past generations.
Generational divides always seemed artificial to me. I was born in a year which falls in both the “baby boomer generation” and the “generation x”. People have argued which I should be grouped in. But I argued against both terms. I don’t give a fuck what age group people are in. That only partially defines them. Definitions of “generations” of people never seem to cover enough of the people. It seems to me that the terms are more defining the period of time rather that the people. And conditions of periods of time are not affected by a single age group. I understand that various age groups have challenges and accomplishments unique to their age groups. But the variations are so broad that it seems to me that defining them within a generation is a bit of an overgeneralization.
Every period of time has good and bad folks, people with different and conflicting intelligences. From those different people, each period of time has progress and degeneration. Those states of progress and degenerations are expanded by the “next generation”. What makes things better or worse is partly dependent on whether the progress or degeneration has more momentum. For a long time, we’ve generally seen more progress than degeneration.
To take a few steps back, I see many people’s nostalgia as limited in focus. An example is this guy who was interviewed in Louisiana for a documentary about new waves of segregation via some attempts at public funding of some local charter schools. He was talking about how life was better when he was a kid in the 1950’s. Now, we are talking about Louisiana in the 1950’s. This was part of the heavily segregated south where public resources were routed more for the betterment of white communities. But he didn’t see how he was reminiscing about his limited experiences in his white culture and that other people of his age in the same area did not have the benefits that he did. If he stepped out of his own memories and looked at the broader range of experiences during the time of his childhood, he may have had different opinions of his past and the current age.
Moving forward, I believe that the overall momentum is toward positive progress. Yes, there are still areas where things have degraded. But we need to be careful about placing blame on “the new generation”. Some things are picked up from past ages, then made better or worse. Let’s take litter as an example. An older person might look at a littering young person and simply blame that person or that generation or culture. But the littering person may very well have picked up the habit from an older person. I have seen parents discarding trash on the street in the presence of their kids. Kids often pick up behaviors from parents. So those kids may become litterers because of the example set by the parents. What I am trying to say is that a lot of behaviors are cross-generational.
That’s not to say that people of any age shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. But the blame can be spread a lot further than just one generation. Overall, we are all in this thing called life together. We collectively make things better or worse. Yes, we have to hold people accountable for their behaviors and affects on others. But I am tired of the oversimplified blame game that too many people do. We do need to place blame where needed. But we need to look at the details and not just our limited experiences when blaming large groups of people or even individuals. As far as age groups go, I see a lot more fault in past generations both in what was done and what has been passed on. There are currently a lot of issues but they are continuations of issues which have existed for a long time. That being said, there is a lot of misinformation about the current state of things. I recommend Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” for some incites into how humanity is better today than in the past. But even casual investigations show how each new generation in recent times have brought humanity overall into a better state.
I’m not a complete optimist. There are environmental problems and areas of violence. But these things, even the actions which people take, are mistakes compounded on mistakes. There are a lot of difficulties ahead. But it’s the kids of today who have the potential to continue the progress and lessen the degeneration, just as each generation has often, somehow managed to make some corrections of problems passed onto them from the past generation. The degeneration which exists has its roots in the past. So I say to those who want to blame the younger people for supposedly making things worse, look at your own age group for contributing factors. Also, look a little broader and you will see more good than bad in many areas.
The fall of the roman empire and the decline of the middle eastern areas did not come about due to a single generation. Many of the mistakes and extremism of the generations which caused the degenerations came from the conditions created by the previous generations.
As some older people can become too set in their ways, some young people can be a bit too reactionary. Erroneous judgments about the motivations of older people can occur. I remember an event in my 20’s. I was at a party, which was getting rather loud. It was in an apartment complex. An older neighbor called to ask that we tone things done, which we did. There were people who talked about the “old farts”. A couple of us went over to talk with the couple. While there, we could hear how our music was louder in their apartment than their own music. So we understood that it wasn’t about the oldness but rather it was about our own empathy and courtesy. They could have turned their speakers up to compensate for our loudness. But that would have then affected the neighbors on the other side.
And that brings me to an important thing. When possible, It’s better to learn a bit more about others before making judgements. Conversation is best. Empathy is key. See what it’s like on the other side. There are times when quick judgements are needed but we are often too quick too often. Related to quick justments are what I call stagnate cognitive filters. People in all ages and most cultures have cognitive filters which don’t get updated or get clogged with inaccurate information. And I think that updating and cleaning those filters will open us up to new and better possibilities.
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