Today, we come across people from different groups in street interviews, which have been very popular recently. In these interviews, which mostly include questions about the state of the country and the world, we see that the elderly people sometimes use sentences such as “young people don’t like jobs”, “I have no hope for the youth of the time” or “our time was better”.
We see that this situation occupies a great place not only in street interviews, but also in conversations that are spoken in daily life. In other words, it is an indisputable fact that one generation blames the next in many respects. In this content, we will look at the reasons for this situation and how the younger generation, who blames the elderly, turns into them in the future.
Those who score higher than others on simple IQ tests are more likely to complain about teenagers. But, interestingly, those whose scores are not that high do not complain much about the situation. So the problem is is it really generation aware?
This contradiction comes from a 2019 study by Psychologist John Protzko. In this study, which included 3,458 adults through online surveys, it was found that those with a dominant personality were more likely to say, “Young people of this time are very disrespectful than they used to be.” The same goes for the habit of reading books.
After this situation, test takers gave wrong feedback to some people by underestimating their test scores. This time, it was seen that these people were softer towards the young people. Some even admitted that the youth of the time were better than in the past.
Of course, these are not sufficient information on their own. Because there were still people who got low scores in the tests and continued to blame the youth. We can summarize this briefly as ‘we tend to judge those who lag behind in areas where we excel’.
Older individuals can look back and see the ideal world there. If young people forget the past by making plans for the future, this creates a conflict.
As in the previous case, we can call this a psychological fallacy. Past and present have different advantages and disadvantages. But when it comes to remembering the past for the elderly, it seems to be quite biased.
When mentioning the 80s as an example, most of the time only good things are mentioned. Neighborhood culture, respect, decency, fun high school memories, real socialization and more come back as they are told. But we don’t see much talk about incurable diseases, economic depressions, and the pathetic situation of equality between men and women at that time.
But when we look at today, it is seen that the diseases that could not be treated in time, unethical marriages, the development process in the cities were better than then and somehow got better.
Because each generation builds on the previous one. If the youth were counting as it is said, the whole world would have been dragged into disaster already:
Do not think that we are here blindly defending the new generation by closing our eyes and ears. Some problems such as gender equality and racism existed in the past and still exist today. Unfortunately, it looks like it will continue to exist for a long time. However, we do not include them in our subject because they are out of the conflict between generations.
Another reason is the high expectation on young people: You can’t earn money from where you sit (!)
It is indisputable that young people’s learning software or a foreign language will benefit them. However, because they have difficulty in doing these things, generalizing them and seeing them below your own generation is again a psychological mistake.
Let’s say you are a software developer who is very good in his field. When you see that others have difficulty getting to the position you are, it is possible that you do not see the effort you put into getting to that position. In other words, the difficult roads you go through become simple in your eyes or you don’t even notice it. After that, you can see them below yourself by taking them into a group, as the others couldn’t.
Today, this situation is generally discussed on the basis of its working principle. The elderly people complain that young people do not have the habit of working and they want to earn an income from where they live. Young people, on the other hand, see this as a newly opened door, and as we have seen with the pandemic, it is possible to work efficiently for most jobs while staying at home.
The reason for this is because the internet did not allow this way of working in the past, so the working understanding between the two generations differed. So what will happen when the youth of today grow up:
Unfortunately, this cycle that has been going on for thousands of years will never stop. Even in ancient Greece, the incompetence of the youth was complained about. This continues today. Probably, the young people reading this article will also complain about the next generation in their later years.
If you have a younger sibling and the way he plays with his friends, the way he teaches at school, the thoughts in his head and other things related to it seem strange to you already, it would be useful to review this situation due to the fact that it is different from what you are used to.
How many of us know the name of our grandfather’s grandfather? They were also said about the next generation, perhaps at the time. But when you look at it now, very few people remember their names. From this point of view, perhaps it is this fear of being forgotten that scares the elderly.
Likewise, the fact that they will entrust the world entrusted to them to the next generation when the time comes may be one of the reasons for this situation. Because in this case, the idea that “they can’t do it without us” prevails in the face of this generation, which they think is not as good as themselves. When this is resisted, the stamp of ungrateful is imprinted.
As a result, it should be seen as a general problem of humanity rather than generalizing it to generations. Because if the problem was limited to generations, all the old people would complain about the situation and this would continue from generation to generation without exception. The best thing you can do to avoid this misconception is not to judge someone by their age, but to be objective with everyone.
Sources: Medium, Vox, BBC
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