3 ms·

I think it's natural for older people to react with dismay when confronted with a younger person's pessimism about the future, but to say that it is failure of

I think it's natural for older people to react with dismay when confronted with a younger person's pessimism about the future, but to say that it is failure of obligation or responsibility is seriously misunderstanding, even willfully, the kids thoughts on this. The situation is, in fact, quite reversed! Consider a child who is more pessimistic about the future than their parent at the same age, why is that? You could hand-wave it away, as people tend to do here, and say its a problem of education, or they have been brainwashed, but no one seems to consider just how much intellectual autonomy or rationality you are denying the kid to have, you are choosing to simply deny flat out any basis for the kids pessimism. You could also conclude that, in fact, the world is worse for the kid then it was for the parent, which I believe is occams razor here, and what else is that but the failure of the generations before? You can blame the apps, but you made the apps (quite literally around here); you could blame the schools, but who was responsible for the character of education in a country but the voting generations of the past? But instead, everyone would rather just doubt children, or say they are lazy! We inherit the world we are born into, yes, but there is no sense or ground to the world, it is flying blind. Older people are saddened by deep pessimism of younger people, because deep down, it is nothing more than an indictment of the world they have left the kids, and it hurts to reckon with that, so this thought rarely passes into consciousness, happy to be deflected onto presumptions about the kid's responsibility. It's sad to not have a shared future between generations, but like in the article, we need to take seriously the irreality of the Future. At the end of the day, kids do not like your future, the future you have left for them. The trajectory of the world as it stands. To me, it is heartening that kids, maybe not yet with a sense of agency, manifest profound pessimism, because it is correctly identifying a problem in the grandest, most existential sense: the narrative of history we have been operating on for a long time. Profound pessimism is a seed that can grow into powerful critiques about the most unsaid and damaging assumptions of our time. If you are so angry that kids would dare question the longevity of the world they find themselves in, you are saying something more about yourself. You take it personally, because deep down you know they have inherited, in part, your own failures.

kardianos 5y ago
Yes, you describe a failure of obligation quite well.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  Perhaps, but I don't see how my point still stands. If individual responsibility and obligation are the things that make the difference, then by that logic, the responsibility and obligation of generations before have created a world that has instilled kids with the sentiment they have. Like... when you say this, who are you blaming? Who is to blame? You can say something like "Well, in fact, the world is doing fine, we are progressing, it is all just appearance, it is an epistemological problem for these kids, brainwashing"; and you might cite some NGO report about decreasing world hunger or the happiness index, or whatever, and say "these kids have nothing to complain about". I see this argument a lot. But I would just ask, OK, if thats true, it simply shifts the problem. If it is just about the kids perceptions, and their dwindling sense of obligation in response to that, we can still ask: why are they being misled in this way? Why do they feel selfish entitlement instead responsible obligation? Surely it is something about the world they find themselves in, the world inherited from their parents. I don't know who else you can blame. You spent many decades voting, consuming, building the apps, creating the culture that kids find themselves in, the very same one where they arrive at the sentiments they do. It is still on you! You could also accept my initial conclusion and say: "yes the world is worse then when I was a kid, but it isn't my fault." But then, that troubles the conceit that individual obligation/responsibility is the operating variable there. And really, you are just hold the same pessimism as the kid, but through the filter of a lived life grasping for purpose. You are asking the kid to have more faith than yourself! At the end of the day, a life might just be a lesson in having faith in progress, but that is less a value to impose, less something to punish the kid for not realizing, as it is something we all must come to. To blame the kids is just not logical. Even if it turns out that the flouride in the water or whatever has caused this rash of irresponsibility in young people, that is still on the generations before them for putting it in the water! If its not on the generations before, if it was going to happen no matter what, then that is just reason to throw out the idea the kids lack anything at all, that something about their sentiments are their fault. So, either you are guilty (as presumably an older person), or you need to cut the kids some slack.

kardianos 5y ago

Yes, you describe a failure of obligation quite well.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
Perhaps, but I don't see how my point still stands. If individual responsibility and obligation are the things that make the difference, then by that logic, the responsibility and obligation of generations before have created a world that has instilled kids with the sentiment they have. Like... when you say this, who are you blaming? Who is to blame? You can say something like "Well, in fact, the world is doing fine, we are progressing, it is all just appearance, it is an epistemological problem for these kids, brainwashing"; and you might cite some NGO report about decreasing world hunger or the happiness index, or whatever, and say "these kids have nothing to complain about". I see this argument a lot. But I would just ask, OK, if thats true, it simply shifts the problem. If it is just about the kids perceptions, and their dwindling sense of obligation in response to that, we can still ask: why are they being misled in this way? Why do they feel selfish entitlement instead responsible obligation? Surely it is something about the world they find themselves in, the world inherited from their parents. I don't know who else you can blame. You spent many decades voting, consuming, building the apps, creating the culture that kids find themselves in, the very same one where they arrive at the sentiments they do. It is still on you! You could also accept my initial conclusion and say: "yes the world is worse then when I was a kid, but it isn't my fault." But then, that troubles the conceit that individual obligation/responsibility is the operating variable there. And really, you are just hold the same pessimism as the kid, but through the filter of a lived life grasping for purpose. You are asking the kid to have more faith than yourself! At the end of the day, a life might just be a lesson in having faith in progress, but that is less a value to impose, less something to punish the kid for not realizing, as it is something we all must come to. To blame the kids is just not logical. Even if it turns out that the flouride in the water or whatever has caused this rash of irresponsibility in young people, that is still on the generations before them for putting it in the water! If its not on the generations before, if it was going to happen no matter what, then that is just reason to throw out the idea the kids lack anything at all, that something about their sentiments are their fault. So, either you are guilty (as presumably an older person), or you need to cut the kids some slack.