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Similarly … The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

Similarly … The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. 400BC

Belphemur 3y ago
Always wondered if it was an actual Ancient Time quote. Doesn't seem like it : > It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1
- mandelbrotwurst 3y ago
  What is "Ancient Time"? Is that capitalization intentional? Edit: Oh, maybe you meant "Ancient Rome"?
  - miltondts 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history "Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500."
    - taneq 3y ago
      Wait, you mean 'ancient history' doesn't cover all time between the invention of pottery and the invention of node.js?
      - xeromal 3y ago
        I don't know why the invention of node.js tickled me so much but here we are. Thanks for writing this comment. Paired perfectly with my morning coughey.
arp242 3y ago
This is of course the famous quote from Socrates, and I absolutely hate this "argument". "Socrates was wrong in 400BC and it's wrong today" is one possible scenario, but it's also entirely possible that: - Socrates was right in 400BC. - at multiple points in 2,400 years there was a problem with "kids these days". - Socrates was wrong in 400BC, but it's fair today or at other points in history. It's just a complete non-argument. Edit: and according to a sibling comment it's not even a genuine quote, but that doesn't matter: it's a non-argument whether it's a genuine quote or not. The same applies to this "list", which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years from random people. Maybe some had a point and some didn't? Maybe none did? Maybe all did? That 19 people about of several hundred million complained about something (fairly or unfairly) in the last 19 years is just a non-argument.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  It's a non-argument in response to a stupid assertion generally made with zero meaningful evidence...
- dsr_ 3y ago
  You missed the big one: If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about X is part of human nature in, at least, cultures that leave durable evidence.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Two datapoints is hardly enough for that, and out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing, so "any and all arguments that touch on this must be invalid" seems just as much of an invalid non-argument to me. You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.
BirAdam 3y ago
The perennial nature of “kids these days” being insolent and otherwise generally poorly disciplined is that discipline is something to be cultivated within and not imposed from without. As a result, children who lack years of practice in discipline are not particularly well behaved. Adults tend to forget their childhoods, remembering only bits and pieces. In truth, every child was scolded for his/her bad behavior, and each generation tends to have the same bad behavior as the one before it. If each generation of kids were perfectly well behaved there’d be no need for raising, and there’d be no statements from old people such as “children are to be seen and not heard” or as “do not speak unless spoken to” or even as “get your elbows off the table”. That such statements are uttered and remembered by multiple generations proves that kids have made roughly the same “mistakes” over the course of those selfsame generations.
- nitwit005 3y ago
  No, the adults remember. They get angry if you point out how they behaved when they were young. The real complaint is "young people won't let me boss them around".
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    As a father of three empathetic geniuses, I promise you that bossing them around is counterproductive
fbdab103 3y ago
Here I am just wondering why crossing of legs was inappropriate.
deleted 3y ago
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draw_down 3y ago
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mihaic 3y ago
What if people have always been complaining about this because it was always a problem that popped up and neede to be handled. Maybe any change in society meant parents can't use the same techniques to raise their children, and neede to evolve. Overall, not sure how a complain popping up all the time means it's invalid. People have always complained about injustice, and it's not like that's ever gone away entirely.

Belphemur 3y ago

Always wondered if it was an actual Ancient Time quote. Doesn't seem like it : > It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1

mandelbrotwurst 3y ago
What is "Ancient Time"? Is that capitalization intentional? Edit: Oh, maybe you meant "Ancient Rome"?
- miltondts 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history "Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500."
  - taneq 3y ago
    Wait, you mean 'ancient history' doesn't cover all time between the invention of pottery and the invention of node.js?
    - xeromal 3y ago
      I don't know why the invention of node.js tickled me so much but here we are. Thanks for writing this comment. Paired perfectly with my morning coughey.

arp242 3y ago

This is of course the famous quote from Socrates, and I absolutely hate this "argument". "Socrates was wrong in 400BC and it's wrong today" is one possible scenario, but it's also entirely possible that: - Socrates was right in 400BC. - at multiple points in 2,400 years there was a problem with "kids these days". - Socrates was wrong in 400BC, but it's fair today or at other points in history. It's just a complete non-argument. Edit: and according to a sibling comment it's not even a genuine quote, but that doesn't matter: it's a non-argument whether it's a genuine quote or not. The same applies to this "list", which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years from random people. Maybe some had a point and some didn't? Maybe none did? Maybe all did? That 19 people about of several hundred million complained about something (fairly or unfairly) in the last 19 years is just a non-argument.

Hizonner 3y ago
It's a non-argument in response to a stupid assertion generally made with zero meaningful evidence...
dsr_ 3y ago
You missed the big one: If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about X is part of human nature in, at least, cultures that leave durable evidence.
- arp242 3y ago
  Two datapoints is hardly enough for that, and out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing, so "any and all arguments that touch on this must be invalid" seems just as much of an invalid non-argument to me. You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.

BirAdam 3y ago

The perennial nature of “kids these days” being insolent and otherwise generally poorly disciplined is that discipline is something to be cultivated within and not imposed from without. As a result, children who lack years of practice in discipline are not particularly well behaved. Adults tend to forget their childhoods, remembering only bits and pieces. In truth, every child was scolded for his/her bad behavior, and each generation tends to have the same bad behavior as the one before it. If each generation of kids were perfectly well behaved there’d be no need for raising, and there’d be no statements from old people such as “children are to be seen and not heard” or as “do not speak unless spoken to” or even as “get your elbows off the table”. That such statements are uttered and remembered by multiple generations proves that kids have made roughly the same “mistakes” over the course of those selfsame generations.

nitwit005 3y ago
No, the adults remember. They get angry if you point out how they behaved when they were young. The real complaint is "young people won't let me boss them around".
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  As a father of three empathetic geniuses, I promise you that bossing them around is counterproductive

fbdab103 3y ago

Here I am just wondering why crossing of legs was inappropriate.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

draw_down 3y ago

[dead]

mihaic 3y ago

What if people have always been complaining about this because it was always a problem that popped up and neede to be handled. Maybe any change in society meant parents can't use the same techniques to raise their children, and neede to evolve. Overall, not sure how a complain popping up all the time means it's invalid. People have always complained about injustice, and it's not like that's ever gone away entirely.