“Ours is the generation that will never become obsolete. Our ideas are fresh. Our styles are contemporary. Our politics are honest and well-thought-out.” Isn’t that just what everyone thinks when they are young?
It may take a while, maybe 45 or 50 years, but everyone will eventually realize how mistaken they were. How could everything that defined us as a generation become wrong? How did we slip from being hip to being the butt of jokes about how ridiculous things used to be? But, perhaps more importantly, how did everything become so confusing?
Take language, for example. In our thirties and forties, the new words and phrases were often spoken by youngsters in our homes, but in our fifties and sixties, they become more of a mystery because we seldom hear these new expressions. When we do, we scratch our heads and do our best to fake understanding. Eventually, we just must ask for a translation and, even then, usually walk away still confused.
Styles of clothing are a bit less of a mystery because of the tendency for styles to come and go and then come back and go away again and so forth. Unfortunately any items we might have packed away in our late teens no longer come anywhere close to fitting and, of course, no one else wants these items because they are made out of old-fashioned fabrics, even if they are of a similar style. And what is it with ripped clothing? When we were young, we were embarrassed to wear things that were torn and now you can buy things pre-ripped! And probably pay extra for them.
Music is a bit like clothes in that things come and go over the generations. Just when we thought music could not get any more bizarre, we hear music being listened to by the latest generation of adolescents that sounds, dare we say, nice. Of course, music comes in such a variety of styles that it really just depends on what your young acquaintances enjoy. They even might enjoy music we listened to at their age, because music preferences seem to be more about the style than the date is was recorded. This is probably due to such great recording, preservation and replay methods we have at our fingertips.
But changes in societal norms are the most jarring. Things that we never anticipated are thrust upon us now as normal and we are made to feel somehow of poor moral character if we have a difficult time accepting these changes. Boys used to be boys and girls were girls. But now there are more gender identifications than I can wrap my head around. The changes in ideas regarding race are easier for me to understand because the older ideas were based on very unscientific thinking and the new ideas are much kinder and more sensible. Changes in family structure and what constitutes marriage has seemed to change at light speed, but it was probably because things seemed so natural the way we saw them that we didn’t see any reason for them to ever change. Again, the changes seem to stem from an attempt to be more loving and inclusive, but sometimes the rationale for considering something normal is difficult to understand.
And so I go through life just a bit confused and even more disappointed that I was so wrong about our generation’s ideas and preferences. But, at least, I can take solace in the fact that the 17-year-olds will find themselves in this same place, scratching their balding heads, in about 50 years!
I wonder how much the explosion of the internet and mobile devices has played a part in the way that things are changing. When I was in middle school, all I knew was what our family knew and the people who lived around us and the world we existed in that way. I had a pen pal in far away IL, and the missionaries who’d come to church would talk about their experiences, but the world was a very small place.
But now, kids in middle school have smart phones that have access to all sort of social media and their world is enormous! The safety of being unknown on the internet can keep people from being bullied by their neighbors and schoolmates while also sharing their experiences with people who are like them out in the world, making it not nearly as lonely a place as it used to be. I know a lot more about people’s experiences with different situations but haven’t met those people face-to-face. And it’s a much more broad awareness than I’d get reading books or articles, but by reading first-hand journals and conversations updated in real time.
And I do really wonder what the world will look like in the future.
But I also wonder what I’ve just missed out on seeing because I wasn’t looking. Because some of the societal norms you mentioned have been a fight happening since the 60s. The Stonewall Riots in 1969 were started because cops raided a gay bar to arrest anyone cross-dressing as women. It turned violent as people resisted having an officer check their genitals and other people in the bar resisted in solidarity. It was a culmination of years of violence against the gay community and the start of the gay liberation movement. And it was only as recent as 2009 when a hate crime was expanded to include someone’s gender identity and sexual orientation. People are feeling a little more comfortable being “out”, but I know people who have had to deal with that fear of violence. So I know about that societal change because I’ve been watching it for a while.
But I wonder what fight are people having that I don’t even know about right now?