Pages

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Penciled Out of the "Old" Category

R.R. Reno at First Things (subscription required) writes about an observation made by Rob Henderson on his Substack Newsletter (ditto). Henderson remarks on...
...the peculiar deference baby boomers give to young people: “Older adults crave validation from the youth, which is one reason they are mocked. Young people sense their desire to be seen as cool and deprive them of this by taunting them.”

Worse, “energetic young conflict entrepreneurs” seize the initiative and intimidate baby boomer leaders of institutions and companies, driving the woke agenda into a commanding role in the marketplace and government. Henderson doesn’t see any relief on the horizon.

“Older adults want to be on the side of youth. [They are] desperate to pencil themselves out of the ‘old’ category. Every parent wants to be the ‘cool parent’; every professor wants to be the ‘cool professor.’”
Henderson appends this quote from another writer:
In the old days young people went to university to learn from people who were perhaps three times their age and had read an enormous amount. But nowadays they go in order to tell those older people what they should be thinking and what they should be saying.
What Reno notes here about older people in general is, in my experience, true in particular of not a few high school teachers, college professors and parents. Although with parents the young aren't so much antagonistic toward them, though they may be, as they are embarrassed by them.

Anyway, perhaps I should count myself fortunate that there's just no way I can be penciled out of the "old" category, either by my students or my grandkids.