Frankly … social  The way things are going out there

As you grow older, you come to see the world differently, observes Maximilian Buddenbohm. The question is, what has actually changed: the world or the man? In any case, one thing has definitely changed for the worse.

Some subjects are a bit tricky for me because I’ve reached a certain age now: 56. That’s not old age yet, I know, but I can’t pass for young anymore, and that affects the way I see things. As we get older, we tend to feel that most changes in the world are for the worse. The world should kindly stay the way it’s always been from our point of view, even if we’ve got an inkling that our own parents would have seen that world quite differently, and their parents even more so, not to mention their parents’ parents and so on. The world is change; it’s that simple, that banal. So you’ve got to be careful: What we disapprove of might be just a little different from the way it used to be – and maybe we have suddenly morphed into old-age pensioners brandishing a cane whilst going on about “all those youngsters”, maybe we’ve become fussbudgets who are embarrassingly “out of it” and can’t get our heads around the latest trends. We may have unwittingly become the caricatured old fogeys we used to laugh at when we were kids. We’d never have thought it possible that we, too, could one day become that sort of person. But it is, and we have.

Other eventualities

That part is simple. But other eventualities are possible, and that complicates the matter. On the one hand, it may be that nothing has changed out there in the world, but we’ve changed and we don’t even realize it. Happens a lot. For example, the world isn’t really getting faster and faster all the time, we’re just getting slower from one decade to the next, so we’re lagging behind the times. This may well be, it’s the kind of thing that’s hard to notice. It also makes us look ridiculous. On the other hand, some things may actually be getting worse. Seriously and objectively worse. Some things are going downhill, and just because we’re getting older doesn’t mean we’re consistently wrong. Real backslides do occur, wrongheaded developments, historical aberrations. Trends we don’t have to applaud, even after due consideration, because, say, we have certain ethical standards. Yes, that really may be the case, and then, but only then, we have every right – if not an obligation – to get worked up about the matter.

The hard part is making out what’s actually, objectively, going on in each individual case. This may not sound like a big deal, but I actually consider it one of the main challenges in growing older: Why do I object to something lately? I have to put my thinking cap on to answer that one correctly. What’s going on here? What’s the real story here? Can I make out the objective reality of the situation, or am I being taken in or simply deluding myself yet again? Or am I simply from another era and out of step with the new one?

Different generations, different attitudes towards work

Take the way we see work, for instance: Different generations have different attitudes towards work. This has been a big bone of contention lately in offices as well as in the media and on social media. How do boomers work? How about generations X or Z, which I still can’t get straight? And what about Gen Y, the so-called millennials, who are said to be so awfully unmotivated and on the whole bizarre – how do they work? It’s silly but I can never remember the letters, dates and definitions of all these cohorts, who belongs in which pigeonhole, which seems to be common knowledge for others. My sons just made it into Generation Z, which is followed by Generation Alpha – but I had to look that one up in Wikipedia. If I ever have grandchildren, they’ll probably be beta versions! I’m sure this joke has been used before. Anyway, Generation Alpha don’t go to work yet, so they’re not in on this big debate.

There’s more than enough mockery and ridicule to go round, rampant venting and even blatant insults pouring in from every side. Nowadays people defend their own cohorts like football clubs – the only things missing are scarves, flags and chants: That’s what boomers look like, shalalala. You’re like this, but we’re like that, and that’s better, of course – this is the standard mindset nowadays. Countless videos on TikTok and Instagram follow the same pattern, showing stereotypical generational behaviour in various situations. How boomers answer the phone, how millennials get to work, how zoomers get ready for bed. One cliché after another, which seems to amuse people no end. The way young people go about their work is markedly different from the way we used to do it, we can all agree on that one, and all the cohorts nod in a rare display of unanimity. In other words, the younger generations have the nerve not to emulate their elders in all things and not even to defer to the greater wisdom that we clearly possess. When I talk to folks my age these days, every one of them can share an amusing anecdote about working with strange newbies. It’s a popular, very funny topic, always good for a shared laugh.

Not my responsibility

Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the whole subject and all the attendant hullaballoo. I may find the divergent work attitudes of those who come after me good or bad, but the differences simply don’t matter. At most, they might be of some sociological significance. And yes, I readily admit the differences are interesting in a way. As far as I’m concerned, they can be researched and interpreted at length – even book length – and maybe I’d read such a book too. But I don’t think there’s any need for me to make value judgments about them. Because that’s none of my concern, it’s not my responsibility. With each passing year, the scope of my responsibility shrinks, which is something I feel we ought to be able to enjoy in full. One of the definite advantages of getting older is not being responsible for everything anymore.

To play it safe, I can bring my ethical standards to bear on the matter – I like to think I have some. So is what young people do in the workplace bad, reprehensible, even evil? No, they’re not turning into Nazis and “marching through the institutions”, they don’t go looting stores in the suburbs as a sideline or invade neighbouring countries on a full-time basis, they merely opt for a slightly different work-life balance. So what’s that to me? Well, it’s just a good example of a topic I’d rather not think or say anything more about.

Something else

That said, however, I actually wanted to write about something else today. I just had to go pretty far afield, had to take a short – well, actually, extremely long and elaborate – detour to get to my point. Because even bearing in mind all the eventualities mentioned above, wouldn’t you agree that more and more people of every generation are flouting traffic rules these days? Isn’t this an objectively verifiable and statistically proven development that’s been going on for some time now, as I’ve read in several articles lately, a change that is actually and objectively for the worse, any way you look at it? Isn’t this trend morally objectionable? Doesn’t it amount to a partial repudiation of our merely notional social contract and an awful, alarming sign of the social climate in this country? I really don’t understand why we’re not thrashing out this problem, seeing as it’s such a blatant and significant step backwards in civilization?

Pardon me. I didn’t mean to get so hot under the collar, sounding off like a peevish pensioner, I’ll be all right again in a minute. It’s just that I almost got run over again at a crossing today by a motorist who jumped a red light without even slowing down. It’s actually the fourth time something like this has happened to me in the past six months. That’s how things are out there these days. And now that I’ve turned this over in my mind for a while, I’ve come to the serious conclusion that it’s not my age that makes me see it this way.
 

March 2023