Are We Doomed To Become Ever More Conservative
The conservative grandad who shakes his head at his rebellious granddaughter. Clashing contempt for each other’s ways — is that the best we can do?
Writing this in my thirties doesn’t feel right. It probably means it probably is.
How many times do we learn about something when it’s far too late get there in time? How many times do we learn about something when it’s so early on that it seems unwise to take the risk? The elusive middle point between mass- and early-adoption, the fleeting moment between a done-deal and a no-deal, the decisive mindset between courage and recklessness… that’s what we’re after.
So I’ve decided it makes sense to write about how age impacts our worldview in my thirties.
I used to be terrified about becoming more conservative and narrow-minded as I grew older. I had seen it so often that I think my terror was justified: every generation seemed to have certain values that were practically immutable, with young adults yearning for ever more change and old adults complaining about the dilution of their world. In the meantime, middle-aged folk seemed too busy with their personal middle-life crises too pay much attention to either.
As with every generalisation, this perception didn’t quite adjust to reality. Thankfully, I seemed to have a knack for meeting people of all ages wherever I went, which allowed me to learn about the many exceptions to my general norm. There was hope, after all: I would be like one of those old disruptors, never quite satisfied with the state of the world.
As I started thinking about why it is that most people become more conservative as they grow older, my initial hypothesis was that they had more to lose. The idea of foundational disruption after working hard for years according to a set of rules, principles and values doesn’t seem appealing. The expectation was that after doing this and that, renouncing that and the other, accepting a couple of necessary evils, the system would provide. “And now all of these dissatisfied youngsters want to change the system? Are you kidding me? If only they knew what hard work meant!”