Bad-mouthing the young never gets old
This is David Waywell’s weekly column for Reaction. Subscribe here.
It might just be the most miserly cliché in journalism, as well the definition of craven political opportunism. It’s something that used to be the seasonal occupation of bishops and ex-brigadiers, as well as dredging up those oddball public figures like pinch-smiled spinsters, mirthless evangelical busybodies, mutton-chopped headmasters, all of whom would be found on the front rows of BBC talk shows prognosticating about “young people today”.
Yes, here we are. It’s election time and those of you who had “vilify the young” in the sweepstake, collect your bag of Werther’s (extra sour butterscotch flavour) from the back of the room. Your coach tour of the scenic delights of Call The Midwife departs shortly.
It’s only a surprise that the desperate appeal to older voters came as early as it did. I didn’t think National Service would get a look in for another fortnight, followed by the usual attempt to grab the headlines with talk about flogging and the death penalty (and that’s just for cyclists). Next up: the trouble with the working class and what to do when a tradesperson gives you lip.
Not that the National Service wheeze is ever likely to happen. A few excitable types across the media seem to have missed the memo reminding them that it was just a sop to the septuagenarian wing of the Tory Party who love to rattle their dentures about forcing young people to do things that young people wouldn’t like to do.
Like get out of bed before 10am? Hey! Am I right? Am I right?
No, the enthusiasts think it’s a good idea because there’s nothing that Vladimir Putin fears more than a bunch of British teenagers taught to stand up straight and whistle the national anthem. But let’s not get too deep into the weeds about the logistics of Russian aggression – how we should be trembling in our beds about a nation whose economy is smaller than that of California, or that two years ago we were told that the Russian army had neither the personnel nor the equipment to take Ukraine (which it still hasn’t done, despite the best effort of the Trump Republicans), but now we’re meant to worry about them crossing the Channel. (Call me a cynic but it’s almost like certain pundits realise their opinions only matter because they’ve convinced us that there’s war brewing.)
But no, let’s not let that distract us; not when we have the vital business of complaining about the young. I mean look at them, with their crazy optimism, fresh ideas, radical outlooks, innovative fashions, and all that irrepressible energy…
Iain Duncan Smith led the charge. “I often wonder whether those who end up in top universities can all too easily slip into elitism,” he wrote in The Telegraph. “With prospects so far removed from most of those not so blessed, national service would help to keep them grounded.”
Spoken with the grounded good sense of a man with a big chip on his shoulder, perhaps because he didn’t go to an elite university and instead attended [checks Wikipedia] the University of Perugia and the “Dunchurch College of Management”. As a general rule, sour grapes should not be the basis for committing a whole generation to assault courses and lectures about how to dismantle a belt-fed machine gun.
Yet bad-mouthing the young is a game that never appears to get old. What fun to laugh at their fashions, their tastes, their culture. How vapid any teenager who doesn’t appreciate whatever godawful taste in music or TV now defines old fogeyism.
As a sport, nostalgic snobbery goes all the way back to the caves, if not further.
“You call that dragging yourself from the primordial soup? Why, when I was your age, I’d have been up walking on my four flippers in no time.”
So, how about an alternative take?
Such as suggesting that modern youth are better than most. I’ll go even further. They’re doing pretty well, all things considered. They’re certainly a lot better than a few of the generations that came before them, which makes it particularly ironic that they’re now getting grief from the generations who gave us Teddy Boys or punk rockers. Imagine getting demonised about knife crime by the very people who were synonymous with flick knives and were nicknamed “Razor” in their youth.
That’s not to say the current generation won’t have a few bad types. To suggest otherwise would be to fall into a different lazy trope. No, the truth is the truth of all natural distributions: the curve is the same shape as it’s always been, perhaps shifted a little on its horizontal axis and, I would suggest, towards the better, more sympathetic, humane, and generally decent end of the scale. There will be outliers to the left and the right, but, on the whole, most young people will live in that great rump of decent and well-adjusted human beings. What’s more: social media, mobile phones, and the whole tech infrastructure give them a means to be even more engaged and active in their interests. There’s no need to stand bored on street corners like certain generations we could mention. [Cough, boomers, cough…]
Not that such news makes for great headlines. Over in The Telegraph, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon takes a break from warning us about nuclear war by ticking off his checklist of cliches about the young. “Some are now so transfixed by their phones,” he writes, “that enforced physical exercise is probably needed”.
“Run, you buggers, run! And while you’re about it. Put on this Barbour Classic Beaufort Jacket, complete with freshly waxed hood. We’ll make future Tory voters out of you yet!“
Laziness does indeed make it all utterly depressing but it’s not coming from the youth. It’s derivative journalism that crushes the spirits; so utterly shameless about the way an entire generation is reduced to a tired stereotype that is no more applicable to the youth than it is to older age groups.
“That’s the problem with middle-aged hacks these days. They don’t respect their facts. And don’t even get me started on their sloppy use of the comma… And talk about spending time on their phones trying to pitch their next 800 words…”
Aren’t the young just young? You know: like every young generation? There are gangs and loners, leaders and followers, trendsetters and fringe players; fads and fashions, banalities and inspirations, love and heartbreak, mistakes and victories. Some are bright and some are dim, some kind, a few are cruel, others funny and the odd one dour in heart and soul. Some enjoy the company of friends and make loud bad jokes that nobody else finds funny. Others enjoy striking a lone furrow and have tastes that it will take their trendier friends another ten years before they realise that their odd friend was really the one well ahead of their time.
And, what’s more, a small minority of them will already be very old at heart and will hate the freedom enjoyed by their peers. Some will even grow up to write articles in which they’ll bemoan the slackness of youth or they’ll appear at the next Tory party conference, like a young William Hague (or at the Lib Dem conference like a young Liz Truss), and act and sound older than their years.
Because say it quietly so they won’t hear this over at The Telegraph: young people are just like the rest of us. They are people. And like all people, they deserve our respect until individually they don’t.
Until then, why can’t we just leave them the hell alone? They’re doing just fine.
@DavidWaywell
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