[James]

I came across the following article and thought it was interesting in the context of some of comments I see on here... about whether peoples' attitudes to things get more conservative as they get older. Or will the attitudes and views of the younger generation today eventually replace those of older people?

I would say more the former - people, in some ways, get more conservative with a small-c as they get older.

Once I was a young radical, with all the right opinions. Now I am Auntie Disgusting

Grace Dent

My generation thought they would never grow old. But staying abreast of memes cannot stop the march of time

Sat 19 Oct 2019 09.00 BST


My gut reaction to modern eyebrows, that look like Bert from Sesame Street, marks me out as very definitely decrepit. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

One day you’re kicking against the pricks, and the next day you are the prick. I hate to break this to all you young, taut-skinned shaggers with very earnest, watertight opinions, but there is a best-before date on thinking the right things. Or simply understanding what the hell is going on.

The first time I realised that generation X, my crowd, had fully became Uncle or Auntie Disgusting at family gatherings came as I was airing my very old-fashioned attitude to allergies. I believe allergies exist, yes. But, like many people in their mid-40s, I just don’t believe that quite so many people truly have them.

Here we have the generation gap writ large in one EpiPen-wielding sentence. “Oh, everyone ate nuts everywhere in the 70s,” I’ve heard myself say. “Did we die? No, we didn’t. And if you’re that allergic to nuts, would you not just stay at home?”


Clearly, I accept now, after much gasping and weeping from generation Y relatives, that my opinions are problematic and that I’m essentially gaslighting the sick (and, in some cases, dead), while proposing house arrest for those with inconvenient medical conditions. And all this, largely, because I do not care for those small bags of pretzels on aeroplanes, dispensed because the nuts are on lockdown.

Until recently, or it seems recent, I was the cool, young, radical thinker at any mixed-aged Dent family gathering, arriving armed with my dos and don’ts of what was fine to believe. I didn’t think this would ever stop. I suppose many generation Xers believed that access to the internet, which still feels like a spangly modern invention, would keep us all for ever young. The generation gap would never set in. We’d all stay high as kites on the new in-jokes and trending topics. We’d feast on this easy access to shifting slang and fresh ways of thinking.

But nature is a bitch. Memes, it turns out, cannot stop the march of time. For example, years of staring endlessly at Twitter or BuzzFeed cannot change my gut reaction to modern eyebrows, which marks me out as very definitely decrepit. You know: those thick, painted-on brows that all teenage girls love, that look like Bert from Sesame Street.

“Magic Marker brows, pfft, they’re all the rage,” I heard myself say recently, shaking my head at a passing 17-year-old. She had delicate fawn-like features, hair like spun gold and two big black stripes across her lower forehead like floating punctuation. And in that millisecond, I knew the generation gap between me and this girl was not a few tiptoes, but a vast, horrific chasm.

Just as my mother, who was in her late 40s in the 1980s, would sigh at my hair – dyed an ugly burgundy using a Silvikrin wash-in, wash-out toner sachet – and suggest I wasn’t “making the best of myself”, so, too, did I find myself in Topshop last week staring sadly at a mannequin dressed as a sort of dystopian Bavarian cowherder.

There should be someone in Hobbs, stationed by the shift frocks, dispensing cuddles to women who find themselves in this situation. “It’s OK, it’s just the natural order,” they might say. “Even Asos stops helping and just becomes your enemy, eventually.”

Of course, it is language, or our misuse of it, that is the most embarrassing thing. It’s not easy to be part of a Thatcher-fighting, Nelson Mandela-freeing generation who were always, always right – only to now find ourselves out of touch, forever misspeaking and on the verge of cancellation.

Suddenly, we find ourselves both supportive of the battle for trans recognition, but struggling with the grammar. I noted last month that the singer Sam Smith would from now on be using the pronouns they/them. I am happy for them, and I understand fully why they want that.

Still, the very next time I read a news story about Sam that informs me they attended a party, my eyes will spin around and around the paragraph, like Mr Bean reading a Spaghetti House menu, looking for the other person with whom they attended the party.

And that, my young friends, is the generation gap. Some people are cruel and thoughtless, some people are definitely phobic, others are just stymied by the march of time, left behind by words and ways of thinking. One thing I’m looking forward to about growing really incredibly ancient will be watching today’s young, cool, always correct generation Ys begin to sprout grey hairs and tie themselves in knots over their outdated language and attitudes – particularly as they will have lived their entire lives publicly, all of it permanently screengrabbed.

Particularly as they have always been so insistent that any error committed by the older generations should mean complete removal from public life. I shall enjoy this at home, behind my laptop, with a gin and tonic and a large bag of peanuts. It will be the only place you’ll be able to eat nuts, then, down to damn health and safety. Oh. There I go again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...tie-disgusting

[Oliver_W]

I don't know so much if it's age that makes people conservative, but experience and responsibility.

Nearly everyone I know who's right-leaning regardless of age have decent jobs, homes, and families (in some not all cases).

Most of the left-leaning and especially Corbynites I know either work crappy jobs or are unemployed - even if they're pushing 40!

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I don't know so much if it's age that makes people conservative, but experience and responsibility.

Nearly everyone I know who's right-leaning regardless of age have decent jobs, homes, and families (in some not all cases).

Most of the left-leaning and especially Corbynites I know either work crappy jobs or are unemployed - even if they're pushing 40!

What ridiculous generalization

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

What ridiculous generalization

At no point did I say all, I was just talking about people I know.

Ignore this personal question if you wish:
- what are your political views
- and what is your employment situation?

[Twosugars]

Left leaning and self employed
As is my bf who works in the City

[GiRTh]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I don't know so much if it's age that makes people conservative, but experience and responsibility.

Nearly everyone I know who's right-leaning regardless of age have decent jobs, homes, and families (in some not all cases).

Most of the left-leaning and especially Corbynites I know either work crappy jobs or are unemployed - even if they're pushing 40!

Originally Posted by Twosugars

What ridiculous generalization

Define a 'crappy job'? There are people I know well into their 40's or 50's who work as civil servants or in housing or for charities who dont earn big private sector money but if you think such jobs are 'crappy' that's your generalization, no one elses.

I think its too easy to do what Oliver has just done and think political ideals are linked to status.

[UserSince2005]

being in london today all the ****ing protestors seems to be in there 70s. the whole idea that brexiter are old farts is completely unfounded

What ****ing loons these people I saw today were, and I saw quite a few were missing chromosomes also.

[Scarlett.]

No, some people just decide to start getting all their news from the Daily Heil and The Scum

[Toy Soldier]

Swings and roundabouts. Before I had kids I was a straight-up anarchist at heart; I'd have seen the world torn down around me and called that justice. I thought the capitalist system, the whole concept of government really, was an unnecessary sham and a joke. Not very conservative.

At the same time, I had very little sympathy for those on benefits, the disabled, immigrants, or really anyone who wasn't me which is Conservative-with-a-big-C through and through isn't it?

Age and experience have made me far more sympathetic and thus far more supportive of socialist policies, because I understand that the world is the way it is and thus they are necessary. On the same note - recognising that the world is the way it is - I understand that various systems of capitalism are necessary for the world to continue to function as well. We need a balance of both. Is the system still trash? Of course it is, absolutely, but I suppose as you age what you gain is pragmatism over idealism; you start to realise that just shouting "OMG the system is trash lol" and tearing it down over night actually means poverty, misery, and the absolute destruction of millions of lives.

I've sort of lost what I'm saying here.

I guess what I mean is, as you get a bit older you (hopefully) lose some of the naivety and idealism. But that could go either way, depending on how that looked when the person was young? Some young people believe that a totally fair and equal utopia is possible and age/wisdom, on them, probably looks like a slide towards conservatism in realising that the world is never going to work that way. On the other hand, some naive people - often those born into financial comfort - think all benefits should be scrapped and that taxation is terribly unfair, and that if poor people "only worked a bit harder" they'd have plenty of money. Age and wisdom on those people... the ones who actually gain it... would look like a slide to the left, as they begin to understand that taxation and social support is the glue holding their comfortable world together.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I don't know so much if it's age that makes people conservative, but experience and responsibility.

Nearly everyone I know who's right-leaning regardless of age have decent jobs, homes, and families (in some not all cases).

Most of the left-leaning and especially Corbynites I know either work crappy jobs or are unemployed - even if they're pushing 40!

So what's the correlation between good jobs and conservatism when you're pushing 40?
Where does the 'I'm alright jack' attitude materialise.. 30k pa? 40k? 50k?

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

So what's the correlation between good jobs and conservatism when you're pushing 40?
Where does the 'I'm alright jack' attitude materialise.. 30k pa? 40k? 50k?

[Withano]

I don’t think they get more conservative. I think they are just more likely to get bored of looking for solutions and start looking for blame, so they fit in well with right wings ‘well it’s not my ****ing fault’ mantra.

I honestly think blame vs solutions is the main difference between right and left nowadays.

[Kizzy]

Reading the article I don't see the relevance to conservatism in a political sense more a theoretical.
It's an article that cronicals this reporters attitudinal differences to the other generations and their interpretation of gender and fashion in comparison to her own.
Gen x people who don't subscribe to them/ they pronouns are not conservative thinkers imo but it does suggest a rigidity that younger generations balk at.

When I think of conservative I think of the new right sociological perspectives in relation to the family, law and order, crime and punishment, unemployment, immigration.
I agree that some people do change their perspective I guess those people for me are the free lovers of the 60s the boomers who now form an ocean of grey at farage love ins.... I dont know why this is, maybe it's complacency, that they struggled so others must struggle, a need to protect the status quo?

[Withano]

Conservatives are getting less conservative as time goes on too though...

No Tory would’ve voted for gay rights not so long ago, now the older generation barely care. Wouldn’t be surprised if the tories in 2030 looks exactly like Lib Dem’s today (apart from the not taxing the rich bit, that’s there to stay).

[Kizzy]

I agree in part the traditional tories are diluting, but there is a new scarier breed taking over imo the ERG members and their followers.

[Tom4784]

If people became more conservative as they got older, we wouldn't have made as much societal progress as we have made since the 60's.

[James]

I'd say on social issues society will become more liberal as people get older, but on financial issues people get more conservative for whatever reason, maybe family.

I wasn't just thinking about politics - that's why I said small-c conservative.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by James

I'd say on social issues society will become more liberal as people get older, but on financial issues people get more conservative for whatever reason, maybe family.

I wasn't just thinking about politics - that's why I said small-c conservative.

I don't think that if you are rigid in your thinking on financial aspects you can be that lateral on societal issues. I can't think of any examples where that's been shown can you?
I'd say if people follow one perspective for one issue, say benefits that follows for others such as homelessness.

[bitontheslide]

Everyones lives are dynamic, and our views are shaped by our experiences. I dont think we can say people become more conservative, but they are likely to take the path of least risk as they get older, which is pure common sense given that their capability to shape their destiny is much reduced.

[Kizzy]

Some people on this forum couldn't get more conservative in any sense if they tried James, so don't worry

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Most of the left-leaning and especially Corbynites I know either work crappy jobs

The sh*te pouring out of your gob stinks to high heaven.

[smudgie]

Totally depends on the circumstances at any given time.
Also depends on how far from the centre the party venture

[Mystic Mock]

I think it's the fact that people don't like change and as people get older they'll lean more towards right wing parties as those types of parties tend to like to keep the status quo from two decades ago.

For example the internet in 20 years time could be an outdated platform and something else could be in trend with the younger crowd, and Labour would win over the younger crowd by embracing the new technology, and the younger generations political views, whilst the Tories soak up what is now the middle aged Millenials by embracing the internet and the views that Millennials in general embrace thus those Millennials distancing themselves from Labour, and leaning more towards the Conservative mindset.

[James]

This story was on the front page of The Times the other day - 'Liberal attitudes on the rise . . . unless you’re having an affair or in politics' - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/l...tics-ntbj6ct8r

More information and a link to the survey is here - https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/how-brita...-just-30-years

[The Slim Reaper]

No; it's just easier to turn people against others than it is to convince people of the greater good.

Those 1980's gay enemies have been replaced by 2019 enemies, and people reward conservatism for giving them permission to treat others poorly.