A sentence starting ‘Young people today...’ isn’t true
Education Secretary Gavin Willliamson clearly enjoys the privileges of middle age. One such privilege is starting sentences with ‘Young people today…’
The problem is that such statements are unfair and untrue generalisations. In a word, cobblers. The same applies to “Your generation thinks…”
Any sentence beginning with “The trouble with people who are five-foot-six…” would have equal validity.
Throughout history some people have been more diligent, disciplined and considerate than others. But it’s nonsense to imagine this could somehow differ between generations.
Mr Williamson made some interesting, albeit unoriginal points about mobile phones in schools. But the headlines were grabbed by his belief that kids in lockdown lacked “discipline and order”. He didn’t quite go on to assert that the Teddy boys need a spell in the army, but you get the gist.
True, kids need discipline. Without it we might one day have a parliament where a puerile exchange of insults is the norm, along with leaders who can’t say how many children they have. One shudders to imagine.
When I were a lad I often heard the “Young people today…” line being trotted out. It wasn’t until years later, when I heard someone my own age spouting the same cliche, that I realised what a load of old banana oil it really is. I went to school myself; occasionally. I didn’t lead the way in “discipline and order” but was far from the worst. Our discipline and order, had we been forced to contend with what today’s young ‘uns have endured, a year shut in the house, would have descended close to zero.
Of course, other generations have contended with worse than lockdown. Those who lived through two world wars and the Depression are known as the Greatest Generation.
But please remember; even among the Greatest Generation, some of them were toerags. My granddad (born 1910) confirmed it to me. It will never happen, but it would be progress if people could one day stop lying to themselves by claiming that everyone under 25 is somehow less worthy.
To underline the point, the last word goes to Socrates who died in 399BC. The old windbag reckoned: “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise...” blah, blah, blah.