The Finite Ecstasy of Ignorance
'Tis folly to be wise
A note of profound thanks to Timmy, Forrest, JVC, Kat, Danny, Michael, and evo for your kind and generous tips. You keep this rockin’ world goin’ ‘round! Onward through the fog.
Concerns about societal decline and the behavior of younger generations have been expressed across many ancient cultures. Thousands of generations have looked at their spawn and despaired. Certainly, a few minutes on TikTok makes me feel despondent.
Despite millennia of hand-wringing, humanity has survived and apparently flourished, at least from a biological point of view. So what’s the Big Deal? Well, let’s start by listening to what the ancients have said to us over the eons.
In the Instruction of Ptahhotep, an Egyptian text from the Middle Kingdom period, the vizier Ptahhotep (~2000 BC) laments the loss of respect for traditions:
"Youth are corrupted by luxury, and the wisdom of the old is ignored."
An apocryphal Sumerian proverb from about the same time expresses frustration about the younger generation:
"In those days, there was no reverence for the elders, no reverence for teachers; the young men would sit in the gate, chattering away, saying whatever pleased them."
That gate could easily be replaced with modern SocMed. No word on what the young women were doing, but one assumes they were enablers.
Socrates (~450 BC), as quoted by Plato, allegedly criticized the youth of Athens:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise."
Philosophers like Hesiod also ranted about decline in Works and Days (~700 BC), writing about the "Five Ages of Man," where humanity declines in morality over time.
The Roman poet Horace complained (~20 BC) about societal changes, particularly the loss of traditional Roman family values, in his Odes (Carmina):
"Our sires' age, worse than our grandsires', produced us, yet more wicked, soon to yield a race more wicked still."
Cicero (~30 BC) lamented the moral decline of his era in his speeches and writings, suggesting that the youth were more self-serving and less committed to traditional Roman virtues. I’ve always pictured him as the William Buckley of the ancient world.
The grousing wasn’t limited to the Western world. Confucianism frequently bemoaned the decline of morality and respect for authority. Confucius himself (~400 BC) stated:
"The common people can be made to follow a path but not to understand it."
(Analects, 8.9) He also dropped, "If the people have no respect, what becomes of the state?" (Analects, 3.19)
Sounds like a CCP meme. Similarly, the Book of Rites (Liji) often discusses how societal order depends on adherence to ritual and how that was being neglected by the younger generation.
The Bible is replete with wailings and lamentations about the youths. In the Book of Isaiah (3:4–5), societal disorder is linked to younger generations taking control:
“And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
“And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.”
This gnashing of teeth is not limited to the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul (2 Timothy 3:1–5) writes about the decline of morality in:
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.”
Sounds a bit like predicting the Sun will rise tomorrow.
In the Islamic world, the scholar Al-Jahiz wrote critiques of his society in his satirical essays. For example, in Kitab al-Bukhala (The Book of Misers, ~AD 820), he comments on the decline of proper behavior and the frivolity of youth compared to earlier generations. Do Islamic satirists still roam the Earth? We could use a couple.
And let’s not leave out the New World. Plenty of grousing there, too.
The Huehuehtlahtolli (The Old Man's Speech) is a collection of speeches attributed to elders, found in Nahuatl (the Aztec language), in which they express their concerns about younger generations not respecting traditional values. The speeches focus on the importance of humility, respect for elders, and the dangers of youthful rebellion.
In the Inca Empire, Guaman Poma's Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno (AD 1615) has numerous references that depict generational disrespect and the consequences of youth straying from their prescribed roles. He mentions how the younger generations' rebelliousness, encouraged by the Spaniards, led to societal decline and disarray.
Sounds a bit like the old ‘pick your friends, don’t let them pick you’ speech.
If we can draw a thread from a global survey of ancient laments, we find that the real fear is collapse of cultures and civilizations, not the end of humanity. Education, elder wisdom, and tradition are the means of social continuity, but the species marches on regardless.
In the past, so far as we are allowed to know, human civilizations existed in isolated pockets. Cultures were distinct from each other, and while the collapse of one might have economic reverberations in others via trade, it wasn’t a global extinction event.
According to the Generally Accepted Historical Timeline, there has never been a fully integrated global civilization before ours — ignoring Graham Hancock for the moment. It was the shared experiences of generations within distinct groups, using cultural traditions, rites and rituals, that propagated society across ages.
In every cited instance, it was youthful rebellion that was blamed for significant cultural shifts, and the subsequent loss of direct inheritance of ancient wisdom that led to societal extinction.
The Indus Valley rose and fell. Sumer rose and fell. Babylon rose and fell. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Han, Mongols, Maya, Aztecs all rose and fell. Yet here we are, grousing and lamenting the rebelliousness of youth.
Great powers ascend through cultural cohesion, then collapse for lack of it. To those caught in the middle, it may seem to be The End Of The World As We Know It, but clearly the last four words of that phrase are the key to wisdom.
Bringing Hancock back in the room, we are likely only the latest of a very long line of global human civilizations, spanning millions of years, surviving dazzling Golden Ages, and horrific implosions that wiped all memory from the records.
We can blame it all on the young, but who are their teachers? We can don sack cloth and ashes over the demise of cultural virtues and values, but does that serve the purpose of perpetuation? Is it truly the rebelliousness of youth that is responsible for ultimate collapse, or the lack of discipline, conviction and resolve of their predecessors that is to blame?
Just some fat to chew on this monsoon afternoon. It’s like one of those thousand-piece single-color puzzles that make one wonder what Marion Davies was thinking.
Youth is wasted on the young.
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All this talk of youth puts me in the mood for My Cousin Vinny (1992). The running gag about Fred Gwynne’s pronunciation of “youths” is one of the best I’ve ever encountered. Outstanding cultural satire and comedy of manners.
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As you rightly point out, this is a well-known phenomenon, and in some circles, they call this deterritorialization (try saying that 10 times fast lol): the feeling that society is crumbling all around you.
Roughly speaking, it entails a feeling of a loss of territory, though that territory is mostly abstract in nature. It is used in critical theory to explain repercussions or causes of events, such as the Dreyfus affair. Because certain social strata fear they are being swept aside, they react in a knee-jerk manner to arrogate power and regain lost territory.
However, although it can be ascribed to a malaise of the older generation giving way to the younger, let's face it, sometimes they may actually be right and society may in fact be crumbling! It wouldn't be too bold to suggest that that is the case today.
Great history lesson. I do think we are in a different situation now, however, because 5.5 billion people have been injected with the mRNA bioweapon. The lipid nanoparticles are designed to sicken or kill outright, as you know, through heart issues or greatly speeding up cancers by weakening the immune system, among other maladies. So, while you are correct about the past and societies rising then falling from decay primarily or military destruction, none of those societies, even the Islamic ones, promoted mass murder of everyone.
Fred Gwynne was very funny in that movie with Joe Pesce and his description of the "yuts". The expression on his face, a Southerner trying to understand Joe's NJ/NY accent, was priceless. I think it was Gwynne's last movie, too.
Danny Huckabee