It’s Not the End of the World … Until it is

The studies into the differences between generations has always been something of interest to me. When you look into it, what you tend to find is that, since time began, older generations have always complained about their younger counterparts, and people, as they get older, always seem to be of the point of view that the world is getting worse. The phrase "the world is going to hell in a handcart" goes back to the 19th century. Yet the world's still standing. That said, at the turn of the 20th century, the world experienced a World War, a global pandemic, shortly followed by a global economic depression and another World War. Those who lived and died through that period are known as the "lost generation" and their children, the oldest people in our society today (those born from the 20s-40s), are referred to as the "silent generation."

Generations always bicker, but I think it goes without saying that the majority of us in the world have a huge amount of respect for these particular generations, for they faced a great deal of hardship and sacrifice so that we may be free.

Then we had the "baby boomers," with whom I think we're all familiar, and then "Gen X" and "millenials" and so on. Terms we hear about all the time in conversations about the culture. And it is from these generations that we have our leaders in modern western politics, and voices in today’s western media. Even famously elderly Joe Biden is young enough to be considered a baby booomer.

Something I tend to find about all these generations, including my own (millenial) is that whenever they talk about politics, it's always as if the world is ending. Whatever the issue, whether it be serious or mundane, there's always an air of pessimism and an opinion that if things don't change, we're all doomed. These statements tend to be followed by another sip of beer and a return to inaction with regards to whatever the issue is.

Now, I'll admit I'm generalising here; there are plenty of people in the world who do a great deal of good for society and there are a great deal of people in the world from these generations who have lived through immense hardship, but I do feel that in the west we've been sort of subconsciously "missing" that great hardship that our forbears went through, like a guilty feeling that we haven't sacrificed enough to be here. Our forbears didn't have this issue because, before they had time to think about it, they were living through a World War and they had to grow up fast. I think the figures in our politics and our media are made up of a great deal of people who want to say they have done something like that, they just have an aversion to actually doing it. For example, in the UK, Trump-esque Boris Johnson has clearly always wanted to be as admired as Winston Churchill, his problem is that he doesn't have what it takes to actually be Winston Churchill.

Recently, we have come closer and closer to real hardships, with a global pandemic and and now the genuine prospect of World War III. As we lost many of them to COVID, the silent generation, including charity heroes such as Captain Sir Tom Moore, reminded us that hard times are something we have been lucky to live without for too long.

And, in the East, where life has not been so cushy for the last 70/80 years, we observe President Zelenskyy, who genuinely resembles Churchill unlike Johnson, astounded at the reaction we in the west have to his cause. We've grown weak. Maybe it's up to the youngest generation in society to step up and face the same hardships as our grandparents head on, so that other generations may have the freedom we've taken for granted for so long.