kreuzberger wrote: ↑Thu Jan 04, 2024 9:45 pm
I would suggest that most of us on here are rather angry, but it's the aged, tory, joyless bitterness that bothers me.
For this group, it all comes down to fear. First, the fear of many of the aging population of anything new and different, because it’s often framed in a way that makes them feel wrong and inferior and that their life and what they thought were good morals have been a lie - so anything such as greater efforts toward equality, new ways of referring to people, old foes becoming if not friends then at least amicable acquaintances etc. And this becomes insidious when filtered through the Mail, Fox, and GB news - because rather than it just being increased enlightenment it’s framed as certain people want to change things specifically to get YOU. It’s this subset I have some sympathy for, because progress marches on and even at my age (48) I’m already feeling well past it when my soon to be teenage daughter talks about some stuff. But the key here is either embracing it or accepting it. Fighting it is what makes some people so bitter and scared.
Then there’s fear of fading influence, relevance and power - a real Tory trait. And what better way to convince yourself you’re still strong and still matter than to curtail someone else’s freedoms and make life worse for them?
Finally, fear of dying without leaving your mark. Look at the many of the world’s current crop of wannabe and actual dictators like Trump, Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro etc. - all middle aged to elderly*, many with clear signs of physical and cognitive decline, and all out to achieve the only immortality available to them: notoriety, justified under the veneer of doing what “the people” want. The worst figures from history all have one thing in common - we know who they are to this day. The ones who get on with just being good, decent leaders are rarely recalled so clearly, except when involved in defeating or undoing the work of one of history’s bad guys. Brexit is the ultimate mass population example of this - an in general terms older generation deliberately making things shitter for their kids and grandkids because they didn’t have a war to ‘own’, didn’t have a peace to forge, and so wanted something to be able to say “I was part of this. I changed the country. You will live in the world *I* made, not the one you want”. Little Putins carving the world new borders to make their mark (and ironically doing something the real - but equally little - Putin favoured).
*the exception here being Kim Jong Un, who is younger than average but essentially just an extension of his father (ahem)
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