On age and respect for your elders

Respect your elders” is a mantra that I always felt was redundant. You would give someone due respect if they were reasonable and polite to you, as anyone should be, or you would give them special consideration, such as offering your seat on the bus, if they were physically infirm, not just because they were old. It is not the case that I resent old people; I’m just very suspicious of anyone who demands special treatment for being in a position that is passively attained, like being privately educated, provided that it is not an affliction, though many may view old age as one. Back in the good old days, as many a pensioner would wistfully sigh, once you were claiming your free bus pass you were a has-been. Still dignified, yet of reduced means compared to your prime. Not quite a second class citizen, but no chance of being as influential as you once were. This would be a typical experience, though things are changing. When I was in the local record shop last week I noticed something very strange in the new releases section. About half the LPs were in fact repackaged and re-released Beatles albums and compilations. Others in the section included the new Mogwai album and a Herbie Hancock re- release. The aforementioned are all great artists, however, it had never struck me so hard how difficult it must be to break into the music business as a youngster when you are contending with people such as this. Baby boomer Will Self recently reflected on the same issue of how, whilst minding his children at Reading Festival, all the teenagers were flocking to see bands in their forties and fifties, whereas he thought Bob Dylan, then aged 38, was a relic of a bygone era when he saw him in his youth. Technology, be it in media or medicine, is helping to preserve the aged, and this is fuelling our era’s lust for nostalgia. And yes, I do realise the irony of a record shop being the setting of this. The apparent cessation of the ageing process is one of the biggest reasons that is making it increasingly difficult for young people to ‘make it’ in Britain today. The increase of tuition fees would help subsidise old age pensions which is by far the biggest expenditure in the benefits budget. I wasn’t completely opposed in principle to £9000 fees when they came in, however now that they are the status quo it seems that they were an effective way to engineer the social makeup of universities; many people are tragically ignorant of how to finance their higher education and struggle to view it as an investment. Meanwhile, amongst the most savage spending cuts, politicians debate whether or not to stop giving free TV licences to the richest pensioners. The youth is also despised by our elders; statistics suggest the general public believe 15% of girls under 16 are pregnant every year (in truth only 0.6% are) whereas the majority of news stories about young people in the house wife and suburban orientated media focus on stabbings or how someone on legal highs mutilated themselves or their loved ones. Some councils even install mosquito emulating buzz tones in public spaces to prevent yoofs from congregating, a policy that is unlikely to improve the self-esteem of those that it targets. The days of 16-24 being the best years of your life have sadly long gone. The government consistently favouring old over young people is understandable; old people vote whereas young people don’t. Whenever I hear Russell Brand telling us not to vote, I cry deep down inside because the people to whom this advice will be of most detriment to are the ones most likely to take it. Inaction is not going to solve any issues; a government under the current system will still form if some people abstain from voting. If you want to improve the prospects of your generation as well as for yourself, then vote for those who you believe will stand for that. Alternatively organise an armed revolution. When I was very young, my mother once bemoaned about being past it once you were forty. It seems more lamentable that the opposite is now the case.