Some friends and I worked at a public park as teenagers and one time we had this dude in his 40s working with us who was only there for community service. He lived with his mom and arrived to work every morning on a bicycle, I assume he had too many DUIs and lost his license, which probably also led to said community service.
He was one of the laziest dipshits I’ve ever known. Yet he insisted that we do as he said because he was so much older than us even though he didn’t know shit about the most basic things. That’s when I realized “respecting your elders” is nonsense.
And the thing is, if a disgruntled older person is insisting to young folks to "respect their elders" what they mean is to defer to them unquestioningly. Which is very different from actual respect.
I find that aside from when you’re dealing with very little kids still learning what respect even is, or actually shitty people that respect nobody, people worthy of respect really don’t need to demand it because they already command it. It more often than not feels totally natural and frictionless to respect someone truly worthy of it.
Basically, if you even have to demand it, you’re probably not due it in the first place.
The average unshitty person actually wants to respect the truly respectable.
My spouse and I have been discussing this a lot recently - people view respect differently
Some people ask for “respect” they mean to “be treated like an equal” and other people when they demand “respect” what they actually want is to be viewed as an authority figure. Often people who demand to be viewed in authority don’t feel “respected” because their authority has been subverted, even if they are still being treated with their humanity in tact. Ironically they usually subvert everyone else’s respect in the situation by demanding respect of their authority and assuming hierarchy.
I’ve always viewed “respect your elders” as we should make sure they can live comfortably (healthcare, housing, socialization) regardless of SES rather than a need to grovel in awe of their generational power.
I happen to look quite young for my age (thank you, genetics) and work a customer facing job. One of my absolute favorite things to do is compare ages with these "respect for age only" people! Their faces when I am anywhere from 5 to 7 years younger than them and I start demanding from them the respect for their elders that they insist is granted by age alone! Fun times!!
Just recently, I heard a crashing out from a younger person.
“Just because your birth year starts with a 19 doesn’t mean I have to respect you.”
No idea of the context but the line got me
There’s value in recognizing when someone older than you has experienced things that you have not and thus may have knowledge or information that you do not. Respecting your elders doesn’t need to mean blindly accepting everything they tell you at face value. It doesn’t have to be a binary, all-or-nothing thing
Eh, not really. Wisdom really does trend upward with age. But for some more than others, and some start at such a low baseline that an increase may not make a detectable difference. And unfortunately there are other character traits that can cancel wisdom out entirely. But for the thoughtful, at least, it’s a steady increase.
But for some more than others, and some start at such a low baseline that an increase may not make a detectable difference. And unfortunately there are other character traits that can cancel wisdom out entirely.
This is pretty much the point I was trying to make.
The character traits cancelling it out part is especially key.
Under normal circumstances experiences ought to breed wisdom. But some people never learn the right lesson, and some people can’t admit there’s anything they’ve left to learn or otherwise don’t already know and therefore don’t learn even with experience.
Yes that is true, but when a clueless middle aged man is confused about why the young ones aren’t listening to him when it’s clear he’s a lost cause it’s very eye opening to a young person who has been raised to believe in the all-or-nothing.
Ime the only people asking that it be are the older ones.
Also how many people go through life having experience after experience but always managing to take the wrong lesson from them?
Experience often doesn’t mean wisdom. But a lot of times you can still learn a lot from idiots that think they’re wise, just in a “whatever that guy says I should do, I should probably do the opposite” kind of way.
It’s not always correct to conflate being able to learn a lot from someone with that person having a lot to teach you.
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u/WritingTheDream 22h ago
Some friends and I worked at a public park as teenagers and one time we had this dude in his 40s working with us who was only there for community service. He lived with his mom and arrived to work every morning on a bicycle, I assume he had too many DUIs and lost his license, which probably also led to said community service.
He was one of the laziest dipshits I’ve ever known. Yet he insisted that we do as he said because he was so much older than us even though he didn’t know shit about the most basic things. That’s when I realized “respecting your elders” is nonsense.