Older does not mean smarter: why the experience of previous generations has depreciated

Perhaps, everyone in childhood heard the sacramental: "I am older and therefore know more" and "You are just small, if you grow up, you will understand." And then he grew older and understood only one thing - the speaker was wrong. Finding out what is wrong with the wisdom of the elders and why they are no longer an authority.

Experience is no longer universal

Despite all the riots, wars and palace coups, the life of different generations has remained stable for centuries. If you are a peasant, your children are more likely to be peasants too. They will grow up and live the same life as you. This will affect not only work, but also the conditions of existence. There is no place for a conflict of generations and a search for oneself.

In such circumstances, the older person really has useful knowledge that will be useful to the younger one. A more experienced person took a set of life hacks from their ancestors and added their own to them. Young people have nowhere else to recognize them - only from the elders. After all, a lifetime is not enough to get to what the experience of generations offers.

Now age in itself does not say anything, and the availability of relevant knowledge and skills is not necessarily related to the number of years lived. For example, a schoolchild may be much better versed in computers than a doctor with fifty years of experience. And the less the areas of employment and interests intersect, the more useless someone else's experience is for a young person.

Experience is not equal to skill

According to the rule of ten thousand hours, this is how much you need to spend on a class to become successful in it. Life hacks help us simplify some processes or find easier ways. But no other people's experience will remove the need to get your own. This is especially true for applied studies.

For example, if you decide to become an investor, you can follow the path of trial and error or take some advice from the pros and break into the world of finance savvy. But if you decorate cakes, theoretical knowledge will help you a little. You will have to use up a lot of cakes and cream, try different spatulas and hand positioning techniques until you start to consistently get geometrically correct products.

As you hone your craft, you can meet with more experienced people, ask for advice, and try it out in practice. But if the mentor constantly stands next to him and itches over his ear that you are doing everything wrong, the process will not speed up this process.

Experience often means "as is customary" rather than "as best"

Often people trust the experience of their elders so much that they do not analyze their advice and actions for suitability for life. Remember the anecdote:

The husband noticed that the wife cuts off the tips of the sausages before cooking. He asked her: "Why are you doing this?" And I got the answer: "I don't know, my mom always does that." They called the mother-in-law, asked her. She said that her grandmother used to cook this way. Grandma overheard the conversation and was surprised: "Are you still cooking sausages in my little saucepan?"

Many actions become sacred, advice is classified as secret knowledge and is passed down from generation to generation, simply because it is accepted and so all people do. Moreover, we are not necessarily talking about global events, it is also found in small things. For example, a child may be reproached for not wringing out the rag in the right way when cleaning the floors. It means "not like a counselor." But what difference does it make if the cloth is dry and the floor is clean. “We did it, and you do it” is not the most constructive approach.

Experience lags behind the changing world

In the 20th century, the world was pretty shaken. It is no coincidence that it was at this time that a theory appeared that divided people into generations X, Y, Z. Of course, there are many nuances in it, but in general it works when you need to describe large groups of people.

In traditional society, the son basically repeated the path of his father and the gap between generations practically did not exist. Now, unlike his father and even more so his grandfather, a child can grow up in a different environment, in different conditions, and even in a different country. He has different interests and values. He has new developments and research results at his disposal. Therefore, there is simply nowhere to stick the experience of the elders. For example, a grandmother can boil diapers at a professional level. But who needs it if there is an automatic washing machine.

The difference in life positions also devalues the so-called life wisdom. For example, the same grandmother may consider divorce a shame and advise her granddaughter to keep the family at all costs. Just think, it hits, everyone in her village was beaten. Is it worth listening to such wisdom? Hardly. “Grow up - you will understand” no longer works, because a person grows up to be different and understands something completely different.

Experience is just a source of information

The older is smarter approach devalues the experience of the young and creates a strict hierarchy where adults are considered to be of better quality. This can ultimately lead to discrimination. Rosneft press secretary Mikhail Leontyev has already proposed to deprive Russian youth of voting rights on the grounds that their representatives are young and allegedly do not understand anything.

But at the same time, it is not worth writing off the wisdom of generations. It is given to us as an additional source of information that needs to be analyzed in the same way as others. For example, if a person reads reviews on a lawn mower, he will not be satisfied with one. He will find different sites, analyze the responses to the truthfulness and only then independently make a decision based on all the data. So any other people's experience should be viewed with doubt. Does it fit the situation? How expert is the speaker? How successful is it? Are his words supported by other sources?

Or maybe we should do just the opposite? After all, a frequent argument when addressing young people: "I have a whole life behind me, and I know better." But the fact is that this is the life of another person, not yours. And it is not a fact that his experience will be optimal for you.

The best thing that each of us can do is to break this vicious circle and not give unsolicited and irrelevant advice from the height of the past years. There is no universal life experience, and the value of an individual one does not depend on age.