The Generation Gap, Explained

Before getting started

How does each one of us reach his personal level of information, of intellect and intelligence ?

It is very difficult to answer this question without tackling with the definition of intelligence, thus as far as this subject has only for purpose the explanation of the gap existing between generations, we will consider a set of assumptions:

- Intelligence is the set of experiences in one's life, and it is to a certain point, connected with the amount of knowledge that one holds.

- An important aspect of intelligence is wisdom.

- The human being is egocentric.

Whether you are approving or not of these assumptions, you will understand their use a bit further so just be patient.

Once upon a time...

Supposedly we are born "blank", but in reality we do have two givens : the human instincts, and our parents' DNA. During their life, our parents have gone through a lot of experiences, learned many things, and that build their personality. Based on that personality, they are going to grow us. Our childhood childhood is a crucial part that determines our character : we will be "based" on all the principles and behaviors that our parents teach us in our very childhood, those things, they have spent all their lives setting them up. So in a way, we are acquiring the essence of their life learnings.

The non-vicious circle

Later when we are grown up, we start to build our own character based on our own experiences and we collect the information that consolidates our mind, which brings us to end up with our own personality.

We make children, and the same pattern keeps going on and on ...

This is a continuity, but are we turning in a vicious circle ? Not really, as we said, personality is based on the childhood, which means the parents. And the parents did not come out of nowhere, they have their own parents, and so on. Meaning, that our personality, is somehow, the sum of all those of our ancestors; we are talking about the social evolution.

Now, how about facing my tenth ancestor and comparing my personality with his ? That would be one hell of a difference wouldn't it ! I am far more... "developed" that him, because I am already him, plus, a dozen of essences of personalities of those who followed him.

When we state the word personality, we sure have to think about all its facets, mainly including intelligence, reactivity, and principles.

In our life we generally only interact with four generations : our grandparents and parents, our children and grandchildren. What do we end up with ? In a very rough way I would say : being more intelligent than our parents, and less intelligent than our children. That, is one aspect of the gap between generations.

There will surely be some, if not many, variations to this general rule, and that is due to the differences between the cultures and environments and so on... Or more scientifically, that is due to each one's own genetic path that goes up back to Adam.

Yes but, clearly ?

If I do have problems with my parents, or my children, now I know why they can't understand me, and I shouldn't be expecting them to understand me, because I am not living the same generation ; either I am a new form of them (my parents), and they can't evolve to understand me, or I am an outdated form of them (my children), and I can't evolve to understand them.

Same thing with all the people around me ; kids, students, workers, seniors...

Still...

Now let's try to see things from a different side, this time in favour of the old ones.

If we consider one's lifetime, youth will always be at the back, and living more implies knowing more, more experience, thus more wisdom (with all the depth of this word's meaning).

We have from one side, the youth, subtle, reactive, but lacking wisdom, and the old, relatively slow, but wise. That makes the second facet of the generation gap.

Someone young will never understand why the old one keeps saying "oldish things", he will have a rebelling attitude against the decisions imposed to him, he is surely keen, but he lacks that experience that allows him to make valuable judgments.

The old one from his side, abuses of his power position, he will always have in mind that he is more experimented and apt to judge and take decisions, and that the young doesn't know anything, but he lacks the generation update that allows him to see things in a new way.

So ?

Whether you are young or old, are the others functionning at a very slow rate, or too fast for you ?

Are they too much open minded or not permessive at all ?

So what's the solution ?

Solution ? why ! Is there a problem ? We don't have a problem here, that is just how things are, and unless we want to bend time and space, we have to cope with the social evolution. If "coping with something" isn't a good conclusion, then here's another way to tell it: the idea is that when you know how things work, you know how to better deal with them, but when you don't, you just keep fussing around and commit mistakes. So let's not blame a different generation for being different from ours! And rather try to get the best out of it.

Know your world better, to live better.

P.S : if you still remember the assumptions I've mentioned above and are still waiting for the explanation, it means you missed it, so you can either read again or just forget them :)