The Rising Generation in Britain

‘‘The older generation here—especially middle-class people—are being worried into their graves by responsibility,” a Scottish woman hotelkeeper told me recently. “The younger generation are happy—but perfectly irresponsible. How will it end?”

Reared in the easy, if monotonous, milieu of the welfare state, the vast majority of young people in Britain take it for granted that some omniscient and inexhaustible power always will provide for their wants. So why worry? And why submit to any discipline? And why work, beyond a minimum? One cannot rise to any great height, but neither can one fall to any depth. Naively confident that a social cornucopia will continue to supply their material needs, the British rising generation increasingly declines to abide by custom, discipline or skill, and the small obligations of one’s little job or circle.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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‘‘The older generation here—especially middle-class people—are being worried into their graves by responsibility,” a Scottish woman hotelkeeper told me recently. “The younger generation are happy—but perfectly irresponsible. How will it end?”

Reared in the easy, if monotonous, milieu of the welfare state, the vast majority of young people in Britain take it for granted that some omniscient and inexhaustible power always will provide for their wants. So why worry? And why submit to any discipline? And why work, beyond a minimum? One cannot rise to any great height, but neither can one fall to any depth. Naively confident that a social cornucopia will continue to supply their material needs, the British rising generation increasingly declines to abide by custom, discipline or skill, and the small obligations of one’s little job or circle.