Clashes between Police and supporters of jailed opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, have brought the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to a standstill. Convicted of “corrupting the youth” of Senegal, Sonko will not now be eligible to stand against authoritarian President Macky Sall in the next presidential election.
“Corrupting the youth”, the Athenian philosopher Socrates was convicted and executed for the same offence more than 2,400 years ago. It is a sure sign of generational desperation: of the old order’s fear of the values and aspirations of its younger citizens; and of a generation no longer willing to accept the traditions and moral precepts of their parents and grandparents.
There are many older New Zealanders who would gladly bring a charge of corrupting the nation’s youth – if only they could decide who to bring it against. This country has, after all, witnessed two transfers of generational power. From what the political journalist Colin James dubbed “The RSA Generation” to the Baby Boom Generation; and from the Baby Boom Generation to Generation X. It is, therefore, rather difficult to determine with any exactitude who has corrupted whom – and when.
Some would argue (but they would be in their eighties and nineties now) that the rot set in when the almost-a-Baby-Boomer (he was born in 1942) David Lange took over the leadership of New Zealand from that unflinching champion of the RSA Generation, Rob Muldoon (1921-1992). Muldoon had led the backlash against the all-too-brief summer of principled statesmanship and reform unleashed by Norman Kirk’s Labour Government between 1972-74.
For the Baby-Boomers who had languished under the deeply conservative social policies of the three-term Muldoon Government, and clashed with his supporters during the 1981 Springbok Tour, the election of the Lange-led Labour government in 1984 was like the coming of spring after a long and bitter winter. In relatively short order, Lange set New Zealand’s face firmly against Apartheid South Africa, established a Ministry of Women’s Affairs, extended the Treaty of Waitangi’s purview all the way back to 1840, declared his country nuclear-free and effectively withdrew New Zealand from the ANZUS Pact. The Parliament of 1984-87 also passed Fran Wilde’s private member’s bill legalising homosexuality – defying the 800,000 signatories to a petition urging it not to.
But, if Lange’s almost-Baby-Boomer government fulfilled the dreams of anti-Apartheid demonstrators, second-wave feminists, gay-rights activists and anti-nuclear campaigners, it also dutifully followed the advice of the free-market ideologues at Treasury and the Reserve Bank. Advice endorsed eagerly by the corporate free-marketeers represented by the Business Roundtable. This peculiar fusion of social and economic liberalism would march on boldly for the next 40 years under the banners of both major parties.
Certainly, the election of New Zealand’s first unequivocally Baby Boomer Prime Minister, Helen Clark (b. 1950) did nothing to fundamentally modify the neoliberal economic regime established between 1984 and 1993. Neither did her successor, John Key. Be it Labour or National, the commitment to neoliberalism did not waver. As the years passed and New Zealand’s infrastructure, starved of the necessary investment, continued to crumble and decay, the Baby Boomers’ children, Generation X, observed the steady diminution of their prospects and arrived at the grim conclusion that theirs would be the first generation to fare worse than its predecessor – their parents’.
The election of New Zealand’s first Gen-X Labour prime minister, Jacinda Ardern (b. 1980) backed by yet another almost-Baby-Boomer, the NZ First Party leader, Winston Peters (b.1945) took office among dark mutterings about the failure of capitalism and the need to establish a “Politics of Kindness”. For a moment, it appeared as though the policies unleashed by Lange in 1984, and held in place ever since by New Zealand’s bi-partisan Boomer commitment to neoliberalism, would not survive this latest generational transition.
Economically-speaking, however, this hope turned out to be forlorn. Had it not been for the Covid-19 Pandemic, the policies of Ardern’s Gen-X finance minister, Grant Robertson (b. 1971) would have been indistinguishable from those of his mentor, Michael Cullen (1945-2021). The massive increase in state spending forced upon Robertson by Covid did not signal anything more than a temporary concession to a transitory crisis. The Finance Minister’s response to the consequential inflationary surge has been straight out of the neoliberal playbook.
On social policy, however, the Gen-X governments of Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins have evinced a willingness to accommodate what a great many older New Zealanders regard as revolutionary concepts – most particularly in relation to te Tiriti o Waitangi, “co-governance”, the provision of education and health services, and trans-genderism. Though their efforts in terms of social legislation actually passed has been well short of revolutionary, the perception of this government as being excessively “woke” in its social policy ambitions is very strong.
This is curious, because the “far-left” character of what appears to be Labour Government social policy is more properly described as a manifestation of the social-radicalism that has grown steadily in the public service, the judiciary, the professions (especially journalism) and academia since the first of the Baby Boom generation’s politically radicalised graduates began emerging from the universities in the late-1960s and early-1970s. In the fields of race and gender relations, their social radicalism has come to guide state policy no less absolutely than the economic radicalism of the government’s neoliberal advisers.
In academia itself, a key fraction of the radicalised students of the 1960s and 70s would become the teachers, lecturers and professors of the 1980s, 90s and beyond. By the third decade of the Twenty-First Century, the students of the students who undertook “the long march through the institutions” have themselves emerged from the universities, as persuaded of the “truth” of radical sociology and anthropology, as their counterparts across campus about the “truth” of neoliberal economics.
It would seem, therefore, that the Jeremiahs and Cassandras of the RSA Generation were spot-on in blaming the Baby Boom Generation for “corrupting the youth” of New Zealand. Unable or unwilling to confront the economic powers-that-be, they expended their revolutionary ardour upon the deconstruction of their parents’ moral certainties.
The final irony of this long-running generational saga lies in how completely moral relativism, spawn of the great “Youth Revolt” of the late Twentieth Century, has, in passing through the hands of its institutional legatees, congealed into the moral absolutism of the hapless children of the Twenty-First.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
16 Comments
An elegant summation of the way our public thinking become ever-more absolutist and Manichean - if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
It blinds us to nuance and much of it does not survive the descent in to the examination of particular cases but, dauntingly, that just doesn't seem to matter any longer.
"The massive increase in state spending forced upon Robertson by Covid did not signal anything more than a temporary concession to a transitory crisis'
What a load of BS. Nothing was forced on Robertson nor Ardern.
They both chose thier pathways thru COVID based on their caucuses meetings and the health experts calls
Lockdowns of Auckland with 3 cases was a economic killer! That one decision alone was made by "Dame Overbite"!
The rules around wage relief for company's was fast and loose and was called out as being fiscally dumb and wasteful!
Masks no masks, lies about vaccination stock and arrival, policing of borders, allowance and subsidized Maori border control.... All decisions made by Ardern and her caucus.
Sorry but this article is totally based on BS spin from a left loving looney, whom cannot keep using COVID for bad calls by bad politicians and health officials
Here's a question; you're sitting on the sidelines viewing history with the benefit of 20 - 20 hindsight. Based on the information they had available at the time, did they really have a choice? COVID was killing people across China and the US, and all the experts projections for NZ were pretty grim. The Government of the time made a choice that until more information came available they would put peoples lives ahead of economics. A bit difficult to fault them for that.
Not only those, there were others dying too. And early autopsies were revealing blood clots right through every organ in the body. All the early evidence was highly concerning. Sweden gambled on doing nothing. And that was all it was our Government made their call based on the information they had at that time, provided by all the world's experts at the time. Looking back now you may come to a different conclusion - but at the time? I would suggest life trumps economics every time. If you disagree, consider if the life you're prepared to sacrifice is your own or one of your family's? Would you sacrifice your child for your bank balance? That is essentially what you're arguing.
It was explained to me in a phrase by someone 'the baby boomers don't want to be the man'
A generation that wanted the power and control over other people's lives but not the responsibility for the decisions that they make. The ability to make light hearted and feckless decisions and then scoot away from the destruction that the decisions cause others. (I am at the tail end of this generation)
The wish to appear to be morally upright while being completely immoral.
This is an example that is being played out in the next generation.
So instead of being a nation of builders and creators as we once were we are slipping down the slippery slope to being a nation of wasters, blowhards and thieves.
This seems like a very negative comment but I agree with Mr Trotter. Things have gone wrong and people's materialism and hypocrisy are to blame.
I remember 1969, and a couple of decades later it occurred to me that I had seen the peak of the aspirations of western civilisation. Those aspirations didn't even survive the 70s. There was a window there - about 15 years - when it seemed like things were going to be very different, fairer and better (eg. that 'not working for the man' feeling). Then it all turned to shit. I'm pretty sure it was mostly delusion, but it sure was a rush at the time.
We boomers controlled the up and the down of that equation. I'm pretty sure most of us don't even see the problem - most of us (not me as it happens) have done rather nicely out of neo-liberalism.
So on the surface it looks like we have cycles and maybe there will be another 1969 and it's aftermath. But I suspect there won't, because there isn't enough cheap energy left.
I would not characterise the 21st Century generations as ‘hapless’. Rather enlightened to the cynicism and moral vacuum of the ruling elite across all jurisdictions and their political lackeys. The resentment and despair they currently feel will lead to a more fair minded society in the coming decades as the baby boomer generation pass on. More power to them I say.
This is wrong
……..“The massive increase in state spending forced upon Robertson by Covid did not signal anything more than a temporary concession to a transitory crisis.."
Nothing was forced on Robertson.
He is a very intelligent, but clueless operator who has never worked where if you get it wrong they come and take your house away.
Covid just unleashed his mad overspend. If it had not been Covid it would have been something else.
I think we're becoming the "closed society" that Karl Popper refers to in "The Open Society and it's Enemies". Plato vs Socrates is relevant. History keeps replaying the Paloponnesian War. Socrates of Athens advocated for a constant questioning of the status quo, he wanted progress, change and knowledge-creation but most of all humility. Socratic principals gave us the enlightenment period, and lead to western liberal democracy. Plato of Sparta on the other hand represents the opposite. Sparta was a rigid, static, militaristic society that fiercely resisted change. Sparta was assured of it’s correctness, and was willing to sacrifice whatever it took to achieve the perfect society. Platonic ideas lead to Nazi Germany, Mao, Pol Pot. Today Platonic / Spartan philosophies seem to be fashionable again.
In New Zealand we're seeing dangerous theories like postmodernism and critical-theory (critical race theory) gripping academics, politicians and activists. This group seem to be so assured of their righteousness that they feel comfortable arresting debate around all sorts of topics like climate change, race relations, the mrna-vaccine mandates, and covid lockdowns etc. The current government are also entrenching political power along racial lines with three waters. Historically speaking, the entrenchment of political power usually leads to violence. The current government are also clamping down on free speech and enforcing what, to their minds, constitutes “the truth”. This seems like Poppers closed society.
I was trolling the YouTube and happened across this gem of an interview 1980's with former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov where he outlines the steps involved in overthrowing a countries government and introducing a marxist regieme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0&ab_channel=Federaljacktube
Basically the history listed in the atricle above almost exactly follows the steps outlined in the interview:
- Demoralization of a society, altering susceptible people's perception of reality, undermining of common sense, false interpretations of history, indoctrination of children and students, etc., and installation of suitable people into important positions. He says this can be done in only 15 to 20 years.
- Destabilization, setting one group against another - in his opinion, 2 to 5 years.
- Crisis - months merely.
- Normalization - the tanks coming in to restore order, a 'new normal' being established in which lost rights and freedoms can never return.
As I see it we are currently deep into stage two, and bordering on the edge of stage three.
- Thanks to 9-11 we have anti Terror legislation in place which is just waiting on the Government to define who the terrorists are.
- Government has captured the mainstream media with the post covid funding and grants.
- We have government overreach with regulations to regulate websites.
- Anti-hate speach legislation where hate speach will be decided by the government.
- Government is seeking to strip the Law society of its power and making it the regulator of the legal profession.
- We have a massive housing bubble which is leading to financial instability throughout the economy.
- An unhealthy accelleration of the net zero agenda which is attacking our ability to feed ourselves.
The only solace is that the people who have been at the forefront of stage one will suddenly realize that the new order is not what they believed it would be, and as Yuri so suscinctly pointed out in the interview these peopel will have the ability to become the resistance to this change. At this point they will be taken out behind the cow shed and given a quick dose of lead poisioning by way of a Smith & Western (The discussion for this starts at the 56 minute mark).
Interesting choice of words in your history summation Chris. For example Lange declaring "his" country nuclear free. Not 'the' country or 'our' country, but 'HIS' country. Are you letting a little personal opinion leak out there?
But an equally interesting presentation that many people did oppose the changes that current generations now seem to want to blame on the Boomers. Really proving my point that blaming a generation is misplaced when it is the politicians who have railroaded the changes through, and then failed to change them when they are proven flawed. I would suggest that such perspectives are increasingly important in light of the news this morning that an extension of the electoral term will likely go to referendum. Something in my view (the extension, not the referendum) should never be allowed.
But in the end the 'corruption of the youth' is always done by the generations before as their greed and desire for untrammelled growth creates envy and more greed. It is after all the actions, more than the words, which are watched, learned from and copied by the following generations.
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