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Reflexions of past and future
And no, it's not about the Gildor story with the same title. It's about politics and Hungarian history and other boring stuff.
I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. This is a condition that makes my generation very different from the next one, which hasn't made the same experiences with true, honest, down-to-Earth socialism that we have. This is also a condition that makes us very different from people who have grown up on the other side of the "demarcation line". Or whatever it is called in English.
Our youth was marked by two diagonally opposite reaction to people, both drilled into us for the sake of survival - not physical survival, things weren't quite that bad in the 1960's and 1970's anymore, but regarding to jobs, chances to be accepted to university and other stuff like that.
One of these conditions was deep-rooted paranoia. We had to be very careful, we had to look out for ourselves, we had to overreact, if we didn't want to get into trouble. We have learnt not to trust new faces when they appeared in church, unless someone vouched for them. We have learned to talk in half-truths, not quite lying, that could cause trouble, too, but not quite saying the truth, either. There were many words of double meaning, the vocal equivalent of secret handshakes, and there were times when we simply had to remain silent. It wasn't an easy time, but at least we knew the rules and how to work around them.
The other condition was unwavering loyalty towards those we have come to trust. There were not many such people, but for these we were willing to do anything, regardless of the consequences for our own person, career, whatnot. They didn't have to ask for it - it was the way things were done back then. We only had each other, we had to stuck together, we had to protect and support our own, at all costs. And we did.
Sometimes, thankfully not often, but it happened that on of these trusted people turned out to be a disappointment. That they betrayed our trust, used us for their purposes and then threw us away when we were of no use for them anymore. I wasn't accepted to university in 1975, just because the girl who had sat next to me in the church for ten years, wanted to make career very badly, and thought (quite rightly, as it turned out) that reporting my religious affection that wasn't taken kindly for someone who wanted to become a teacher, to the Union of Young Communists at university.
Apparently, I have become a teacher, after all. On a harder, more complicated way, but I punched through nevertheless. Things have become less rigorous in Hungary later. But I never spoke to that girl again. And I never will. She is as dead to me and she always will be.
People who betrayed our trust were worse than spies and agents of the Party for us back then. Spies and agents were clearly the enemy, one could live with that. But a friend or acquaintance whom we trusted turning against us or simply using us was the ultimate sin. The only sin that could never be forgiven.
Well, we took our Christianity very seriously, so we did forgive them in a manner. In our heads. It was required from us as the followes of Jesus. But we could never forget. That is a difference.
After the changes in the late 1990's we thought that things would be different now. That we could, at least, speak freely. And we can - in a manner. But it's harder now than it used to be. There are no rules any longer. There are no loyalties. We have lost the only thing that used to be positive in those dark years... and got nothing in exchange. Well, nothing that really counts.
So, my generation is plagued by a deep uncertainty. We can't quite figure out this trust thing in this changed situation. We don't really know whom to believe. Some of us are slowly going mad from increasing paranoia, because this is the only familiar thing that has been left for us - and the new situation, the existential instability and all that stuff, gives us enough reason to be paranoid.
Others make the mistake to trust too easily and get disappointed and hurt on a regular basis. It seems inevitable. Due to our past, we have very high expectations where friendship is considered. Expectations that might not be realistic, that people who haven't grown up in the same situation simply can't fulfill. It's not their fault, and it's probably not necessary for them to do so. It's probably our own fault that we're still trying to live by the same codex of blind loyalty that used to be the only way and the most natural thing for us. Times have changed, and we are like dinosaurs that don't fit in.
Don't feel sorry for me. Despite the hard times that we had as young people, I still do cherish what we had back then. Not the politics, the oppression, the fear - but the solid certainty that no matter what, we could always count on each other. I feel sorry for the young people today. They don't have this safety belt anymore. They do have material things, better opportunities than we could have ever dreamed of, the world lying open before them - but they don't have that steadfast loyalty among acquintances. The fact that even if we didn't like each other personally, we could count on every single one among us. Because there was community.
That is the only aspect of my youth that I miss nowadays. In these days, everyone is fighting their own personal wars against everyone else, there are no rules, no loyalty, no backbone. We might live easier in many ways, but our society lacks the moral background that it used to have once - even if it went against the government, against the official philosophy, against many things that were demanded from us.
I wonder if we really made such a good change. I'm glad that we are freed from the official ideology and its idiotic practical results, but what we have - or don't have - now leaves me unsatisfied. There is something missing from our lives. We are without roots.
I didn't exactly choose to live by the old rules. This is the only way I can lead my life. Any many others of my generation are the same. It's been indoctrinated in us from our early childhood. This is not something we can - or want - to change. The younger generation considers us idiots for it. But I think we are still better off than they are.
I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. This is a condition that makes my generation very different from the next one, which hasn't made the same experiences with true, honest, down-to-Earth socialism that we have. This is also a condition that makes us very different from people who have grown up on the other side of the "demarcation line". Or whatever it is called in English.
Our youth was marked by two diagonally opposite reaction to people, both drilled into us for the sake of survival - not physical survival, things weren't quite that bad in the 1960's and 1970's anymore, but regarding to jobs, chances to be accepted to university and other stuff like that.
One of these conditions was deep-rooted paranoia. We had to be very careful, we had to look out for ourselves, we had to overreact, if we didn't want to get into trouble. We have learnt not to trust new faces when they appeared in church, unless someone vouched for them. We have learned to talk in half-truths, not quite lying, that could cause trouble, too, but not quite saying the truth, either. There were many words of double meaning, the vocal equivalent of secret handshakes, and there were times when we simply had to remain silent. It wasn't an easy time, but at least we knew the rules and how to work around them.
The other condition was unwavering loyalty towards those we have come to trust. There were not many such people, but for these we were willing to do anything, regardless of the consequences for our own person, career, whatnot. They didn't have to ask for it - it was the way things were done back then. We only had each other, we had to stuck together, we had to protect and support our own, at all costs. And we did.
Sometimes, thankfully not often, but it happened that on of these trusted people turned out to be a disappointment. That they betrayed our trust, used us for their purposes and then threw us away when we were of no use for them anymore. I wasn't accepted to university in 1975, just because the girl who had sat next to me in the church for ten years, wanted to make career very badly, and thought (quite rightly, as it turned out) that reporting my religious affection that wasn't taken kindly for someone who wanted to become a teacher, to the Union of Young Communists at university.
Apparently, I have become a teacher, after all. On a harder, more complicated way, but I punched through nevertheless. Things have become less rigorous in Hungary later. But I never spoke to that girl again. And I never will. She is as dead to me and she always will be.
People who betrayed our trust were worse than spies and agents of the Party for us back then. Spies and agents were clearly the enemy, one could live with that. But a friend or acquaintance whom we trusted turning against us or simply using us was the ultimate sin. The only sin that could never be forgiven.
Well, we took our Christianity very seriously, so we did forgive them in a manner. In our heads. It was required from us as the followes of Jesus. But we could never forget. That is a difference.
After the changes in the late 1990's we thought that things would be different now. That we could, at least, speak freely. And we can - in a manner. But it's harder now than it used to be. There are no rules any longer. There are no loyalties. We have lost the only thing that used to be positive in those dark years... and got nothing in exchange. Well, nothing that really counts.
So, my generation is plagued by a deep uncertainty. We can't quite figure out this trust thing in this changed situation. We don't really know whom to believe. Some of us are slowly going mad from increasing paranoia, because this is the only familiar thing that has been left for us - and the new situation, the existential instability and all that stuff, gives us enough reason to be paranoid.
Others make the mistake to trust too easily and get disappointed and hurt on a regular basis. It seems inevitable. Due to our past, we have very high expectations where friendship is considered. Expectations that might not be realistic, that people who haven't grown up in the same situation simply can't fulfill. It's not their fault, and it's probably not necessary for them to do so. It's probably our own fault that we're still trying to live by the same codex of blind loyalty that used to be the only way and the most natural thing for us. Times have changed, and we are like dinosaurs that don't fit in.
Don't feel sorry for me. Despite the hard times that we had as young people, I still do cherish what we had back then. Not the politics, the oppression, the fear - but the solid certainty that no matter what, we could always count on each other. I feel sorry for the young people today. They don't have this safety belt anymore. They do have material things, better opportunities than we could have ever dreamed of, the world lying open before them - but they don't have that steadfast loyalty among acquintances. The fact that even if we didn't like each other personally, we could count on every single one among us. Because there was community.
That is the only aspect of my youth that I miss nowadays. In these days, everyone is fighting their own personal wars against everyone else, there are no rules, no loyalty, no backbone. We might live easier in many ways, but our society lacks the moral background that it used to have once - even if it went against the government, against the official philosophy, against many things that were demanded from us.
I wonder if we really made such a good change. I'm glad that we are freed from the official ideology and its idiotic practical results, but what we have - or don't have - now leaves me unsatisfied. There is something missing from our lives. We are without roots.
I didn't exactly choose to live by the old rules. This is the only way I can lead my life. Any many others of my generation are the same. It's been indoctrinated in us from our early childhood. This is not something we can - or want - to change. The younger generation considers us idiots for it. But I think we are still better off than they are.
no subject
Strange... I was just reading this week about a study of suburban teen sexuality here in the US and found myself experiencing what is perhaps a similar kind of generation gap to the one you describe. This research project (as well as others I have read) found that kids are choosing to not have boy/girlfriends, but instead are "hooking up" or having "friends with benefits" - in both cases, sex without emotional attachment, perhaps even with deliberate detachment. They don't want to get hurt (emotionally), they don't want the "complications" of a relationship and so on. Oral sex isn't even "really sex," they say.
Now, you know how liberal I am and how strongly I feel about the need to provide thorough sex education in schools, given the peculiar American paradox of having our media and advertising saturated with sexual content, yet not being comfortable talking about sex in real life, especially with kids. So you know I'm not speaking as a prude here. But I think your point about the importance of *community,* of dependable bonds between people sounds an equally valid warning here: if our young people are essentially just masturbating with someone else's body to feel good without getting "involved," how will they learn to take the emotional risks that are necessary in forming deep emotional bonds? If it's just "take what you can get," then how will they learn to trust enough to make communities as they become adults? Loyalty requires trust, and friendship and community require commitment. How will these kids learn such values?
Although we did not have a recent radical change of governing systems, I, too, am wondering about the direction of my society at present. We had a period of rampant, unregulated capitalism in the previous century, and things got very bad for many - most - people before the government began to reign things in with labor laws, health and workplace safety regulations, a social welfare safety net and so on. Many of those protections have been neglected or actively weakened in recent decades, beginning with Reagan's time in the White House. And now we are losing our middle class, which is essential for a functioning democracy. (If there are only very rich and very poor, the former pretty much walk all over the latter, as history has shown.) For us to restore the kinds of sensible government involvement that could change these things, we not-wealthy folks will have to pull together and cast our votes.
But the young ones are the least likely to vote. Disaffected, they are said to be. I wonder if there are connections among these things - detachment in sex, detachment in society - in something like the way you see the loss of willingness to be loyal weakening the fiber of your society. And I wonder what we should/can do about it?
no subject
Hmmm... do you really think people would be interested? Feel free to forward it, if you want. I have no idea how these things work. Do you know any good editor who would take a look at the grammar? ;)
If it's just "take what you can get," then how will they learn to trust enough to make communities as they become adults? Loyalty requires trust, and friendship and community require commitment. How will these kids learn such values?
I have no idea. I have similar concerns about our young people over here. That's why I'm trying to build the basics of community for them while they are very young. When my current class was in 5th term, I went with them somewhere every odd weekend. We went to open-air museums, exhibitions, that sort of stuff, so that they might learn something about useful hobbies and shared interests. I gave up the struggle in 6th term. Aside from three or four, the others only used the opportunity to behave stupidly.
So, now I'm only working with the handful of them who are worth the effort. I can't change the unfortunate trends society had taken on, but I can offer the few who aren't howling with the wolves an alternate option to spend their free time in a creative and useful manner. Look out for my next entry, I'm about to write an analysis about the social structure of my class.
And now we are losing our middle class, which is essential for a functioning democracy. (If there are only very rich and very poor, the former pretty much walk all over the latter, as history has shown.)
Consider our situation: we are about a century behind you in this context. We don'teven have a middle class. Well, we do, but it's a low-level middle class. Ever since the political changes, the people who have struggled themselves up to a certain, moderate level of life, are losing that standard slowly but steadily. Hell, I can't afford to go abroad for a month-long vacation anymore, which I could easily done during socialism. If I wanted to go to England for a 5-day package holiday (which I want very badly, to be honest), it would cost me two month's worth of salary. And when the Euro comes and we'll have to change our money into European currency, it'd mean another painful cut into our finances. We pay 258 Forints for one Euro right now, and it's not likely to get any better.
We are not exactly poor. Well, most people aren't, not yet. But joining the EU will cause more problems, at least for the first times. The older Union members are economically strong countries that didn't have to go through 40 years of socialism, they have gone through the initial problems with capitalism a century ago. We went from post-feudalism into socialism practically without any step in-between.
But the young ones are the least likely to vote.
It's very much the same here. We were voting this morning... you could barely see anyone younger than 60. As if it weren't about their future.