Reflexions of past and future
Jun. 11th, 2004 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartAnd 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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-12 10:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-12 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-13 02:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-13 03:41 am (UTC)