The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, or the form remains constant (using Platonic terms...)
Okay, so because I'm a quote wonk, I tried to find where it's from... and this is what I found - it's not true! So while it's been around for 50 plus year and quoted by a Dutch Prime Minister, Plato never said nor attributed it to Socrates. Nevertheless the quote exists - and it feels true!
This quote seems to be more valid: "The world is passing through troubled times. Young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no respect for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they know everything, and treat older people’s wisdom as stupidity. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest, and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress." and is attributed to Peter the Hermit/Monk in 1274, but just because it has a date, doesn't mean it's any more valid.
That's one of the things I find interesting about the internet, how one invention can be repeated and cross referenced so endlessly, that it becomes 'real' and it's only if you try to verify it that the holes emerge. So the Plato quote has been quoted since 1953 (at least) when someone put it in a text book, but no one, no Plato scholars, have been able to find an original quote, but still, the New York Times (the paper of reference) quotes it as real today, further establishing its veracity, but it's not... As for Peter the Hermit/Monk whatever - Madeleine L’Engle, the highly respected fantasy writer gave that quote, so it must be true :)
(okay, so now I had to find the Madeline L'Engle reference, and I couldn't, of course not, but did find this quote, which again, sounds like something she would say and is beautiful in it's own right, so I'm including it here:
“In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.”
She may have written it, and she may not have, but I believe in it's essence, whoever wrote it, so I'm including it, but without any historical resonance... (how's that for a caveat) )
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