The succession of generations, fading into oblivion along with the institution of family and marriage, is a powerful factor influencing the development of mankind. The continuity of generations allows you to go beyond the boundaries of the psychological development of a particular person, established by the transience of human life. Each new generation has the opportunity to use the benefits and knowledge achieved by past generations, to start their lives from the highest level reached by their fathers. The success of society as a whole depends on how successfully the elders were able to transfer the accumulated knowledge and psychological skills to their children and grandchildren.
This is obvious in scientific and technological progress. Another thing is the spiritual and emotional-psychological development of a person. Here, the transfer of what has been achieved to new generations is hardly noticeable. It seems nowadays a child starts from scratch his life and psycho-emotional path. But it is precisely due to the child’s physical and psychological dependence on parents at the beginning of life and the emotions that bind family members that an imperceptible transfer of all accumulated life experience occurs. From parents to children, there is a transfer of attitudes towards good and evil, assessments of actions, ways of emotional reaction to certain events. Parents, remembering what they have invested in themselves since childhood, their own mistakes and achievements, invest in their child their values, expectations and their vision of the world. And regardless of how this transmission is achieved — by active awareness, sensation, faith — the child gets the opportunity to rely on what has already been achieved and tested by his elders. In addition, the presence of the experience of ancestors behind them gives inner strength, since a person can use everyday and psychological experience not only of his own, but also of previous generations.
The connection between generations can be weakened in different ways: through art — by creating images of heroes without a past and history, living here and now, through journalism, reminding of the inevitability of the «conflict between fathers and children.» With modern information technologies, breaking the link between generations turned out to be very easy and fast enough. With the help of the media, values are actively advertised that are diametrically opposed to those broadcast by parents. The author of the concept of «soft power», political scientist Joseph Nye, very clearly formulated the essence of this technique: to achieve this goal, it is necessary to make the objects of influence «to want what you want.» Add to this a simultaneous attack on family values, and the gap between generations is assured. One of the most effective blows to the conditions of transfer of life and psychological experience from fathers to children is demonization of the image of parents, due to which rules are dragged into society that complicate education. After that, at the state level, it becomes elementary to adopt juvenile laws that “free” children from their parents under the guise of ensuring children’s rights.
Active media attacks on the institution of family and marriage, which allows linking different generations, promote the benefits of selfish behavior under the guise of individual freedom. And love and affection for the place of birth is weakened by calls for national confrontation. Today, in society at all levels, the possibility and indisputable advantages of harmonious development and growth of the individual in the family and the team are fundamentally hushed up or distorted.
Ensuring the continuity of generations is the point of strength of any society, it increases the competitive advantages and psychological capabilities of both specific people and society as a whole.Don’t reinvent the psychological wheel and don’t look for prophets over the horizon, look at the family photo album and remember your ancestors — there are many of your personal answers in it.
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