"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it"
About this Quote
Orwell lands this line like a quiet slap: not at “the kids these days,” but at everyone, including the speaker. It’s a two-direction insult disguised as sociology. We flatter ourselves upward (we’re smarter than our parents) and downward (we’re wiser than our children), and in doing so we build a comforting story where progress always ends with us. The sentence is engineered to puncture that vanity. “Intelligent” and “wiser” aren’t synonyms; Orwell separates them to show how self-regard shape-shifts. We claim intelligence when we want to feel modern and competent. We claim wisdom when we want authority and permanence. Either way, the verdict is fixed: we win.
The subtext is Orwell’s recurring theme that human beings don’t just hold biases; they manufacture rationales to protect status. Generational narratives are a cheap, socially acceptable way to do it. Saying your parents were dull is a proxy for declaring your own enlightenment. Saying your children lack wisdom is a proxy for holding the steering wheel a little longer.
Context matters: Orwell wrote in an era when “modernity” had already revealed its teeth. After World War I, amid the rise of mass propaganda and ideological certainty, it was harder to pretend history moved neatly toward better judgment. The line reads as an antidote to both smug progressivism and reactionary nostalgia. It doesn’t deny change; it mocks the self-congratulating posture we adopt to avoid the more unsettling possibility: every generation is partially blind, and the blindness feels like clarity while you’re living inside it.
The subtext is Orwell’s recurring theme that human beings don’t just hold biases; they manufacture rationales to protect status. Generational narratives are a cheap, socially acceptable way to do it. Saying your parents were dull is a proxy for declaring your own enlightenment. Saying your children lack wisdom is a proxy for holding the steering wheel a little longer.
Context matters: Orwell wrote in an era when “modernity” had already revealed its teeth. After World War I, amid the rise of mass propaganda and ideological certainty, it was harder to pretend history moved neatly toward better judgment. The line reads as an antidote to both smug progressivism and reactionary nostalgia. It doesn’t deny change; it mocks the self-congratulating posture we adopt to avoid the more unsettling possibility: every generation is partially blind, and the blindness feels like clarity while you’re living inside it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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