With my colleague, Gary Quehl (Bergquist and Quehl, 2019), I have written about the multiple forms in which Generativity (deep caring) is manifest in our society and over our lifetime. One form of this generativity (guardian of the old) is to be found in the work done by Wallace Davenport, as is a second form of generativity (support and mentoring of the new). I suspect that both forms of generativity were found in the work of J.S. Bach and the sustained support he offered from the “revolutionary” compositions of his sons.
The alternative to the multiple forms of generativity embraced by Davenport and J. S. Bach, is a condition that Erik Erikson (1980) identified as Stagnation. As middle-aged “curmudgeons,” we complain (as I did) about the “new music” or that *&%^*%* Roku or Tik Tock. We view the successful younger member of the C Suite with envy and provide them with absolutely no mentoring. We even envy the success of our own daughter or son, while feigning enthusiastic support for their achievements. Our life seems to have passed us by and the world is facing forward without us. We are stagnant and can’t deal with the contradiction of accepting the new while safeguarding the old.
Left and Right
We are all aware of the great gap that exists in mid-21st Century societies between differing political viewpoints. There is not only a major difference in perspective and practices among those of the left and those on the right, passion and even violence often attends this difference. The political polarization in not just the United States but also many other nations in the world impacts on the way in which experts and expertise are viewed (Weitz and Bergquist, 2021; Weitz and Bergquist, 2023), and information is distorted (Weitz and Bergquist, 2022a). The polarization proves to be fodder for conspiracy theories (Weitz and Bergquist, 2022b) and for anti-democracy movements on both the right-wing and left-wing (Bergquist and Weitz, 2022; Bergquist and Weitz, 2023).
What are some of the reasons for expansion of the gap between people with different political viewpoints? Several of these reasons existed when Abraham Lincoln served as president and brought in his political rivals as members of his cabinet. Some of his political opponents represented different economic interests (the rich versus the poor), while others represented different cultural values (North versus South).
These differences certainly still exist in most societies. There were also differences in Lincoln’s world of an even deeper and irrational source – such as belief in the morality or immorality of slavery. We have similar differences in our contemporary world—ranging from divergent viewpoints regarding the fundamental viability of democracies (versus autocracies) and the “goodness” and “rightness” of specific religious beliefs (and attendant values and versions of reality).
There is even the profound difference to be found in the belief that there is or is not an afterlife. We find that brutal behavior and indifference to death is often found among those who believe in an afterlife and believe that some people are rewarded in this afterlife for their belief and their actions on this earth. Other people believe that what happens on Earth is important and that no religion or after-life reward system justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent people. These profound differences in both perspective and practice deeply divides humanity in the 21st Century and seems to regress people and countries to a primitive (and nonviable) state of affairs.
