Are We Capable of Learning from Our Elders?

There has been some chatter online recently about a conversation between Rainn Wilson, famous for portraying Dwight Schrute on TV’s The Office, 58, and Trisha Paytas, YouTuber, vlogger, and influencer, 36, on Wilson’s podcast, Soul Boom. The conversation is less about the content itself discussed and more about the dynamic between Wilson and Paytas. I included the ages of both because many of the comments in response to this uproar centered around the generation gap between the two individuals. This was put forward as a big reason for the failure to communicate, and it is part of a growing trend as generations continue to move forward. 

Depending on who you talk to, and what generation that person is a part of, there will be various origins of when this started and various reasons why the gap continues to widen. As one who is continuously experiencing a generational gap-widening in my professional sphere from my first year in religious education to my thirteenth, I can certainly empathize with the frustrations of us “old folks” as our connection to those we have been tasked with formation becomes more tenuous. I also try to empathize with the upcoming generation who is perennially trying to find its voice and make it heard. 

This disconnect between generations makes the handing down of traditions, and more importantly Sacred Tradition, nearly impossible apart from divine grace. It is the common refrain of postmodernism that the individual, divorced from all transcendent universals (because one assumes transcendent universals do not exist in the first place), must perpetually reinvent himself or herself or itself.

Something similar could be found in the miscommunication between Wilson and Paytas. Paytas was describing a traumatic experience, and Wilson was accused of questioning it as a way of undermining the seriousness of the experience. Because he questioned her experience, one that was fraught with emotion, he was undermining her identity. Wilson does not share her assumption of self-invention, so he thought his question was simply inquisitive.

To very quickly summarize, Paytas shared that she was livestreaming her nervous breakdown, and Wilson asked what her thought process was in live streaming it. This is what became the crux of the issue and highlights the disconnect. The younger party wanted to be heard. The older, though he presumably acted out of innocence, was perceived to have acted out of hostile ignorance. Maybe the questions Wilson was asking were fair, but they went unheard, and any possible wisdom went unheeded. 

What I think is more important in all of this is the disconnect that is found in culture, and thus in the Church, between the older and younger generations. This is an especially acute issue within the Catholic Church because of our reliance on Tradition, which, to paraphrase Chesterton, is the voice of past generations in the formation of the next ones. Sacred Tradition stands as one of the three legs of the stool upon which the Church operates. There can be no Faith without a reliance upon previous generations, Chesterton’s “democracy,” so it must be passed down, but it must also be received. 

In teaching, especially in teaching theology, one bears this responsibility of faithfully handing on what we have received. This transmission requires cooperation between the older and younger generations. As Catholics, we believe this transmission is not only possible, but that we have a responsibility for this cooperation.

I can only give one solution to how this cooperation can be made possible again, which comes from my own embrace of Tradition. If the upcoming generation stopped seeing its elders as teachers, it was because it stopped seeing them as witnesses. If the Church, as the guardian and conduit of Sacred Tradition, wants to credibly teach that Tradition, then it must fulfill its responsibility as a powerful witness to that Tradition. 

To be fair, there is a certain genius to the idea of an older generation listening to the younger. A younger generation does not carry the same baggage as the older, and the seemingly naive curiosity of youth can incite questions the older would not have thought to ask. However, there is also the classic wisdom that comes with age, experience, and (hopefully) reflection, which can only be found in those who have lived, experienced, and reflected. There is meant to be a mutual in-breathing between the two parties.

It is this in-breathing between the older and younger generations that fosters cooperation between them, and from this cooperation a transmission of the Tradition that has formed us and will continue to shape the Church and the world.

Photo by Sergio Kian on Unsplash