One of the advantages to being a man approaching middle age, in Ireland, in 2021, is that on balance, the pandemic has not really affected my life at all, other than at the very fringes.
In fact, you could say, the whole thing, this year, has basically imposed my own way of living on everybody else: Stay at home with the wife and dog. Watch telly. Get to bed nice and early. Take vitamin C and D with my dinner. Go for a bit of a wander for exercise, if you might call it that, but no more than 5km from the house. Avoid socialising unless it’s absolutely necessary, and then only in sensible settings. Don’t overdo it.
The thought struck me yesterday, when reading the Taoiseach’s most recent comments:
THE 8PM CLOSING time imposed on bars, restaurants and other venues gives people an opportunity to socialise over Christmas “without overdoing it”, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
That’s it now, isn’t it? That’s life as a middle-aged person if you’re sensible. Everything in moderation. Don’t go buck wild. Drink tea, maybe a glass of wine, watch your Netflix show, go to bed, pay your taxes, put a family limit of €30 on the Christmas presents.
The approach to Covid 19 in Ireland in 2021 might be described by political scientists as “paternalistic” – the state, in loco parentis. In more apocalyptic terms, it might be described as big brother: Drink this much. Stay out this late. Meet this many people. Eastasia has always been at war with Omicron.
In reality though, it might be a symptom of something much simpler: That middle aged people like me are convinced that we know best, and that the whole world would be better if people just lived the way we did.
It is fair to say, for example, that Tony Holohan and Micheál Martin are not two people who, in pre Covid times, one might have expected to see in a nightclub at 2am, hunting, vainly, for a mate. It would surprise me, too, if either man had gotten polluted drunk in the last two decades. Or if either man had suffered a lack of job security. Or been to a concert. At most, both might have been to big sporting events – the Leinster Rugby for Tony, obviously, and the Cork Hurling for Micheál. But there is nothing quite so middle aged as going to the match and wearing a nice warm coat.
All of this might sound like gentle slagging, and, indeed, it is. But there is a serious point here: The people most affected by Ireland’s covid policy – the young – are also the people least likely to be in the room. There are no members of NPHET under 30, for the simple reason that it’s remarkably difficult to qualify as any kind of medical expert by that age.
As for politics, well. The kind of people who manage to become TDs before the age of 30 tend to be – and apologies to some people in, or formerly in, this category who are friends – relative oddballs, not particularly representative of their own generation. The average 25 year old is not plotting a path to power by the age of 45, which is why membership of Ogra, and Young Fine Gael, and the others, is so low.
And so, it is no coincidence, at least not from my perspective, that the majority of covid policies are relatively kind to the middle class, middle aged. And that they align, by and large, not only with how we live, but with how we think life should be lived.
It is telling, for example, that those Covid policies which the Government have been most eager to ditch are those rare policies which have, in fact, impacted the middle aged: Closing schools, for example, was very unpopular with the middle aged. And the persistent insisting that Schools are safe, even though it is blindingly obvious to any fool that they are hotbeds of covid infection, is another sop to the middle aged, and our priorities.
The only thing that this analysis does not explain, at least partially, is the attitude of the media. Large parts of the media – broadcast media, for example – are, indeed, occupied by the middle aged, match attending, wine drinking, Netflix watching dads. Hello, Matt Cooper.
But the print media, by contrast, is full of underpaid, under-housed, under-socialised, romance-hungry 20-somethings eager to make a name for themselves. People who, by and large, have been disproportionally hit by the pandemic. And yet, compared to the rest of their generation, their coverage of the Government has been remarkably tame. Perhaps it is their editors, or perhaps, it is that toeing the line is a better career move than the alternative.
In any case, the pattern is obvious. And the psychology, when you think about it, is not hard to understand.
There is also the perhaps more controversial analysis: That people like me, and Tony Holohan, and Micheál Martin, were never, well, very successful 20 somethings. Nightclubs were never my thing – perhaps they were Tony’s, and Micheáls, but I have my doubts. That thought strikes me every time somebody says that those partying are “selfish”. Easy for us to say: We didn’t get many party invitations at that age, the cool kids did, and we still resent it.
None of this is an argument that any of this is conscious persecution of the young. It is not. But it is very easy to see, when you observe the country, how middle aged people are trying to shape us all in their own image. It is astounding to me that there is not more rebellion from the young.
But then, perhaps, as has been the historic pattern in this country, the young with passion and initiative are simply leaving us, for kinder shores.