Respect your elders, don’t do that, do this, eat your vegetables! These are all things we’ve heard from our parents or adults when we were kids, most of us listened, but did any of us really question if we should’ve? Most people would say yes, because when we’re very young, we don’t know any better than them, but what about as we grow older, and develop our own experiences, should we still listen to our elders like we did as children?

It may not be in the best interest of the younger to always listen to their elders, for example, in All Quiet on The Western Front, the young men who were only 20 years old were sent to fight and obey every command of men older than them, who sat back and relaxed while they died and killed and were executed if they refused to. But at the same time, these same young men all followed their oldest member, who was around 40, Kat. They trusted him, and he led them well when he needed to until the end.

In this age, the scene is always changing, especially with technology and the internet, things tend to not stay the same for long. For example, AI has become ever more apparent in society, students in school use AI to cheat, people use AI to make promotional art or even videos now, and it’s ever changing and expanding. It might be harder for the younger generations to listen to their elders because they didn’t live the same life, they might not know how all these newer things work and how to navigate these parts of life, and the same with the younger generation trying to understand how life works outside of the new.
It really depends, people should respect their elders, but should listen to them with caution, and take into consideration what is really in their best interest, because it won’t always be the best idea to listen to those in any type of power or authority.