Industrial psychology. What is the main problem of the older generation of Russians

Generational problems in modern Russia are often considered in the context of differences between representatives of older age cohorts and young people. But there is an equally significant topic - the evolution of the views of the older generation. After all, the current 60-70-year-old Russians are, to a large extent, the electorate of Boris Yeltsin in the 1991 elections (57% with a 76% turnout) - then they were 30-40 years old. Supporters of democratic change, viewers of Vzglyad, and a little earlier, Repentance, which was watched by almost 14 million people in 1987.

So about repentance - this time with a small letter. It seems that the current emphatically “statist” (sometimes on the verge of anguish) moods of the majority of the older generation is a kind of repentance combined with the syndrome of an underplayed game. Repentance before the predecessors. In the 70s, one could be ironic about the generation that made rockets and blocked the Yenisei - but for the current elders this is a great era, since they had immeasurably less achievements characteristic of an industrial society. And psychology has remained precisely “industrial” - therefore, new technologies in the banking sector or IT are not perceived by the older generation as significant results. And the transformation of an old factory into a modern fashionable space in general seems to be degradation. Hence the symbolic recognition of the correctness of not only the military, but also the post-war generations - as well as the then conservatives, who insisted on a single Union as the highest value.

The underplayed game syndrome is due to the fact that in the transition from an industrial to a service economy, not only many enterprises closed, but also life strategies that were legitimate, corresponding to the ideas of the Soviet person about what was due, broke down. At that time, few people thought about this - many believed that several difficult years would pass and everything would return to normal (only without a shortage in stores and with more decent salaries - like “they have”, in the West). Then it turned out that there would be no return (moreover, the number of enterprises closed as part of deindustrialization increased) - and frustration appeared, which only intensified over the years. Including because the young shared it less and less and lived "not for conscience" - remember Savva Ignatievich from "Pokrovsky Gates", who contrasted joy and conscience.