Dr Peter Kwasniewski directed his readers to this interesting article in The European Conservative about the decline in continental night life. “The Death of the Night Out” blames poverty and fear among the normally club-aged generation for this. “Rising crime and mass migration mean that young people no longer feel safe on Western Europe’s streets,” says the deck.
Dr K isn’t crying for the nightclubs.
“I greet the following news with uninhibited rejoicing, since this kind of “clubbing” is anything but good for the soul,” he wrote on Facebook. “May every such club perish and never reopen, and may the kids find more healthy forms of recreation.”
My rejoicing is more muted, as the contemporary disco is the great-great–grandchild of the ballrooms of the 20th century ballroom–and sometimes the former inherited the actual building from the latter. A great tradition–going out to public halls to dance–is in peril–or would be if the Latin American and swing-dance scenes weren’t still so popular.
Also, I started sneaking into dance clubs when I was 14 or so, and the sneaking–which took courage–was rather good for me, I think, and definitely a way to bond with my equally sneaky companions. The dance clubs themselves were dark, noisy, sometimes expensive, and never as exciting as in fiction. I met some interesting characters, and thus learned to cope with being around people completely unlike myself. Interestingly, the Goth bars, where costumed freaks flapped around the dance floor solo, were a thousand times more wholesome than the mainstream places, ponds of gropers.
Thus, this passage in the article resonated with me:
In swearing off nightlife, Gen Zers are missing out on some valuable milestones. Nights out were once a crucial part of growing up, teaching young people how to read social cues, interact with people from all walks of life, and navigate alcohol-fuelled, potentially hostile situations. Without those messy, chaotic and sometimes regrettable late nights spent at bars, clubs, and pubs, Gen Z risks being severely undersocialised. Or at least, more so than they already are.
As a matter of fact, I think going to discos today is a waste of time (and worse), and I cheerfully defend Gen Z’s right not to go to them. However, I do feel that les jeans run the risk of being “severely undersocialised” by not going out in public after dark. And this is one reason why I think older Catholics–ones with time, money, common sense, and a sincere fondness for “The Youth”–should be organising dances and other evening gatherings for the younger generation.
For example, let me draw your attention to the Michaelmas Dance!
Another reason is slavery to those flat crystal balls we carry around everywhere. I’m on the internet myself right now, but at least I’m producing, not consuming–and thus not being consumed. There are many, many people my age who are congratulating themselves on having had a “real childhood” and not having logged onto the World Wide Web until we were 30 or whenever it was. (That said, I was sending emails as early as 1990 via modem.) Our brains were allowed to develop without calculated interference by unethical social media pioneers.
Of course, some of us drank more than we should, and some very stupidly took a ton of drugs, so really Gen X has nothing to be proud of, although we may rejoice in our good fortune to have gone to clubs, raves, and poetry slams, gotten along with punks, Goths, Wiccans and bores, scaled fences, set bonfires, cashed travellers’ cheques, and had all the other adventures that make us the confident and exceedingly well socialised middle-aged people we are now.
(In case you are wondering, the photograph is from my theology school friends threw me a Goth-themed birthday party back when weekly clubbing was a thing. The object in the middle was a “Spider-guts cake.” It was delicious. Afterwards we girls all went dancing and returned home unscathed.)