I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had

When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements - the invention of some new valve or sprocket - while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be.

J. Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot (1984), 199