Oh no, dear me

I've said it once, I'll say it twice. Martin Jacques is sounding old:

A culture that succumbs to adolescence is a culture that is drained of meaning and experience, not to mention history and profundity.
.....
... the falling age of journalists: there is less room, and declining respect for, figures of authority and expertise. The currency of knowledge and experience is steadily depreciating.
.....
The consequence is a less serious society, a less wise society, and a less profound society.
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The outcome is a growing vacuity and shallowness... Hollywood movies may entertain, but they barely ever enlighten... An adolescent culture is one that lives on the surface, unencumbered by memory, light on knowledge and devoid of wisdom.

His diagnosis of the causes of this wretched state of affairs?

The underlying reason for all this could not be more fundamental. It concerns the western condition. For over half a century we have only known prosperity, never experienced depression or mass unemployment, never fought wars except on the edges at other people's expense, never known the vicissitudes or extremes of human existence, comfortable... [etc.]

Jacques doesn't explicitly suggest a way forward from it, but one must assume he's not wishing disasters upon us. The age, therefore - his age, though not in a biological sense - comes through in the resignedness, the unremitting complaint and lament.