Brexit has revealed a great many things about ourselves we might prefer not to know, but in particular it has opened up a deep cultural tug-of-war between the generations. My generation and those older emerge in a bad light, a shocking disappointment for those of us who once thought we were the avant garde; the tearers-down of barriers; freedom fighters for the permissive society in the vanguard of progress.

What’s happened to us? The big baby boomer generation bears down on a shrinking proportion of the young. In attitudes, we are not ageing well.

A YouGov poll last week revealed how yearning for that imaginary 1950s golden age was a strong force that helped blow Britain out of the EU. Remember, 64% of over-65s voted for Brexit, while 71% of under-25s voted remain.

Yet the anti-immigrant sentiment, much stronger among the old than the young, was only the topsoil on deeper strata of backward-looking aches among the old. Brexiters are 53% for bringing back the rope (supported by just 20% of remainers). Bring back beating in schools, say 42% of Brexiters (against just 14% of remainers). Three times more Brexiters than remainers would bring back incandescent lightbulbs, blue passports, imperial weights and measures and pre-decimal currency – which would fox anyone under 55.

At the last election, 20% more over-65s voted Tory than for Labour. Compare that to the under-30s who voted 4% more for Labour. YouGov finds nearly three quarters of the over-65s would ban burqas (36% of the under 30s). A kindly 62% of the young think we have a moral obligation to refugees, a view shared by only 39% of the old. Same-sex marriage gets 83% support from the young, but just 46% of the over-65s.

‘A kindly 62% of the young think we have a moral obligation to refugees, a view shared by only 39% of the old.’ Photograph: Zohra Bensemra / Reuters/Reuters

Younger people could be wishing we of the Who generation really had all died before we got old. What’s become of us? We who won all those freedoms on sex, contraception, abortion, gay rights, divorce, who saw the start of women’s lib, an end to censorship, capital and corporal punishment, who threw off hats, gloves and conventions to wear and think what we liked? But no doubt many of my generation never bought into what seemed like the spirit of the age: abolishing capital punishment was never popular.

Pollsters can’t tell how much this huge difference in generational attitudes is a cohort effect – the unchanging culture of a certain era – or how many people turn rightwards as they grow older. Will today’s liberal-minded young follow a dismal trajectory towards conservatism as they age? Some people do turn meaner and more fearful as their own horizons close in.

My generation should count their blessings as the never-had-it-so-good beneficiaries of the NHS, better schools and overseas travel, with new opportunities in that great upward sweep from blue to white collar work. Now most of us sit on the proceeds of decades of booming house prices, enriched by an unmerited, untaxed property windfall. True, the over-60s are twice as likely to give to charity as the under-30s, though generosity may be easier with more cash than struggling “generation rent”.

Growing old, too many in my generation seem unwilling to share all that experience of progress they have enjoyed. No, I know that’s not you Guardian readers, many of whom grow more radical as they age; but all those backward-lookers should know better than to bring down the Brexit shutters on the young.

There is a mean-mindedness about the nearly half of over-65s who YouGov find think benefits (for others) are too generous – though they themselves have been shamelessly wooed with triple-lock pensions, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and travel passes, regardless of their means.

Of course the poorer old need and deserve all these supports, but the biggest cohort ever to retire on decent pensions still keep their universal perks. The sheer numerical dominance of the over-65s over the shrinking proportion of the young invites political bribery. Labour is warned that if ever it is to win in England it needs to appeal to older voters – but quite how is unclear if so many of the old persist in voting with their pension books. What politician dare tell them to pay more attention to their grandchildren’s generation?

The extreme £12bn benefit cuts starting this week take most money from young families and give 80% of tax cuts to the richest, leaving the poorest third considerably worse off. The Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts there will be 5.1 million children in poverty by 2020, up 50% – directly due to tax credit and working allowance cuts starting now. Those with children are hit hardest: children’s services, health visitors and schools cut back, yet universal pension perks are protected.

Of course the old never willed any harm to the young, and the real blame lies with the government’s draconian cuts, deliberately shared so unfairly. But the voting habits of the old are the underlying cause of a shift of wealth and income towards them and away from the impoverished young.

The one oddity is the care system, dysfunctional in every way and starved of funds, as described in a trenchant Commons report last week. If the grey vote is so politically powerful, why doesn’t the social care crisis force the government to act? Partly because relatively few over-65s at any one time need care: many older voters don’t confront the crisis until their very last years, when the average time in residential care is two and a half years.

Every report says the answer is to tap the accumulating property wealth of the old themselves: in 2010 Labour proposed that those with capital should pay a flat sum on retirement, but the Tories attacked it as a “death tax”; and with great folly, chancellor Philip Hammond shut down any similar option by promising “no death tax” in his March budget.

The Daily Mail thundered again last week about the unfairness of “middle classes” in care homes cross-subsidising “those who fail to save for their retirement”, a rottweiler in defence of any raising of funds from the older generation who are the ones who own most wealth and will need the care.

What do we do about my generation? They have the voting power but too many seem to lack awareness of their good luck. If Brexit further harms the life chances of the young, the old who voted for it will owe them serious recompense.