Disenchanted youth and democratic values
This isn't the first survey to say so, but that doesn't make it any less important: only four out of ten young men between the ages of 18 and 25 in Catalonia consider democracy to be the preferable system to all others, and 25% disagree with that statement. The survey by the Catalan International Institute for Peace (ICIP) also indicates that 27% of young men believe that gender-based violence is an invention of feminism, and 60% believe that feminism is harming relationships between people of different genders. The gap between boys and girls at this age is quite visible, since among girls, support for democracy rises to 45%, while explicit rejection falls to 12%. Underlying this difference is undoubtedly a problem of identity and confidence among young men who are losing privileges and feeling insecure.
But both political scientist Toni Rodon and ICIP director Kristian Herbolzheimer avoid hasty conclusions. It would be easy to say that young men are shifting to the right and increasingly adopting authoritarian positions, just as young women are doing the opposite and clearly embracing democratic and progressive values. But, as always, in all complex social processes, it is necessary to identify the causes and arrive at an accurate diagnosis. Young people in general, regardless of gender, have reasons to be dissatisfied with a system that fails to meet their needs. Job insecurity, difficulty accessing housing, and, in general, the lack of opportunities for advancement that their predecessors enjoyed are all contributing factors. baby boomers These are factors that must be added to the phenomenon of digital bubbles and disinformation, an ideal context for populist leaders and ideas, and anti-democratic hate speech. And in the case of young people, there is also the added issue of maladjustment to gender equality.
In any case, rejecting democracy is not exactly the same as preferring a dictatorship. Simply put, many young people believe that the system harms them or has other priorities—for example, pensioners. It is a fact that young people are not a priority for political parties, because they are fewer in number and vote less, precisely because they are disillusioned and, to a large extent, disconnected from political debates.
As a society, we must ask ourselves what we are doing wrong that young people—especially them—don't value democracy, just weeks before the 50th anniversary of Franco's death. What has gone wrong, for example, in explaining what Francoism meant and the struggle for the restoration of democracy? Why is it so easy to encourage reactionary sexism and link it to the recovery of what we might call traditional values, a phenomenon that has a strong presence on social media, especially in the United States? The far right is very adept at instilling in young people the idea that in the past there was a kind of natural order that women—and, in general, the entire LGBTQ+ movement—have overturned.
The obligation of democrats is to confront populists and defend democracy in all areas. Our inaction will be perfectly exploited by the enemies of democracy.