When you feel attacked

In what we call a "polarized" society, the last great trench separating sides is age: it's about pitting older people against younger people. Boomers versus zoomers (which extends to the division between those who will inherit something and those who will inherit nothing). It's a bitter debate, going beyond the classic "when I was young" or "in my day." Some spread generational resentment so that young people see older people as the privileged ones in history, with their pension, their paid-off apartment, and their second home, and older people see young people as a glass generation that complains about everything, commits to nothing, and shatters at the slightest breeze.

Let's not fall into the trap, especially the older ones: if you want to age prematurely, become a grumpy old person. But if you want to understand the world you live in, listen to the reasons of the young and you'll understand that, deep down, what makes them feel excluded is the same thing that makes you feel excluded. The bonds that used to unite students with teachers, families with schools, relationships between workers and companies, between companies and consumers, between society and the media, and between citizens and states are weakening, because a new, undemocratically elected planetary authority, the digital economy, with its bubbles, has begun to overturn the notion of shared time and space.

Who can fail to feel the uncertainty of such a world? The best thing is that young people talk about it openly, ask directly, and strongly challenge the inconsistency between what we have preached to them and the reality they face. And what's better: if they were made of glass, it would mean they are transparent, and they ask us to roll up our sleeves in denouncing what we don't like, instead of feeling attacked.