Home story #45

It has occasionally happened that the editorial team of your favorite newspaper has had to listen to accusations from one or two casual readers that they have distanced themselves from the masses. The Jungle World, it was rumored, was no longer the legitimate voice of the working people. Revolution and the planned construction of socialism were no longer the focus of the editorial team, it was cheekily claimed. The penchant for hedonism and petty-bourgeois egoism would slowly but persistently eat away at class consciousness and would have made the editorial team soft and yielding. This is to say: all of this is incorrect! People have been used to such accusations and lies for years here, in the headquarters of negative social criticism, where pleasure in enjoyment, old-fashioned anti-authoritarianism and revolutionary consciousness go hand in hand. They have nothing to do with actual reality.

So-called student and youth protests, for example, which are directed against general impoverishment, rising costs of living and a now completely ruined education system, deserve support as long as they are appealing and non-dogmatically left-wing, in the opinion of a large part of the editorial team. Simply because the kids might not be on Tiktok for two and a half minutes and have time to think. And because the slogan “Gen Z takes care of things” sounds as if the solution to the capitalism and Germany problem could just be whipped up at the drop of a hat. Friendly!

“Gen Z takes care of things”: Admittedly, as a motto this is certainly more catchy and compact than “Youth takes responsibility”. Although one would have liked a politically clearer slogan that was a little less FDP-like and a bit more theory-saturated. “Clarify everything with Adorno,” for example. Or “Bakunin instead of Brainrot.” Well, yes.

It would, of course, be nice if future protests by young people were not either hijacked by some dogma thumpers, bores or religious weirdos or watered down in a social democratic way. A colleague says, for example, that her 21-year-old son recently expressed skepticism about the recent "Gen Z" demonstrations: "Opaque" groups are taking part, which makes the protests "dubious." He's also annoyed by all the "generation" talk. Such homogenization of very different people is nonsense. Another colleague says: »My 13-year-old thinks it's a good thing to protest for better conditions at school and in life. School lunch! It was probably worth it for that alone!” On the other hand: “He doesn't know whether he can really go there because the authoritarians are involved, he thinks that's stupid.” And so the circle closes: Because the editorial team of your favorite newspaper traditionally also finds the authoritarians stupid.