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A Perspective by and for the Youth

A Perspective by and for the Youth

To most of us, it goes without saying that today’s youth will be tomorrow’s helmsmen amidst the tumultuous sea that life is. For “the little ones had become big, and the big ones had become almost men during the two years they were adrift in the Pacific”. Given that the attention with which adults have called upon the importance of listening to young people has become a leitmotif within our modern democratic society, it is imperative that we, the future helmsmen, do not wait for a second call. On the other side, the mere fact of making your voice heard at least for a tiny bit of time in the middle of this interconnected world cannot represent, in most instances, a satisfactory accomplishment, unless the one who does so is well aware of being a strong vocal cord of one of the many youthful voices which can be heard today alongside our lands. A 19 year-old’s brief analysis of the context in which his existence and that of his beloved ones emerge may hopefully resound in the hearts of other teenagers and young adults scattered upon the face of the Earth. And the past experience has proven that it does. Therefore, I should like to replace Jules Verne’s “Pacific” with our world as it presents today and the two years of forced vacation his characters had to endure with the sabbatical entities that mould our civilization. 

Some dialectical traits 

Our presupposed quest to self-discovery fades away in front of a greater desire, which is that of overcoming ourselves. It is well-known that this latter concept is by no means a sudden revelation of a modern bright mind, but what is remarkable is how these two concepts have been shaped into a dialectical issue by the latest emergences of the last decades. These no longer seem to be two sides of the same coin, but two opposing mentalities which serve as a base for young minds. In truth, the other ancient concept of “Know thyself”, which traces his origins back to Greece, has lost its significance by overuse within our society, due to the ever-progressive trend of employing the means of an odd mixture of “psychologism” and empirical action based on “cold” charts, statistics and past experiments (See “Studies have shown that…”). Thus, certain patterns are made available by the obscure opinion-makers – who range from the average World Wide Web to the Academia – for the good sake of the less-experienced youngsters. We (not kindly) reject these demonstrations and attempts (at least a good part of us) of inspiring us this occult sense of “noble quest for freedom”, since no one knows anymore what these terms mean – freedom, equality, progress, independence, hope, democracy etc. Less and less people are aroused by this “school of relativism” which supposedly allows everyone to “make his/her voice heard”. This is because we have seen how this is not the reality. We would rather “unlearn” and wholeheartedly give away most of the imaginary rights that “naturally” belong to us. This is why we would rather not concern ourselves with our level of “freedom” and let in fact our minds go along with the currents that we embrace on this dark and stormy sea.

These last observations pave the way for abrogating a characteristic incumbent on these very days that we live. The aforementioned (imposed) dialectical traits of our society could not exist without the binomials which now define the ideological attacks that one carries out against the other – for instance: the Left and the Right, the evolutionists and the creationists, communism and capitalism, the secularists and the clergy. To most, these are the frames which limit the unnamed infinite possibilities of “liberty”. It goes far away from the modern minds that notions which are between, beyond or in a third position in comparison with any of these uncountable petrified terms may possibly exist.

Due to the inner structure of this mental construction, we could observe how the very core of this multitude of powerful words has been changing. Taken positions, assumed objectives, “unchangeable” rules or even “dogmatic” principles have been in a constant transition and complete transformation. Therefore, the next question could be: “What is the position towards which most of the people have directed their preferences in the recent and extended historical past?”. This surely is a question of great importance and deep reflection, but for now it is not the main issue of the problems that I want to talk about.

All these processes must be essentially employed in understanding the youth, as they are denser and more pregnant in the lifespan known as adolescence. This actual generation (they call it “Generation Z”) is not entirely “the lab rat” of these experimental emergences, since today’s adults who have a big power of decision in their hands and lead our society were the ones subjected to this – to be more precise, it is widely accepted that the post-war period, especially the 60’s and the 70’s, was the starting point of the modern change of tendencies and mentalities, as the wave of intellectuals who had fled before the war (mostly) from Germany was able to climb the academic ladder up to the highest points in the American universities and decisively influence the next generations of young Americans who would later shape our world, America having become the main centre of our planet from all points of view.

Succeeding these remarks, I want to emphasize a distinct trait of the situation in which we find ourselves: confusion. I have already said that the neo-technique of deifying a dim and vague “Self” on an unconvincing basis has constituted one of the causes for our international society going astray – we are aware of the most visible issues (Brexit – “if thou dost not love me, I love thee”; the EU crisis; the rise of “populism”; economic perturbances; etc.) –, but let us also interpret their symbolism in reference to the youthfulness. 

 

The “Fourth Estate” 

Confronted with matters that exceed their mundane sphere of activities, teenagers tend to express their thoughts on social media more than any other group of age. Social media, in the first place, is also the means which normally warns them about such matters. Basically, many teenagers live their lives according to Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat and shape their opinions the same way. As a matter of fact, allow me to observe that there are two kinds of means of online communication: let’s call the first category “utilitarian” – its role is solely that of transmitting private messages between two or a limited number of individuals, it merely “gets the things done”; the second, “collective”, “societal” – this is because it comes with a newsfeed and anyone can create an “ideological hub” where individuals with similar views or ready-to-learn people gather; this could be a Facebook page, an Instagram or Twitter account, a Reddit chat and so on. Texts, images, videos, additional accessories (apps, ads, games) circulate with an incredible speed there. We see how young persons transpose their callow minds into these virtual realms for almost the same number of hours in a day spent in the “real world”, if not more.

Considering this point, the “Fourth Estate” has intruded into new areas that had not been available before. It now has a tremendous power of influence over the people. Youngsters reproduce what they are taught on these platforms – we hear their slangs and refrains every single day.

The entities which have unlimited power of decision have made clear use of it. Social media is heavily censored in a categorical manner, and clearly not because they are afraid that a new Theodore Kaczynski could show up. Whenever someone is off the mandatory track of thought, he is immediately silenced by invisible censors. Within a politically charged medium, children and teenagers are taught from the earliest ages how and what to think by political scoundrels. Their narrative promotes the “proletarian sufferings” of an exhausted civilization: existentialist perspectives, dialectics, “psychoanalysis”, materialism as indicator of progress, social issues with only one tolerated opinion, fascination for genitalia, “revolutions”, “emancipation”, blind tolerance, “humanistic” obsessions. Better said, “this trend leads toward that «ideal» society in which there are no more classes, no more men and women, but instead comrades, or asexual cells belonging to the same immense anthill”. (Evola – “Ride the Tiger”). Every “historical struggle of the people” for emancipation looks more like a fight between antagonistic and enemy classes. Moreover, if we have class X and Y, it is said that the “X” are fighting for “X’s” rights/possessions/power/causes. It is not difficult to remark that this is more of a philological trickery, for in truth “X” is fighting for “Y’s” rights, not for its very own rights, thus creating an inorganic and absurd basis for themselves; it has always been like this – X does want what Y owns and benefits from, later being noted how these same benefits did no real good to “X”. This is the realm whence today’s and yesterday’s “humanitarian” struggles derive. This is the religion of modernity.

Once again, it is not the aim of this essay to condemn these matters “in themselves”, whether or not they are agreed upon as having at least a minimal value or veridicality, but to underline (no longer) hidden intentions which have clearly been successful – our “rereddened” youth reminds of the 1917 generation of young and daring bolsheviks under the guise of Lenin’s experiment of “conditioned reflex” and Stalin’s lîsenkoisms – revolted, thirsty for (social) “progress”, disorientated (when it comes about individuals taken as a singular unity), ready to change the system (a new regime), fighting the “injustices” (“unfair” inequalities), abolishing and eradicating concepts (capitalism, “patriarchy”, “the burgeoisie” – Simone de Beauvoir as the grandmother of today’s disparaging femininity). “Useful idiots”, as professor Yuri Bezmenov said. 

Materialistic matters 

It is interesting and funny at the same time to note that, when it comes about this seemingly contradiction – disdain for capitalism as opposed to a materialistic mentality –, it is not the concept of material wealth that is being spat on, but how these riches are being shared among the “discriminated” members of the society. This is why Marx remarked that his theories could work only within a system that would follow the “self-destroying” capitalist one (Khrushchev: “We will bury you!”) – illiterate Russia was not the best state to start the international Revolution (see also Marxian apologists, most of them not older than 30). In other words, capitalism produces and Marxism “does the justice” afterwards. The elite is bragging about which of them has less wealth – look no further than a certain recent political convention, instilling the idea which resembles the motive of “a modest life” that is dominating our society, when in fact it has nothing to do with “modesty” or “simplicity”. “And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

There is no surprise to many that all these desperate attempts have also had a “boomerang effect”, not only for the youth, but also for everyone else. Anyway, when it comes to the young, the main points of their reaction to the ongoing social situation are constructed around varying ideas that do not resemble each other. It is true that a certain uniformity of thought can still be attributed to them, which is the one described above, but the other cases are exactly the ones who were behind the “unexpected” socio-political turnarounds which the media or the official institutions did not expect, if we are to believe so. What is also worth pointing is how, no matter how “disliked” one idea or another is, it is mostly relatively young people who manage to find the much safer refuge, both virtual and real, far away from the environments which are no longer independent or impartial.

The idea that we live in an epoch of physiological and spiritual weariness and lack of sense was an emergent basis for today’s “responses” to this very same point. Felix Rohatyn (who passed away 11 days ago from the moment I am writing these lines), also known as “the banker who saved New York”, once said a thing that strikes as actual if we are to look at the complaints that many people make about this mentioned “boredom” and spleen – “It is very difficult to legislate sacrifice in a democratic society”. Beyond the usual meaning of the term of “sacrifice” other dimensions remain hidden and locked into the being of many young people, especially those seen as disagreeing with principles considered as fixed and unquestionable, historically verified. What is meant by this refers to the possibility of an active ideological front as opposed to the passive and “telluric” reality that is concerned with matters which do not resound into the crude hearts of many. This return seems to be tied to the disappointment of modernity and the lounging for lost spiritual values that cannot be provided by the society as it is today, neither for adults, nor for adolescents. It is awfully interesting how “respectable” people are trying to convince others that they are in denial, when in fact their political and ideological projects and desires are the ones who are going on a different path than that chosen by the people they rule and, more and more, by their children. 

Open-end thoughts 

There are many of us who cannot wait to see their own generation growing up once with the tensions that cease not to rise year by year. Being described as eccentric or “hexed elitists” by others will only be an additional motivation to scavenge throughout the remains of a disorientated generation and come together as youngsters with a different mentality than those who already consider themselves as “different” and “in minority”.

 
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