Generational Panic

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

Across the world, the old guards continue to undermine and stigmatise youth by portraying them as deviants, immoral, drug abusers, directionless, selfish, materialistic, loners, or criminals. Such stereotypes are used to dismiss the everyday struggles and contributions of young people. Meanwhile, ruling and non-ruling elites, along with their paid intellectuals, reinforce this generational panic. They produce empiricist arguments that normalise stereotypes, for example by claiming that early-career workers and young people’s jobs are most vulnerable to the rise of generative AI. However, these arguments oversimplify the issue with reductionist numbers. This empiricist and ruling class intellectuals fail to account for the real conditions of automation, and the structural biases embedded in technological development, and the socioeconomic data that shape the working lives and career choices of young people in the age of digitalisation.

Geriatric voices often claim that moral decay among young people is the root cause of all their ailments and challenges, using this argument to absolve patriarchal capitalism and its reactionary religious allies.In reality, these forces produce and deepen alienation, which leads to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues among young people. Young people suffer under a system they neither created nor chose. So, the younger generation is not inherently at fault; they are victims of capitalist conditions imposed on them and reinforced by the old guards through customs, traditions, and family values, all of which are intertwined with different regimes of capitalism.

The empiricist arguments of the older generation against young people are not only rooted in logical fallacies but also in a wilful ignorance of history and a lack of understanding of the conditions in which young people live today. Despite the weight of capitalist and imperialist hegemony, young people hold on to their idealism and confront challenges in their own ways. It is young Ukrainians and young Russians who are sacrificed in the slaughterhouse of imperialist wars imposed upon them. It is young Israelis who resist their Zionist regime and fight for justice for Palestinians. Across the world—in London, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Beijing, and Tokyo—countless young people march against war, Zionist occupation of Gaza, capitalist exploitation, and imperialism. Throughout history, it has been the youth who fought against colonialism, racism, apartheid, and gender injustice. It is young people who continue to research, create, and produce new knowledge for a radical and progressive transformation of their societies.

Young people suffer under the weight of capitalist alienation, student debt, unemployment, hunger, and homelessness—and for those who do have a home, the burden of crushing mortgages and long working hours. They neither created these conditions of marginalisation nor chose to live under them; these conditions are imposed upon young to contain their youthful spirit. Yet, despite such hardships, they hold fast to the youthful essence and to universalistic values of sacrifice, solidarity, equality, freedom, and fraternity. In doing so, young people reject the reactionary values and the stagnant status quo upheld by the older generation.

The geriatric assault on young people must end to pave the way for a new society grounded in the collective values of equality, justice, liberty, and solidarity.

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Frontier
Vol 58, No. 18, Oct 26 - Nov 1, 2025