From the Streets to the Shop Windows

What Have We Left the Next Generation?

Those who were ten years old during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 are teenagers today.

Throughout their childhood, millions of people took to the streets to challenge injustice, defend rights and demand a different future. Such demands have always been part of social history, driving societies towards progress.

At the time, these children were too young to fully understand what those protests meant. Six years later, they face many of the same issues. And they, too, are taking to the streets, although their forms of protest and rebellion look different from those they witnessed growing up.

Many of the answers people demanded never came. Worse still, some achievements once thought secure are now being called into question.

Every generation inherits unresolved problems. But today's teenagers may find themselves having to fight battles that had already begun during their childhood, without the progress they might have expected. Sometimes, they are starting from even further behind.

What remains of the movements that were supposed to change their future, too?

Yesterday's Struggles, Today's Contradictions

The planet was demanding attention. Fridays for Future brought millions of young people into the streets to demand action on climate change. Today, climate denial, renewed reliance on fossil fuels and resistance to the green transition are gaining ground.

Democracy was discovering how vulnerable public opinion could be. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed how personal data and algorithms could influence political views. Today, artificial intelligence has expanded the power to shape opinions and behaviour, while a growing sense of helplessness accompanies technologies that are increasingly difficult to understand and control.

Inequality was fuelling protest. From the Yellow Vests in France to mass demonstrations in Chile and Lebanon, millions challenged economic insecurity and injustice. Wages, the cost of living and the distribution of wealth remain unresolved issues.

Rights were being defended in the streets. #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and Woman, Life, Freedom challenged abuse, discrimination and repression. Today, political and cultural resistance is resurfacing against some of the very rights those movements sought to defend.

The pandemic exposed how deeply interconnected we are. Relationships, solidarity and mental health became central concerns. Today, the dominant expectation is once again that people should adapt to ever-faster change, while isolation and social distress remain unresolved.

These were not isolated protests. They were signs of deeper contradictions that demanded answers.

When We Know the Consequences but Choose Not to Act

We call for peace but are unwilling to bear the cost of defending it. We leave the balance of international power in the hands of the major powers. Then we express outrage when they make decisions without us.

We want a strong Europe, yet we fuel nationalism. We expect collective protection while supporting policies that weaken cooperation.

We claim to believe in universal rights, yet our solidarity seems selective. We take to the streets against some violations, while others, equally serious, are met with indifference. As though political loyalties and interests mattered more in shaping our protests than the suffering of the victims.

We condemn invasions and defend the freedom of nations. But how far are we willing to go when defending that freedom comes at a cost? We uphold these principles until they demand sacrifices. Then political convenience, economic interests and the search for quick solutions take precedence. Other people's freedom becomes negotiable, while those least able to defend themselves bear the consequences of our retreat.

We fear migration yet ignore the crises forcing millions to flee. Wars, persecution, poverty and climate change drive displacement. Sudan and Congo remain largely outside the public spotlight. And while we fear new humanitarian emergencies, we overlook how Russian restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports have affected food security across Africa.

We seek security yet are willing to give up our freedoms to feel protected. Fear is used to gain public support. We accept limits on rights and diversity, overlooking that less freedom does not necessarily mean greater safety.

We celebrate economic growth yet overlook those excluded from its benefits. We demand competitiveness and innovation, while low wages, insecure employment and inequality continue to limit people's opportunities.

These contradictions are not all the same. But they share something fundamental: we recognise collective problems while continuing to seek individual protection.

We often know the likely consequences of our choices. Yet we fail to act, only to express outrage when those consequences become reality.

What we once recognised as an injustice to overcome now risks becoming a condition we are simply expected to accept.

And What About Teenagers?

What does it mean to grow up surrounded by these contradictions?

Teenagers see leaders gaining support by fuelling fear of others. Adults condemning inequality while protecting their own privileges. Institutions calling for collective responsibility while putting individual interests first.

This is not simply a question of values. It is a question of credibility.

How can we ask young people to believe in the power of collective action when we adults are the first to demonstrate its apparent helplessness?

We do not learn to live together simply by listening to someone explain why it matters. We learn through relationships and groups in which we can participate, engage with others and contribute.

But when that possibility loses credibility, where can the adolescent need to rebel and change things find expression?

From the Streets to the Shop Windows

Belonging, recognition, confrontation and rebellion remain fundamental experiences of adolescence.

What has changed is the context in which young people seek to fulfil these needs.

In the past, many young people found a language for their discontent in political and ideological struggles. They took to the streets, challenged the system and sometimes resorted to violence.

They were not necessarily more aware or less destructive. But they could identify with a collective project for change.

The streets offered a way for individual anger to become a shared demand.

And today?

We live in a society that speaks of equality while constantly displaying inequality. It promotes inclusion while encouraging competition. It urges everyone to succeed while presenting models of success that remain beyond many people's reach.

Shop windows, brands and digital images constantly display what we are supposed to desire.

But they display more than objects. They display belonging, success and social recognition.

In the digital world, this exposure never stops. We see not only what others own, but who they appear to be because of what they own.

The comparison is no longer simply about what we have, but about what we are worth in the eyes of others.

During adolescence, the way others see us plays an important role in shaping identity. Today, however, recognition increasingly seems to depend on what we display, possess and manage to achieve.

But what happens when the need for recognition no longer finds expression in a shared cause, only in symbols to be claimed or challenged?

Rebellion can then lose its meaning as a force for change and become an act aimed at gaining visibility, without creating any alternative.

In the protests of the past, even amid conflict and confrontation, many young people sought to change what they opposed. Today, in some expressions of distress, action seems to take precedence over meaning.

Instead of trying to change what those symbols represent, the impulse is to claim them, violate them, sometimes destroy them.

But destroying a symbol does not necessarily mean challenging what it represents. And expressing anger is not the same as building an alternative.

This is where the group plays a decisive role. It can amplify impulsivity and destructive behaviour, or transform conflict into dialogue, reflection and shared responsibility.

Perhaps adolescent anger has not changed. What has changed is the possibility of giving it a collective meaning.

What If Adults Are the Ones Who Have Lost Something?

Perhaps the problem is not that today's teenagers no longer have ideals. Perhaps it is that we adults struggle to show them how ideals can become shared projects and real opportunities for change.

During adolescence, we imagine a different world. Injustice makes us angry. Contradictions drive us to rebel. We still believe we can change things together.

Then we become adults.

And the future we once imagined building together risks becoming something we pursue and defend individually. Security, wellbeing and opportunity remain important goals, but we lose sight of their collective dimension. We become increasingly concerned with what we can secure for ourselves, and less with what we can make possible for everyone.

As teenagers, we imagine a world for everyone. As adults, we risk building a fortress for the few, defended against everyone else.

We ask young people to be responsible, respect the rules and plan for the future. Yet we show them how easily collective ideals can be sacrificed when they conflict with our own interests.

Teenagers do not learn to live together simply from what we tell them.

They learn above all from the world we build and the relationships we make possible.

Before asking why some young people express their distress through anger and destruction, perhaps we should ask what became of the causes we once fought for.

When rebellion cannot find a collective project to identify with, it risks becoming an act directed against what feels out of reach, rather than an opportunity to change together what is not working.

What if the problem is not what teenagers have yet to learn, but what we adults have forgotten?