Barcelona Metropolis

This change, which gradually came to pass, day by day, almost unnoticeably, takes on enormous proportions when considered over the course of four decades: it affects more than five million people, between births and deaths in Catalonia, almost a complete transformation of the human contingent of Catalan society. These four decades have seen the death of almost two million people and the birth of another three and a half million.

What is meaningful, from the generational point of view, is not so much the already alarming numbers, but the nature of this change, as far as deaths and births are concerned. The vast majority of those who have passed away were born before 1940, and those who have joined us have been born since 1976. There is a clear difference in the contexts in which both groups have been raised. The former grew up in the early years of the 20^th or late 19^th century, the latter at the turn of the 20^th and early 21^st century. Differences between the two eras in the economic, social and political spheres can be noted, differences that have made a special and distinctive mark on people born in each era, a generational mark.

The weight of each of these groups in society as a whole makes this mark show itself and act in a certain way. The values and ideas that prevail in a society whose majority were born in the early years of the 20^th century are not the same as those of a society where most of them were born and grew up in the early 21^st century. The dominant generational mark must necessarily define the whole of society.

We can therefore understand our time as a time of generational change, or better still as a time of replacement of the dominant generation in our society. Forty years since the transition to democracy, the generational makeup of our society is obviously shifting, and it is this shift that will partly explain the transformations we have been witnessing in the last ten years.

In this sense we are talking about freer individuals, more capable of acting according to their independent judgement, less inclined to accept “duties” and more aware of their “rights”. However, this makes them more susceptible to the persuasion of advertising, with which they were born and raised (they are children of television and new technologies).

Politically, this means that they act more on the basis of immediate impulses than on long-term elements, hence we can talk about a policy governed by the volatility of behaviour. More and more voters cast their vote based on elements in the climate and shorter time spans, which causes predictability issues. In the 2017 parliamentary election, almost one third of the children of democracy cast their votes on the day before or on the day of election.

This volatility in election decisions also makes them less predictable when it comes to turnout. It is not that they are more abstentionist or more participative than their parents. They are depending on the context. They will vote only if they feel called to do so, that is, only if they are convinced that voting is important and that their specific and individual vote is essential to decide the outcome. If they do not have this conviction, they may not go to the polling station. And if they do, they are likely to decide their vote right there, at the booth where the lists of the various candidates are displayed. They decide on the instant, like most of their choices: I want it, I buy it. Their world is a world of acceleration, as the German philosopher Hartmut Rosa points out.

An opinion vote

They do not vote based on a belonging that has been imposed on them. In that sense, they do not feel part of a group because of birth. Their belonging is desired. They are only part of the groups they have decided to join. They are the generation subsequent to the crisis of the social classes. They can be considered members of a social class and act accordingly, but because they have chosen, not because they have been defined. So they do not exercise a “class” vote, but an opinion vote; they do not have a party of their own, but a position of their own that they may consider embodies (or serves) a particular political power in each election. They understand parties as tools at the service of their (changing) political positions and not as embodiments of their ideas. For them, parties serve them, and in the same way as they choose them, they can reject them if they feel that they have not met their expectations.

In general, the relationship with politics is utilitarian, as is usually the case with products and consumer goods. If they are of no use to them, they are discarded. Hence the volatility. It does not mean, at any rate, that they do not have a political stance. They do, and often it is more hard-line than that of their parents, but that does not imply that they exercise their right to vote (a right, not a duty) or that they vote for the same party. It depends on the capacity of the political powers to convince them that it is important to make the effort to vote. Hence we can see major fluctuations in voter turnout over very short periods of time.

The radical individualism in which this new generation has been brought up does not imply the evaporation of social mobilisation. On the contrary. It is precisely their individualism that makes them feel a strong need to belong and to be part of something. However, with two premises. First, they belong to them always on the basis of their individual will. And second: as long as they understand that their participation serves a cause and that the objective sought is achieved in the shortest possible time.

This is a generation defined by individualism and impatience. This does not mean, as it might seem, that it is an anti-political group. Not at all. They simply have a way of living politics that is significantly different from that of their parents. A fast, volatile, ephemeral politics. The kind of politics suited to their life. The kind of politics that will dominate our society for decades to come.