[lbo-talk] A different "last" generation

[andie nachgeborenen]

Have had interesting and rather depressing chats about
socialist politics with my teenage kids, one a 16 year
old HS junior, another an almost 13-year old middle
schooler (now reading Orwell's 1984) on his own, both
very smart and fairly politically aware, quite
progressive in their values -- antiwar,
anti-imperialist, antiracist, anti-corporate,
pro-union, feminist.  But utterly skeptical about the
possibility or point of socialism -- not that they
have a sophisticated understanding, though they both
have the general idea that it involves the workers
running things. Or that their objections are
particularly sophisticated or novel. (Generally comes
to, A good idea in theory but it won't work in
practice.) But what's somewhat dispiriting is the lack
of hope for a future that is better than this.  One
can't say the view's irrational, and maybe some of it
is just self-assertion of a sort normal and natural to
teenagers. But I wonder how common it is, and I bet
it's pretty common. Now, I don't really think we're
the "last generation" of socialists; no doubt things
will change when, as must happen, resistance reignites
for whatever reason. But I can't say these
conversations fill me with joy. jks

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