The young people I see today, absorbed in their Mp3 player and with their pants below the hip, are eager – as once we dreamed – for the moment they can be in charge of their own the house and change the furniture, renovate, paint, and invite their friends over. They have the same aversion to what is inherited, the same delight in the forbidden, that all who pass through this age have had. They are not going to follow the road that has been laid out for them by the powers-that-be and, fortunately, do not fit any part of the ideal of the “New Man.”
I like the way they pretend that nothing interests them, when in fact they can’t wait to take the microphone, brandish the pen and raise the index finger. I watch them, and I can’t imagine those, who today are moving to the rhythm of reggaeton, adjusting their step to a military march. Neither can I imagine them hypnotized by a leader, letting themselves be taken in and sacrificing for him. Their hedonism saves them from unconditional surrender and a certain touch of frivolity protects them against the sobriety of ideologies.
To paraphrase the poet Eliseo Diego, these delightful young people have, “the time, all the time.” So for the moment let the older ones believe in their compromises of continuity and conservation. The day of change is already coming, even to the lock on the door of the house.
Photo caption: Detail from painting by Goya with Saturn devouring his children