Enlarge image
Community service of the future?
Photo: IMAGO/Manngold
This suggestion keeps coming up that young people have to serve the state for a year, according to its rules.
It is an outdated, envious, anti-future, anti-youth idea.
It is based on patriarchal tutelage from the conservative side and collectivist tutelage from the left.
But all camps agree that youth should do a decent job before enjoying the sweet fruits of adulthood.
As if youth were imperfect and morally questionable if they weren't thrashed through for a year.
“Long years of apprenticeship are not years of masters”, this thoroughly miserable saying is a reference to the fact that in Germany (like in many other parts of the world) hostility toward youth has a long tradition and brings with it a close connection to work.
Analyzed more closely, these words say that as a young person you have to carry out the craziest work without any doubts, without asking questions, without grumbling.
That is wrong on many levels, if only because work has developed massively as a result of digitization.
But also because behind it are youthful resentment and youthful envy, both poisonous attitudes without decency.
A Déformation générationelle can be found across society, with the old throwing their youth to the young.
In the worst case, they also sell it as "social" or "beneficial."
The compulsory year is the icing on the cake of the insolence of this youth discrimination.
The young people, on the other hand, can hardly defend themselves because they have been outnumbered by demographics for decades.
You have to visualize the consequences very vividly:
The digital infrastructure, professionally, privately, culturally and socially elementary for young people, is catastrophic in Germany because for decades the old people have defined what speed is probably completely sufficient.
The elders fought against climate catastrophe and the extinction of species only hesitantly because, for God's sake, they didn't want to endanger their own livelihoods.
The world has become more unpredictable and dangerous;
between world war and nuclear fear, young people now have to cope with unreasonable demands that they thought were long overdue.
This list could be made much longer, but that alone is enough to recognize that young people face a large number of gigantic tasks, many of which arose from the omissions, mistakes and generational egocentricity of the elderly.
And in addition, they should now also work, and not in their own way, but in the areas that the elderly dictate to them in the form of arbitrary government action.
In order to makeshift cover up for their own grievances.
After the debacle of billions in fuel discounts, someone will no doubt soon be proposing that young people should do their service to society at the gas station.
more on the subject
“Strengthening of community spirit”: Steinmeier wants compulsory service for young people
Experience has shown that the elderly react very emotionally to such accusations and initially talk about »solidarity«.
But what kind of cohesion is it that rests involuntarily and exclusively on the shoulders of a generation that is already intensively involved, just in other spheres than the older generation would like?
Isn't it conceivable that young people find other things important, and quite rightly so?
The story of German prosperity is rarely missing in the debate about the obligation of young people to work.
The old people want to explain in a rather unsubtle way that one has to earn this membership somehow.
None of the many allegations against the boys are justified
Of course, Germany is a rich country, and the elders undoubtedly contributed to that.
But what use is this knowledge if it is very difficult for young people to rent a decent apartment in any large city without support?
If you are looking for a two-room apartment in Berlin, for example, then a large rental platform reveals that, with halfway acceptable offers, several thousand inquiries have already been received after half an hour.
Then it's of little use if you learn from the news that you obviously belong to a »generation of heirs«.
Apart from the fact that the average age of heirs in Germany is between 40 and 65 years.
How well a society treats young people is not reflected in the privileged spheres, but across the board.
Germany was once considered a country of advancement with the story that young people with hard work in particular were offered good prospects.
And regardless of the wallet of the parents.
In fact, however, Germany is one of the countries with the lowest social (or better: economic) mobility, especially for poorer people.
According to the studies by the OECD, which gives Germany very bad marks here: It is more difficult to work your way out of poverty in Germany than in the USA.
This in turn has to be combined with the fact that every fifth child in Germany is poor or at risk of poverty.
In addition, there is a creepy consensus among so many old people of all political persuasions that today's youngsters are not able to do anything and are quite wrong.
She barely masters spelling, has little general knowledge, is lazy, constantly unfocused and narcissistic anyway, because of smartphone, internet, hedonism, in other words: because of being downright outrageously young.
Literally none of the many, many generational accusations is justified, on the contrary almost everything that is going unfavorably can be traced back to the wrong priorities, strategies and activities of the elderly.
more on the subject
Steinmeier advance: Does Germany need the duty to serve?
And now the old people are around the corner and want to solve the problems they have caused themselves - lack of nursing care, too few soldiers and too many annoying, badly paid jobs - by making young people forced to work.
At least that's what the elderly would call it, if you demanded that you have to complete a year of social service before you retire, otherwise your pension will be reduced.
A veritable contempt for youth reveals itself when one listens to the justifications.
It would be good for young people too.
The twisted image of youth that stands behind it is sheer resentment, because "do something good sometimes" means: I suffered, and that's why the young should now suffer too.
“But it didn't do us any harm either!” – yes, Günter, you've obviously become an egocentric, jealous, generational guardian of vested rights, with no sense of the present.
Solving problems together with the youth instead of on their shoulders
Compulsory service is a toxic concept designed to whitewash the social and political failures of multiple generations with the time and vigor of youth.
Because of course one could try to solve the current problems together with the youth instead of on their shoulders.
But to do that, you would first have to admit your own generational failure, from the botched digitization to the botched education and the botched care to the botched climate policy.
Incidentally, there are a striking number of blunders that affect young people to a much greater extent or exclusively.
It would be so easy, for example, by offering young people a well-paid orientation year, in whatever professional, social, social or military area they think it makes sense.
But just offer.
Voluntarily.
So that the providers have to make an effort to convince young people of their meaning.
Which can't be that difficult, because the younger generations are getting involved more extensively, aggressively and admirably than almost anyone before.
Luckily only on their own terms, because they know so much better than Generation Günter what is important for the future.
advertisement
Sasha Lobo
Reality shock: Ten lessons from the present
Publisher: Kiepenheuer&Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
Publisher: Kiepenheuer&Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
Buy for €22.00
price query time
15.06.2022 3.40 p.m
No guarantee
Order from Amazon
Order from Thalia
Order from Weltbild
Product reviews are purely editorial and independent.
Via the so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the retailer when you make a purchase.
More information here
The Youth Council of the OECD has just presented the basis for a »Youth Manifesto«, developed on the one hand by young people themselves and on the other hand by experts.
In it, the young people demand more say, more (age) diversity in governments and institutions, better access to the information that is crucial for them, including the use of the appropriate platforms, and a rethinking of the world of work by, quote: »... young people are allowed to create jobs that reflect our values and in which we feel empowered to lead the change.« That's – surprise!
– pretty much the exact opposite of compulsory service.
Feel free to continue discussing over the young heads.
But don't complain if, in a few years, the grandchildren will no longer come by themselves, but instead let the care robot send them friendly greetings.
