I grew up in Germany, so I was told stories of my grandfather, who lived through an entire world war, his home, home town, home country being entirely destroyed, being denied the return to his home since it was annexed and now behind the iron curtain, civilians he knew being murdered, pieces of butter being the best currency available, the nonexistence of any infrastructure such as roads, the very definition of political extremism in positions of total power, no outlook for any education at all, basically the entire continent in ruins.
Yet, he and many others lived.
I'm not trying to downplay the problems of today's youth (I'm not even 30 myself and will have to deal with lots of them by myself). But I think humanity has proven that it will find its way.
After the initial shock of the first couple of years, post-war Germany seems to have been a pretty comfortable place for a young person willing to conform to pretty strict social standards and put in some (by the standards of that time) moderately hard work. It tends to be that way after great disruptions, like after the plague, after the 30-years war, etc. When power structures that consolidate wealth have been thoroughly disrupted it usually takes a while to get back to a point where most people are excluded from most opportunities. Hence, for most people, opportunities tend to abound after great crises.
Most western democracies are not post-disruption societies; they're more like the opposite. Today's young people don't face the effects of a recent upheaval, they face the effects of decades of peace and comfort. History would seem to indicate that that, too, is a dangerous place to be in.
> Yet, he and many others lived.
> But I think humanity has proven that it will find its way.
So? People will live in the craziest conditions. Humanity's way has historically lead through an awful lot of unnecessary suffering. Good luck inspiring anyone with that sort of outlook, in times of peace and crazy prosperity no less.
Democracy and rule of law aren't ends in themselves, freedom is far from a natural equilibrium state. There's a social contract that says we do these things, you get peace, a good life, a chance at success and wealth, and a decent amount of participation. Right now, western nations across the board are hollowing out that contract crazy fast. The rising popularity of anti-freedom, anti-democracy, anti-rule of law politicians may be a foreshadowing of things to come if we keep this up.
The difference is the overall trajectory and the volume of information available.
During WWII and the Cold War, other than the present or looming threat of war, things were generally improving. Also, without the internet, people did not really care about far away events.
On the other hand, many of the challenges of today have been known for deacades(plural). A good portion of the anxiety is caused by watching in real-time slow-motion the unfolding of the global selfinflicted trainwreck and observing that all countermeasures are ineffective.
The end of the Cold War set the premises for humanity to have a bright future, yet humanity seems to prefer self-destruction.
Compared to then, humanity now is in a crisis of hopelessness.
I disagree. Within the cold war, the immediate threat was a nuclear war so devastating it would completely wipe out humanity's habitat, and most of humanity as well. The fear of that was known since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Most people nowadays do not carry that fear. There's much more reason for hope today: Most of the problems, as you said, seem solvable, they've been known for decades. It's unlikely for Europe or the US to get nuclear bombed in the near future. This is a privilege my parents did not have. Yet, they hoped, hoped no nuclear war would break out. I fail to see why people today shouldn't be able to find hope.
The same threats still exist today. We've even had multiple cases of fearmongering. On a smaller scale. How some countries would test their weapons on others. North Korea not too long ago. Heck, European countries are revisiting their military budgets in light of Russia invading Ukraine.
What changed is people can tell the world has become too competitive on a financial, emotional and social level. That's quite different from the cold war where the land was rife with opportunities as long as you held hope things wouldn't blow up tomorrow.
On the other hand it does feel like all these events feel like situations that need constant inputs of "energy" to be sustainable - war relies on firepower, a repressive regime requires efforts to keep the populace content enough to not revolt (or enough firepower to quash revolution attempts), so given enough time the system would return to a more stable equilibrium.
The situation today feels like we're already in an equilibrium and there's no single obvious problem to solve to make things better.
Yet, he and many others lived.
I'm not trying to downplay the problems of today's youth (I'm not even 30 myself and will have to deal with lots of them by myself). But I think humanity has proven that it will find its way.