5 main takeaways from my conversation with generational expert Dr Jennie Bristow: 1. We’re blaming generations instead of addressing the real problems. “Everyone’s looking for someone to blame.” Gen Z gets labelled entitled, older generations get blamed for everything, and actual political decisions disappear from the conversation. We’re categorising millions of people instead of challenging the systems shaping their lives. 2. We’ve lost the ability to imagine a better future. Jennie argues that young people are increasingly taught to see the past as evil, the present as a crisis and the future as something to fear. As she put it, “who would want to fight for that?” We can’t expect young people to feel hopeful about a future we constantly tell them is doomed. 3. We’re turning identity into a substitute for community. When politics feels powerless, we retreat into ourselves. Jennie argues that this obsession with individual identity weakens our relationships with others, replacing shared experiences with competing grievances. We need stronger communities, not more reasons to divide ourselves. 4. We’re treating cultural problems as individual disorders. Jennie made a provocative point about the rise of ADHD diagnoses: “As a culture we can’t pay attention to anything at the moment.” Her wider argument was that we risk medicalising struggles that are also shaped by the society we live in, rather than asking why so many people are finding it difficult to cope. 5. Young people need responsibility, not just protection. One of Jennie’s strongest arguments was that the relationship between generations has become a one-way street. Young people need support, but they also need obligations, meaningful relationships with older people and a sense of belonging to something beyond themselves. As Jennie put it, “we need to be prepared to have fights especially when we don’t want to have them.” We won’t fix the culture wars by avoiding difficult conversations. We need to start having them. Watch the full interview: piped.video/sMjO1bUzAC0?si=syxB…