Sara Lozano: In the backpack of the new generations

This semester I am teaching a group of first semester professionals and I am delighted with their active participation, their proactivity, their enthusiasm to learn more and so on. They have me working seriously to meet their demands and hunger for knowledge.

The first week I thought it was due to anything other than curiosity. But in the fourth, they keep asking, questioning, citing unforeseen authors in the program and eager to propose to learn.

Some already have the INE credential, others are eagerly awaiting it. They were born between 2004 and 2005, the pandemic locked them up finishing middle school or starting high school.

It is political philosophy for contemporary dilemmas and most feel that it goes to Law because the series of suit their will caught fire. But there are also vocations for economics and international relations, few for public administration.

On the other hand, I work with some organizations of the society trying to find the strategy to involve the youth. The population segment by historical statistics is precisely the generation that precedes them.

What is going to happen in three years for the participatory momentum that I enjoy today to decline? Or is this the generation that is going to break patterns? Do the school years of the pandemic influence you? Are you interested in participating because of the hope generated by the paradigm shift in the electoral equation in Mexico?

When we started they had heard names like Xóchitl, Ebrard, a Claudia. Of Creel or Beatriz perhaps they had lost notions in their memory. They confused the partisan affiliations and also the factions into which they have reorganized.

I told them the story of the Frente Amplio and the early selection of MORENA as if they were starting to watch season 5 of a saga that they had not seen or been interested in, but that was not over yet… and they are very interested to know what happens in the other seasons to come.

On this basis they will have to present an essay analyzing this duel between partisan institutions triggered by organized civil society. They must expose the ideological perspectives studied along the way. I already want to know what they are going to write, it is the first time that I have no forecast.

I don’t know if they will become disenchanted with the inconsistency of party ideologies, if they will become frustrated with the lurches of the Citizen Movement or with the diffuse signals of Alito vs. Beatriz. I don’t know if the results will discourage you.

The advantage is that they have already studied Machiavelli and some will surprise them little. They also know of Hobbes’s absolutist proposals and his sequels. They were recomposed with John Locke’s civil rights and Rousseau’s social rights. They are debating public ethics with themselves among these because they are targeting Marx and JS Mills, Rawls and Susan Okin. Indignation with Olympe de Gouges is already stuck on the radar.

They know about the secret and active surveys. They expect – I hope – that each one does their part.

But let no one ignore what the new generations bring in their backpack and I hope that they act in correspondence, congruence and consistency, personal and institutional. Only in this way will we achieve generations that are committed to their politically strong communities, colonies, municipalities, states and countries because they are politically healthy.