As a baby boomer that I am, most of my social relationships occur in groups made up of people of this generation, which in Spain is considered to begin in 1958 and end around 1975 (in other countries the boom be a few years earlier). We are the largest generation and therefore very decisive. In the next Catalan elections we represent almost a third of the electorate and it is assumed that we share a series of common characteristics and experiences.
We are the last babies before the democratization of contraceptives. We grew up in the apotheosis of television and were teenagers in the discos. We lived through the years of economic splendor as children and as young workers. We have internalized the culture of effort, personal fulfillment and the central role of work in our lives. We will normalize divorce and the implementation of individual freedoms.
We broke with the austerity of the previous generation and played a leading role in the generalization of tourism and the era of “full throttle”. We are the last generation raised before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of global ideologies. We don’t know what will happen to our retirements or if we will be able to keep our jobs until we get there.
It might seem that so many things in common should also include a common way of seeing the world, and yet, in recent weeks, in these generational gatherings, I have shared tablecloths with voters from Vox, Aliança Catalana and even Milei . It was something totally unexpected. Not the fact of sharing a table with them, since they are all well-known people. The unexpected thing was to know who voted and that they expressed it motu proprio, so the opportunity to talk about it has arisen.
I, faithful to my slogan “the ultra-right must be answered”, try to keep to the purpose of rebutting some of their arguments, without getting out of hand or letting the discussion end up monopolizing the meeting. Arguments that are sometimes racist, sometimes anti-feminist and always said with great conviction. After independence and vaccines, new reasons for discussion have come to the table.
