Guest author Gürsel Karaaslan
There is an observation that has been voiced for a long time: “Today's young people are not leftists or rightists; they read what they know.” On the surface, this may look like apolitical idleness or individual indifference. However, as we dig deeper, a completely different reality emerges:
The new generation is not only abandoning outdated ideologies; it is also leaving behind the whole vision of the world on which ideologies that do not produce hope are based.
The struggle between the left and the right is a child of modernity, but today's youth live in a non-modern age, perhaps even in a limbo that transcends post-modernity. Their behavior therefore bears the signs of a new form of consciousness that cannot be explained by old concepts.
Young people stand at the same distance from the utopia of the left and the sacredness of the right. Because both of these structures are no longer sufficient to explain reality.
But here is what is really striking:
The new generation sees “truth” not as a value but as a tool; “reality” is now a matter of debate.
Not because opinions change, but because reality itself is fragmented. In the digital universe, everyone has their own reality; the common ground is broken, information flows not from a single source but from thousands of sources. This forces young people to construct the truth in their own world, not from the center.
The world of the past was centralized; today's youth has a networked consciousness, not a core.
There is a common mistake: Young people reject politics.
They don't trust authority because authority has lost its age of being monocentric. They don't believe in absolute truths because every truth has an algorithmic counter-proof. They don't look for a person because personality is no longer a person but an ecosystem.
The new generation has realized this:
Politics used to be a matter of “community”; now it is a matter of “infrastructure”.
Not values, but data flow; not people, but network organization.
Maybe that's why calling them leftists or rightists is as meaningless as trying to classify a bird as a fish.
It is said that young people build their own worlds. This is not a metaphor; it is a psychological and sociological reality.
Today's young individual is growing up with three things:Unlimited information - never in history has consciousness been exposed to so much data.Relative freedom of expression - everyone speaks, everyone can be heard. Discontinuous identities - ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’
This triad creates a historically unique type of consciousness:
A consciousness that places itself at the center of the inner world, not the outer world.
Because the order of the outside world has collapsed, the youth establishes its own order. Because he cannot exist otherwise.
Perhaps the most unspoken is this:
The new generation is the first “constantly questioning” generation in history.
Past generations learned to question; today young people are born questioning. This shows that the age of communication has changed even biology:
The interrogation reflex is now instinctive.
This is why authority figures - not only political, but also academic, cultural, moral authorities - do not face traditional obedience, but organic suspicion.
It is not that young people do not believe in authority; they question the ontological basis of authority.
This is a much more fundamental rupture.
It is said that today's young people are building their own worlds. This is actually an understatement. Because the situation is much more radical:
They are building their own universe.
The individual is no longer just a person; he has his own media, his own economy, his own community, his own doctrine (his own information filters).
Placing such an individual on a left-right scale is as meaningless as explaining technology in stone-age terms.
The question itself is an old world question.
Even the distinction between healthy and unhealthy is a modern categorization and an illusion of perception produced by positivism.
It is possible to say this much:
This change is neither good nor bad; it is necessary.
The conditions of the age could not create another kind of consciousness.Yes, the proliferation of individual universes could undermine social cohesion.Yes, truth could fragment.Yes, it could be chaos.
But at the same time: Creativity can explode, monopolies of knowledge can be broken, humanity can move to a new level of consciousness, and most importantly, perhaps humanity can recreate its lost conscience and morality through democratic norms.
This transformation is a metamorphosis rather than a collapse.
It is time to accept this:
Young people do not look at life from the left or right window, because they have left the house. Even the concept of window itself does not belong to them.
The reality of the new generation does not fit into the language of the old world.
Because they are the first kind of consciousness born within the confines of the digital age: a generation that instinctively doubts, naturally questions authority, personally constructs truth, and builds its own universe instead of the world.
Perhaps the real question is this:
Are we ready to learn the language of this new universe they have created?
Or are we still nostalgic shadows trying to interpret and explain the reality of the new world with the words of the old world? Perhaps the most fundamental question to ask is: Will the people of the old world be able to adapt to the emerging consciousness of the new world? Or will we still be a shadow trying to understand the architects of the future with the concepts of the fallen ages. We should know that the new generation is not changing the world; it is producing a new generation as the world changes. This new situation marks a completely new level in political philosophy; politics: the individual is now the creator of his or her own universe. Understanding the younger generation is therefore like drawing a new planet with the atlas of the world using old concepts. And more importantly, it should be known that unless this generation is understood, there will be no progress in the political journey.
Guest author Gürsel Karaaslan