Zażyłość w oparach niezrozumienia. O hipotezie międzygeneracyjnej solidarności tolerancyjnej

Abstract

The paper attempts to formulate a hypothesis on the current intergenerational relationships in families, focusing on an aspect that has been so far only speculated on by sociologists studying the youth, and observers of family life in Poland. It is based on an assumption that parents and children, and in particular young adults, because of the specificity of technological transformations, changes in the social structure and the characteristics of the economic environment, co-exist in very close relationships, and yet with no chance for mutual understanding, due to the fact that they function in two separate psycho-sociological realities. This situation of separateness in living in close relations, this intergenerational gap that nevertheless does not hinder home intimacy is also the considerable distance between the generations and their fundamentally different needs and expectations, and yet there seems to be no chance or need to protest, or revolt. What we observe today is a high level of associational economic, structural and emotional solidarity between today’s young people and their parents, combined with a paradoxically low level of intergenerational axiological solidarity.