Too Mature or Too Juvenile?

Accelerated Maturity, Prolonged Juveniality 

The sheer quantity and quality of events in recent years have significantly accelerated shifts along the left-right ideological spectrum. Moreover, the spectrum itself has undergone remarkable transformations. I believe sliding across this spectrum today depends largely on whether, after all, that has happened, people part with illusions or, not without the ‘help’ of certain media, embrace them even more strongly.

Today, the vibe among younger voters in the West (aged ~18–35) appears to be socialist, left-wing. Most align with so-called progressive ideas: unconditional equality, environmental causes, and more. And as for now, the vibe is not misleading. According to the polls of Pew Research Center, the majority of younger adults in Western Europe are more socially, and politically left-leaning than older age groups in questions like immigration and European integration as well as LGBTQ rights. In the case of the US, 66% of the voters under 30 are aligned with the Democrats. 

However, a closer look at the polls reveals a more nuanced picture. Although less vocal now, a significant number of young voters with conservative views continue to exist among Gen Z and Gen Y. The rise of new political commentators and leaders leaning right—whether center-right like ex-New York Times contributor Bari Weiss, moderate-right figures like Dave Rubin, or far-right leaders like French politician Jordan Bordella—is a signal that the tide may be turning, even within these younger cohorts. And while the rights of  LGBTQ people have for so long been sort of an exclusive left-wing concern, being openly gay, Ms. Weiss and Mr. Rubin are yet another indication of the changes. 

While only well-designed social research could prove this theory, I’d like to exploit this blog format to argue that two very different currents are at least partly responsible for these dynamics: prolonged juvenility and accelerated maturity.

Prolonged Juvenility

Research shows that European and American societies have become increasingly juvenile over the past decades. One simple indicator is the average age at which people have their first child, which has risen from their early 20s to the late 20s. There has been a significant rise in first births among women aged 30 and above. Similarly, the average age at which people leave their parents’ homes has also shifted upward.  In 2021, approximately one in three U.S. adults aged 18 to 34 resided in their parents’ houses. In 2022, young people across the EU left their parental home on average at the age of 26.4 years. Israelis have also followed this Western pattern: of the 1.96 million young adults aged 18-34 living in Israel in 2018, 978,000, exactly half, were living with their parents, sharply up from 2000.

Now, adding to this juvenilization trend, technological advancements have made life in the modern West far more comfortable and detached from the hardships humanity has endured for thousands of years —such as insecurity, malnutrition, wars, etc. While such challenges persist in other parts of the world, they are largely absent in our societies. Hence, there is a lack of exposure to some physical realities. Not surprisingly, a Swedish child raised in Stockholm might more readily believe that a lion could befriend a zebra than a Ugandan child raised in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, who has seen actual lions from an early age.

These societal changes have yielded many positive outcomes, including innovations, more accessible education, and decreased mortality, to name a few. However, they have also come at unexpected costs. Many in these societies, including Israelis, have grown surprisingly delusional, susceptible to beliefs that have repeatedly proven unrealistic and harmful throughout human history. 

It might come as less of a surprise if once again we remember that living in illusions is generally a more juvenile characteristic. After all, there is a reason why only a certain group of people believe in Santa Claus. 

Accelerated Maturity

Conversely, hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of young people in the West have faced a stark and disillusioning reality over the past fifteen years. The massive influx of immigrants, primarily from Africa and the Middle East, coupled with the lack of coordinated and efficient policy for their integration, has dramatically reshaped many European cities. Entire districts have emerged where safety concerns dictate behavior—areas best avoided alone, in short skirts, while wearing a kippah, etc.

Sweden is particularly illustrative. Once viewed as a fairy-tale hygge haven, it now struggles with rising crime rates. In 2023 Sweden had by far the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU: 55 people were shot dead. In 2022, 73 Swedish youths aged 15-20 were suspected of murder or attempted murder with firearms, comparing to just 10 a decade earlier. 

I recently was helping a Swede in Tel Aviv who was completely disoriented among the numerous bus stops at Savidor Merkaz. We got talking and I asked him, how exaggerated the pictures of increased crimes and unsafety in Sweden were. A man grew somber: “Stockholm isn’t the same as it was ten years ago,” he said avoiding eye contact. “There’re areas I won’t enter now. When they first arrived, we genuinely wanted to help. But now, we face dozens of crimes per year. For us in Sweden, that’s a lot.” 

The Case of Israel: October 7 and the Reluctant Awakening

The events of October 7 revealed a particularly cruel and long-forgotten reality to the modern West. In Israel, we found ourselves abruptly thrust back into a Medieval world. The cruelty that before we only saw on the screens while watching the Game of Thrones, we were seeing now while getting more and more information on what happened that day. And so, for many, post-Medieval ideals of Enlightenment began to shake under the weight of this harrowing new experience.

I was more than fortunate not to lose anyone on October 7. This gave me some emotional resources to try approaching the situation rationally, seeking to understand both sides and not abandoning my values. Today, I grieve for the immense loss and destruction in Gaza. I do so, not because I believe most Gazans are innocent civilians who would never harm me, given a chance, but because I believe most of them have never gotten a chance to become civilians in the first place, being exposed to propaganda from an early age. Had they not been cynically used as pawns in political games since 1948 by numerous parties, including Israel, Gaza could have been Singapore today and Gazans could have been true doctors and teachers – not the kind of teachers who also serve for a terrorist organization.

I above wrote about youth involvement in organized crime in Sweden. Once again, 73 young people aged 15-20 were suspected of murder or attempted murder with firearms. Two months ago in Gothenburg, Sweden the police arrested a boy who was just 13-year-old for firing shots outside the offices of Israeli tech firm Elbit Systems.  (Earlier this year Swedish counter-intelligence confirmed ‘that criminal networks in Sweden are proxies that Iran uses’. ) 

Coming back to Israel, this report by The Washington Post from 2015 is one of many pieces documenting how children in Gaza are trained to become terrorists from a very early age. Should teenagers who participated in October 7 or helped to organize it be treated as innocent children as most media and NGOs demand Israel to do? I’m personally, deeply sorry and upset that so many young adults are dying. But the same as before not because I believe they’re peaceful civilians, but because the same as immigrants’ kids in Swedish youth houses are used by criminal groups, these teens didn’t get a chance to grow up a civilian being used by terrorists from a very early age. 

However, I can’t be sure, I would feel the same grief for grown-ups and youth in Gaza alike if I had seen a crowd in Gaza celebrating the hostage-taking and torture of my loved ones. And I believe one should be very delusional and detached from the reality of human feelings if they expect those Israelis who have had this appalling experience to be these super-Buddhas and wish for the safety of people who killed or tortured their loved ones or openly supported those who did it.

The Law of the Pendulum

Few metaphors capture the essence of historical processes as well as a pendulum. The pendulum swings back and forth symmetrically, moving to nearly the same distance on both sides. The further the weight comes from the ground, or in the case of our metaphor – the further from reality, – the more it loses energy. Eventually, gravity force, – common sense of life, – can make it return to ‘the earth’, to reality. But then the energy accumulated by moving will make the weight swing to the opposite direction reaching almost the same height and overcoming nearly the same distance. 

In the last decade, Western public opinion has swung sharply left. What began as a reinforcement of post-WWII values—equal rights for every human being and anti-racism—morphed into soft socialist authoritarianism, proclaiming, as Bill Maher frequently points out,  ‘aggressive anti-common sense’. From Kevin Spacey’s career being unjustly destroyed by the “court of public opinion” to Scientific American claiming that gender disparities in sports stem solely from societal bias, not biology; from the Queers for Palestine movement to the publication of exclusively Hamas’s data in 97% of cases by English legacy media. 

According to the Swedish Police Authority’s annual reports, last year a total of 62 people were killed by gunfire, marking the deadliest year for shootings since the authorities started publishing data in late 2016.

Once again, the further you’re getting from common sense, ‘from the ground’. The more likely and the sooner the gravity of common sense can force you to return. At least, in a society with the rule of law, free speech and access to various sources of information. And as we see the swing back has begun. Donald Trump’s 2016 sweeping victory and the rising popularity of right-wing parties in Europe are clear signals. A famous Scottish historian, Neil Ferguson, has recently stated and clarified with numerous examples, that the vibe is shifting too. 

As the pendulum gains momentum to the right and there are already a number of energized far-right groups, the question remains: how far will it swing? As of now, let’s hope we’ll have some time to spend on the ground, in the realistic center, between the right and left. After all, it’s usually the best spot on the spectrum.