[fn Plaza] The Real Reason People in Their 20s and 30s Erupted in Anger

When I talk with my son, who is in his 20s and attends university, I am sometimes taken aback. Born in the 1960s and educated in the 1980s, I belong to the so-called 86 generation, and I often find that his political views are somewhat more conservative than I would expect. One example is how he sees the shortage of ballots that occurred in the recent local elections. Although this was not necessarily an act of election fraud, it was clearly a flawed election, and my son seemed angry at the older generation's relatively calm response. In particular, he strongly criticized what he called "selective outrage," pointing out that those who had repeatedly used heated language when the Starbucks issue arose appeared to remain silent in the face of election irregularities.
My son's anger closely matches the voices of people in their 20s and 30s who poured their frustration onto social media and onto the streets around Olympic Park, Jamsil. In the past, they were often dismissed as politically indifferent or as "individualists unconcerned with society." But around this local election, they clearly emerged as decisive swing voters, and without any command from an organized group, they spontaneously called for "the protection of voting rights" and a "re-election." Some in the older generation, or certain camp-based commentators, have tried to label them too easily as having "shifted to the right" or "become conservative." As always, that is a fragmented diagnosis that misses the essence of the issue, and a misreading born of the older generation's habitual perspective.
The real reason people in their 20s and 30s are angry is not ideology, but fairness and survival. For the 86 generation, freedom once meant a collective struggle against military dictatorship. For today's young people, voting rights are the minimum rules that govern their lives and a basic individual right. When private companies made mistakes, the government and society stepped in and demanded accountability with sharp criticism. Yet when the right to vote, the foundation of democracy, was violated, the political establishment responded only with restrained expressions of regret. That double standard shook their sense of fairness. Their bitter cry that "voting rights are worth less than Starbucks" is essentially a declaration that they reject the older generation's camp logic and selective outrage.
These young voices have been heard for quite some time. From the controversy over a unified inter-Korean team at the 2018 Winter Olympics and the regular-worker conversion dispute at Incheon International Airport Corporation to the Cho Kuk scandal, and more recently the ruling party's motion for a special counsel to drop charges and the Korea Football Association's unilateral appointment of a coach, they have spoken out whenever they felt the reality before them was unfair and opaque. The author of the once best-selling book "A Generation of 1990s Births Is Coming" identified "honesty" as one of the defining traits of people in their 20s and 30s. Here, honesty does not mean being frank or pure in the sense of "honesty," but is closer to "integrity," meaning the truthfulness and wholeness of a system. The reason many young people have become so-called civil service exam devotees, fixated on the Level 9 civil servant exam, which they believe is the fairest hiring system, also lies in their longing for a system that is honest and intact. For them, fairness is not merely a moral value. It is the last line of defense that can protect them as the threshold of opportunity grows narrower by the day.
Today's younger generation lives under a far harsher economic restructuring than their parents did. With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots, jobs are disappearing rapidly, and companies are cutting back even on entry-level hiring, pushing young people into an endless internship loop. Add to that the harsh realities of widening asset inequality and housing instability, and young people are left with a deep sense of deprivation. Even so, the older political establishment still believes it can win their support with laws that protect only existing workers or with short-term fixes such as one-off cash handouts. The fact that people in their 20s and 30s have given record-low approval ratings to governments of both the conservative and progressive camps is a stern warning against the arrogance and hypocrisy of a generation that has itself become entrenched in power, regardless of party.
American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once looked ahead to a society led by young people and declared, "Now the young can be the teachers." The older generation should not bask in the achievements of the past they built, nor should it lecture young people or judge their anger by the stale standards of old ideology. If it cannot adapt flexibly to change and insists on clinging to old ways, that is the very path to becoming what people call a "kkondae". The stones they throw are aimed at both hypocritical progressives and greedy conservatives. Our society must now abandon the complacency of the entrenched and face the accumulated anger and demands of young people head-on. It is time to listen fully to the vivid cries of the 20s and 30s generation, who have raised their voices to defend fairness, a value directly tied to everyday life.
jsm64@fnnews.com Sun-Min Jung Reporter