Generation of Shit

Despite everything, W.'s always placed his trust in the young, he says. He has great hopes for them, although he knows they'll come to nothing. They're more crushed than we are. They have fewer hopes, he says. But they're gentler, kinder. The young are soft, says W., but it's not a weak softness. They're not meek, just mild.

W. has always surrounded himself with the young. After all, I'm several years younger than him, W. notes. We're separated by almost an entire generation. His generation, he said, still had hope – the residues of hope. Mine had young, hope itself was a luxury. What chance did you have?, W. says. We knew we never had a chance, I say.

The young, W. muses. What is it about the young? For the most part, of course, the young are part of the infernal machine. They've been swallowed up; they've disappeared. But there are pockets of them left, a few scattered here and there, despite everything, who live in a manner entirely different. They're marginal beings, W. says, surviving on benefits and part-time jobs. They expect nothing; they don't want to make their way in the world.

They know it's all shit, that everything's shit. And this, in the end, is what separates W.'s generation from mine, he says. You know that everything's shit, says W. It's in your bones: it's – all – shit. Still, the generations that have followed mine are different again. It's all shit – they know that, but don't mind; they know the world's not for them and they can't change a thing. They know they'll have to survive on handouts and part-time jobs.

Sometimes we go out to be among the young, W. and I. We mingle with them, drink with them. We're greatly in favour of them. They know all too much, I say to W. They know everything, he say; they've seen it all. They know the world's not for them, and it's all shit. If only I'd known that, said W. He's not sure what would have become of him. Maybe he would have turned out like me, he says, happy to be alive, happy to have a corner to survive in.

You don't want much, do you?, says W. You don't expect much? As for him … W. is the last of the generations who expected a great change, a kind of revolution to occur. And it might have occurred, too, he says. It might have happened. Didn't Godard make a film on his university campus? Oh that was long before his time W. says. But weren't there still communists outside the student union? It seemed like the beginning of times rather than the end of them, the endless end, he muses.