Failures that are caused by living carelessly can be managed. The very carelessness of the life makes the consequence nearly morally required. Some people in every generation fail and fall to the bottom rungs of society because, well, bad things sometimes happen. Those people do not constitute a social force. But when nearly half a generation, most from middle-class families, finds itself at the bottom, there is no explanation to provide solace. In its place there is, quite reasonably, a sense of victimhood. Whatever explanation one gives for the Spanish crisis -- the stupidity of politicians, the laziness of the public, the greed of bankers or whatever else -- the generation that is bearing the burden is the only one that is not guilty -- at least not yet.
This -- being the victim in personal calamity shared by half a generation -- is the foundation not just of political instability but also for the politics of rage. The older middle-class citizens, with the lives they thought they had secured shattered, hurled into the ranks of the permanently impoverished, represent the vanguard, if you will. But those who will never live the lives they thought they would, they are the explosive mass.
European Denial
I think the reason things are so calm -- occasional riots hardly count -- is that no one really believes that they won't awake from the nightmare. There is a firm belief that this period will end. The denial of what has happened is not confined to Spain. In speaking to a German, he declared my view that the European system is broken as "scandalous." A moderate official in the European Union, he became choleric at my assertion that countries such as Spain are being plunged into the kind of hell that creates political monstrosities in Europe. For him, the critical thing was that the banks were no more stable than ever. He was simply dismissive of unemployment as the problem. Most people dismiss my views with aplomb, without breaking into a sweat. I have learned that on the rare instance when I cause apoplexy, it's because what I have said is not too far from the other person's fears.
Far more interesting than the German official was the Spanish official at the European Union. He was equally enraged when I argued that the social (it is not beyond either a financial or economic) crisis was not going to be solved in the current framework. In almost the same words -- and the exact spirit -- as the German, he insisted that the problem would not only be solved but that he was working on it day and night and was very close to a resolution. From this I conclude that it is perhaps not just the Germans but the entire EU apparatus that either really believes a solution is imminent or simply doesn't want to consider the consequences of failure.
Another Spaniard, this one not a government official, said he missed Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator who won the Spanish Civil War and governed for decades. I was surprised to say the least, since Spain under Franco was even poorer than it is today. He explained that he missed Franco because he knew how to tell the Germans to go to hell. When Hitler asked Franco to join him in World War II, Franco refused. The Spaniards' desire to tell the Germans to go to hell is too easy. Even if this was all Germany's fault, which it isn't, Spain's problem wouldn't be solved.
The German problem is the European problem and vice versa, and so it has been for a long time. Ever since 1871, when Germany was unified, Germany and Europe have been struggling with the question of how to live with each other. They thought they had found the answer in the European Union -- and maybe they will, but not yet. Europe does not know how to live with a Germany that uses the free trade zone to surge its exports while blaming Europe for being lazy and shiftless. Germany does not know how to live with a Europe that does not see that all of its problems are due to its lack of industriousness.
Of course, to our 22-year-old in Spain, the debate has become irrelevant. He is broke, scared and bored -- not something you want a mass of young men to be. That is the point at which history turns. Over time, they become men with nothing to lose; they become violent men, trying to reshape the order by any means necessary. Looking around the violent parts of the world, it is young men with nothing to lose and fantasies of glory, led by older men who understand them and their needs, who wage the civil wars that tear countries apart.
The same happened in Europe after World War I. Sometimes the disaffected youth turn to crime, sometimes they turn to political crime and sometimes they become a political party. In Europe, it was a generation that felt betrayed by World War I, then an older generation crushed by unemployment and inflation and finally a younger generation with nothing left to lose. Then came World War II and the stunned realization that there were indeed things left to lose.
Driving in Spain, things look quiet, neat and empty. But in that emptiness there is something ominous, perhaps not so much post-apocalyptic as pre-apocalyptic. Spain is still under control, and the European elite still believe an answer will be found. But I don't see the path that leads to the redemption of a generation's hopes. There is time, but in my mind there isn't enough. And given the attitude of the Eurocrats I have met, there is no sense among the elite that time is running out.
