1968 & us

I am invited to present my book in Dubrovnik, which is a big honour. To pimp the book presentation, we will incorporate it into a discussion about the generation of 1968ers (my mom, who will discus with us, belonging to the movement in Croatia) and their children. It is the 40th anniversary of 1968 and everyone is wondering how and if that movement can be compared to the times we are living in.

I discussed this topic with my friends because I am desperately searching for a title for this book presentation/discussion. My standpoint was that we are just a generation of lobotomised princess not willing to revolt or change things. But then someone said this is not right – we are revolting, but in a different way: we are exiting the system. In German, there is a nice but a bit scary word for this called “aussteigen”. And actually, it is true – three out of four people in the group left their corporate jobs to open up their own business or to free-lance. The fourth never was in a corporation. We also talked about our awareness of our power as consumers and our boycott of big brands in favour for smaller, local producers. And I wondered when was the last time I saw a Hollywood blockbuster…..

And then I wondered what will happen with the system (or concretely, the corporations), when all young intelligent, free spirited and brave people leave it. Will it be ruled by robots? Can it survive like that? Ouch, are we back at the Matrix scenario?

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One Response to “1968 & us”

  1. Oliver says:

    Don’t worry. There are enough people around who are happy working in the corp. treadmill. I talked to a girl in my office once who was supposed to start working with a PC after working in a warehouse only paper-based and she said “I do not need to learn to use a PC. I only want to become a supermarket cashier.” She was serious.

    On the other hand, entrepreneurs create companies and then sell them to the big groups, handing over the staff to the dark force.

    Additionally, big companies change to make most of the people in there entrepreneurs within the corp environment. unfortunately not enough companies even try to do that.

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