Abstract
Misled by a quick triumphalism of the social media, the international news agencies have confused the two: revolt and revolution. The past episodes of unrest started as a social, not a political, public revolt. Through the pain of sobriety, the protesters are learning that neither globalisation nor the McFB way of life is a shortcut to development; that free trade is not a virtue, but an instrument; that liberalism is not a state of mind but a well-doctrinated ideology; and, finally, that the social media networks are only a communication tool, not a replacement for independent critical thinking or for the collapsed cross-generational contract. Londoners, Greeks and New Yorkers are experiencing the same thing. How does the ‘Arab Spring’ correlate with the European Eurofrost, and with American Occupy Wall Street unrest? For almost ten years now, the youth in Europe has been repeatedly sending us a powerful message about the perceived collapse of the social contract. The cross-generational contract should be neither neglected nor built on the over-consumerist, disheartened and egotistic McFB way of life. Equally alienating and dangerously inflammatory is the collision of the entering youth generation (if/when deprived of the opportunity and handed over a lame hope) – through a religious or political radicalisation. In this world spanning Kantian hopes and Hobbesian fears, thus, the final question is: Is there life after FB? If so, how can we register our future claims?