Intergenerational Dialogue

The view of ‘the old’: this generation is the laziest, this generation is the stupidest and this generation doesn’t know what’s important. The view of ‘the young’: the old are narrow-minded, the old are outdated, the old don’t ‘get it’ … There have always been demarcations between generations, some lines of conflict are predictable, others are new. If Karl Mannheim’s generation theory from 1928 is to be believed, then these conflicts are unavoidable. However, the latest sociological studies speak less and less of an irresolvable conflict and more of a conflict-orientated resolvability, whereby a more developed culture of debate and more generational solidarity are a prerequisite. Discursive openness can open up a dialogue space that provides stimuli for both ‘sides’ and at least does not rule out consensus building. In this event, we would like to question, among other things, whether topics such as religion, tradition and home play such a supposedly important role for the older generations, but also whether or why the younger generations seem to succumb to a worship of everything digital – smartphones, social media and streaming providers. What makes people happy and what is their relationship to music and culture if they were born in different decades? These topics of conversation and other (supposedly) contentious issues will be taken up in this event and discussed by you – with the aim of posing the question of generations anew. How do these attributions work and what significance do they have for our own self-image? Where do difficult-to-bridge gaps open up? But also: Can there be intergenerational solidarity? Perhaps generations are more similar than one would have expected?