The Cracks in the Wall

Yet humans have always responded to challenges and kept going. Our capacity to act need not depend on allegiance to a particular national or religious identity. On the one hand, we seem condemned to repeat the worst excesses of history, particularly as living memory of atrocities fades. On the other, the knowledge and experience we can draw upon continue to expand. We have repeatedly refashioned our ways of living to meet new realities. We have plenty of those now.

I am fortunate that my mother still lives in the house where I grew up. She and my father, who died in 2018, bought it three years before I was born. It has provided an invaluable anchor for me and the wider family: somewhere to return to.

A fairly typical terraced house built at the end of the nineteenth century, it stands on London clay, which appears to have dried and shrunk during recent periods of extreme weather. This, perhaps aggravated by a vine in the back garden and a nearby tree, is thought to explain the cracks that have appeared along the central spine of the house since 2021, increasingly wedging the back doors shut.

A surveyor has reassured my mother that the house is not in danger of falling down. But leaving the problem unaddressed could lead to further cracking, potentially extending beyond cosmetic damage and increasing the complexity and cost of eventual repairs. My mother would prefer to avoid the disruption of remedial work, effectively postponing it—and its costs—until after her death.

Her stance is understandable. At 84, she is in good health and may have many years ahead of her, enjoying retirement and time together with family and friends.

Yet the situation illustrates a wider dilemma. Demographic change, like climate change, is altering the conditions in which we live. Every generation will have to step beyond its comfort zone to adapt. We have been slow to acknowledge how much our individual choices and politics may need to change. All of us must be prepared to make some compromises in our freedoms and comforts for the collective good, or risk further social fragmentation.

Born during the Second World War, my mother belongs to the generation preceding the baby boomers. Many in these generations benefited from the subsequent expansion of public services, social reform and relative prosperity. Secure employment, affordable home ownership and dependable pensions were more attainable for many than they are today. Improvements in health and living conditions also enabled more people to live longer.

Without wishing to deny anyone a long, well-earned and satisfying retirement, I wonder whether we have given enough attention to the responsibilities that accompany these advantages. What do we owe those who follow us?

This does not mean older people are without concerns of their own. Longer lives can bring chronic illness, dementia and care needs. Isolation and loneliness are difficult to address, and poverty and inequality affect many older people too.

Younger generations, however, often lack opportunities available to their elders and face greater precarity and uncertainty. Education, employment and relationships can be difficult to navigate. Many rent small, expensive homes, with little prospect of acquiring the space and security enjoyed by established homeowners. It is hardly surprising that some delay starting families or decide against it.

Those in the middle face their own pressures, not least the sometimes simultaneous responsibilities of raising children and caring for older relatives. Greater freedom in relationships has empowered many, while divorce and blended families can bring additional practical and financial complexity. More of us live alone, often at greater cost.

Even when both members of a couple work, raising a family can be financially difficult. Greater equality in access to paid employment has been a vital achievement, but it has not, by itself, delivered the easier lives many anticipated. Housing costs, insecure work, unequal caring responsibilities and the wider cost of living leave many households struggling.

Meanwhile, many politicians peddle falsehoods and fear, diverting attention from considered, long-term thinking and shifting blame onto convenient targets. A spiral of mistrust encourages us to dismiss all parties as deceitful. Conspiracy theories become more persuasive, and it becomes harder to imagine that political opponents might have good intentions. The space for constructive disagreement shrinks.

Some examples are especially egregious. Haitian migrants in the United States have been falsely accused of eating household pets; some in Springfield, Ohio, have subsequently been required to wear ankle monitors. These are people from a country whose development was profoundly damaged by the debt France imposed in exchange for recognising its independence – a burden compounded by borrowing and repaid over more than a century. Such histories disappear when migrants are reduced to objects of suspicion.

Another example is the use of claims about nuclear threats to justify military attacks on Iran. There are serious concerns about Iran’s uranium enrichment and failures to cooperate with inspectors. But these need to be distinguished from evidence of an active nuclear weapons programme: before the June 2025 attacks, the IAEA reported no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured programme. That distinction matters when presenting military action as necessary or inevitable. And, meanwhile, nuclear proliferation increases elsewhere.

Historical context matters too. The United States helped overthrow Iran’s government in 1953. That intervention is part of the longer history of mistrust in which present-day confrontations unfold.

These examples illustrate a wider problem: we need to repair a deteriorating international system and rebuild trust and cooperation. Without that, tackling shared challenges such as climate change becomes far harder. Greater security would also give people more room to consider the future, rather than react to the next alarming social media post.

We need to recognise how deeply intergenerational differences shape confusion and insecurity. Many countries face ageing populations and eventual population decline, although the timing and scale vary considerably. The global population is still projected to grow for several decades before peaking later this century; in other countries such as South Korea, Japan and some European countries, the decline is already in evidence. These changes require preparation rather than panic.

There are many cracks in our shared walls. They need to be approached sensitively, through dialogue and planning.

Migration can bring younger people into ageing societies and help sustain services and employment. But migrants also age, and their departure can create shortages in their countries of origin. Migration must therefore form part of a longer-term approach, supported by cooperation between countries of origin and destination. Better coordination could reduce both individual hardship and collective losses.

Young people also need to feel confident and supported if they wish to have children. That requires affordable housing, dependable services, manageable caring responsibilities and a credible sense of a future.

This goes beyond pronatalism. It is about creating a society in which all people can look ahead with hope, whether or not they become parents.

Doing so will require compromises and sacrifices across generations, at a greater pace than most societies currently contemplate. One unpopular measure may be higher taxes, particularly on those with the greatest incomes and wealth.

The prosperity enjoyed by many older people did not emerge from individual effort alone. Public investment in welfare states, infrastructure and services helped create the conditions in which they could flourish. We risk forgetting that inheritance when we treat taxation only as a burden and public provision only as a cost.

Tax systems and political choices differ between countries, and older voters are no more uniform than younger ones. Nevertheless, those who have accumulated the most wealth have a particular responsibility to consider how their choices affect others. Defending advantages built partly through collective provision while resisting contributions to its renewal is difficult to justify. It leaves younger people – and society as a whole – with fewer resources for the future.

Corporations must also contribute fairly. Curbing tax avoidance and the shifting of profits across borders requires international cooperation that has too often fallen short.

We need a constructive and hopeful political project that can move us beyond fear and demonisation. Some changes will be painful. But I believe the majority of people recognise the need for them and would be willing to contribute if the burdens were shared fairly and the purpose were clear.

Ultimately, we live in the same house. Keeping it standing requires us to share its space and responsibilities more fairly, have difficult family conversations, and address the cracks before they deepen.

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