INTERGENERATIONAL CHANGES DURING THE PANDEMIC: SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION AND TEMPORAL

INDETERMINACY

Surprisingly, it is hard to find comprehensive study of intergenerational changes during the pandemic. I
challenge the readers to find such literature –at least before the present date (July 2022)—delving on
how the pandemic impacts intergenerationality in terms of processes. I performed many reviews of
literature using the basic data bases in sociology and psychology. I also tried to find such literature
indirectly, looking at elders’ relation to technologies –which are a generational trend— during the
pandemic, for instance. I’ve read more or less 30 books on the pandemic, searching for any references
to intergenerationality and about 150-200 papers. I found but a few. It is by looking at alternative
methodologies like diaries that I’ve found the most significant materials making visible what appears to
be implicit and somewhat invisible phenomena related to intergenerational ambivalence in the context
of the pandemic.

In this essay, I try to present underlying and partially implicit indications that intergenerational
relationships are reconfigurating during the pandemic. I start by presenting some indications in favour of
a change of era, at least of some deeps changes that are occurring during the pandemic amidst temporal
continuity and discontinuity. I follow by looking at the experience of indeterminacy as indicating a state
of social transition. I particularly delve into indeterminacy and ambivalence as experience in relation to
identity and temporality. For the latter, I elaborate on the idea that people experience both acceleration
and deceleration. Mainly following Manheim (1982, 1990), all of those indications lead me to argue that
intergenerational changes are happening and that they take the forms of intergenerational
ambivalences. I explain it by suggesting that people are kind of stucked between the form and the
content of their generational experience and between the past and the future.

A CHANGING SOCIETY

Generational reconfigurations tend to occur alongside more encompassing societal changes announcing
a new era and affecting people personal and social life in many domains (Mannheim, 1982, 1990). It
happens thanks to the possibility to invest potentialities (entelechy) in a new way –investing untapped
(‘’dormant’’) ‘resources’, reinvesting them differently (in new directions) or generating new (emerging)
potentialities—to reconfigure social formations (Mannheim, 1982). Particularly, societal disruptions
associated to events like a war or a pandemic create the conditions for the modification of generations –
as social formations— and the relation between generations (Elders; Mannheim, 1990).

The Covid-19 pandemic is considered to entails deep disruptions of the usual course affecting many
domains (Horton, 2020; Moretti; Settersten, 2020; Tosoe). Here are some of the main domains
mentioned in the international literature:

 Parenting (Milkie, 2021)

 New technologies (Boyoko-Head, 2020; Irwin, 2022)
 Medias (Ali, 2022; Matthews, 2020; Paez, 2020)
 Schooling (Bintliff, 2020; Boothby, 2021; Boyoko-Head, 2020; Schenkels)
  Health system (Bintliff, 2020; Burns; Gutschow, 2022; Hengstermann, 2022; Sendra)
 Mental Health (Howell, 2015)
 People’s relation to nature (Thorpe ; Zizek, 2020)
 People’s relation to virus and microbes (Hecht; Latour, 2021)
 Meaning of life (Barbie, 2021; Cohen, 2021)
 Identity (Ali, 2022; Blum, 2021; Cook; Hecht; Maher, 2020; Moretti; Zizek, 2020)
 Group opinions and social representations ( Adam-Troian, 2020; Maher, 2020; Meeker,
2021, Paez, 2020 )
 People’s relation to truth (Jodelet, 2022; Paez, 2020 )
 Relation to risk (Cook; Meeker, 2021; Zalayet,)
 Language (Howell, 2022
 Social inequalities (Finley, 2022 )
 Politic (Ali, 2022; Blum, 2021; Gutschow, 2022; Horton, 2020; Meeker, 2021; Thorpe;
Zizek, 2021)
 Work (Milkie, 2021)
 Sports (Barbie, 2021)
 People’s relation to space like home (Burns; Moretti)
 The relation between the local and the global (Cook; Murphy-Lawless,)
 Relation to time (Ali, 2022; Burns; Howell, 2021; Moretti; Murphy-Lawless,Winther-
Lindqvist, 2021; Pheonix, 2021 ; Zizek, 2020)
 Trajectories (Moretti; Settersten, 2020)
 Relation to movement and mobility (Burns)

Those domains encompass a large spectrum of people’s spheres of life and they touch upon deep
aspects of people’s life—relation to truth, meaning of life identity, and relation to space and time.

Some authors consider that the Covid-19 pandemic signals a change of era. Let us think of the title
“”Research in the age of the Covid-19’’— of Kara and Khoo’s (2020) books including three volumes or of
Zizek’s (2020) book ‘Pandemic! Covid-19 shakes the world’’. Indicative of this ‘’change of era’’ are also
the calls to develop a new anthropology ( ), psychology ( ) and sociology ( ) of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moretti indicates that the later ‘‘was almost like an unexpected and fatal diagnostic for the whole
society […] [and therefore that] COVID impacted everyone’’ (p. 92). This makes him to consider a change
in the ‘’structures of everyday like and the forms of knowledge’’ (Idem; the emphasis is mine). For
Piccolino, this pandemic signals a ‘’societal upheaval’’[…] [and a] dismantling of the fabric of our society’’
(p. 36). For this reason, it is ‘’challenging social and cultural norms’’ (Catrone, p. 167). The fact that the
society is changing is signaled by this ‘’virus of thinking of an alternate society’’ (Zizek, 2020, p. 39). This
reinforce the idea that social formations are in a process of reconfiguration.

Yet, this is not that simple! A changing society –and therefore the reconfiguration of the relation
between generations— implies a complex tension between temporal continuity and discontinuity
(Halbwachs, (1941/1992 ). As far as continuity is concerned people can assimilate what is not too much
new—they create out of the existing forms (Manheim, 1982). People (re)invest the potential of already
existing form to create novelty; Manheim (1982) gives the example of the proletarian who started from
capitalism by reinterpreting some of its ideas, hence the undetermined and paradoxical nature of form
(re)construction. In this sense and to take another example ‘‘[w]hat is, perhaps, more unexpected is the
way in which new production technologies and co-ordinating forms of organization have permitted the
revival of domestic, familial, and paternalistic labour systems, which Marx tended to assume would
either be driven out of business or reduced to such conditions of gross exploitation and dehumanizing
toil as to be intolerable under advanced capitalism’’ (Harvey, 1991, p. 187; the emphasis is mine).

There are many examples of the reinvestment of forms in the context of the pandemic:

 The resurgence of neoconservative ideologies (Ryan, 2021);

 The ‘’triumphant return of capitalism animism, of treating social phenomena such as markets or
financial entities’’ (Zizek, 2020, p. 44);
 The transfer of the adrenaline associated to watching sports in betting activities (Barbie, 2021);
 Stereotypes: ‘’[t]he ongoing spread of the coronavirus epidemic has also triggered a vast
epidemic ideological viruses which were lying dormant in our societies: fake news, paranoiac
conspiracy theories, explosions of racism’’ (Zizek, 2020, p. 39; the emphasis is mine);
 In health management, the move from a policies of separation to a policies of connection, than
the return to the former in the context of the pandemic (Gutschow, 2022)
 The fact that the ‘’Coronavirus apps might be accelerating us towards Bentham’s dream and
Foucault’s nightmare’’ (Horton, 2020, p. 86; the emphasis is mine) that is a permanent
surveillance of the private life from the state.
 The emergence of new genres as hybrid (re)formation of previous existing one: for instance the
toxic wild west syndrome (the attitudes of contesting groups) deriving from different cinematic
styles (Blum, 2021)
 Phenomenologically, the facts that the pandemic touches on ‘’a sub-layer of life […] which has
always been there and which always be with us as a dark shadow” (Zizek, 2020, p. 5288), that is
our vulnerability and the fragility and contingent nature of life that necessarily leads to
unexpected death

In those examples, discontinuity happens through continuity—the best example would be the
hybridisation of old styles to create a new genre. Disruptions do occur –in conditions of continuity— in
the spheres that are becoming problematic thanks to structural sociohistorical changes (Manheim,
1990). Interestingly Keemer (2021) also refers to a change of epistemological paradigm:

Compared to a modernist epistemology, anti-quarantine protesters inhabit a different

intellectual culture with their own brand of facts and logic not based on empiricism, rationalism,
or evidence, instead investing in a type of ‘’post-truth’’ reality. Clearly, given the recent
attention to the problems of the so-called post-truth era, something in society has changed
regarding the manner in which truth or falsehood fact or fiction, and real or unreal are
established. There new epistemological processes are markedly different from the rational
processes underlying governmentality that previously monopolized social discourses as a decade
ago’’ (p. 115; reemphasised is mine).
He refers to a postmodern era what was anticipated by Lyotard. Here, a possible paradox : discourses
were not expressing postmodern ideas a decade ago while they were around Lyotard’s anticipation and
what is known both in humanitarian sciences and in institutional discourses.

Another change concerns people’s consciousness of being more connected together globally through
their local decisions and locally through global events (Dewey, 2021). This connection touches on the
interrelated nature of people’s psychological and social life (all spheres are connected), people’s relation
to nature and people’s relation to society (Dewey, 2021; Ryan, 2021; Sosa, 2020; Zizek, 2020). Yet,
people also feel very disconnected (Cohen, 2021). This paradox is expressed in a diaries by a person
whose experience ‘’shows how disconnected even an educated person can be, even though we are all
interconnected’’ (Ali, 2022, p. 19). So, we are both connected and disconnected.

These two examples remain me of the paradoxical nature of modernity as theorized by Harvey and Beck
who also tried to anticipate societal changes as they are unfolding. In fact, the very undermined and
paradoxical nature of social phenomena indicate that a society is changing.

I let historians and sociologists elaborating on that to rather provide another example of a deep change
that may be happening, namely the consciousness of being connected. Changes entail creating new
divisions and new functions ‘’through an undeveloped form’’ (Manheim, 1982, p. 184; the emphasis is
mine) and a shift in meaning associated with the mobility of experience (Manheim, 1982). A changing
society experiencing a transition is characterized by ‘’ world-views which have become irrelevant from
the standpoint of the total movement but which nevertheless transform themselves during their
continued existence and which live on in these altered forms […] What changes of form do their
creations undergo and what kinds of inner dialectic is followed by such a secondary, contrapuntally
interplaying spiritual development. » (M, 1982, p. 130; the emphasis is mine). So meaning is suspended
because it is in formation, people investing what it unstructured, that is the potential floating ‘’ in the
intimate realm untouched by the public and more structured rationality’’ (M, 1982, p. 164). During an
intense period of change, particularly, tensions and contradictions are experienced, particularly in
intergenerational contexts (more on this latter) (Manheim, 1990).

Indeterminacy –the difficulty to make sense of the actual based on the past and therefore to make
predictions as an expression of intermediary forms (in the course of development)— that entails
contradictions (experienced as ambiguity) (Boulanger, 2021) is expressed by authors (Beck; Harvey,
1991) studying society as it is changing. For Beck ‘’[w]e do not yet live in a risk society, but we also no
longer live only within the distribution conflicts of scarcity societies’’ (p. 20; emphasis from the author).
This indicates ‘’a peculiar stage of transition, in which traditional and sharpening inequalities coincide
with certain elements of a no longer traditional, individualized post-class society […] This transitional
society is distinguished by a variety of typical structures and changes’’ (p. 100; the emphasis is mine).
Notice the tension between structuration and lack of structuration expressing a tension between
continuity and discontinuity. The disruption of ‘’historical continuity […] [entails] contractions […] [and]
make it difficult to avoid ambiguities in the interpretation of social structure’’ (p. 92).

Indeterminacy and ambiguity are at the core of people’s experience of the pandemic (Boyoko-Head,
2020; Settersten et al., 2020 ) which is expressed for instance by the fact that ‘’[w]e this hat to reinvite a
domestic life […] marred by hybridisation, contradictions and ambiguity’’ (Moretti, p. 92). Two of the
main domains in which people experience indeterminacy and ambiguities (expressing contradictions)
during the pandemic are identity and relation to time. As those are fundamental spheres of life, I will
identify some of the ways on which changes is experiences in these domains in order to reinforce the
idea that society may be changing –be it in terms of revolution and/or in continuation with previous
input (I let historians and sociologists establish it).

UNDETERMINACY: IDENTITY AND TEMPORALITY

IDENTITY

I take identity from the perspective of cultural psychology that ‘’integrates the world-to-perspective
dimension (Bamberg, 2022) and considers it has an unfolding process. Following this authors, I consider
the following aspects:

 The temporal unfolding of identity –being both the same and a different person through
changes
 Sameness/difference: aligning versus desaligning with others in terms of personal and collective
identity
 Agency: being a product of the world while producing it.

Is is constructed amidst ecological levels and concerns the person, the organisations and the cultural and
political environment. Considering, as such, identity in terms of tension entails a dialogical stance
recognizing it undetermined and ambivalent nature (Bertau, 2022).

The pandemic makes the identity undetermined as the ‘’virus […] posed the who-am-I (and collective
who-are-we) question in the form of a worldwide experience of uncertainty—a continuous identity
threat for which the answers are yet to be determined’’ (Bamberg, 2022, p. 3; the emphasis is mine). It is
‘’disrupting the stability of the identity and the biographical continuity of a whole nation’’ (Moretti, p.
96; the emphasis from the author). Here some of the manifestations of this indeterminacy:

 The challenges to cultural norms (Catrone ) and ‘’the absence of the ideal type of
solution ( Lutaud, p. 144 )
 Questionning our individuality and our so-called importance—‘’we are just a species
with no special importance’’ (Zizak, 2020, p. 14)
 The difficulty to get what happens— [w]hat remains is often a blurred sense that
‘’something wen wrong’’ ‘’ (Irwin, 2020, p. 30).
 Shifting identities— ‘’[w]e plant gardens when we’re not gardeners and turn ourselves
into techno Zoomers and day traders’’ (Hecht, p. 19)

This shifting of identities entails paradoxes experienced as ambivalence: ‘’[w]e tap into our
creativity to survive and to stay sane, healthy, and valuable when we feel just the opposite’’
(Hecht, p. 19; the emphasis is from me). This is one example of how indeterminacy expressed
itself through ambivalence. Here are other forms of paradoxes (experienced as ambivalence) in
relation to identity:

 Excessive fear of the virus with the absence of panic and reacting in panic (buying toilet
papers!) without taking the threat seriously in a calculated manner (Zizek, 2020)
  Quarantine protesters militating against political measures while ironically creating
conditions for the spread of the virus and thereby reinforcing those measures (Meeker,
2021)
 Distancing as strengthening the intensity of our link with others (Zizek, 2020)
 Technological development making us both independent and dependent on nature
(Zizek, 2020)
 Feeling ashamed of one’s country as reinforcing our belonging to it (Zizek, 2020)
 Experiencing mixed feelings with oneself when living alone (Ali, 2022)

These paradoxes cannot be separated from the experience of time—people are ambivalent in
relation to options whose boundaries are blurred, thanks to a lack of temporal point of
reference. For instance, being stuck between reacting or not reacting to a virus is associated
with the mixed and confusing messages from the political agents that provide no clear sense of
direction. The same for the ideas of experiencing ambivalence when shifting identities because
there is no clear ground (form) for such dynamics to take root.

TEMPORALITY

By definition, indeterminacy is strongly related to temporality. As a matter of fact different temporal dimensions are
experienced in terms in indeterminacy during the pandemic:
The year 2020 saw uncertainties and fear color how, with whom, and where we spent out time, as days upon
days stretched into murkier future. What is ‘‘quality time’’ and how can we achieve it? Under the ‘’new
normal,’’ what will our time be like? (Milkie, 2021, p. 15).
Notice that how we spend our time with children ‘’might have become, paradoxically, both more stressful and
potentially more enjoyable’’ (Milkie, 2021, p. 156; the emphasis is mine).
Among the different temporal dimensions, quotidian rhythms, ‘’schedules and timelines exploded’’ (Milkie, 2021, p.
162). People’s schedule is blurring: ‘’there was no longer a distinction between weekdays and the weekends’’ (Moretti,
p. 98). The present is kind of elastic as it is endless and unpredictable (Puccolino). And yet, paradoxically, this is a
circular movement and thus an ‘’unexpected ride that ends up where one began’’ (Howell, 2022, p. 218). So people
still manage the pandemic as they did one year ago. This is the cycle of the ‘new normal’. Yet, they wonder if the
future will look like the past (pre-pandemic) (Milkie, 2021).
Its unfolding nature makes it also unpredictable (Catrone; Malafarina, 2020). This is also because of ‘’the unknown of
tomorrow’’ (Ryan, 2021, p. 16). This makes it hard to make plans (Settersten, 2020). For instance, parents invest a lot in
safeguarding their children’s futures. Yet, they experience uncertainties as the future is hard to imagine (Milkie, 2021).
This ‘’awareness of uncertainty involves the multipotency of the future and too many bifurcation points’’ (Novikova,
2020, p. 97). There are too many possibilities (Malafarina, 2020), hence ‘’possible selves’’ (Settersten, 2020, p. 4).
Traditions cannot constitute a secure ground to project oneself thanks to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic
(Matthews, 2020). And yet some people prefer the experience of the pandemic than the past—this is the case with
sports’ documentary (replacing live events) that are perceived as refreshing (Barbie, 2021). However, as far as the past
is concerned, people often critic ‘’the system’’ because it was unprepared to manage such a crisis, the issue being the
fact that actors did not anticipate the latter (Ziezec, 2020).
Temporally, the uncertain and paradoxical dimensions that we just mentioned explain why people’s biography and
trajectory are indetermined and filled with tensions (Moretti, p. 96). One of these tensions concern the intensity of
daily experience. While the pandemic is generally experienced as being more intense (Cohen; Moretti; Zalayet, ) –the
frenetic rhythm of family’s activities and obligations (Moretti) and the fact to keep ourselves busy and rush (Cohen)--,
‘’enforced inactivity itself [is] making us tired’’ (Zizek, 2020, p. 19) and ‘’the urge to fill in every moment of the time
allotted to us with intense engagement unavoidably ends up in a suffocating monotony’’ (Zizek, 2020, p. 57). I present
now this paradoxical nature of temporal investment by elaborating on the fact that people experience generally both
a sense of acceleration and deceleration during the pandemic.

ACCELERATION AND DECELERATION

The fact that people experience –in different domains—is accelerating (getting quicker) is part of an
emerging trends in the scientific literature on the pandemic. Indeed, the Special Issue Measured Live –
Theoretical Psychology in an Era of Acceleration directed by Winther-Lindqvist and her colleagues in the
International Review of Theoretical Psychologies (2021) theorizes on the phenomenon of acceleration
during the pandemic. In the literature, the general claims that are made to qualify the experience of
time generally concerns speeds –changes are quick (c.f., Malafarina, 2020).

Here are the domains in which a trend toward acceleration is noticed:

 The spread of the virus (Ryan, 2021)

 The political measures like locked-in (Ali; Lupton; Murphy-Lawless)
 The restructuring of education (Boyoko-Head, 2020)
 The (quick) gathering of data by researchers (Irwin)
 The spread of information (Hengstermann, 2022)
 The creation of partisan coalitions (Maher, 2020).

Generally speaking, deceleration is not formally recognized. There is very few general claims about
the pandemic being experienced in terms of slowness or deceleration. There is no specific
theoretical discussion on that neither. Slowness is referred to when authors describe other general
phenomena. For instance, when speaking about politic, Gordon ( ) mentions that ‘’[f]ederal
programs were slow to respond to local needs of individuals’’ (p. 205). Here, this claim is descriptive
rather than explanatory. In the same perspective, Burns ( ) describes public health imperative in
terms of the obligation to stop moving—disruption and arrestment of mobility. Sandford (2021) as
well as Dewey (2021) characterize bureaucracy in terms of stability –slowness of change.

However, Senior (2022) makes a general claim about the fact the “[t]he lockdown period slowed
everyday routine and allowed time to think’’ (p. 2015). Jesse and his colleagues (2022, in press) take
the same angle to explain the experience of time in an interesting fashion. Burns ( ) indicates that
the attention is oriented toward quick mobilities over slow emergencies that are underrepresented.

The time being slow or slowing down (experienced as such) is often implicitly presented in contrast
to the time being quick or getting quicker (experienced as such). For instance, by presenting their
Special Issue on acceleration, Winther-Lindqvist and her colleagues (2021) elaborate on its
underlying social issue:

[w]ho would have believed that a global pandemic, COVID-19, should interfere with this fast-
moving accelerated world with such a sudden and in itself accelerated force? Whole industries—
which prior to this crisis were regarded as unstoppable economic and cultural necessities—have
come to a standstill (p. 2; the emphasis is mine).

It gives the impression that speed comes with slowness, that those are inseparable polarities! Yet, the
latter are experienced in terms of paradoxes (ambivalence). This is what Milkie (2021) highlights by
affirming –in referencing to parenting— that ‘’[h]ow time with children was experienced in terms of its
quality for parents and family life became more glaringly obvious as life slowed way, way down, and
paradoxically for some, accelerating in terms of time demands (p. 154; the emphasis is mine). Moretti
( ) elaborates on this idea that some people experience time in terms of deceleration while others
experience the opposite tendencies.

Yet, it also appears that in the context of the pandemic time can be both experienced in terms of
acceleration and deceleration for the same person. Burns ( ) mentions that ‘’[h]igh-risk people remained
‘shielded’ in an enforced ‘stillness’ (Cresswell, 2012), even as society accelerated around them’’ (p. 29).
If Burns ( ) indicates that the attention on speed undermines the exploration of slowness, I propose that
it also put into the shadow the tensions between acceleration and deceleration that may be an
important characteristic of the pandemic. The authors using methodologies –such as diaries, projection,
dramatization and story telling— enabling to explore deep experiences like time paradoxes and
tensions. This is the case with Howell ( ) as well as Jesse and his colleagues who were able to identify
some temporal tensions in terms of time pace and intensity using such methodologies. I’ve been
personally surprised when animating activities with elders –based on resilience and intergenerationality
during the pandemic. Some elders told me that they experienced time as both getting too quick and too
slow. After 1 year of research in the international literature on the pandemic, I found but a few very
implicit references to this phenomenon.

INTERGENERATIONAL UNDETERMINACY AND AMBIVALENCE

I began this paper by presenting some arguments in favor of the idea that the pandemic displays some
indications of a possible change of era, albeit partial. I specified that it may not be a revolution to signals
societal changes occurring amidst temporal continuity and discontinuity. I cannot make a strong and
definitive claim about the fact that we are experiencing –with the pandemic—a change of era as I am
studying society in its movements with no distance like did Beck and Harvey when making hypothesis
about modern societies. Yet, I presented some indications that deep changes may be happening. Latour
(2021) presents interesting arguments in favor of generational shits in the course of the pandemic
alongside societal changes.

Some themes—like our connection with others— are getting problematize and entails changing our
relation to society. It may be that people are experiencing a new approach that underlines a new
distancing toward social objects (Manheim,1990). For this author, social spheres that are render
problematic by changes in sociohistorical structures are the object of reflexivity and the latter further
elicit changes (social disorganization). I showed that changes are happening in a large range of domains
and in important spheres like identity and time. For Manheim ( ), deep societal changes inevitably
translate into the reconfiguration of intergenerational relationship. With changes come new potentials
(entelechy) that each generation invest to reposition themselves. Here, Settersten (2020) states that
‘’the pandemic will be interpreted through different historical lenses’’ (p. 5).

I also suggested that indeterminacy and ambivalence signal the society being in a state of transition,
which indicates intergenerational changes (Manheim). Identity and time –which are important domains
in which people experience indeterminacy and ambivalence— are key dimensions of being a member of
a generation (Attias-Donfut). Particularly, the experience of time is indicative of processes of social
formation (Harvey, 1991 ), hence generational changes (Manheim, 1982; Pinder).

For Manheim (1982) slowness is associated with a stereotypical conception of one’s and others’
generational heritage. It implies to ‘’ ask how the various social structures (clan, status group, or class
society, for example) relate to these stereotyping and what tempo of change is connected with each
specific social structure’’ (Manheim, 1982, p. 221). Sometimes, ‘’ the dynamism is slowed to such an
extent that the shifts are not discernable within a single generation’’ (Manheim, 1982, p. 221). Here, the
forms of experience predominate over its content and the new generation are oriented toward the past
(the heritage of the previous generations). Simply state, when the rhythm accelerates, the content of
one’s generational experience predominates over the form of other’s generations (Manheim, 1990).

What happens then when people experience both acceleration and deceleration? I suggest that people
are situated amidst form and content and amidst past and future because society is in a state of
transition and people experience altered forms as indicated previously (structures in formation). Ruse
and hius colleagues (in press) indicates in this regard people feeling of being in a state of suspension. For
these reasons, people experience intergenerational ambivalences, being ‘’stocked’’ between them and
others while the very categories us and others (as forms) are in the course of (re)definition.

The scientific literature does not elaborate a lot on intergenerational relationship, so it is quite hard to
find evidence of this phenomenon. But I can highlight some indications that come mainly from the
analysis of diaries. Matthews (2020) –an elder dialoguing on her intergenerational experience of the
pandemic in a diary —states that ‘’today’s younger generations may not have the foundation to rebuild
our society’’ while, later, affirming to ‘’now our children are actively assuming of position of ‘’generation
in charge’’’’. She also criticizes younger’s relation to technologies compared to her parents’ great
generation (who made great accomplishments), then she ends up indicating that technologies
(positively) challenged this “”greatest generation’’. The content of technological revolutions is
challenging the traditions (forms) of the old generation.

While she differentiates young versus old generation in terms of technologies, she continues by
identifying their common ground. She does this by both showing how younger learned from elders and
how they innovated. Yet, she argues that her generation both created a mess for younger while guided
them. Intergenerational transfer is presented in ambivalent terms, which signals a tension between past
and future. What we brought to the others is indetermined, hence our own sense of self (identity).

Conclusion

I start this paper by indicating the implicit and partially invisible intergenerational dynamics associates
with the pandemic. I concluded by hypothesizing that intergenerational ambivalence –manifesting itself
during the pandemic— are grounded on a peculiar dynamic—people being stocked between the form
and the contents of their experience and between the past and the future. Between the introduction of
this paper and its last section, I present some intermediary arguments—society is changing amidst
continuity and discontinuity, people’s experience of indeterminacy signals the society being in a state of
transition and people’s experience of acceleration and deceleration indicating a feeling of suspension.
Yet, I did not develop a lot on this aspect, but rather referred to some of Manheim’s general reference
to speed and slowness in relation to intergenerationality and I presented an example. This analysis has
to be deepened and elaborated, for instance in reference to social transitions and the feeling of
suspension that is central in how people experience the pandemic. This may scratch further the invisible
surface of invisible phenomena pertaining to intergenerational reconfiguration and may also be the
occasion to reposition myself epistemologically in regard to the very concept of generation. Indeed, how
can a form be formless in such a state of suspension? This is the occasion for such an epistemological
reflection.