“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said. If this is the case, then Gen Z — those between 18 and 28 — here in the UK must be the greatest cohort of intellectual heavyweights ever to walk the earth. 

Consider the paradox. A new survey conducted by the Times and YouGov claims that half of Gen Z believes Britain to be racist, with only 11 percent saying they would be willing to fight in defence of it should we go to war; 20 years ago, another Times survey found a whopping 80 percent of youngsters proud to be British, a proportion which has now almost halved. So far, so brainwashed by mardy Marxists teachers.

Yet more of our Gen Z-ers support the return of the death penalty than oppose it; I do too. However, we part ways in that I’m keen on the will of the people — the more referenda the better, like in Switzerland — and would enjoy capital punishment as part of a well-balanced democratic diet. Not so unpredictable Gen Z, 52 percent of whom according to a recent study believe that “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections” while a third agreed with the alarming idea that we’d be better off  “if the army was in charge.”

What army is this — the one they wouldn’t enlist in to fight for their country? I like a bit of piquant paradox as much as the next person but I must say I’m mystified by the juxtaposition of not being willing to fight for one’s country and wanting the army to be in charge.

Of course they may not be the same people saying the same things. Yet there does seem to be a general feeling among the young that democracy doesn’t move fast enough, especially on the “existential” (I can’t hear this over-flogged word now without feeling that the utterer should have a nice lie-down and maybe not read that scary Chicken Little story again) issue of climate change, which the poor kids have been worked up over by hysterical adults since they were tots.

There’s actually a book called “Climate Change for Babies” — and I think that “The Catastrophe Sat On The Mat” might be a good as-yet unwritten one for pre-schoolers.

On a more humdrum level, the high cost of living and the lack of ability to clamber onto even the lowest rungs of the housing ladder are thought to be drivers for this youthful desire to hear the clack of jackboots on the streets of our sceptred isle. I do find this a bit rum.

My first father-in-law, returning from the war in common with many soldiers, had nowhere to live, his East End home having been Blitzed. But these lovely lads didn’t immediately think “Ooo, I wish I’d backed That Hitler instead.” They merely voted the government out and voted the next one in who promised to build prefabs — a far more reasonable reaction.

To believe in suspending democracy because you cant get on the property ladder seems, more than anything very, very silly; from the Restless Generation to the Blank Generation, all had a sort of nihilistic glamour. Yet being part of the Miffed Generation seems very unenviable indeed.

Do American Zees feel the same as ours? Last year 65 percent of them did say that the United States is no better than other countries while the same proportion of Boomers said it was the greatest in the world. Perhaps we shouldn’t pay these surveys too much heed, on either side of the pond; maybe Gen Z say these things in order to look cool, as young people often do.

I blush now to recall how much I banged on about the glory of Stalin when I was a youngster. Coming out and saying “I believe in democracy” seems a bit wet when you’re young — until you realise that fighting for and preserving it is the best and often the toughest task in the world.

Call me a sentimental, Casablanca-loving Limey, but I can’t believe that American youth wouldn’t fight to defend their country, even though I sometimes sadly believe it of ours. For other nations, after all the grief the USA has had for *interfering* — not so much.

I often quote that other Fitzgerald beauty — “America was a willingness of the heart.”  Yet there’s another, less known line just before it — “and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered.” I’m wary of a world with an isolationist USA — but I totally get why we Europeans deserve one.