What 19th Century French Romantics Can Teach Us About Gen Z Anxiety

Drawing on the 19th-century French concept of the mal du siècle, a generational malaise diagnosed by Romantic writers like Alfred de Musset and Chateaubriand, this piece argues that today's widespread anxiety mirrors the disillusionment felt by young people after Napoleon's fall — a generation trapped between a glorious past and a foreclosed future.
Just as Musset's peers blamed their despair on sweeping historical and political forces rather than personal weakness, our current epidemic of doom-scrolling, climate dread, and economic precarity deserves to be understood as a systemic condition, not an individual failing. Yet the Romantics also warn against the seductive trap of cynicism and withdrawal — figures like George Sand and Victor Hugo channeled their malaise into political action rather than apathy.
Reframing our collective anxiety as a rational response to an unjust world may be the first step toward changing it.