I am a fan of generation gaps. Though academics and the media love to identify new demographic cohorts – Generation X, Generation Z, Net Gen, Gen Wii – such distinctions often confuse mere fashion with decisive transformations in behaviour, social priority and worldview. But we need such transformations, the inter-generational arguments that they spawn, and the changes that, sooner or later, they compel upon us all.

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The last authentic generation gap – a period in which the old order was categorically at odds with the new – ended with punk in the late 70s. The next such period of deep change has taken its time to arrive.

I’ll risk a definition of sorts. Those under the age of 35 tend (obviously, with many exceptions) to think differently from those who are older. As digital natives, their instinct is to form networks rather than to colonise institutions; they perceive the world in terms of identity and power structures rather than the categories of classical individualism; and they are more interested in transnational challenges (climate change, the pathologies of inequality, automation) than their elders, who still, for all their claims to the contrary, exist primarily within the silo of the nation state (see Brexit for details).

As you would expect, the insurgence is not homogeneous, or ideologically fixed. It represents a radical change in values and outlook, expressed in all sorts of ways, rather than simply a new form of social regimentation (where would the fun be in that?). Some of the most energetic change-makers are content to work, at least some of the time, within existing political structures. To take a current example: the youth wing of the People’s Vote movement – the Our Future Our Choice and For our Future’s Sake campaigns – has taken a (wise) strategic decision not to approach the European elections as a second referendum in all but name, but to concentrate instead on voter registration among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Outside of the confines of traditional institutions, meanwhile, one can detect the seeds of a new and exhilarating approach to politics. Look all around at a new landscape of activism: not just Momentum, but the surging power of Black Lives Matter, digital feminism, social media campaigns against unethical commercial practices, and calls for citizens’ assemblies on all manner of issues.

Above all, there has been the phenomenon of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The campaign, it is true, was founded by people of my age or thereabouts: Gail Bradbrook and Roger Hallam have studied the science of social protest and developed what they call the “algorithms of rebellion”. But it is the young – and those that care about the future of the young – who have given these algorithms such dynamic human expression in the past week. The nonviolent, peaceful, carnival spirit of XR has roots in the philosophy of Gandhi, the flower power of the 1960s, and the determination of the Occupy movement. But the synthesis is arrestingly new.

I keep hearing politicians and news anchors assert that the public is furious about the disruption. But, working in central London, I have been struck by how generally amicable the protesters and commuters have been in their exchanges. The police, too, have not exuded the nervous expectation of trouble that is often a feature of such gatherings. All that may change, of course, if their masters so decide. But there is no intrinsic reason why this protest should descend into violent confrontation.

More striking has been the media’s general inability to understand the XR uprising. Yes, it has caused inconvenience, for which the organisers have repeatedly apologised. Yes, some of the celebrities involved travel a lot by air. And yes, many of the protesters are middle class.

But so what? The inconvenience of commuters and delivery vans is regrettable – but not when set against the survival of the planet. And no, it isn’t ideal that Emma Thompson has taken private planes; but, really, if individual hypocrisy is going to be a barrier to action on climate change then we may as well give up now. Who, in this respect, can truly cast the first stone?

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As for the social background of the demonstrators, who cares? Is there a means test now on morality? If the XR protests have nudged the needle on public consciousness – and, therefore, the priorities of the political class – they will have been a success.

Notice, too, that the movement’s demands focus with such clarity upon truth and the form that politics takes. Traditionally, rebellions have sought to supplant one regime with another. But this movement is more nuanced.

It has grasped that the battle for the future will be, as much as anything, an information war: a struggle against post-truth, evasion and lies. It also insists that the present system of politics is not working. After three years of Brexit, only a fool would take issue with that contention. The party system is polarised, fragmenting, dysfunctional, to an extent that has become deeply alarming: Westminster is quite incapable of responding to what Martin Luther King called the “fierce urgency of now”.

Please understand: I am not sanguine about any of this. As remarkable as it is to feel the political plates shifting beneath us, it is a mistake to think that all the consequences will be benign. Even as you celebrate the commitment of young people to the EU and to action on climate change, keep an eye on groups such as Generation Identity and the tech-literate far right: by all means applaud the spiritual descendents of Gandhi, but beware the children of Steve Bannon.

What is certain is that the shift is real. For many of my generation, all this will be a rude awakening. But, like previous generations, we invited it in our failures, omissions and inaction. What can I say? A change is gonna come.

• Matthew d’Ancona is a Guardian columnist