In society there’s no real third space between home and work that you can socialize with people as relative equals and not spend money.

In school you get that every day at least once in recess and lunch.

In that way it genuinely is a better way of living.

So I guess yeah, alienation.

as a yank, I can say high school fucking sucked but my life generally has gotten worse so I tend to view it with rose-tinted glasses

Honestly I have a long standing theory that growing up in America for the past several decades is a slow rolling trauma we all end up dealing with and high school is one of the few times where we have social relationships less informed by capitalism and we’re also just not as traumatized yet

I also think it because it’s the last time in a lot of people’s lives where they feel free in this society and the last point where the “you can be whatever you want to be” and “American dream” propaganda crumbles and you realize that the US sucks ass if you aren’t rich and connected. A lot of people feel like they peaked in high school for this reason IMO