Yesterday I was walking through campus and noted that all the lamposts in the main quad are bedecked, illegally, with pro-Palestinian stickers. (It’s legal for student organizations to put up stickers, but only inatdesignated sites and so long as the organization is identified. Neither is the case here.
A few examples (there must have been about two dozen, all violating posting and demonstration regulations):
And pro-Palestinian students (considered, I think, “progressive” Leftists) are seen here in an illegal blocking of Levi Hall (the administration building) last November 3. As far as I can find out, though this was against University rules, no punishments were levied against the participants. (I asked the admin but didn’t get an answer.)
Another illegal protest was a group of pro-Palestinian students holding a sit-in in the admissions office. In this case they were arrested, but the charges were dropped. The punishment by the University appeared to have been to write an essay about “my demonstration experience”, in which the students simply reasserted that they were right, claimed that they were being silenced by the University, and protested being punished at all.
But of course things can get even more aggressive and violent, like many of the demonstrations in London, the illegal blocking of highways and roads, and vandalism and graffiti (e.g. Jewish stars or swastikas posted in Jewish homes). You don’t see this kind of aggressive demonstration enacted by pro-Israel students or people out in the world, but those people are not seen as progressives, but as “white colonialists.”
I could go on. While most Black Lives Matter protests were generally peaceful, 7% involved violence. Leftists opposed to Republicans felt free to confront GOP politicians and their families in restaurants, or make a fracas outside their homes. I see that as a form of unproductive protest. Yet all of these people would be considered residing on the Left. (In this post I’m not considering violence from those on the Right, as during the January 6 insurrection.)
My assertion is that the farther on the Left you reside (i.e., the more “progressive” of a Leftist you are), the angrier you are in your public political acts and the more likely you are to either be in-your-face aggressive or to break the law. And while breaking the law for a cause is civil disobedience, it is done in a more violent manner than it was a few decades below. Further, “progressive” protestors, instead of willingly accepting punishment, assert that they should not be punished at all. (For examples on our campus, see here and here.) If that’s your view, you’re not doing civil disobedience.
I too was involved in activism during my college years, and I know how righteous you feel when you’re fighting for a cause you see as just. It not only adds a panache of virtue to your college experience, but also gives you automatic membership in a group of like-minded people.
In my case there were two causes worthy of demonstration: the Vietnam war and civil rights. And in my memory—and I believe in general—both of these causes explicitly avowed nonviolence. Martin Luther King followed the nonviolent principles of Gandhi (granted, there were some civil rights groups, like the Black Panthers, who didn’t eschew violence), and the hallmark of the civil rights demonstrations—the things that made them effective—was their nonviolent character. When civil rights protesters in Birmingham were attacked by police dogs and blasted with water hoses, and when white people dumped ketchup and milkshakes on civil rights demonstrators sitting peacefully at lunch counters in Greensboro, the immorality of segregation became palpably clear.
Nonviolence was, I think, the key to success—both in ending the Vietnam War and getting the Civil Rights Acts passed. In my view, violent or angry demonstrations, like stopping traffic or yelling slogans in people’s faces with megaphones, are not devised to produce political success, but to flaunt virtue. They are, I believe, counterproductive compared to what nonviolent or more peaceful demonstrations could do. They are counterproductive because they anger and inconvenience onlookers, and are designed to do that. You don’t get sympathy for Palestine by blocking traffic on Lake Shore Drive while shouting “From the river to the sea. . . ”
Regardless, here is the question I’m asking, and to which I don’t have a satisfactory answer:
Why are “progressive” leftists so much angrier and violent in their protests than are more centrist leftists, as well as than were leftists of seventy years ago? What accounts for this anger?
One explanation is that modern progressives feel that they’re on the side of history, more morally correct than their opponents. But that doesn’t wash because it was also the case for Leftist protestors of the Sixties. I surely felt that I was more virtuous than those espousing segregation or touting the rectitude of fighting in Vietnam.
What baffles me is the much higher degree of anger from “progressive” Leftists than from more centrist ones, as well the willingness to display it in protests. I ask readers to weigh in. Perhaps you feel my data are wrong: that “progressive” protestors are not publicly angrier than liberal ones. If so, say that as well.
I’m not sure if they are angrier on the left, but they sure do seem so.
Another possibility is that angry and disruptive protestors on the left are simply more likely than those on the right to get away with it. Such behavior from the left is widely tolerated—even lauded—by the large left-leaning and progressive majorities on college campuses and in major urban areas. And, the U of C administration’s apparent tolerance of the student misbehaviors you cite above—misbehaviors that we observe all over the country—encourages further bad behavior. As I said, they may do it simply because they know that they can get away with it. And until someone stops them, they will continue to escalate.
More likely to get away with it than those on the right? Maybe on university campuses, but in general? No.
Maybe I’m missing something but the answer to Jerry’s question seems clear to me. The anger does not correspond with Left or Right, it corresponds with extremism. The more extreme, the more anger and violence. Left or Right, Conservative or Progressive, North or South, doesn’t matter.
Seems like all groups of any kind eventually breed some extremists if they exist long enough, even quilting clubs. But if we were keeping score, and we probably should be, extremists on the Right have been more numerous and more troublesome in the US throughout my entire life than extremists on the left.
What cracks me up about this current trend of progressives fervently supporting the likes of Hamas is that Hamas is about as extreme right as it’s possible to get. Classic old school patriarchal religious zealots. I think it’s time for these sorts of progressives to hand in their Leftist cards.
Great question.
I’d start back ftom a different angle on that – from a chapter of Beautiful Trouble which describes how to get great protest results if the protesters dress up in literal circus clown costumes, and act literally like circus clowns – giving out flowers, hugs – to police – heart-shaped things, etc.
Then, when the protesters get hauled away for breaking the law, all the children – as in, little kids -who catch a glimpse ask their parents “[sniff sniff] mommy, why are the mean men in black glasses taking away all the funny clowns? [frown, tears]”. That is protest GOLD right there.
So that suggests venue matters.
On a university campus venue, the people determined to be the most important to impress – the target for the reaction – are highly susceptible to some emotion, and – PCC(E) suggests, precisely IMHO – that emotion is anger.
A speculation: Maybe the protest strategy guidelines suggest students and faculty are high strung, detail-oriented, persnickety, have an inner monologue guiding them, or whatever, because they work hard and want to get great results – and get pissed if they screw up. So “look”, the emotional manipulation says “something is totally wrong! Fix that problem! Arrgh the reagent spill/ruined gel/carry the one/divide by zero/genocide/colonization/hate is F’ing everything up idiots it’s not hard stupid!!!” … I just thought, is that an outer monologue? Dunno…
Of course, there are backup emotions, but who knows.
Post-edit deadline request for addendum :
Another more concrete source of anger :
Pre-protest struggle session “pep talks” – ideological remoulding, confessing crimes, shame – utter emotional breakage. Make the victims – that is, the protesters – see the world – the “one-dimensional man” (Marcuse) – as the reason for their predicament of sinfulness, pain, and broken-ness.
Now, get out there and give ’em hell, team!
That’s all theoretical, of course.
The Woke say nothing about Uyghers as forced workers in concentration camps or Muslims in India and Burma. It is OK for ‘people of color’ to oppress other poc.
I agree that those on the far left are more angry than those in the center or center left. But the same goes for the right. I would say that people with extreme views – on the left or right – are going to be more angery and more likely to break the law. I bet there are a lot of reasons for this. Two competing hypotheses each with an example:
1) people who really care about a cause are more willing to get arrested for that cause. If you really believe in climate change, getting arrested for breaking into a factory is nothing.
2) People with extreme views are less likely to be thinking rational about the issues and are looking for social solidarity or excitement rather than actual change. Let’s burn a gas station down in the name of racial justice.
“Getting arrested for breaking into a factory is nothing” true now and the punishment meted out is often nothing too which means there is little or no effective deterrent for much of this times violent behaviour.
Many years ago when guarding a Special Secure Area (SSA) before a “Ban the Bomb” march the instruction given was “ If the SSA is under direct threat of breach, shoot to kill without warning”
Can this be imagined in 2024? Unlikely I would suggest.
A SSA was where nuclear, biological or chemical weapons could be stored and comprised layers of defence and security.
I certainly hope you tore them down.
My thoughts exactly.
I don’t think they could be torn down. The whole sheet looks to be a sticker, not a piece of paper taped to a pole. You’d need a razor blade or something to get it off.
Exactly. Widespread violence from the “tolerant” and “inclusive” folks.
“The events of the last two weeks have shattered the illusion that wokeness is about protecting victims and standing up for persecuted minorities. This ideology is and has always been about the one thing many of us have told you it is about for years: power. And after the last two weeks, there can be no doubt about how these people will use any power they seize: they will seek to destroy, in any way they can, those who disagree.”
–Konstantin Kisin, in his essay, “The Day the Delusions Died” (referring to the Palestinian terrorist attack of October 7).
+1
Important corollary : if one is white, when was the last time they used their white supremacy to waltz in and get a six-figure salary, or legendary cultural status like any given medical doctor or NBA / MLB / rap star?
And in reverse – how do e.g. blacks or women feel when they set out to use their oppressed identity to gain power as described above – but don’t get very far? Were they promised something?
Such resentment is productive for revolution.
I think the progressive embrace of climate hysteria and Islamism explains the anger.
I got into it with a (supposedly sane, level-headed) liberal interlocutor on FB. (I am liberal and have always considered myself so: But not radical and after the post-Oct-7-23 events, there are many on the far left I will never associate with, e.g. DSA.)
They were going on about how all the unrest was OK. Throwing around “punch a Nazi”, etc.
I told him that I opposed political violence in all its forms. I used the example of Andy Ngo’s beating(s) as an example. When you have no case, you resort to ad hominem attacks, in this case, physical ad hominem: Putting someone in the hospital.
He said he was OK with that. (As long as it was someone he disagreed with!)
We cannot yield the control of the language to radical activists. I am pushing back more and more online.
WRT to the genocide charge against Israel, these data are helpful:
https://jwbliliephoto.net/M/Palestinian_Terr_Pop.png
(Most incompetent genocide in history.)
Marcuse – repressive tolerance.
Thank you. Writing this down …
A problem with too much progressive activism is that it is not about being effective. This is in part because a lot of progressivism is about “Tear down the entire system.”
I also agree that much of it is virtue signaling that speaks only to the choir.
I agree with your data — more angry and violent — and that the most obvious answers, like you’re fighting for something virtuous and important, won’t wash because that was also true in the 1960s. Two differences would seem (1) no truly inspirational leaders today comparable to those great reference points for 60s protesters (MLK and Gandhi), and (2) no pushback from authorities means they can get away with increased vehemence and violence, easy to snowball in a mob environment. As much we old hippies despised the college admins and authorities pushing back, that pushback may have kept us more clear-headed per the importance of non-violent parameters for effective protests.
You’re assuming the cause is their primary motivation. This is an error. They seem to know next to nothing about the actual situation in the Middle East. Go ahead – as them say, what the currency of Israel is, what countries border it, anything. A blank look and slogans will be the reply. And shouting.
Most are working out their own psychiatric disorders, primarily narcissism, psychopathy (in their motivation to change others on their side) and, with the MANY women: borderline personality disorder. Which track closely to activists both with Palestine and trans-genderwang bs.
The actual cause is irrelevant, an aesthetic appeal.
D.A.
NYC
Your first paragraph: Dead-on.
I bring up history and analyze the situation based on history, other conflicts, etc. and the response is (always): “I don’t have time for that erudite crap. Slogan 1, Slogan 2, Slogan 3!!!!!!”
I suppose Weather Underground, the Yippies, the Red Brigades, the Bader-Meinhof Gang, and the violent wing of the Students for a Democratic Society, along with the aforementioned Black Panthers, were also exceptions to your recollections of non-violence. It may just have been that your part of the movement (which I think was broader and less ambitious than the pro-Hamas fanatic sliver is today) was the peaceful peaceniks. It wasn’t anything that happened on the college campuses full of draft dodgers that ended the Vietnam War anyway. It was the families of the men who went to fight and came home ruined, or who didn’t come home at all, who told Walter Kronkite that enough was enough in a war that long was lost. If the United States had been winning, you folks demonstrating against the war in much smaller numbers would have been ignored….as Israel is ignoring them now.
Another reason for more angry violence today is that the demonstrators aren’t afraid of provoking the police or of what the criminal justice system will do to them —as your colleagues surely were—because it has been entirely captured by the totalitarian Left. Everyone knows that there will be no “police riots” like at the 1968 Democratic Convention and a criminal trial of Leftists like Bobby Seale and the Chicago Seven could never happen today. While I suppose it is a good thing that the police don’t use batons and tear gas (or live bullets) on peaceful but illegal protesters, that fact means you will have more violence as protesters with agendas more sinister than yours test the limits and find none.
Apologies for mis-spelling Mr. Cronkite’s name. Dang!
Take a look at the praise for the guy who set himself on fire recently.
Demoralization, much?
They are just dealing with you the same way you supported the Vietnamese Communist Party during the Vietnam War. Yes, I think the Vietnam War was a war of justice, just like the Korean War was a war of justice. Most of the Vietnamese civilians who were harmed in the Vietnam War were actually the result of the “people’s war” implemented by the Vietnamese Communist Party. They hid in The civilians forced the U.S. military to shoot at civilians, and it is you left-wing professors who justified the Vietnamese Communist Party and regarded the U.S. military that prevented the spread of the dictatorship as injustice and white colonialism. You have reduced the apparently more moral government of South Vietnam to a regime even more evil than Communist Vietnam which is why today’s leftists regard Israel,Israel is where the left is more able to have freedom of speech is defined by the left as a regime that should not exist, just like the left in the past Viewing the South Vietnamese regime, which they more likely had the right to freedom as something that shouldn’t exist.
Hey, Mr/Ms Turtlehare, I didn’t support the Vietnamese Communisty Party; I opposed the war because it was unnecessary, unjust, and not our business, and Americans were dying in swarms for no good reason. And it’s just like a noob to go after the host like this (did you read the Roolz?)
One more time you make a statement like that and you’re gone, so please read the Roolz and be civil. This is my living room.
Even though at the time I was a Communist I felt that the Vietnam war was unnecessary even if you were anti communist as China and Vietnam were never going to get along which turned out to be the case. Today Vietnam is an American ally. And I feel that it was corrupt governments like South Vietnam at the time that made it possible for people to embrace Communism. I read of a CIA official who had tried to float the idea of a non-corrupt democratic South Vietnamese government to make the Communists less attractive. Would have been a better outcome for everybody if he had been successful.
And today just like Germany in the thirties the far left/Jihadists are making far right autocracies more likely to win the elections.
+ a large number. Your forbearance is admirable in this case.
My suggestion: it’s the distinction between an emerging new form of Honor Culture and an established Enlightenment era Culture of Dignity.
In brief,
When your sense of self worth rests on what others think of you, you’re extremely sensitive to slights and insults. The idea that “words can never hurt you” and you ought to exhibit self-control and ignore them makes no sense. Vulnerability means you retaliate — you have the right to get angry and use violence to “protect” yourself and others.
Since it’s a more primitive way to view justice, the conservative Right has always contained more elements of Honor Culture than the left. But a dangerous mix of new concerns based on empathy, social media, identity, therapy, intersectionality, and anxiety is in my opinion creating another form derived from liberal causes. Thus we see the Islamist thirst for vengeance taken up by secular American college students — along with the attitude of outrage.
I can think of other (possibly more accurate ) reasons progressives are so angry, but this broader perspective potentially explains more.
Very interesting perspective as always — thanks.
+1
The honor culture now on the left resonates with me: I think it is an excellent explanation. Thanks.
I think the current protests on the left are prompted by what they see as violence being committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Think back to 1970 when college campuses erupted in riots after the Kent State massacre, or to the 1968 Democratic Convention when the Chicago Police openly beat demonstrators there. And more recently, to the violent protests after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. So to answer your question, I think the current pro-Palestinian protestors see themselves as opposing injustice and are reacting to what they consider to be the brutal repression of Palestinians in Gaza, and are willing to commit acts of civil disobedience to get their message across.
You’re forgetting about the other incidents I mentioned; I wasn’t just talking about pro-Palestinian protestors.
https://twitter.com/notomedia5/status/1763113584081416440
Why didn’t they protest against Hamas right after Oct 7? The pro-Hamas protests started right away, before Israeli response.
They didn’t because the pro-Palestinian cause has been promulgated on college campuses for decades, certainly since the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit and the onset of the Second Intifada. So the attack by Hamas on 10/7 was seen by the progressive left as an act of justified resistance.
“It wasn’t anything that happened on the college campuses full of draft dodgers that ended the Vietnam War anyway.”
I did a year of graduate study at Kent State in the late 60’s.
I respectfully disagree.
The cause of the anger is pent up frustration, I think. They want the world changed NOW and are frustrated by the lack of “Progress.”
This is closely tied to the idea that *everything* is a social construct. If it’s true that all of our most pressing social problems arise from poorly designed social constructs, these have a relatively easy fix: Better social constructs, which they think they have (e.g. sexless, genderless, raceless, more socialistic/less capitalistic society; a society generally constrained only by imagination, and certainly not by anything called, “Reality.”).
If a thing can be convincingly shown to be a social construct – I mean only in an illusory way – it can be used for dialectical political warfare.
All the contradictory problematics produced from humans existing among other humans fuels the warfare.
And with that I conclude my overcommenting spree! Sorry.
The increasing prevalence of hysteria and psychiatric disorder on the Left and on the Right (e.g., Jan 6) is clear. Perhaps the phenomenon is as James Howard Kunstler predicted: “The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. It is likely to entail political turbulence every bit as extreme as the economic conditions that prompt it. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that two hundred years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a worldwide power shortage.”
Of course, the early stage of the Long Emergency is occurring in a slightly different way than Kunstler supposed. Instead of fossil fuel shortage, we have climate change, wildfires, water shortages, mass migrations, large-scale capital dislocations. All, nonetheless, combining in an atmosphere of the collapse of various modern amenities and increasing… Emergency.
A pervasive attitude of “ends justifying means” seems to be happening at both extremes. Nothing new, but social media exacerbates the anger and feelings of righteousness.
Rage is such a strong and overpowering feeling. It’s not that hard of an emotion to turn on. It’s very easy for many people in this alienating world we live in, especially for younger people. They do seem more behind all this hate as seen on college campuses and on busy freeways. How easy it is to go to a huge crowd and pick up on the emotion of rage and find it galvanizing.
Especially, when the target is successful white people, and a minority who are a safe target to demonize.
Young people seem to find some way to identify with the Gazans, either as people of color or as marginalized minority, hence the Queers for Palestine.
I think Hamas has done a good marketing job.
I’ve heard words like imperialism and colonialism and genocide. All those words,
although not correct in regard to Israel, demand a huge response.
Also, as said there is no real crackdown on the violence. The backing off of law enforcement makes it easy to challenge and probably quite fun for someone that won’t suffer any consequences but do something they are not supposed to, along with a huge crowd of raging people. College students love that stuff.
I do think Islamism is a very big problem. The horror, destruction and rage of Hamas seems to set the stage for this kind of response in England and US college campuses.
To me, this generation seems to be very confused about my aspects of themselves and where they fit in. How focusing to go on a rage to vent!
+1
Hamas’ brilliant marketing job as you rightly point out was built in the USSR in the 1970s when Pal became the cause celeb of “decolonization” and anything that attacked the free west. The KGB literally wrote the script.
That inspiration and propaganda later melded with Islamic fanaticism and the whorish way Arab gvts have used the Pal cause for their own “unity”. Unsuccessfully, I might add.
“Palestine” wasn’t a coherent concept of a nation before the 1960s PLO efforts, then given a shot in the arm by 1967 …. and the Pals predation on the surrounding peoples.
As to WHY they’re so unpopular, again I post here: (and thanks to our host’s forbearance of this): https://democracychronicles.org/worst-houseguests-ever-the-palestinians/
D.A.
NYC
I’m posting without having read other comments in an effort to be as honest as possible and not wanting to “join in” as it were. I feel that many of the people protesting have experienced little suffering themselves. They have learned or been schooled by others what they should be protesting. It doesn’t appear genuine. In many of the audio/visual examples posted here the people involved remind me of toddlers throwing tantrums. These are generalities but I get the sense that most of these people have had it pretty easy in life. They also seem not to have been taught the importance of respect for others. I detect a sense of “this is how I feel” with an exclamation point and “all others be damned”. It is ironic that what they’re typically protesting against is what they are calling “privilege” yet they themselves seem to be quite privileged indeed. And protected. They don’t really seem to have any depth of understanding of the issues they are protesting. Certainly not any historical knowledge. Why is this coming from the “left”? Because they’ve got money. They’re comfortable. People who’ve come up working hard, going without, tend to develop a connection with and an empathy for other human beings. Kids for whom their every feeling was indulged become outraged by rules or limits. I believe it is primarily socio-economic. I don’t detect an ounce of humility in any of these protests
What Rob Henderson calls “luxury beliefs.”
+1
I got into an argument with my 29 year old daughter who has a house and mortgage and 20000 dollars in her savings account.The reason I am giving this information is to support what your comment stated. She had been at a pro Palestinian protest the day before. She is all on board with the lgbtg+++ so fits the profile well. I think she feel guilty of her success and this is her way of feeling righteous.
well said. Nail right on the head there.
D.A.
NYC
I think anger typifies other extreme positions, not just the progressive end. Either, angry people naturally gravitate towards extreme protests as an outlet, or their extreme position makes them feel disenfranchised, and thus angry. Maybe both happen.
It may have something to do with the cynical denial of moral progress. Woke SJWs tend to believe that very little to no progress has been made in regards to race, sex/gender relations, and even colonial injustices. There is definitely a “things are worse than ever” mentality that permeates these movements. If it is believed that the moral justice of modern society is worse than it has ever been, than the nonviolent activism of the past will seem to them as a meaningless waste of time that achieved nothing.
I think there’s definitely an element of that.
Re BLM protests being 93% peaceful. Check the methodology. Strange to think that this seemingly small proportion of looting or rioting caused almost $2 billion in damages. “…Mostly peaceful protest,” as the cnn reported noted, while a building in back of him blazed in flame.
I wondered at that statistic, and spent some time looking at the sources. How they define a “protest” and “violence” seems sort of vague and fluid.
It is hard to compile such data and draw useful conclusions from it unless we agree on the definitions of the basic terms involved.
Overall, I take sort of a cynical view on these movements. I truly believe that a large percentage of current protest movements in the west are the result of poorly informed people being stirred up by agitators.
I further propose that a majority of today’s protesters are drawn not so much by the particulars of the issue at hand, but more how being part of a movement makes them feel.
Similarly, people with violent impulses are going to seek out groups and events that seem most likely to allow them to indulge those impulses without penalty.
Beyond all that, the natural state of humanity is savagery. Prodding someone to barbarism is always easier than convincing them to be civil. Perhaps this has become easier in recent times because so many people are so very convinced of their own perfect moral clarity, and lack the sorts of grounding in reality that some past generations had.
My sense is that there’s been a shift driven largely by social media. In the past, people identified with a cause and then joined like-minded people to fight for it. Now, people tend to identify with the group more than before. It’s easier to resort to violence when you’re fighting another group; more difficult when you’re fighting for a cause that involves human rights and dignity. I know what I’m saying is a broad generalisation, but I’m happy to stand by it as a generalisation, not as a truth that applies to every person on the left (or right, for that matter).
There is a heated “culture of resentment” both on the left side and on the right side of the political spectrum.
The German language has a new noun—“Wutbürger”, which literally means “anger-citizen”/”angry citizen”. The dictionary DUDEN defines a Wutbürger as a “citizen who is protesting and demonstrating in public very fiercely for reasons of disappointment about certain political decisions” (“aus Enttäuschung über bestimmte politische Entscheidungen sehr heftig öffentlich protestierender und demonstrierender Bürger”). Interestingly, the new word was introduced with reference to people who belong to the right or far-right side. However, we see many Wutbürger (or Wutbürgerinnen, to use the feminine form) among the Woke Left as well.
Though for the woke left you should probably use Wutbürger*innen (und außen) in order to be inclusive enough not to draw their ire.
It’s like the horseshoe theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
The farther from the center, the closer each side really is, in volatility anyhow.
There are many interesting thoughtful theories above. At one level, they simply come across as immature. Recently we saw a young man, presumably a med student at UC, attacking the AMA president by bellowing at ear splitting volume. Eight years ago we saw the video of young undergraduates at Yale screaming and cursing a professor over Halloween costumes. They come across as toddlers having a temper tantrum. The difference is that before, it was Halloween costumes and misgendering. Now they have something serious to sink their teeth into with Palestine. I have seen a small handful of men seem to get away with screaming in the professional world, but it catches up with them eventually. Otherwise, that type of behavior will get most of us shown the door. This is the next generation of adults who are going to be responsible for the world. No one likes being screamed at. It alienates, it does not convince. I worry how they are going to function. Perhaps they will hold their breath until their face turns red.
As someone who participated in a number violent demonstrations in the late sixties and early seventies I can attest to the fact that people engage in such behavior because it is fun! It is fun to yell and scream at people you disgree with, and even more fun to destroy their property, all in the name of justice or whatever. The fact that you are part of a crowd provides all the moral justification anyone would ever need. It’s us against them! Hurray for us! At the time when I was active as a protester we were protesting against the Vietnam war, the ending of which was an attainable goal, but riots protesting inequality are doomed to failure for there never has been and never will be such a thing as equality except in regard to artificial insitutitions imposed by law. It is always ugly when the worm turns.
Because we have not taught them history, and what we have taught has been heavily sanitized and censored. add mob mentality to it and it just accentuates the anger.
Simply to me.
The difference between ‘what is’ and ‘how it should be’ is a source of conflict.
There is no room for tolerance, nuances, reason, discourse prolongs the immediate. We are the want it now gratification generation.
Understanding and not having to be right or wrong may go someway to less aggressive behaviours and help arrive at coherant solutions as a means to progress.
But this is not a position to hold as it does not allow signalling, display of the righteous, protector of the cause to flaunt how earnest they be. A right to be sure but when you are not informed and want it NOW, frustration looms.
The Children are angry and the adults have no answers. When the children become adults, they’ll be stuck in the same loop. So it goes…
correct…When the dirty room becomes cleaner, the piles of dust loom larger, and the anointed ones help by claiming they can see the best.
My guess would be that there are now more people in the world and resources are scarcer especially for housing and land, so there is more generational anger than there has ever been in the past. In Melbourne where I live, there is an acute housing shortage with the younger generation unable to afford what earlier generations could on much lower wages. Today’s youth also blame earlier generations for “ruining” the climate. As a result there is intense generational antipathy and I feel that has contributed to woke culture’s weaponisation of “virtue” which often targets older liberals and non-liberals alike. Young people feel disenfranchised and believe they don’t have the same share of the economic pie that older people have.. Speaking to young people I know, those who have access to generational wealth seem less angry and ideologically driven than those without.
My (elderly) first boss drank his coffee out of a cup that said, “Youth and skill is no match for age and treachery.”
I’m putting that on my coffee cup!!