America is in a sad state of affairs right now. People get more offended and outraged by absolutely anything these days than any other time in this country that I am aware of. You have college kids complaining about Halloween costumes. You have other college kids basically complaining that colleges aren’t segregated enough. You have even more college students trying to boycott speakers they don’t agree with. There are people protesting that police are killing citizens of a particular race, all the while seemingly uninterested with all the other colors of people that police have also been killing. There are even people protesting that other people are dispensing actual factual statistics about constructed oppression narratives.
I tend to blame most of this on the narcissistic, one-sided, bias-affirming nature of social media. In the past, if you held a view and felt the need to air that view out in public, you would also need to be willing to be confronted by people who might actually provide an opposing view. In the current era of selective friend-collecting and rampant thumbs-up desperation, it’s possible for individuals to state an opinion while being surrounded by only people who share that same view, regardless of how well thought-out that view actually is. If you hold some particular view, and only willingly surround yourself with people who parrot that same view, you tend to develop the sense that you are right about that view, regardless of the facts. If I believe that the ocean is orange, and only surround myself with people who also believe the ocean is orange, I have effectively proven that the ocean is orange via my own self-constructed web of bias.
This largely explains what is wrong with many of these whiney college children out there. They went from the life of high school student, dependent on their parents, rarely needing to formulate a well-developed opinion on anything, right into being a college student. A college student who all of a sudden feels that they have an obligation to start voicing their opinions on the world, despite not being worldly, and not having learned how to formulate an opinion that isn’t merely regurgitated in the first place. Colleges are predominantly liberal institutions, so it makes sense that college kids would adopt and mimic the sensibilities of those who are”teaching” them about the world. This is quite similar to the way a racist father tends to raise a racist child, or why youngsters tend to mirror the political leanings of their parents. Kids are being fed a one-sided dialogue instead of being taught how to engage in critical thinking and actually question the information they are bombarded with.
When kids decide to protest things on college campuses, the majority of the time, all they are doing is complaining that someone doesn’t express the same view that they do. They have been taught that there is a “correct” way and a “wrong” way to think about given subjects, and then react in a childlike manner when that view is tested. The rise of trigger warnings and safe spaces is merely their way of trying to justify, via buzzwords, this childish mindset of being unable to handle perspectives outside of their own indoctrinated views. This very much represents a failing of the college system to help kids grow into open-minded freethinkers. Instead they have created waves of brats who protest things that aren’t remotely worthy of being protested. If somebody says something you don’t agree with, your course of action as an intellectual, is to rightfully disagree and move on with your life, or engage in a civil debate on the topic. You don’t take to social media and try to start a movement, or try to get some form of authority to block that individual’s freedom of speech.
Back when I was in college, in the pre-baby-era, groups with various agendas were given free reign to have peaceful protests in the main quad area of our campus. It was not unusual to get out of class and pass a group of Christians with signs picketing abortion, complete with requisite graphic photos. Members of the LaRouche movement could also regularly be found carrying on about something, of which I have no idea, because I was too busy racing back to my dorm to be antisocial and play some Quake3 on those speedy college servers. Regardless of who was on campus though, there was never any violence that I’m aware of, and students never decided to protest or try to get anyone removed from campus. The students seemed to understand the concepts of freedom of speech and differing opinions. Needless to say, I’m thankful I went to college when I did, and avoided the baby-era altogether.
It’s not only college kids who can’t seem to grasp when something is worthy of protesting, and when it isn’t, however. You have groups like third-wave feminists whose more extremist branches have taken to protesting anyone who doesn’t goosestep along to their ideology, even going so far as to assault people, make attempts to get people fired, and call in bomb threats at events. Those all seem like rational adult ways to go about engaging in a public discourse about current events. If all these toddler-sensibility types were recent college grads it might make sense that they believe that anyone with a dissenting opinion is an “enemy” who needs to be disposed of, rather than debated, but unfortunately some of these third-wavers are grown-ass adults. Once again though, when you have a group of people who are isolated in their own group, left to stew in their own ideologies and anger, they start to view themselves as being on the right side of any discourse.
In steps social media again, as all the oppressed and disenfranchised are bombarded with stories and tweets about people acting like complete fools in the face of those they disagree with. Word on the street is that when you disagree with something, all you need to do is act like a petulant child, receive a little press for doing so, and you’ve as good at won the battle. Never mind the fact that most of the rational human beings witnessing these infantile outbursts can’t help but feel that you’re mildly underdeveloped in the grey matter department.
This mindset unfortunately starts to spread around the populace like a highly contagious disease. The next thing you know, you’ve got people blocking traffic to somehow protest police violence. Blocking a highway to protest a corrupt police force is like protesting female genital mutilation by refusing to floss your teeth. It illustrates a complete lack of understanding of cause and effect. Your protest needs to have at least something to do with whatever it is you’re protesting. Otherwise you’re just aimlessly protesting for the sake of having a protest. If aimless protests actually worked, I’d go protest human trafficking by throwing various lunch meats at school children. You’re welcome world, for me solving the slave trade and all. And you’re welcome school children for all that free tasty bologna I lobbed at your faces.
You can’t blame Americans for not quite grasping how to effectively protest though. We have absolutely zero history of effective protesting after all. Have a seat on my lap parts and I’ll share with you a story. You see… there was a time in history when black folks weren’t allowed to sit in the front “white” rows of seats on buses in the United States. Then one day, a woman took a stand and protested by throwing heads of cabbage at a Clydesdale horse. Except that didn’t occur, because this event happened in 1955, back when people were evidently a little less dense than they seem to be today. It also didn’t involve vegetables and horses, but rather a refusal to give up a seat, which happened to directly correlate with the subject that was being protested. It was an effective protest because the protest actually correlated to what was being protested. Outkast named a song after this chick. Anyone name a songs after you yet? Didn’t think so, Billy.
Somewhere along the way, protests have merely become the latest opiate of the masses. These people don’t even seem to know why they protest, but it gives them some sort of comfort that they’re accomplishing something, regardless of whether the protest has any actual effect. I guess the general consensus is that if you end up in a blurb on some online news blog, you’ve truly won a battle of some sort. Except that when tomorrow rolls around, absolutely nothing will have changed. People in the U.S. these days seem to have the passion, but completely lack direction. Passion without direction doesn’t lead to results.
Unfortunately, there are even waves of people out there who actually think engaging in violence with people who have different views is not only acceptable, but a commendable course of action. Recently, a group of KKK members decided to have a rally in Anaheim, California, and were violently attacked by a group of protesters. To anyone of moderate intellect, the protesters were obviously in the wrong, since they decided to break the law and assault a group who were merely voicing a differing opinion. Regardless of how wrong or harmful someone else’s views are, you are never justified in physically attacking that person. Anyone who has made it to adulthood, shouldn’t need to have this explained to them. You are free to challenge the views of those you disagree with, but that is where your rights end.
Further bolstering this theme of social media and anti-intellectualism, I noticed an alarming amount of people who were actually cheering these violent criminals for attacking the Klan members. Most of our society agrees that the KKK harbor harmful views about race, but most of society also recognizes that violence is never a justifiable response to harmful views. Those who don’t realize this usually end up in those places we have set aside, called prisons, which is hopefully where these violent protesters end up. Anyone who feels it is acceptable to physically attack somebody who has a differing view, is more of a danger to our society than anyone who holds a harmful view but avoids violent confrontation. In short, fuck both of these groups, and fuck you if you agree with either. Also, learn how to protest like a grown-ass rational adult.
