Posted: Dec 24, 2015 3:30 am
Being an OOF myself, who grew up as a twenteen in the peak early years of American Liberation movements, I saw this kind of thing going on right in front of me, every day.
The dynamic is straightforward and logical, and is not at all isolated to left or right or any other defined group.
The bottom line thing to recognize, is that certain kinds of people in the human spectrum, "get off" on being self-righteous. They give themselves a sense of personal power, and imagine that they achieve higher status because of it. At the ultimate root, seems to be the desire to be respected as a full adult, which most humans get a hunger for starting from the first time someone tells them they can't have whatever they want until they get to be a grownup.
The most intense period of all humans lives where this urge comes to the forefront, is during the transition from child to fully recognized adult, which I refer to as the Twenteens. Until that time, humans are most likely to be shushed and shut down when they try to break out of their child status. Add the environment of College/University, and you have a recipe for a near explosion of large groups of children who are 100% certain that they know everything about everything, better than anyone else.
Political groups seeking power exhibit the same behaviors. A lot of insight can be gained, by recognizing that it is not so much the VIEWPOINTS that those doing the shouting, want to promote, it is their own recognition which they are pushing for.
This is in turn why it is very common to think you see huge hypocrisies. These people want to say something very strongly, so they do. The intensity of their pronouncements has no relation at all to how much they have, or indeed are willing to, think things through rationally, because again, actually solving problems has no place in their agendas.
In the case of the bulk of the "pro womens' rights" people appearing to show support as well for foreigners who mutilate young females, is actually NOT a real hypocrisy, it's actually a show of continuity. Because what they are actually excited to oppose isn't so much oppression of women, it's the rule of the powerful official "grownups," who are making the official rules. Those rule makers, back in the seventies especially, favored two things (or were said to at least). That was telling American women how to behave, and telling foreigners that they had to live like Americans.
It seems to me that this sort of thing is still happening today, to the consternation of my generation who USED to be the rebels, but are not the "official grownups," trying to dictate what's right and wrong.
Those spewing the most vitriol may THINK that they are pushing either for greater freedom, or greater allegiance to grand ideas. But all they are really pushing for, is the sense of adulthood they get from the act of pushing itself.
The dynamic is straightforward and logical, and is not at all isolated to left or right or any other defined group.
The bottom line thing to recognize, is that certain kinds of people in the human spectrum, "get off" on being self-righteous. They give themselves a sense of personal power, and imagine that they achieve higher status because of it. At the ultimate root, seems to be the desire to be respected as a full adult, which most humans get a hunger for starting from the first time someone tells them they can't have whatever they want until they get to be a grownup.
The most intense period of all humans lives where this urge comes to the forefront, is during the transition from child to fully recognized adult, which I refer to as the Twenteens. Until that time, humans are most likely to be shushed and shut down when they try to break out of their child status. Add the environment of College/University, and you have a recipe for a near explosion of large groups of children who are 100% certain that they know everything about everything, better than anyone else.
Political groups seeking power exhibit the same behaviors. A lot of insight can be gained, by recognizing that it is not so much the VIEWPOINTS that those doing the shouting, want to promote, it is their own recognition which they are pushing for.
This is in turn why it is very common to think you see huge hypocrisies. These people want to say something very strongly, so they do. The intensity of their pronouncements has no relation at all to how much they have, or indeed are willing to, think things through rationally, because again, actually solving problems has no place in their agendas.
In the case of the bulk of the "pro womens' rights" people appearing to show support as well for foreigners who mutilate young females, is actually NOT a real hypocrisy, it's actually a show of continuity. Because what they are actually excited to oppose isn't so much oppression of women, it's the rule of the powerful official "grownups," who are making the official rules. Those rule makers, back in the seventies especially, favored two things (or were said to at least). That was telling American women how to behave, and telling foreigners that they had to live like Americans.
It seems to me that this sort of thing is still happening today, to the consternation of my generation who USED to be the rebels, but are not the "official grownups," trying to dictate what's right and wrong.
Those spewing the most vitriol may THINK that they are pushing either for greater freedom, or greater allegiance to grand ideas. But all they are really pushing for, is the sense of adulthood they get from the act of pushing itself.