Of Pity And Tantrums

Here's what is wrong with modern Western society:

Instead of "Safe Spaces," what is really needed are time-out corners.

When you really think about it, the current SJW movement is nothing more than a bunch of over-grown toddlers acting out.  There are two classic behaviors at work here: "pity party" and "tantrum".

In the "pity party" instance, the SJWs are doing everything they can to make themselves victims.  They will mutilate their bodies, act anti-socially, bully, demean, and violently act out, and then run yelping to Mommy when someone slaps back.  This is the classic nobody-loves-me/everybody-hates-me ruse.  In order to gain sympathy and attention, a toddler will provoke one party to get sympathy from another.  These personalities are unable to validate themselves, so they require outside input to feel validated.

In the "tantrum" behavior, which is really an escalation of the "pity party" scenario, the toddler falls down on the ground kicking and screaming because they are not receiving the desired attention any other way.  Unable to express frustration or argue reasonably in favor of a desired outcome, the toddler ramps up the violent outbursts until someone pays attention.

In a classic example, the SJW will cover his or her body with tattoos and body piercings to get attention.  When that fails (usually because everyone else is doing it too) they turn to fashion, cosmetics and (in extreme cases) surgery to get attention.  When that fails, they turn to throwing rocks, breaking windows and burning cars until the adults acknowledge their self-pity.  In most cases, when the adults finally react, it is with equal but opposite force, further reinforcing their self-pity.  This, in turn, leads to further escalation by all parties involved.

The rash of self-induced victimhood is a prime example of this "game" being played out.  Women filing false rape accusations; racial and religious minorities painting slurs on their houses and cars, and so forth.  All this is nothing more than an escalated case of me-too syndrome seeking external attention and validation.

All of this started in the 1960s.  The Baby Boom generation, realizing their political and economic power in numbers, rejected "authority" and classical institutions in favor of...well, absolutely no control at all.

There came a wave of parents who wanted to be "friends" with their kids, rather than guides to proper social interaction.  Those kids devised the "self-esteem" movement, where no child could be allowed to fail or feel inadequate.  This, in turn, led to an entire generation of (physical) adults who are little more than over-grown toddlers, unable to interact with polite society on an adult level.

Suppose I didn't bathe, shave or change clothes for a month.  I slopped myself with mud and filth, didn't brush my teeth and behaved like a heathen.  Then I went to a black-tie event and demanded everyone accept me as is, throwing a huge fit and starting a food fight when I was shunned.  That is more or less what has happened in Western society.

Furthermore, with each succeeding generation, the behavior gets worse and worse, while the preceding generation is increasingly unable to deal with it on an adult and reasonable level.  Thus, the West now has an entire generation of unrestrained, uneducated and unfulfilled over-grown toddlers who are moving back home at 30 years old because they can't survive in the real world, while evolving into electronic troglodytes ranting against an unfair world.

In the final analysis, the world is far from fair.  It is chock-a-block full of people competing for resources motivated by self-interests.  Over millennia, humanity has developed manners and ethics to keep social interaction as civil as possible while going about our in-born and instinctive goals.  It is a delicate dance of recognizing our basest needs with the overall goal of creating a civilization.

As the overlaid veneer of civil society fades, there is nothing left but the base motivations...me, Me, ME!  Undisciplined adults raising undisciplined children has left an entire civilization with unreasoning and immature individuals, who must either find it within themselves to repair the damage, or face the collapse of the civilization.

Japan and China have addressed this situation by creating authoritarian States that foster robotic populations incapable of creativity, inspiration or innovation.  Instead, they take the inventions of others and, through rigorous trial and error, manufacture iterations of the same basic ideas.  There is no creative leap involved.  It is a terrible sacrifice for those societies, but it has been rewarded with financial success and orderly cultures - at least on the surface.

The West is known for its intuitive leaps in innovation.  The West invented "outside the box" thinking because of a cultural desire for Truth embedded in the Christian substrate of the culture.  Unable to reconcile its religious roots with its inherent anti-authoritarianism, it is eating itself alive by rejecting the philosophical scaffolding on which it stands, but unable to replace it with the only viable alternative, in terms of social order.

Without the self-organizing concept of the Divine within one's self and others, the West has no foundation on which to grow and expand.  It has been reduced to temper tantrums, which on the global stage manifest as military adventurism.  Without the recognition of the Divine spark, there is no support for diplomacy, and so the only recourse is bombing and shows of force.

As of this time, the West only recognizes two options - eternal childhood or post-modernist authoritarianism.  Unable to culturally accept either course, it is at an impasse

When one comes to a fork in the road and one is loathe to choose either path, the only alternatives are to forge a new path, or sit down and wait to die.  At the moment, the West seems content to choose the latter.