I view it about the same as I viewed a former co-worker who firmly believed that if you were not panicking in an emergency, you were not taking it seriously.
There’s a lot in this world to be angry about. But there’s a difference between, on one hand, being aware of it and contributing to stopping it; and on the other, being angry about everything all the time and making yourself a miserable person. More so if your ‘contribution’ to solving the issues amounts to nothing more than your inappropriate displays of anger toward the people around you because they don’t hold the exact same degree of ardent anger about your issues.
I have a facebook friend who gets positively livid if you don’t “like” & “share” her post about abused children/animals/seniors/etc. She says 'Only like this if you are going actually to SIGN THE PETITION".
Sorry but I just don’t have any more shits to give.
Thank you. This is especially true of SJW, leftists, and feminists:
Example 1: Julie Bindel explains why she hates men: “At least those who perpetrate crimes against women and those who do nothing to stop it.” in a Guardian article.
Example 2: Many feminists consider it unethical for men to talk about discrimination against men, while injustices against women exist.
Conservatives, and Libertarians generally adhere to a different philosophy: live and let live.
That’s really the secret. We’re far too bombarded with messages about how we should think, what we should do, how we should eat, and how we should behave. We literally can’t do them all- there aren’t enough hours in the day, nor does anyone have the capacity for indignation or money to do anything about them.
I mean, we’re supposed to be:
[ul]
[li]Pissed off about rape culture on college campuses[/li][li]Aghast at human trafficking[/li][li]Irritated about wealth inequality[/li][li]Worried about animal abuse[/li][li]Sympathetic to elder scamming[/li][li]Pissed off about exploitation of the third world worker[/li][li]Indignant about the plight of the American blue collar worker.[/li][li]Have a specific opinion about where trans people take shits.[/li][li]Concerned about LGBT discrimination[/li][li]Concerned about anti-Christian agendas[/li][li]Aghast at the “war on the family”[/li][li]Worried about the chronic poor and why they’re that way[/li][li]Concerned about carbon emissions[/li][li]Worried about sustainable seafood[/li][li]Concerned about factory farming[/li][li]Indignant about the plight of the small farmer[/li][li]Recycling everything[/li][/ul]
And that’s just the social stuff. We’re also supposed to be
[ul]
[li]Eating more seafood[/li][li]Eating less fat[/li][li]Eating less carbs[/li][li]Eating less red meat[/li][li]Eating more chicken[/li][li]Eating hormone-free foods[/li][li]Eating mostly a plant based diet[/li][li]Exercising an hour a day[/li][li]Drinking more water[/li][li]Drinking less alcohol[/li][li]Sleeping 8 hours a day[/li][li]Working hard to get ahead[/li][li]Spending more time with our spouses[/li][li]Spending more time with our kids[/li][li]Taking time for ourselves[/li][/ul]
And THEN some dickhead shows up and tells me I should be more concerned when a cop shoots a black guy? It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, but to a large extent, I’ve got a sort of “You should” fatigue going on. There’s just too much stuff going on out there for me to really care about 95% of it.
Yeah, I hate the guilt that I should just be angry about a particular issue, especially when the person guilting me is taking no concrete action of their own. Is there a petition I can sign? Is there a bill under consideration that I can write my elected representatives about? Can I buy X instead of Y? If so, I’ll probably do it. But I’m not going to stew in my own anger and I’m not going to expend a ton of energy to research it on my own.
That is why I confuse people when I describe myself as being conservative while opposing practically every position held by the leadership of the Republican party.
There’s a story I read when I was twelve or so, that’s stuck with me all my life. Anyone know the title?
Some kids on a farm are playing hide and seek when they find an animal corpse, like maybe a stinking dead kitten under a porch. They’re horrified and start looking for death and soon realize that it surrounds them on the farm: dead worms on the road, blood in the barn, a dead chick under a nest, and so on. The more they look, the more they find. The stench of death is everywhere. At last they do the only thing they can do: they put clothespins on their nose and continue playing hide and seek.
Words of wisdom in there, or at least something to think about.
I’m also fond of saying, “If you’re still outraged, you haven’t been paying attention very long.” I’ve been saying that since I was about twenty.
That said, I’m not sure that level of cynicism is healthy. When I’m more serious, I try to remember that basically everyone is doing their best to make it through the day, and if they and I can put some energy into helping one another out and in not being too much of a dick to one another, that’s gotta be enough. The causes I work for may not be the ones you work for, and that’s gotta be okay, as long as you’re not actively involved in making things worse.
You’ve heard of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, right? These media channels are a never-ending torrent of the horrible shit Liberals are doing to destroy America. If you’d take a look at the never-ending parade of fear that the Right-wing media industrial complex churns out every day, maybe you’d think your theory over a bit.
I mean, seriously. You can’t actually believe this, nor can you believe that anyone else would believe that you would believe this.
Or maybe you do believe it. As they say, when you want to fool other people it’s a lot easier if you fool yourself first. Then you can act sincere when you’re fooling everyone else.
You’re in the ballpark, but it isn’t being liberal vs conservative that most often decides this. It’s being young & ambitious (and inexperienced) vs being older & more focused (and experienced, good or bad) that decides it. Thing is in the US currently, people who are involved in (and vocal about) politics when they’re young almost always identify as Democrat and/or liberal.
This to me is like everything else–people freaking out over the people that get obsessive about it, and thus denying the whole idea. No, you can’t be angry 24/7 about everything, but that doesn’t mean you should be cold and unfeeling when you hear about something. Assuming you aren’t dealing with your own overwhelming problems, there should be enough of you left over that you can empathize with others–which includes feeling their anger at injustice.
As for society at large, it really is just a matter of what is novel. You can’t expect those eruptions where everyone cares about a certain thing to happen when the bad stuff is the status quo. It’s only when there’s some spark that society suddenly cares.
Relying on society to care is like relying on a mob to be smart. Better to just focus on getting people to care enough to do something.
Oh, and I share the incredulity on the idea that conservatives don’t expect you to get outraged. I’ve pretty much banished political outrages stuff from my wall–and almost all of it was stuff about Obama. I mean, you have the Religious Right on your side–pretty much an outrage machine.
This is all too familiar. I come from a family of enraged fist-pounders and soapbox-shouters. If you get a critical mass of 3 or more together, it is inevitable that towards the end of the evening a violent revolution of pitchforks and torches is seconds away from spilling out from the dining room into the street.
A few times I’ve asked them why they get so riled up and angry agreeing with each other and why they don’t spend this energy trying to help or convince others. Now, I just go for a walk or read a book in another room
