Last week it was a chair-throwing brawl aboard a luxury cruise ship. This weekend, someone shot up the California Garlic Festival.
Why are so many people so angry?
Well, what happens when you enjoy a lifetime of praise and pampering, and then have to go out into the real world where no one takes you seriously and no one thinks you’re the cat’s meow? If you’re coming from a background of participation trophies, “Good job!”, everybody gets a diploma just for showing up, and extravagant praise for even the most miniscule achievements, real life might be shocking enough to make you angry. As in, “How dare they! Don’t they know who I am?”
Well, they don’t know and they don’t care. Grrrrr!
Kids used to have plenty of ordinary competition. It was called “playing.” If you were good at a game, you usually won. But no matter how good you were, sometimes you lost. It’s a normal part of life. Indeed, it’s very hard to learn anything, very hard to grow, if you never have to deal with failure.
But what if you never had any competition? What if your parents and your teachers spent your whole childhood telling you how fantastic you are?
And meanwhile you watch the nooze, you know what people do if anyone gets in their way, if anyone gets between them and what they want… You can see it a dozen times a day if you want to. Perpetual protest. Antifa riots. “Racist, racist! Biggit, biggit!” Senators throwing tantrums.
The anger feeds on itself. The more you see other people blowing their stacks, the more apt you’ll be to blow yours. That’s why manners were invented! But it’s just not cool anymore to have good manners. That’s no way to become a Youtube phenomenon.
I keep telling them, and they keep not listening, that you can’t just kill the culture without the culture killing you back. Honest.
