I'm not angry, I'm disappointed 6: Legitimate complaints and right wing activism

The left is the center and the right is the new revolution. This is the last point in the documentary, which is full of interesting snippets, but this is the meat. This guy is pretty awesome anyway, but he's also one of the few academics you see popping in lots and lots of political debates, the other obvious one being Dawkins, who's just a shade too zealous to be taken seriously by his opponents. But this point, and the elaboration on Berlusconi are essentially the reason behind the weird right wing revolution that's been growing since the late 70's. The people, individual freedoms, revolution. All these themes are right wing now. Reagan and Thatcher began this thing in the west, the ayatollah in the Iran. The resolute reclamation of rhetoric and narrative from the left. Now, the status quo is heavily under attack again. But the status quo is now the liberal left, and the future is bleak.

I'm not angry, I'm disappointed 5: Neutral zones

Political correctness is the new racism. This joke is right on the nose concerning the problem with political correctness, it's really just as bad to overcompensate. And we're right in the middle of it. Race should for all intents and purposes be over, except it's really not, nor is sexism, homophobia or really any kind of bigotry. And it's not going to go away by pretending there's a neutral way to address the issue, because those just don't last. Remember when it was progressive to call African-Americans negroes? There's no point in trying to forbid people to use any kind of word, the word disappears from polite conversation, but that doesn't mean it's gone. There isn't an easy answer for this, aside from subtly making sure racists or sexists ore otherwise feel like their idiots for thinking these things. The ridiculously heavy-handed measures in place these days are not only condescending, but counterproductive. They only feed into already overripe persecution complexes.

I'm not angry I'm disappointed 4: Living in a mediocre world

The inability of the powers that be not to take themselves seriously has led to, what in my opinion is the most fertile artistic period since the 1960's, that is if you can stand the irony. It's so difficult to be authentic when everything seems so reminiscent of a sitcom. The only defining paradigm is if you mean it seriously. Because if you do, and it's not great, you've failed. In fact it's a lot easier not to take it seriously at all. I think it's one of the main reasons there's so much weird Nerd culture leaking into the main stream these days. It's almost always genre fare, but it's still a hundred times better than a sitcom anyone under forty can see is blatantly manufactured. Technology has a lot to do with it, but it's not everything. It just allowed a certain saturation point to be reached a lot earlier than it would have otherwise. Information itself has become a different animal. At the risk of sounding like a cybergoth, it's like it's becoming self-aware, but thinks everything is either lame or sorta cool because at least it's it's own thing.

I'm not angry I'm disappointed 3: Corporate Anarchy

Government suffers from being disappointed in it's citizens as well. Over the last thirty years or so, more and more of it's former core tasks have been disappearing due to the mistaken belief that the market will solve everything. Of course, business aren't the least bit interested in anything aside from profit. Governments tend to think that profits are connected to efficiency through a nebulous process carefully obfuscated by their top economics. Now left with virtually nothing to do, they're turning on their own citizens. If you've wondered why there seems to be nothing they don't want to know about you, this is why. Governments have little else to do these days but mine data and legislate on the basis of this, and facilitate a market economy which is totally free, except when it's about to fail, in which case it's propped up to fail at a later date. They can now spend all of their time worrying about you, and intervene whenever they like. If they can't get to you, they'll wait for some private entity to get you.

I'm not angry, I'm dissapointed 2: Dark clouds

Alright, here's a new idea: How's bout of thematic outrage. After finishing yesterday's post I realised that the problem is actually a lot broader than just end of the world enthusiasts, it's more a general vibe. The feeling I'm getting is our theme for the week. The kind of horrifying speech where a parent or another authority figure berates you in a passive aggressive manner about thinking about the future without giving you the option of being legitimately angry at them, even stupidly. When teenage rebellion seems unmanageable they suddenly discovered the best way of making it so much worse. If even the worst you can do, just gets a few tuts, what choice do you have? It's interesting finally realising why I hated school so much. Nothing I did wrong ever made anyone angry, nothing I did right ever got anything but damned with faint praise.

I'm not angry I'm disappointed: End of the world threat level: Beige

This song is probably seriously meant, but that doesn't make it's message any less ridiculous. All apocalypses are personal, first and foremost. And let's not forget the hundreds of thousands of Christians happily awaiting the end, as certain groups have since the invention of religion. But it's a common factor in secular thinking as well. As you grow older the idiotic idea takes hold that things are worse than they were, across the board. This especially absurd considering that we are now living in the most gilded of all golden ages. Prophets of doom tend to conveniently forget that at no point in human history as many people have had their basic needs taken care of as right now, except maybe last year. People tend to forget that though some things might have been better 20 years ago for you personally, lots of things weren't. People shocked at a tiny increase in crime rates compared to last year really ought to look up the average chance of dying due to violent street crime a hundred years ago. Or, for that matter, look up how statistics actually work before talking about increases between years that don't take any other factors in account, like the last ten years, or other components of the easily skewed numbers.