Fuck the Revolutionaries

America's a drama queen nation that likes to dress up and play make-believe. A couple of sociopolitical movements highlight the problem.

Tea Partiers and Social Justice Warriors Are the Same People
One of America's drama-queen movements is the Tea Party. They like to see themselves as revolutionaries. They dress up in revolutionary costumes and chant revolutionary slogans, and they seem to consider themselves to be a group of noble people ready to fight to the death to support the most noble causes.

Another drama-queen movement consists of social justice warriors. They also like to see themselves as revolutionaries. They have a different costume aesthetic than the Tea Party, but they still love a good costume, and they have their own revolutionary language and slogans. Of course, they too think they're a group of noble people ready to fight to the death to support the most noble causes.

A Nugget of Truth in a Flaky Crust
From both movements, I occasionally hear of people who have what sound to me like legitimate grievances. So far, so good. I certainly have a lot of gripes with modern America, and it would be stupid to think that I'm the only one who feels that way. The problem with the Tea Party and social justice movements is that they don't give a damn about anyone else with grievances. The things that bother them are the most important issues in the entire world, and their evidence for the importance of their issues is how angry they are.

It seems to me that both groups are real-life role playing some sort of comic-book movie in which they've cast themselves as the heroes.

It also seems to me that both groups are so fucked in the head that they don't realize that they're part of the problem. They portray modern America as a dread wasteland of socialist excess, in the case of the Tea Party, or as a rape culture that hammers women into submission, in the case of the social justice warriors. Their negativity is spread through news and social media, and it contributes to the idea that America is a failed nation on the verge of revolution. It contributes to the us-versus-them mentality that poisons our politics. It hurts the country instead of helping it.

I say these people are fucked in the head because if they shut up long enough to think about things, they'd realize that having a ton of problems that need fixing is the normal state of affairs for a nation like America, and that it's always been that way. They might even realize that America is a better country today than it was in the past, and that their revolutionary bullshit is more likely to erase that progress rather than enhance it.

They might even realize that they share some grievances.

Bored? Dress Up and Revolt!
The problem is that both groups have elevated their first-world problems to comic-book levels, and they've also elevated their own roles as "heroes". They live in a make-believe world where their perceived victimhood becomes their reality. They've let their egos short-circuit their reason.

In a way, this isn't surprising. America's success has also made it a kinda boring place, and people need ways to fight the boredom, to give their lives a little pizzazz. We can fight the boredom through sports and entertainment. Following your favorite football team or pop star gives you something to do, gives you a group to belong to, and makes life a little more fun. We can fight the boredom through hobbies. Learning a craft also gives you something to do, a group to belong to, and a higher level of enjoyment. That kind of thing seems like a healthy response to living in a relatively safe and comfortable society.

But when it comes to drama-queen politics, like the Tea Party and social justice warriors practice, we've entered unhealthy territory. Drama-queen politics divides us into competing tribes. It encourages violence and other forms of mistreatment toward our fellow citizens. It masks the real problems we face.

Are you getting sick of it yet? I sure as hell am, and I doubt that I'm the only one.

Time to Grow Up
It's time for America to calm down and start acting like a mature, rational civilization. We need to spend more time trying to get the facts and less time listening to people who want us to be outraged.

But even more importantly, we need to remember that whatever political tribe we belong to, we all belong to an even higher-level tribe. We're all Americans. We might not agree on things, we might not even like each other much, but at the end of the day we're citizens of a pretty good nation that has given us a pretty good life, and if we're smart, we can ensure that it will remain a good nation for a long, long time.

We might even make it better.

Lose the costumes, America. Lose the anger. Lose the tribal divisions. We have things to do, and we don't need to waste any more time and effort wallowing in drama.