When Activism and Progressive Ideas Become Little More Than Fashion
After a few years of learning the ropes of the social game known as public school, I thought I had it figured out.
At the time my family of mom, sister, and I had moved from area to area, state to state, each year and I had been accustomed to the 'new kid' label annually. I had also in my struggle to continually find my place in the class hierarchies each school year caused my poor mother a lot of headache.
The game, I realized, was that each year, these kids, these teachers, didn't know me I could pretend to be anyone I wanted to be. Thus, by acting a role in the beginning of the fall, I could establish different results from grades that came before.
We moved to the edge of Central Kansas as I entered eighth grade. Benton Elementary School. The community loved football, country music, football, cars, and football.
I decided to become the kid who, instead of playing with others for recess, sat and read Isaac Asimov in the corner. The science fiction public intellectual. For the first six weeks of school, I established myself as the smart, quiet kid. By the time we entered November, the quiet part had all but evaporated but I had a deep appreciation for reading and a love for science fiction.
The pattern was routine. I'd come into a school for the first few days, establish the 'normal' and find a character-type that was an outlier to it. To stand out. To express some sort of individuality. To not conform with the crowd.
These fictions we create for ourselves in youth are instructive. They give us the chance to experiment with who we might want to be and how we interact with society. As we grow older, these fictions become reality in large and small ways in part because we gravitate toward our in-groups and the rewards of social understanding. We find a character to play, we are accepted as that character, those traits settle in and we more concretely become more fully realized as that person.
Perception becomes reality.
When I hear the modern parent losing his shit over his child adopting a gender-fluid, bisexual, activist archetype I want to tell him to calm down. This is how humans work. His child is doing what all children do. They are trying it on for size. The 'normal' in most American high schools is the same 'normal' everywhere: heterosexual, horny kids who judge each other constantly based upon outward appearance. Calling yourself 'gender-fluid' is just a costume piece to distinguish those outlier kids from everyone else. Certainly, for a minuscule percentage who genuinely have body dysmorphia it has life-changing consequences but for the vast majority, it's a pose to see how it feels.
There is absolutely nothing abnormal or harmful about it. It's like going to college without a declared major and auditing classes to see what you like. In fact, trying it on to see how it feels opens your kid up to a bit more empathy for those kids with genuine issues, doesn't it?
Where things get thorny is the fact that adolescence has now extended far past the teen years and well into the mid-twenties. The result is a generation of college and post-college individuals still experimenting and posturing with their specific identities designed to be seen and evaluated by their peers. Add to that the bizarre but now accepted dopamine rush of securing affirmation via TikTok and Instagram as well as the money to be made if the following is robust and we have a perfect storm of character acting involving real world problems.
An overwhelming 77% of Americans approved of the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd and, in the summer of 2020, 61% of Americans held favorable views of Black Lives Matter. A full 70% of white college students were in lock-step with the #BLM agenda, wearing t-shirts, blacking out (then deleting the blackout then putting it back up) their Instagram feeds, marching in the streets.
Today, less than 45% of Americans are still in favor of the movement (including drops across all racial categories including black Americans) and less than half of those white college students are left in support. It seems that many tried on civil rights activism as n experiment in identity, marched out during the height of the pandemic in order to get out of the house, and decided it wasn't really the character they wanted to embrace.
Activism is getting fashionable rather than effective. At the recent Met Gala, those who care about ridiculously wealthy people dressing up and eating canapés were treated to slogans stitched into gowns that likely cost more than most American's annual salaries: Cara Delevingne with "Peg the Patriarchy," Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney in a banner-like gown that featured multiple, "Equal rights for women" ribbons cascading down from her shoulders, and, of course, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Cruella-esque floor-length white gown with "tax the rich" scrawled on the back of the dress, in large red letters (her matching bag shared the same slogan).
CBS announced a reality show in the works called The Activist that was to feature the social media savvy and following of young activists. From the announcement:
The Activist is a competition series that features six inspiring activists teamed with three high-profile public figures working together to bring meaningful change to one of three vitally important world causes: health, education, and environment.
Activists go head-to-head in challenges to promote their causes, with their success measured via online engagement, social metrics, and hosts’ input. The three teams have one ultimate goal: to create impactful movements that amplify their message, drive action, and advance them to the G20 Summit in Rome, Italy.
Once announced, the idea was so thoroughly panned on Twitter that the company pulled it for retooling.
We have fans of Nicki Minaj marching in protest at the CDC in defiance of vaccines because the Trinidadian-born rapper, singer, and songwriter tweeted that her cousin canceled his wedding due to the COVID vaccine enlarging his balls.
Mega-corprations are now routinely leaving announcements on their websites that they "support Black Lives Matter and causes in pursuit of social justice" and "are commited to diversity and equity as a company." It's obvious that these are merely branding labels used to leverage a faux support of the Woke to garner their cash.
Diversity=Conformity
Equity=Discrimination
Activism=Branding
The danger is that there are real world issues that affect actual people at the end of these slogans. We know a few things about activism and protest in this country:
Perception Becomes Reality
Protest is about awareness
We are divided by rhetoric and misunderstanding
When the general perception of activism is that it is a fashionable pose, real problems are left unsolved. When the awareness that protest foments is an awareness of the fad-like nature of online activism, all of it suffers. When the divides we face in the current culture conflicts are due to badly phrased rhetoric and intentional misunderstandings, we are doomed to simply become a nation of children, searching for our in-crowd and experimenting with identity, screaming at each other.
