Sunday, March 18, 2012

Militant Cynicism

I'm wondering if there is such a thing as militant cynicism. The whole occupy movement seems to be based on that kind of thing - "you's are all evil and bad and wrong and we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more!" Now, should that be a chant (and I'm sure better chant writers than me could make it a little more snappy!) one wonders how it escalates. It hasn't escalated, one suspects, because there isn't really an alternative proposition that people can support, as I blogged about yesterday. In the absence then of an alternative, are people just venting because they don't have stuff, or because they're just cynical, in an extension of a kind of teen angst? Perhaps as the world has gotten generally wealthier, particularly in the developed world (Occupy Bengaluru, anyone?) teenagers are hanging on to their angst for longer, perhaps into their twenties. But there doesn't seem to be a point to escalate to, because there's no real philosophical substance to cynicism, and therefore it's difficult to make the leap to militancy (at least for the protesters, whatever about the cops!)

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