The Mystery of the Passionate Yet Uninformed Activist.
Everybody likes a spectacle. If there is an extravaganza to see, people will travel from near and far to see it. Although, I’ve never been very impressed by the people who travel from near. Far seems harder. But people want to see a show, and history teaches us that the more hysterical, the more twisted, and frankly, the more gruesome, the better.
Back when executions were public, tens of thousands of people would put on their Sunday best and toddle down to the center of town to watch a good hanging, or burning, or crushing by heavy stone. In more recent times, after some meddling do-gooders decided that watching the local witch being drawn and quartered might not be the healthiest way for school children to spend their time, we’ve had to redirect our blood-lust to things like NFL football, Reddit videos of street fights, and of course, the modern political or social “cause”.
As soon as some issue or event goes viral, or somehow captures the national attention, there are suddenly thousands or even millions of people tweeting, posting, protesting, chanting and demanding that some government, person or some group do something or stop doing something NOW! And while engagement, protest, expression, etc, are all great in concept, I’ve been struck by how many people angrily and uncompromisingly demanding things have absolutely no…
