Please...Grow Up

     "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things." [1 Corinthians 13:11, KJV] This familiar verse is from one of Paul's letter to the Christian community in Corinth and is found in the Belated Testament, what Christians call the New Testament. Peter, you're worrying me! Do not fear, Sancho. I'm still my Gnostic self! However, I was at a Celebration of Life service the other day for an old family friend, and spent a couple of hours being marinated in the evangelicalism of my youth (more about that in another piece). And it reminded me that while I believe the "New" Testament cannot compare to the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) either aesthetically or from a literary point of view, it can still offer some pearls of wisdom like the verse quoted above. So, what's the point? I'm glad you asked! Uh-oh...
    Recently, a group called “Just Stop Oil” has been involved in various attacks, including but not limited to, throwing mashed potatoes at a Monet painting in Germany; throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh's Sunflowers; and throwing cake at the Mona Lisa. Hmmm...a food motif! Not to be outdone, other activists have been dumping milk on supermarket floors in the United Kingdom in order to, I think, protest the world-ending impact that is the dairy industry...oh, and I almost forgot, to agitate for a plant-based future. Others have spent a significant amount of their free time blocking traffic on major British and American highways by sitting down in the middle of intersections AND sometimes gluing their hands to the highway...yes, you read that right! My favorite is the frighteningly funny episode where, oh, hell, I'm just going to quote the report I read: "Climate protesters who glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen showroom in Germany needed to use the toilet - but now complain the company has refused to provide the group with 'a bowl to urinate and defecate' in." You know things are getting tough in the protesting business when the people whose lives and careers you are trying to destroy won't help you relieve yourself.

    Now, I'm all for protesting...honest...well, up to a point. The Black Lives Matter people had every right to march through the streets of American cities in the summer of 2021. What they didn't have the right to do was destroy property, loot for their favorite televisions and stereos, and basically ruin the lives of the people they were supposedly supporting. But again, that's another upcoming column. This country was founded on protests. The Boston Tea Party; The Abolitionists; Women's Suffrage, etc. Sometimes it's the only way to move people. But getting back to these young people mentioned above. If you're a parent (And please, no giving me crap for not being a parent. I had parents and I've closely watched a lot of you as you've been parents.) you recognize the actions I've described above: throwing food, spilling milk, throwing tantrums, smearing paint, etc. You know what this behavior is? Childish. It's the behavior of toddlers. Thus the opening verse of this piece. These kids (in their early twenties and older, which makes them adults) have not put away their childish things. Their self-righteousness is second only to their narrow-mindedness, if not their galactic stupidity. (This is where I really wanted to rip into the most annoying youngster of the last 20 years...Greta Thunberg. If there ever was a kid who should be seen and not heard, it's her. But the pandemic seems to have boxed her into a corner, at least for now, so I'll shut up.)

    The upside is, these protests have been universally condemned, well, except of course, by your favorite rag and mine, The New York Times. An opinion writer for The Times wrote, "We cannot afford to forgo creative methods that might further the cause." Oh, please. Talk about self-righteousness... which reminds me; a Hollywood writer recently argued that radical environmentalists make great super-villians because they are so frighteningly convinced of the rightness of their cause, and just as unshakably determined to make everybody's lives worse. 

    But what's the bigger point here? The fact that people of intelligence are starting to get fed up with these nitwits is a good thing, right? Yes, Peter, it's a good thing. But, and there's always a but. Of course, there is. Why these types of acts? Well, why do toddlers throw tantrums? Because they want/need something. And they're not able yet, to ask intelligently. It's not their fault...they're toddlers! And hopefully their parents will teach them as time goes on.

    Same with these young adults. They throw tantrums, and paint, and food, and feces because they want something and have absolutely no idea how to get it. Whether it's poverty, nuclear weapons, animal rights...these protesters, especially the youngsters, are clueless in the way they go about trying to get what they want. And trust me, it works both ways. Remember the moral toddlers that stormed the Capitol building? They weren't leftists. They were children, but they weren't leftists. And that dope who was dressed up like Fred Flinstone going to a Water Buffalo Lodge meeting? He and his supposedly adult friends were throwing a tantrum. 

    And maybe that's what this is all about. Infantile minds who don't really know how to create a program or how to work within a certain set of rules, guidelines, and the formal and informal structures that have been erected over the years. Instead, it's just about them. It's a show. It's making sure your friends have their phone videos on while you desecrate great works of Western Civilization. Throwing food and feces at DaVinci and Monet? Really? As I've written before, if we lived in a more civilized time, these people would be drawn and quartered with their severed heads put on pikes on the outskirts of the city for all to see (just kidding, people....sort of). 

    In conclusion to this somewhat, get off my lawn rant, the difference between moral adolescence and adulthood, properly understood, is the faculty of reasoning; defining moral goals and formulating realistic solutions. These nitwits are young adults. It's time they started acting like it, and started putting away their childish things.

write to Peter at: magtour@icloud.com