More Deadly Than Nihilism
The contemporary "woke" left is a very curious mix of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and 13th century Roman Catholic Flagellants.
The actions of Democrats when they are in charge of government show they see a very different America than the one that exists. No matter where they look, everything they see is wrong, dark and evil.
Their conception of America as a dark, dystopian place in need of being "transformed" by their self-anointed "brilliance" goes deeper than pessimism or nihilism - it is on the verge of becoming suicidal misanthropy - a classic example of needing to destroy the village in order to save it.
Today, it is difficult not to see the characteristics of sadomasochism embodied in the beliefs and actions of the left - the Democrats in particular. Nowhere has this been more prominently displayed than in the left's desperate embrace or the narratives of "white privilege/rage/supremacy" and "anti-racism".
In 2018, Columbia linguistics professor John McWhorter wrote:
“…today’s “woke,” educated white people would quite often lap up being apprised of the racism inside of them by a black speaker they paid, lodged, and fed. That speaker as often as not today is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who charismatically limns America as a cesspool of bigotry in his writing and in talks nationwide, and is joyously celebrated for it by the very people he is insulting.”
The progressive left find pleasure in their self-inflicted pain but really enjoy dosing it out to non-progressives as well. Their sadism kicks in when others who do not share their delusions are also harmed. To the left, collateral damage is always a delicious aperitif.
In the past, I have compared the "woke" left to a very curious mix of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (the Spanish Inquisition) and the Flagellants, the 13th century group of Roman Catholics who practiced mortification of the flesh by various means.
Several years ago, I observed there appears to be a certain segment of our society that is not happy unless they are unhappy. In a weird nexus of sadomasochism and progressive asceticism, they claim to dislike pain but seek happiness in making others unhappy, often by establishing an expectation of strict adherence to some sort of postmodernist dogma.
Due to the massive contradictions in that last paragraph, it is a complex concept to contemplate. I have observed these folks:
Revel in pain, yet are perpetually aggrieved and offended by, and afraid of, everything.
Claim to want to end problems but do so by inflicting pain on others.
Demand strict compliance to the rules of engagement of their religion, a functional impossibility when those rules are based on an ideology that claims all existence is merely perception and there are no rules.
It is enough to drive anyone mad.
While researching the science of finding pleasure in pain, I ran across an article titled “Are You Addicted to Unhappiness?” at "Psychology Today", listing characteristics of the chronically unhappy (I just picked a few). People addicted to unhappiness:
Find reasons to be miserable when life gets “too good.”
Prefer to play the victim role and blame others rather than take personal responsibility for their choices.
Compete with friends and colleagues to see who has it the hardest.
Have difficulty setting and achieving goals, or conversely achieve goals only to find that they can’t enjoy their success.
Struggle to bounce back when things don’t go their way.
Feel enslaved to their emotions and powerless to change.
Feel dissatisfied even when life is going well.
Have dramatic, unfulfilling relationships.
My conclusion is the perpetually aggrieved are essentially consumers of unhappiness – it is as essential to them as food, clothing and shelter are to the rest of us. They have created this Hobbesian universe where pain, oppression and discord rule the day – but isn’t this what progressivism teaches? That there is only envy, rich people are only rich because they are stealing from the poor, earth’s climate is doomed due to capitalists willing allow factories to belch smoke into the air and deadly chemicals into the rivers for nothing other than naked profit and everybody hates everybody else?
I was taught that the world was filled with beauty and it is natural to seek good feeling and pleasure – not necessarily to be hedonistic, but to be happy. Even the Declaration of Independence lists the “Pursuit of Happiness” right up there with life and liberty and yet these snowflakes pursue unhappiness.
There does seem to be a proclivity for certain people to seek out pleasure through negative experiences.
In a very interesting 2007 study of the popularity of horror films and horrific videogames conducted by Eduardo Andrade (University of California, Berkeley) and Joel B. Cohen (University of Florida), they noted that horror movie viewers are happy to be unhappy, that people experience both negative and positive emotions simultaneously and people may actually enjoy being scared, not just when the "threat" is removed.
As the authors put it, “the most pleasant moments of a particular event may also be the most fearful.”
Like the horror movie loving subjects of the aforementioned study, America is in the grip of adults who are consumers of unhappiness.
They don’t feel pleasure, at least in the normal sense, because they can only be satisfied by more unhappiness. When people are satisfied to be happy in their unhappiness, the future is meaningless and people are willing to be ruled by any person or government that promises to at least spread the unhappiness equally.
Nobody said it makes sense.