Angry Young Turks

From the eminent Dalrock:

I’ll pose the same question back to Ms. Duffy and the commenters who are troubled by the fact that people are angry with the gross injustice which is being done to men, children, and the very institution of marriage:  Why don’t you care?  Why aren’t you angry?

Anger is an entirely healthy response to gross injustice.  Apathy on the other hand is an indication of a profound inability to feel empathy, perhaps even masking a strong level of personal investment in maintaining the injustice itself.

It’s impossible for me to read something like that without reflecting on my own life, and how I’m just another Divorce Baby, growing up in a society of Broken Homes.  Back in High School I used to be a straight-A student; band, football team, track, with a scholarship for University.  But sometime around my senior year I just stopped giving a Fuck.

I stopped believing in the promised rewards for hard work.  Playing by the rules didn’t get me respect or women.  My parents – University educated, an Engineer and an English Major (back before it was completely worthless), got crushed by the recession of the early 90s, and then decided to burn up what little wealth remained by divorcing.  Poverty and Kraft Dinner at home, bullying at school, and a Calculus teacher who resented me for being smarter than him.

And they really expected me to buy into the system?

I should have been an Engineer – they were railroading me into that degree – I should have been socially successful in school, the work ethic I had back then should have paid off, and today I should be sitting in some pretentious suburb, with a loving wife and kids, playing my sax at the local bar on weekends…

But we know that a life like that barely exists anymore.  Maybe I could have made it, but that divorce sent me down another path

Nowadays I’m a bum.  I do a bit of freelance writing to keep me in whiskey and cigarettes, but I’m sure as hell not going to save up or invest in this dying economy.  I remain unconvinced that any relationship has legs, and the most expensive asset I have is an 18 year old sports car, that goes like stink, but would be worthless to anyone who wasn’t a Mechanical Prodigy like you’re truly.

Either I suceed at the dream of being a writer, or I die trying.

Don’t mistake this for a complaint.  I have no regrets; I got out while the Getting Was Good, and here I stand on the cusp of something New and Strange happening in the world of writing and journalism.  But society… society is already starting to vibrate because folks like you and me aren’t Manning Up.

On my YouTube channel, I have an ever-growing fanbase of Young Men from Broken Homes.  I’m sure they spend a lot of time goofing off and playing video games, but when they click on one of my videos, it’s to listen to a twenty minute long, esoteric economic rant – the sort of stuff that only a University Prof should find interesting.  Is this normal?

In cities throughout the Western World, we have protestors organizing to protest nothing; men and women in the prime of their youth are dropping out, camping out, and driving the Mainstream nuts.  They aren’t attending music festivals and dancing naked, while going on the occasional march to change The Establishment – they’re giving up on The Establishment in its entirety.  Is this normal?

Tyler Durden got it:

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

They raised us in a broken world; broken families, broken schools, a broken culture, and a broken economy.  We are the detritus of humanity, our only Use being that of consumer or slave.  They sapped all true Cathartic Value out of life, and expected the machine to keep ticking along.

But now we’re dropping out.

Society created a generation of Young Turks, without wives, or investment in fiat dollars.  They stole our happiness from us, and now marvel that we’re exploring Anti-Statism, Austrian Economics, and Voluntarianism; we’re learning Game, and Going Ghost.

What did they honestly expect?

Society is a rotting carcass, but we’re still here – we’re still strong – and we’re not playing by their rules anymore.

And yes, we are very, very pissed off.