Review of Modern Thought
2nd May 2018
Okay, here’s my question for the hopeful hippies, then: if this marvelous free tool that broke down all the rules empowered the dolts and crazies and jerks, would it have been so bad if civility had been held up as a virtue and profanity discouraged? It would’ve broken down eventually, because there are always elements of the culture that want to break old norms for the joy of it, or because they are tools of existing power structures. But the lefty side of the culture spent the last half-century demeaning all the “phony” rules of decorum and applauding the poke in the sternum, the F word, the humiliation of the ideal of self-restraint, and this is what you got. You thought everyone would be hippies and hippies would be mellow. You got a hundred million Abbie Hoffmans. Great job!