My small town has a bad reputation in the county as being fairly whiny.
This reputation is sort of deserved. Let me pick an example that is safe for me to hold up to laughter, as I've personally uttered all the words on both sides of the controversy. It's not about the specific reality, it's all about how the ideals of a better world are being betrayed by some hypothetical action. Clearly, for many issues, you can betray a world free of hatred and full of natural goodness no matter what you do.
There is a lovely hillside next to my daughter's school. We parents sit on the hillside and watch as the kids form their own society and experience a bit of self-directed behavior (which is very rare inside the school walls).
This being a forested bit of land, there's a tendency to have giant pieces of tree lieing about. The kids being descended from forest dwelling primates have a tendency to pick up the sticks and start whirling them about most happily.
So 1/2 the parents are all "Oh, jeez, don't they know about bullying in schools? The violence of these big boys, they are scaring the little kids, I can't believe this is going on in Takoma Park!" Then on the days when people start to get the kids to limit the stick whirling, the other half of the parents are all, "Oh, jeez, don't they know about the loss of freedom that our kids suffer from in this over worried society? We need more nature and running and why do people have to be so freaking worried about every little thing? Do we account for the cost of never risking a bit of ourselves when we rule out anything that might break a bone? "
Both sides agree that some stick swinging is a bit much and that some stick swinging is fine, and that people do need to wander about in nature more than they tend do in our strange society, and that gangs of bullies picking on girls and small boys shouldn't be a permanent feature. Ahh, but it is so much fun to throw our stones next to the stick swinging children.
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