See what you’ve done?

The permissive society exploded into the world’s consciousness in the swinging sixties. Anything goes. Make love, not war. Charles Manson. Okay, scratch that last, but nevertheless the great ills of the modern world have their roots in the way the world changed after the middle of the twentieth century. The wars to end all the wars - I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Cold – ended, and we entered the world of mass communication, the rise and rise of the consumer generations, nebulous but unrealisable notions of equality and something called social justice.

There came about a refusal to judge people for their actions; people were products of their circumstance only the class-cursed establishment would think punishment was just. Post-modernism challenged objective reality, morality became relative and even the very nature of truth was brought into question. If stabbing and raping and stealing and vandalism are a part of your cultural inclinations, who are we to say what’s right or wrong? After all, everything bad in the world is because of western imperialism. Please, formerly oppressed people, come here, enlighten us, have our stuff.

The counter-cultural revolutionaries said stick it to ‘the man’. The educators threw away generations of proven methods and adopted ideologies instead. And who says the shiny-faced, happy, well-fed nuclear family is the right model for humanity; why shouldn’t a child have two daddies, three... if the daddies want it that way? Then, possibly the greatest shackle of all, along came the human rights movement; a movement so wedded to the principles it invents on an almost daily basis that it will brook no dissent in its quest for ‘fairness’ and consider no absurdity invalid.

And where did we end up? Divided. Not into many generally tolerant little tribes, but into two massive blocs loosely described as left and the rest. If you are not of the left you are far-right, by their definition and your only purpose is to be the Eloi, to provide sustenance on which the Morlocks gorge. The majority of ordinary people go about their business, frustrated by but shrugging off the weird excesses of the latest cause célèbre. Meanwhile soviet-style show trials are held on television and across social media.

But the accused isn’t judged by a judge, instead by a self-selected international jury of partisans schooled in the mantras of ‘progressive’ dogma. Now we judge the judge himself – and of course we should – but the court of leftist opinion holds Judge Kavanaugh to be guilty until proved innocent. Better yet that he should be allowed no protestation of innocence because the new orthodoxy of victimhood decrees that the accuser (provided they are the right type of victim) must always be believed, feted even, and held above the normal standards of evidence.

Glorious socialism!

All of this hasn’t just happened; it is not a phenomenon conjured up from nothing. This now regular debacle of ludicrous moral grandstanding is the almost inevitable outcome of postmodern thought. The cultural Marxism which pervaded universities in the 1970s has trickled down into schools and the wolves in sheep’s clothing have occupied positions of power in western governments. The feedback loop created means that the tyranny of many minorities now holds sway over those who can legitimately be called normal.

But it has gone too far. The leftists have been tolerated, like over-indulged children. It’s time to put the toys away and they really don’t like it. Brexit, Trump, AfD, Sebastian Kurz, the Five Star movement are not the extremists the left insist on portraying them as, but the ordinary working people pushing back against the follies of youthful fancy given too much credence. It is not too much to call them spoilt, because this is what they are and this is what they have done.