Activism and seriousness.

Contemporary public discourse is remarkable for one paradoxical type of participant. This is the grimly unserious ideologue, the fairweather fanatic. Many of the most vocal activists are notable both for their unseriousness and their unawareness of it. This is easily seen, for example, with regard to "climate change." Whatever one may think of the issues or merits of a particular claim one cannot help but notice how unserious climate change activists are. If they were serious, they would support actual science pertaining to the subject. Instead they promote and refer to scientific-sounding claims that are not scientific. Actual science would not seek to censor conflicting views from scientific publications. This is not serious science. Claims of warming based on climate modeling would be self-conscious about "correction factors," and "data smoothing." There would be no reference to "consensus" as a surrogate for scientific rigor. Such conduct is not serious. Activists who do believe that the Earth faces CO2-caused climate catastrophe within the next couple of decades would not be finicky about the use of nuclear power as a replacement for fossil fuels. Climate change celebrities would not jet around to media events to demonstrate how dedicated they are to the cause. This is not serious.

This same lack of seriousness is also observed in discourse regarding "toxic masculinity," "white privilege," and "cultural appropriation." None of these things are subjects that lend themselves to thoughtful discussion, and none of them are starting points for people who are serious about their views. These terms are tactical rather than descriptive. They are meant to convey information regarding the character of groups of people rather than characteristics of actual phenomena. They are introduced into public discourse not as perspectives by which to facilitate discussion, but rather are hostile devices by which to foreclose it. People who claim to feel unsafe because of the opinions of another are not serious. People who imply that words are violence are not serious. They think they are, but they are not. Equating disagreement with "hate" is not serious, nor is implying that someone is hateful by characterizing honest opinions as a phobia. The people who think that anything that hurts their feelings, or conflicts with their world-view is racist, or fill-in-the-blank phobic are unserious.

This lack of seriousness is, in essence, playacting. The modern activist thinks that there is a casting call for the eco-warrior, provided it is does not involve too much effort or inconvenience. There is an assumption that someone is needed to play the roles of the early civil rights activists who contended with actual violence, but who now may do so by merely re-tweeting a hash tag.

Comfort, affluence, and complacency makes it easy to "speak truth to power" provided that nearly everyone agrees with you. It makes it easy to pretend to be brave and virtuous about changing the world, when what it really does is to allow people to play-act roles in romantic, and historic dramas while being, at heart, unserious.