Sorry, Rubin, It's Just Bullying

I'm a fan of Rubin of The Rubin Report. And I sympathize with his disillusionment with the so-called progressive left. I label myself a conservative libertarian with some totally liberal outlying attitudes and positions.

I watch Rubin's interviews now and again. One of his common questions to guests is, Who is responsible for Millennials being so self-entitled, rude, incapable of thinking outside the box, and irritated at the imperfect world, so they can't enjoy or praise the advances of Western civilization? All they do instead is look sour and lecture people.

The idea is to blame helicopter parents or high school/college indoctrination. And I think Rubin kind of has a point. But me? I hold these Millennials responsible for their own behavior.

What they are doing? Being rude. Bullying.

Anybody who grows up with even the slightest exposure to any social setting knows what it is to be "rude and bullying." They know what it means to be rude. They know what bullying is. The inability to see it in themselves isn't someone else's fault. 

Unfortunately, the type of bullying I'm describing here is superficially sophisticated, full of jargon and overblown rhetoric. It often evokes push-back that is equally emotional rather than rational. Whatever the push-back, let's call that initial behavior what it is. When these so-called victims yell down professors, storm around career fairs, spit words like "cisgendered" at others like an invective, refuse to let people debate nah nah nah, they are being--

Bullies.

Read Lords of the Flies. Badly behaved teenagers are absolutely no fun. We can push people around, ya ya ya. We can call people names! Maybe we can even take your job away! Nah nah nah, we don't have to listen to you because you are sooooo stooo-pid.

Listen carefully: however clever the rhetoric or the self-entitled attitude, the assumption of superior thinking is absolutely no different from those kids in junior high who make fun of people's clothes, interests, weight, even orientation, etc. etc. etc. "You are such a transphobe--you support rape culture--your opinion doesn't matter because you don't have the right shade, identity, voting record!" may sound more intellectual than the snooty girl who says, "Eww, what are you wearing?!"

It is absolutely the same thing. Let's face it: kids can be jerks. People can be jerks. They can also grow up and learn to be better. They can take responsibility for life being difficult and people being different and their own confusion and need to mature.

They can, in fact, stop being bullies.