PROVOCATEURS

  George Soros lampooned in The News Doctors  for funding provocateurs on The Left.

Provocateurs have come into their own age. From Donald Trump to Milo Yannopoulos to Symone Sanders, extremity of persona and verbal content rule in media. The days of Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite have long passed. The days of politicians who rationally combat extremism has passed. The United States is descending into a circus culture of clown hair, indiscreet dress and bad hygiene. Sadly, that statement is no longer provocative, but is easily supported by visible evidence on any major metropolitan street.

Why would functional human beings now select behavior that was once generally avoided as obnoxious, crude or indicative of mental illness? I hypothesize this: 

• Discreet individuals are becoming less and less recognizable in an overpopulated urban environment. 
• We are living in a time of extraordinary obsession in our communication media with individual choice and individual diversion from the norm, whether that diversion is inherent or affected, functional or dysfunctional. 
• A population increasingly isolated by its narrowed focus on portable lighted screens is more likely to respond to the outrageous.
• Responses (clicks, thumbs-up, likes) are the cultural currency of approval, gratification and potential profit.

Speech between strangers in the public space has all but fallen silent. Being approached verbally by a stranger has become associated with begging, another once socially unacceptable behavior which is now commonplace and too often enabled. 14% of Americans received food stamps under President Obama. One in seven! Yet 33% of Americans, largely congregated in the lower economic class, are obese. Home purchasers who defaulted on their mortgages were enabled by government to keep their homes. Perhaps this explains the mainstream tolerance for begging. Perhaps we are becoming a culture of "Don't ask; don't get."

Leftist provocateurs use extremist speech ("racist", "fascist", "rapist", "slut", "homophobe", "supremacist", "Islamophobe") and cry for government control of extremist speech from The Right. The extremist speech they refer to is usually not extremist. It is often statement of statistical data which contradicts The Left's propaganda. Those Leftist provocateurs are granted regular spotlights in most of America's corporate media. Those who combat their propaganda are marginalized, labelled and banned from universities. 

Nothing lasts forever. This is the core lesson of living. Provocateurs of past eras may have looked back on their words and actions with some gained insight if they were able to look at the repercussions of their extremism. French revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Maoists, perhaps even American revolutionaries, may have lived long enough to question their extremism, if not their causes. They may have questioned whether their extremist statements of their positions were necessary or beneficial in the long run of time. Positive change, after all, may be inspired by passionate words, but comes with thoughtful action and living by example.