Roger, I believe that there exists a tie-in with the “blame/absolution” culture that has developed, unfortunately with my generation.

Baby Boomers have become caught up in this rather bizarre and quite needy dependence upon seeking, finding, targeting and then exploiting objects of blame, from which they derive a holier than thou rush of adrenaline by making themselves the “enlightened” ones, through knowing nods and furtive winks at other members of the congregation.

If they didn’t have someone to hate, something to blame,…from which they can artificially elevate themselves, constructing a haughty perch from which they can look down on those who don’t believe the “message”.

The self-gratification allows one to become automatically enrolled in the “Earnest and Erudite” club, without passing any…any…intellectual hurdles. One must only memorize and regurgitate the prefabricated message. ALL other points of view are unacceptable. Part of the great unwashed’s ignorance and impurity.

It is important to demonize, devalue and debase any other point of view and those who may hold them. If you subscribe to a healthy skepticism of the “message”, you are automatically enrolled in the “racist, homophobic, xenophobic, dim, dull, and very unchic” club.

I have my own pet theories as to what gave birth to the age of “faux intellectualism” and the hypocrisy ridden rules that destroy actual intellectualism, by stifling debate and championing ad hominem discourse, replacing the actual construction and defense of one’s positions.

This generation of mine, by and large…saw itself as smarter than its parents because it was more formally educated. It was spoiled rotten and grew up with a sense of entitlement, was a tantrum throwing bunch who behaved badly at the slightest provocation and has a very shallow sense of manners or etiquette.

It was told that every opinion was valuable and valid, if voiced stridently enough. It replaced deductive logic, with volume…and then lionized the shouting.

It lost respect for elders, then turned every in loco parenti “establishment” figure or institution into an “enemy” to be shamed, lorded over and isolated.

This “we are smarter than our father figures” attitude permeates all that they create. And when they took over our academic institutions, our movies and TV, our news rooms and publications…they took with them this arrested adolescent rebellion, with premasticated ideologies and “fast food logic”.

The invention of someone to “blame” for every single aspect of our lives, gives rise to “global warming” being the FAULT of __________________. The blank is filled in by the “establishment demons” that are to blame fore EVERY element of our lives. (corporate greed, republican exclusion, military expansion etc.)

One can only gain “absolution” from the blame…by adhering mindlessly to the “message”. Therefore, you aren’t going to get any real facts, real debate, real discussion of how to view this particular subject. Once it enters the realm of “the message”, truth is sucked into a special black hole…a blame hole…and will never come out again.