Reply #83: Nah, I disagree, that's very much been my experience here on DU.

[NuttyFluffers]

Even activism has to be analyzed and not all of it stands up to scrutiny. There are those who do make great sacrifice, and accomplish something. And then there are those who, even though they make great sacrifice, end up agitating only through impotent actions, accomplishing nothing. To fail gloriously and project responsibility while at the same time project morality. It's a controlling need to shame and compel others to accomplish goals for them (and sometimes that goal is simply feeling 'better than thou'). There's more than one way to indulge in escapism-based sloth, just as there is more than one way to be passive-aggressive.

Remember, for each of these grave dancing sessions, it took an interruption of "tsk"ing disapproval to start the community acrimony. The more mature, less passive-aggressive response is to either steer clear of such behavior and create a separate space (like a topic not just about criticizing others) to express one's own just as valid feelings. This is basic 'don't be a debbie downer' party etiquette: hang out with those who resonate to your own energy, because pissing on other people's fun is ALWAYS bad form.

That's a very simple and impossible to refute guideline for mature behavior. Don't like the scene, leave. Start your own defined space, not out of negatively criticizing others around you (which is obviously antagonistic and itching for a fight), but from positively expressing what you are feeling (which lets your feelings and boundaries be expressed without denigrating others). This is how experienced and mannered people on the same side deal with the occasional discordant viewpoints and still remain a community.