Revenge politics

It is virtually impossible to ignore politics but it’s a strange game to watch voluntarily. Not exactly enjoyable as a spectator sport is it? 

A strong undertow in all kinds of political advocacy seems to be revenge, the revenge of one social class over another. Not at all dignified as a motive but as a motive it seems to be strong one. Political activists tend to act and speak as if they are not so much interested in reform, but something more akin to revenge against those they perceive as their enemies. Of course political enemies are portrayed as bad people but enemies always are. In a similar vein, social justice warriors seem far more concerned with revenge rather than justice.

Revenge is a core element of politics simply because the enemy is a core element of politics and only the apolitical seem relatively free of it. This is not to claim that naked revenge is all we need consider when we attempt to analyse political behaviour. The issue is more diffuse than that and also bound up with a sense of grievance. 

Yet in political hands grievance goes awry too. For one thing political grievance in the developed world can be so absurdly contrived. So contrived that we may as well assume it is not genuine and the grievance is merely the means to an end. That end seems to be revenge again, not amelioration of the grievance. Perhaps amelioration without revenge won’t do because the grievance would have to be genuine.

To take a topical example. Climate change activism appears to be the revenge of an uneasy middle class over the uppity prosperity of all those lower down the social scale. Sometimes it is revenge on all those who ought to be lower down the social scale but aren't.

Revenge on their love of consumption, their homes, their cars, their proletarian tastes, their holidays. Most of all it is revenge on their children, those brats who could so easily turn out to be smarter than Hugo and Cordelia.