Heather Wilhelm explains at National Review Online why the overpoliticization of life proves boring. Her story starts with the typical reaction she gets when people learn that she writes about politics.
The most common response, you’ll be pleased to learn, is actually rueful laughter: “Politics? Well, you certainly have a lot to write about! I bet it’s never boring!”
The first sentence is correct: There is absolutely no shortage of political material to write upon, given that our culture seems to be slowly morphing into a disturbing default mode of “All Politics, All The Time.” The second assumption, however — “I bet it’s never boring!” — is sadly amiss. This is because our culture’s encroaching default mode of “All Politics, All The Time” is almost exhaustingly boring. It is cringe-worthy. It is tedious. It could signal the slow death of fun as we know it.
Witness the odd metamorphosis of Teen Vogue, a once-innocent delivery vehicle for capitalism’s more frivolous byproducts, including lipstick, overpriced high heels — a species of shoe that is now considered highly problematic and distressing, as we’ll discuss below — and occasional helpful assurances that No, for Heaven’s Sake, You Do Not Look Fat in Your Dress, You’re Twelve. Alas, today’s Teen Vogue has kept right in step with the rather annoying times: It has morphed, Incredible Hulk–style, into a seething, politically “woke,” and occasionally terrifying rage pamphlet.
“We walk around as if we were bombs about to go off, worried about admitting how livid we really are, even to ourselves,” declares a recent Teen Vogue essay that was surprisingly not written by the Unabomber. Women should be angry all the time, we are told; in fact, if you’re not angry, something is probably wrong with you. “As far as I’m concerned,” the author continues, again casting doubt as to whether the article was secretly ghostwritten by a man in a makeshift hood crouching in a federal penitentiary, “boys who want to be with only ‘cool, chill girls’ should try dating in the morgue.”
Holy Toledo.
