Pride - audaciously hidden in plain sight behind another of our current humanity-annihilating agendas.
You've put your finger on that very important point that it doesn't matter what the agenda is. They are all outlets for the same emotionally wounded response to ourselves, protected out there onto the world in a giant drama triangle.
Your fine essay set my mind off wandering... and after a browse through IMDB about the "Death Wish" films I came to the conclusion that the motivating force behind the pride and narcissism was not the concern about the environment (as you rightly point out) but a Death Wish.
"From a Jungian perspective, the death wish may symbolize the need for transformation and rebirth, where the psyche seeks to shed old patterns and embrace new beginnings. This existential longing for a symbolic death and renewal is integral to individuation and personal growth."
Now while I don't think that Jung has all the answers it seems to me that the protestors' actions may be motivated by the desire for death (and destruction) as a means of renewal - professed as for 'the others' or for 'the environment' but mostly for themselves. Perhaps the desire for renewal is a reaction to how they have come to see their pre-protest selves, or the current state of the world?
Yes - another way of putting it is that if you're very dissatisfied with the direction in which your life has gone, a shake of the Etch-A-Sketch starts to look appealing.
Agreed. I've considered this psychology too, since it seems to be essentially self evident. Folks are yearning for self annihilation. I don't think it's in the Jungian form though, but more in line with Freud's conception, which lacks the spiritual dimension. I believe it's a manifestation of the total emptying of the inner life, and the focus on shallow materialism that defines this corporate industrial, fast food, disposable world in which nothing has depth or true value, not even one's own self. Hence, humanity is an infestation, a parasite that deserves eradication.
Seems to me, with the obvious decline in influence of the paternal archetype over the last half century, this infantile behaviour from adults of all ages is precisely what a Jungian might expect. The “Trickster” archetype (typically of teenage years) still dominant.
Also evidence perhaps of a now-dominant, shallow “other-directedness” described by David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd.
“But I think it is clear that Lewis was making a subtler and more important point, which is that the end-state of Pride is nothing less than to subject all of creation to one’s will - and, if that fails, to destroy it entirely.”
And if I cannot destroy creation, destroy myself, which amounts to the same thing cf Hitler.
Is it possible that suicide (or a particular version of it) does in fact destroy the soul? That one’s death, freely accepted and surrendered to, as Jesus did, is a doorway to a new, resurrected life, but that suicide is the end of everything?
Wonderful insights here, David. My own take on Marxism, which characterises most activism these days, is that it's a philosophy of jealousy, and, as such, must make ideologues miserable. If you're always looking at what others have and what you yourself do not have, you can never find fulfilment or inner equanimity. Jealousy comes with that soul-destroying spiritual curse, which is what earns it a place among the cardinal sins.
It's a shame how misguided environmentalism is at the moment, and I've been lamenting how a good thing has been coopted by corporate-political shenanigans. Did you catch the crackpot move led by Bill Gates to destroy old growth forests and bury the trees in a hairbrained scheme to reduce carbon emissions? Put that together with plans to dim the sun by adding atmospheric gases and we get that megalomania to which you're referring. I saw that movie: it's called Highlander. What's to stop these world destroying comic book villains? The future is not looking good.
I remember seeing a TED talk years ago in which somebody was speculating about triggering volcanic eruptions in order to dim the sun. It was so obvious that he just loved the idea of making volcanoes explode. Everything else was secondary to that objective.
Another great essay, David, I especially enjoyed your engagement with The Magician's Nephew, which is oft ignored among Lewis' books.
This piece also captures what drove me away from Greenpeace: a sudden and shocking total disregard for environmentalism as I (and its founders!) understood it. My wife and I were equally driven away from Amnesty International as it gave up any understanding of rights in the Kantian sense (the rightful condition by which a nation maintains itself and respects the autonomy of its citizens) and took upon the childish bugbearisms of the infantile supposedly-left.
It remains remarkable to me just how rapidly you can unravel culture, an engine of dissolution I would suggest has been driven in part by the decline of reading and the rise of curated video. Regardless of where we disagree politically, we are both intimately caught up in the realm of the book. We live in a very different world to those who would deface art and call this barbarism righteousness.
Great piece - thank you. You’ve put your finger on something I’ve suspected for a while, namely that the Me! Me! Me! reductivism of so many eco-warriors is rooted in the illusion of total control by Man of Nature. This implies that if you only have right-minded people in charge, the planet will be saved, or whatever. The cosmology behind this view is primitive, the more nuanced approach to Creation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is ignored and the anthropomorphic view of the natural world as a projection as the intellectual/emotional punchbag of a handful of baleful idiots is entrenched. In previous centuries these views would likely have been expressed in religious language - eg the Anabaptists of Münster - and therefore more easily recognised as heresies. In a secular world with the dubious benefits of social media, there are seemingly no limits to this dangerous malevolence. You’ve made me think afresh about Pride. Time to reread Paradise Lost?
In other words, Hubris. Which as classicists know is always pursued hot on its heels by Nemesis. Which is where are godless, super techno-materialist age has led us.
Steiner warned about this happening a century ago; even stating that this decade would see it emerge fully fledged.
"his ideas were nonetheless picked up in the end by people who very much had the courage of their convictions, and who were capable of taking over and running entire nations, to vastly consequential effect."
... "running entire nations" and ... ruining entire nations
I lean toward Nietzche and the Will to Power, combined with a dose of class hatred (the 'educated' class vs the rest) and a Gnostic tendency to believe that they alone are in possession of special truths. Throw in elite overproduction and the narcissistic supply provided by digital media and you get lots of Phoebes inserting themselves into the discourse.
Your point about eradicating all of humanity is well made. Just as the gay rights idéologues moved on to abolishing biological sex once they had gay marriage under the belt, these people would eventually move on to zero humans as their utopia. Or maybe a few 'indigenous' people practicing alternative ways of knowing etc.
So Mr McGrogan ‘endorses’ the belief that a changing climate (when has it never not changed?) is linked to fossil fuel emissions? Oh dear, oh dear. When will people wake up to the Great Climate Con? I understand Mr McGrogan is awake to the Great Covid Con so it should not be too difficult.
I agree Iain and was surprised and disappointed to learn that Mr McGrogan broadly accepted climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gases. Climate does change all the time and the confected fear and need to control minuscule amounts of allegedly potent gases are really not about the climate and saving the planet. CO2 is not a pollutant and without it we’d be gone! You only have to see Bill Gates and Larry Fink in Downing Street to see why our “leaders” are taking us back to the stone age with their energy and environmental policies. Milky skies again I see! 😉
What I said was that I endorsed 'mitigating the effects of climate change [and] finding constructive ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions'. Whatever the reason for the climate changing, we clearly need to mitigate its effects, don't we? That's surely uncontroversial. On the subject of greehouse gas emissions - it is sensible in the long-term to transition to other forms of energy partly because it is healthier, and partly as an insurance option. It seems perfectly sensible to me to say that since it might be the case that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the climate to change, it is sensible to try to reduce them - in the same way that it is sensible to buy insurance in case a risk to one's property is realised. Clearly there are extremist positions which are ludicrous, and clearly the idea of reaching 'net zero' in the foreseeable future is a daft fantasy, but this doesn't mean that there isn't a grain of truth in contemporary environmentalism: all things considered it would probably be a good idea in the medium-to-long term to diversify away from fossil fuels and have cleaner sources of energy (such as nuclear).
We agree on a number of things like the climate changes, net zero is a daft fantasy, and that nuclear power is the way forward. However, because of media censorship and indoctrination in political, educational and legal settings the view that GHGs are not the cause of climate change, never mind the involvement of humans, is the controversial position. Your opinion that we need an insurance policy, say cutting such vital life enhancing GHGs in case they’re the cause of climate change is not controversial, it’s mainstream, but it’s enabling the climate scam. Many scientists ( check out “the week that was” via ken@haapla.com where academics like you, but in relevant scientific arenas such as physics, including Physics Nobel laureate John Clauser are hosted with their evidence and critique of “climate change” ). Also your fellow Daily Sceptic contributor, Paul Homewood, is good on the sceptical view that climate change is not based on evidence and the things you seem concerned about is really weather as he’s debunked many myths about the climate’s worsening. My mentioning of the green billionaires in Downing Street and geoengineering are not extreme positions nor ludicrous, because several billionaires appear to have made significant insider trading profits under both the covid scam and now the climate scam. They’ve persuaded and induced politicians to follow evidence free policies that have destroyed our energy security whilst fleecing the tax payer. I agree there’s no harm in alternative energy sources, if safe and the costs don’t outweigh the benefits, but if you check your energy bill you’ll see we get the costs and no benefit with the medieval tech destroying both flora and fauna. It’s ironic how a judge set a precedent and sided with environmentalists against an already agreed planning application to allow further oil and gas extraction on the south coast. The applicants became effectively responsible for downstream costs once the energy was sold on! No mention of the benefits, however, it remains to be seen whether a case will come forward challenging the destruction these giant windmills and soon Ed’s huge pylons that’ll disfigure the east coast. No one is against protecting and preserving the environment and yet environmentalism has morphed from when I was a kid, and it’s become another wealth extraction business for certain already rich and powerful interests. Even Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, saw this occurring in the 1980s and so he left and joined the sceptics to try and curtail this huge scam.
‘Whatever the reason for the climate changing, we clearly need to mitigate its effects, don't we?’ Eh? How do we go about mitigating the effects of the sun which is the reason for the climate changing? What did those folk in the Middle Ages do to mitigate the effect’s of the sun? The Romans? And if you understand that the Earth is in fact going into a cooling phase what are we going to do about that, what did the people in the so called little ice age do? The only people who want to ‘mitigate the effects of climate change’ are those with their eyes on the vast sums of money involved and those who wish to control us.
Mitigation doesn't mean control - it means responding to likely changes in the environment. If the Earth is going to get hotter or cooler this will have practical consequences. We should respond to those consequences, where possible, shouldn't we? If it seems likely that there will be increased flooding in an area, you build flood defences - to use one example of mitigation. I don't really understand what reasonable objection can be raised against that.
I know you’re using Just Stop Oil as your example, but I couldn’t help but keep thinking about Israel throughout the piece. Especially the part about brining about the destruction of the world.
A very insightful piece. I would even slightly extend your analogy between these two ideologies, to assert that the typical environmentalist loves the environment in very much the same way that the typical socialist loves the working class. That is to say, not in an earnest, but only as an outwardly endearing "object of compassion" to disguise their hellbent aims for total revolution. As Orwell astutely wrote of many of his 'fellow' socialists, "[their] underlying motive [...] is simply a hypertrophied sense of order". But perhaps this breed of environmentalists is even more dangerous than the Marxists of old. While both groups are no doubt intoxicated with their own rationalism and abstract certainties, the environmental cultists wish not only to tear down bourgeois capitalism, but civilisation itself!
You lost me when you stated ones support of the created by the controllers climate change agenda. Yep get onboard the crisis that suits your moral position and your in. Utter moron
Very perceptive article. I do think we should also note that most (not all) of the activists, as well as being "thoroughly pampered and bourgeois" (like me) are also YOUNG.
I do think this is important. It sounds patronising to say it, but many of them will "grow out of it". Today they are throwing soup over a painting in the National Gallery - tomorrow they will have a job and a mortgage and a nice car in their driveway. At first they will find it necessary to justify these things to themselves, but ultimately they will quietly forget their previous activist beliefs.
When I was at University (in the early 1980s), student politics was dominated by completely deranged left wing fanatics. I can remember them mobbing Michael Heseltine when he came to speak at the union, and throwing paint over him. (See here under "History-Visits" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Manchester_Students%27_Union). Many of those people have grown up to be perfectly respectable left of centre social democrats.
Environmentalism has replaced Marxism, as you say, as today's youth rebellion, and I think it is more likely that it will eventually fizzle out, or get absorbed by the wider political landscape, than that it will turn into something truly ugly.
This was a long essay to read .....it felt circuitous/maze-like to me. [No offence]. Is it really the rage of individuals ( so much psychology!) against humanity in its broad sense, or is soup over paintings, or, people glueing themselves to roads, tying themselves to overhead gantries, something orchestrated to achieve specific aims. I'm thinking of the way the authorities respond to the actions of these groups subsumed by 'rage'.
I think taking care of the environment is more pressing than projects in the 'Green' sphere. Pollution of rivers, litter, fly tipping.....these activities affect health and morale. Projects to reduce Co2 in the UK are seriously misplaced. Funny that no one is enraged enough to get down to the river banks glueing themselves to trees, concerned about pollution. These 'soup throwers' are being manipulated to further several agendas.....being highly visible as they express their 'rage' is integral to that.
Pride - audaciously hidden in plain sight behind another of our current humanity-annihilating agendas.
You've put your finger on that very important point that it doesn't matter what the agenda is. They are all outlets for the same emotionally wounded response to ourselves, protected out there onto the world in a giant drama triangle.
I'm feeling thoroughly sick of it...
Well, I'm afraid we're probably only at the beginning, so get used to that sickly feeling...
I am used to it! But perhaps feeling it is necessary for seeing what is going on and starting to move beyond it?
Your fine essay set my mind off wandering... and after a browse through IMDB about the "Death Wish" films I came to the conclusion that the motivating force behind the pride and narcissism was not the concern about the environment (as you rightly point out) but a Death Wish.
Although there are many 'explanations' for the Death Wish the one that struck me was from https://listen-hard.com/clinical-and-counseling-psychology/death-wish-psychology/ . Amongst other interpretations was:
"From a Jungian perspective, the death wish may symbolize the need for transformation and rebirth, where the psyche seeks to shed old patterns and embrace new beginnings. This existential longing for a symbolic death and renewal is integral to individuation and personal growth."
Now while I don't think that Jung has all the answers it seems to me that the protestors' actions may be motivated by the desire for death (and destruction) as a means of renewal - professed as for 'the others' or for 'the environment' but mostly for themselves. Perhaps the desire for renewal is a reaction to how they have come to see their pre-protest selves, or the current state of the world?
Yes - another way of putting it is that if you're very dissatisfied with the direction in which your life has gone, a shake of the Etch-A-Sketch starts to look appealing.
Agreed. I've considered this psychology too, since it seems to be essentially self evident. Folks are yearning for self annihilation. I don't think it's in the Jungian form though, but more in line with Freud's conception, which lacks the spiritual dimension. I believe it's a manifestation of the total emptying of the inner life, and the focus on shallow materialism that defines this corporate industrial, fast food, disposable world in which nothing has depth or true value, not even one's own self. Hence, humanity is an infestation, a parasite that deserves eradication.
Great piece David.
Seems to me, with the obvious decline in influence of the paternal archetype over the last half century, this infantile behaviour from adults of all ages is precisely what a Jungian might expect. The “Trickster” archetype (typically of teenage years) still dominant.
Also evidence perhaps of a now-dominant, shallow “other-directedness” described by David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd.
This is definitely a major part of the problem.
“But I think it is clear that Lewis was making a subtler and more important point, which is that the end-state of Pride is nothing less than to subject all of creation to one’s will - and, if that fails, to destroy it entirely.”
And if I cannot destroy creation, destroy myself, which amounts to the same thing cf Hitler.
Is it possible that suicide (or a particular version of it) does in fact destroy the soul? That one’s death, freely accepted and surrendered to, as Jesus did, is a doorway to a new, resurrected life, but that suicide is the end of everything?
Wonderful insights here, David. My own take on Marxism, which characterises most activism these days, is that it's a philosophy of jealousy, and, as such, must make ideologues miserable. If you're always looking at what others have and what you yourself do not have, you can never find fulfilment or inner equanimity. Jealousy comes with that soul-destroying spiritual curse, which is what earns it a place among the cardinal sins.
It's a shame how misguided environmentalism is at the moment, and I've been lamenting how a good thing has been coopted by corporate-political shenanigans. Did you catch the crackpot move led by Bill Gates to destroy old growth forests and bury the trees in a hairbrained scheme to reduce carbon emissions? Put that together with plans to dim the sun by adding atmospheric gases and we get that megalomania to which you're referring. I saw that movie: it's called Highlander. What's to stop these world destroying comic book villains? The future is not looking good.
I remember seeing a TED talk years ago in which somebody was speculating about triggering volcanic eruptions in order to dim the sun. It was so obvious that he just loved the idea of making volcanoes explode. Everything else was secondary to that objective.
Another great essay, David, I especially enjoyed your engagement with The Magician's Nephew, which is oft ignored among Lewis' books.
This piece also captures what drove me away from Greenpeace: a sudden and shocking total disregard for environmentalism as I (and its founders!) understood it. My wife and I were equally driven away from Amnesty International as it gave up any understanding of rights in the Kantian sense (the rightful condition by which a nation maintains itself and respects the autonomy of its citizens) and took upon the childish bugbearisms of the infantile supposedly-left.
It remains remarkable to me just how rapidly you can unravel culture, an engine of dissolution I would suggest has been driven in part by the decline of reading and the rise of curated video. Regardless of where we disagree politically, we are both intimately caught up in the realm of the book. We live in a very different world to those who would deface art and call this barbarism righteousness.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Thanks Chris. I know what you mean about the unravelling.
Great piece - thank you. You’ve put your finger on something I’ve suspected for a while, namely that the Me! Me! Me! reductivism of so many eco-warriors is rooted in the illusion of total control by Man of Nature. This implies that if you only have right-minded people in charge, the planet will be saved, or whatever. The cosmology behind this view is primitive, the more nuanced approach to Creation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is ignored and the anthropomorphic view of the natural world as a projection as the intellectual/emotional punchbag of a handful of baleful idiots is entrenched. In previous centuries these views would likely have been expressed in religious language - eg the Anabaptists of Münster - and therefore more easily recognised as heresies. In a secular world with the dubious benefits of social media, there are seemingly no limits to this dangerous malevolence. You’ve made me think afresh about Pride. Time to reread Paradise Lost?
"total control by Man of Nature."
In other words, Hubris. Which as classicists know is always pursued hot on its heels by Nemesis. Which is where are godless, super techno-materialist age has led us.
Steiner warned about this happening a century ago; even stating that this decade would see it emerge fully fledged.
"his ideas were nonetheless picked up in the end by people who very much had the courage of their convictions, and who were capable of taking over and running entire nations, to vastly consequential effect."
... "running entire nations" and ... ruining entire nations
Oof, I enjoyed this as a rhetorical broadside.
I lean toward Nietzche and the Will to Power, combined with a dose of class hatred (the 'educated' class vs the rest) and a Gnostic tendency to believe that they alone are in possession of special truths. Throw in elite overproduction and the narcissistic supply provided by digital media and you get lots of Phoebes inserting themselves into the discourse.
Your point about eradicating all of humanity is well made. Just as the gay rights idéologues moved on to abolishing biological sex once they had gay marriage under the belt, these people would eventually move on to zero humans as their utopia. Or maybe a few 'indigenous' people practicing alternative ways of knowing etc.
CS Lewis was all over this, far in advance. It's all in That Hideous Strength - I've had a post brewing about that for a long time.
I know already that I'll enjoy that !
Screaming Narcissism another factor; the hugely privileged showing the rest of us sinners their moral superiority. Gen Z = Gen Narcissist. Revolting.
In defence of Gen Z, a large number of these activists also seem to be OAPs.
True. Not this 73 year old...
So Mr McGrogan ‘endorses’ the belief that a changing climate (when has it never not changed?) is linked to fossil fuel emissions? Oh dear, oh dear. When will people wake up to the Great Climate Con? I understand Mr McGrogan is awake to the Great Covid Con so it should not be too difficult.
I agree Iain and was surprised and disappointed to learn that Mr McGrogan broadly accepted climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gases. Climate does change all the time and the confected fear and need to control minuscule amounts of allegedly potent gases are really not about the climate and saving the planet. CO2 is not a pollutant and without it we’d be gone! You only have to see Bill Gates and Larry Fink in Downing Street to see why our “leaders” are taking us back to the stone age with their energy and environmental policies. Milky skies again I see! 😉
What I said was that I endorsed 'mitigating the effects of climate change [and] finding constructive ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions'. Whatever the reason for the climate changing, we clearly need to mitigate its effects, don't we? That's surely uncontroversial. On the subject of greehouse gas emissions - it is sensible in the long-term to transition to other forms of energy partly because it is healthier, and partly as an insurance option. It seems perfectly sensible to me to say that since it might be the case that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the climate to change, it is sensible to try to reduce them - in the same way that it is sensible to buy insurance in case a risk to one's property is realised. Clearly there are extremist positions which are ludicrous, and clearly the idea of reaching 'net zero' in the foreseeable future is a daft fantasy, but this doesn't mean that there isn't a grain of truth in contemporary environmentalism: all things considered it would probably be a good idea in the medium-to-long term to diversify away from fossil fuels and have cleaner sources of energy (such as nuclear).
We agree on a number of things like the climate changes, net zero is a daft fantasy, and that nuclear power is the way forward. However, because of media censorship and indoctrination in political, educational and legal settings the view that GHGs are not the cause of climate change, never mind the involvement of humans, is the controversial position. Your opinion that we need an insurance policy, say cutting such vital life enhancing GHGs in case they’re the cause of climate change is not controversial, it’s mainstream, but it’s enabling the climate scam. Many scientists ( check out “the week that was” via ken@haapla.com where academics like you, but in relevant scientific arenas such as physics, including Physics Nobel laureate John Clauser are hosted with their evidence and critique of “climate change” ). Also your fellow Daily Sceptic contributor, Paul Homewood, is good on the sceptical view that climate change is not based on evidence and the things you seem concerned about is really weather as he’s debunked many myths about the climate’s worsening. My mentioning of the green billionaires in Downing Street and geoengineering are not extreme positions nor ludicrous, because several billionaires appear to have made significant insider trading profits under both the covid scam and now the climate scam. They’ve persuaded and induced politicians to follow evidence free policies that have destroyed our energy security whilst fleecing the tax payer. I agree there’s no harm in alternative energy sources, if safe and the costs don’t outweigh the benefits, but if you check your energy bill you’ll see we get the costs and no benefit with the medieval tech destroying both flora and fauna. It’s ironic how a judge set a precedent and sided with environmentalists against an already agreed planning application to allow further oil and gas extraction on the south coast. The applicants became effectively responsible for downstream costs once the energy was sold on! No mention of the benefits, however, it remains to be seen whether a case will come forward challenging the destruction these giant windmills and soon Ed’s huge pylons that’ll disfigure the east coast. No one is against protecting and preserving the environment and yet environmentalism has morphed from when I was a kid, and it’s become another wealth extraction business for certain already rich and powerful interests. Even Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, saw this occurring in the 1980s and so he left and joined the sceptics to try and curtail this huge scam.
‘Whatever the reason for the climate changing, we clearly need to mitigate its effects, don't we?’ Eh? How do we go about mitigating the effects of the sun which is the reason for the climate changing? What did those folk in the Middle Ages do to mitigate the effect’s of the sun? The Romans? And if you understand that the Earth is in fact going into a cooling phase what are we going to do about that, what did the people in the so called little ice age do? The only people who want to ‘mitigate the effects of climate change’ are those with their eyes on the vast sums of money involved and those who wish to control us.
Mitigation doesn't mean control - it means responding to likely changes in the environment. If the Earth is going to get hotter or cooler this will have practical consequences. We should respond to those consequences, where possible, shouldn't we? If it seems likely that there will be increased flooding in an area, you build flood defences - to use one example of mitigation. I don't really understand what reasonable objection can be raised against that.
Fascinating thesis.
I know you’re using Just Stop Oil as your example, but I couldn’t help but keep thinking about Israel throughout the piece. Especially the part about brining about the destruction of the world.
A very insightful piece. I would even slightly extend your analogy between these two ideologies, to assert that the typical environmentalist loves the environment in very much the same way that the typical socialist loves the working class. That is to say, not in an earnest, but only as an outwardly endearing "object of compassion" to disguise their hellbent aims for total revolution. As Orwell astutely wrote of many of his 'fellow' socialists, "[their] underlying motive [...] is simply a hypertrophied sense of order". But perhaps this breed of environmentalists is even more dangerous than the Marxists of old. While both groups are no doubt intoxicated with their own rationalism and abstract certainties, the environmental cultists wish not only to tear down bourgeois capitalism, but civilisation itself!
You lost me when you stated ones support of the created by the controllers climate change agenda. Yep get onboard the crisis that suits your moral position and your in. Utter moron
Very perceptive article. I do think we should also note that most (not all) of the activists, as well as being "thoroughly pampered and bourgeois" (like me) are also YOUNG.
I do think this is important. It sounds patronising to say it, but many of them will "grow out of it". Today they are throwing soup over a painting in the National Gallery - tomorrow they will have a job and a mortgage and a nice car in their driveway. At first they will find it necessary to justify these things to themselves, but ultimately they will quietly forget their previous activist beliefs.
When I was at University (in the early 1980s), student politics was dominated by completely deranged left wing fanatics. I can remember them mobbing Michael Heseltine when he came to speak at the union, and throwing paint over him. (See here under "History-Visits" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Manchester_Students%27_Union). Many of those people have grown up to be perfectly respectable left of centre social democrats.
Environmentalism has replaced Marxism, as you say, as today's youth rebellion, and I think it is more likely that it will eventually fizzle out, or get absorbed by the wider political landscape, than that it will turn into something truly ugly.
This was a long essay to read .....it felt circuitous/maze-like to me. [No offence]. Is it really the rage of individuals ( so much psychology!) against humanity in its broad sense, or is soup over paintings, or, people glueing themselves to roads, tying themselves to overhead gantries, something orchestrated to achieve specific aims. I'm thinking of the way the authorities respond to the actions of these groups subsumed by 'rage'.
I think taking care of the environment is more pressing than projects in the 'Green' sphere. Pollution of rivers, litter, fly tipping.....these activities affect health and morale. Projects to reduce Co2 in the UK are seriously misplaced. Funny that no one is enraged enough to get down to the river banks glueing themselves to trees, concerned about pollution. These 'soup throwers' are being manipulated to further several agendas.....being highly visible as they express their 'rage' is integral to that.