Grumpy Old Men

Passage from an excellent article by Frank Furedi on the radicalness of being conservative (though he doesn't call it that) in Spiked! --

... There was a time when criticising the status quo was considered radical. Throughout history, refusing to accept the world as it existed has been looked upon as a form of rebellion. Those who did not ‘much care for contemporary life’ were very often inspired by the conviction that human life and culture could be – and must be – improved upon. Today, such an aspiring outlook is seen as a social faux pas, something that can earn you the label of grumpy old man or woman. This suggests that there is a fairly formidable mood of cultural conformism today. Labelling objections to today’s institutional practices as a ‘grumble’ or a ‘moan’ is not only a way of dismissing these objections; it is also a way of defending and even justifying the world as it exists against what is viewed as an army of bad-tempered, fussy, ill-natured, irritable emotional cripples.

Read the rest: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2962/