Ideas in a society flow downstream. Like raindrops, cultural beliefs and attitudes begin falling from the collective sky, and like raindrops they always start small; a droplet here and brief shower there. But overtime, small droplets form larger streams of opinion, and as they join together they soon become swift moving rivers of thought. When a cohesive mindet forms a collective movement it will begin to overflow the boundaries of tradional thought, and often this overflow will cause real damage. You don’t notice how strong the accumulated current is until the fullness of the swelling waters are experienced downstream as a rising tide or devastating flood.

This flood of new thought comes out in popular culture: music, movies, politics, and even affects the spiritual beliefs of your everyday man or woman. What is often produced as entertainment, or what is pushed on political platforms and media outlets are usually the experienced swelling waters of thought.

That is why I try to stay tuned into to media and politics, because both are clear barometers on what is going on in the collective consciousness of the human heart. What contemporary people think about God, morality, ethics, and human flourishing will start flooding the airways and internet.

One of the most interesting discussions online this past summer that clearly reveals our current cultural zeitgiest has been how people view the recent Star Wars series called “The Acolyte.” In its first season, the Disney Corporation and Lucas Films spent over $180,000,000 to produce eight episodes that were aired on Disney+ streaming service.

To put it nicely, “It Bombed!”

Because of it’s terrible reception by the majority of viewers the financial executives of Disney decided to cancel the second season for The Acolyte. Most honest reviewers and regular media watchers have said the writing, producing, and acting was from poor to horrific on every level, and no logical thinking person was surprised for the cancellation. So because of this very obvious economic and artistic decision to cancel – one rooted in something called “a lack of profitability” – it caused a small handful of angry and loud Acolyte fans to have a complete meltdown. They were outraged because the show they loved, was rejected by the majority of the Star Wars fandom.

A recent article in Rolling Stone Magazine titled, “Can the Best of Star Wars Survive the Worst of its Fans?”, the writer blames the cancellation of the series on male fan toxicity. The writer of the article, CT Jones, a cultural writer for the magazine says that the cancellation was the result of the hating racist conservatives. It is their fault – they poisoned and unduly persuaded the minds of the cowardly Disney executives to kill their prized show.

Somehow supply and demand escaped this writer’s understanding. But then again, the basic tenets of capitalism have never made much sense to the progressive mind.

So instead of accepting simple mathmetics that were the cause of The Acolyte’s failing financials, this small angry fanbase is urgently, no, violently demanding for a second season. They are shouting out online, raging against the incels in hot tweets and angry posts on social media, and they even started a signature campaign to try to compel the Disney executives to reverse their decision.

In other words, they are having a collective temper tantrum. Like the selfish Veruka Salt from Willy Wonka, “They don’t care how, they wan’t it now!” Or like Bob Wiley, they are whining, “Gimme, gimme, gimme…I need, I need, I need!” And we all know, if a child wants it now, you better make them happy or you will definately hear about it. (Especially in our culture of heroic progressive allys who hate to see your poor little babies feel any kind of hurt and pain).

As a father of four children, I saw temper tantrums play out in my kid’s behavior all the time. When my young son or daughter wanted something, like candy, kittens, or cream puffs, and I said no, out would come loud crying and complaining. “Waaaaaa, gimme, gimme, gimme!” As a loving father I had a choice, “Do I just give in to them, let them have what they want, or do I be the adult in the house and help them to calmly overcome the harsh realities of curtaling their inborn selfishness, and help them grow up?”

Did you know, that is really what seperates adults from children, they know how to say “No!” If you do not nip the tantrum in the bud, you are asking for your child to grow up to be a beast for the rest of his or her life. When it comes to maturity, pain of behavioral pruning is initially needed, but that will only be momentary. If you bypass pain for pleasure’s sake, maturity never happens.

I think that is where our modern society has gone wildly wrong. For the last 20 or so years, pleasure has been winning in the home, in the classroom, and even in the pastor’s sermon. 2 Timothy 3:1-4 is very clear, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God!”

Wow, read that again! That may be the best summary of our society’s collective opinion, Harvard’s professorial standards, your average discussion on The View that I have heard.

Look closely around you, the rising tide of the cultural temper tantrum can be seen everywhere. I think it abounds in epidemic proportions. When people in authority say “no,” the collective childishness that we have fed for years screams louder, “I don’t care how, I want it now!” And the worst part, it is winning when it comes to popular sentiment and public debate:

• “I want to watch my show about Alien Space Witches! And if Disney is not going to give it to me, I am going to picket and demand they give it to me!”
• “I want the minium wage to be $25 dollars an hour. I don’t care how the small business man feels about it, I want it, I should get it! And I dont want to pay my loans back. And I want to have three weeks of paid time off. I want it, and if I want it, I should have it!”
• I want to be any gender I feel like! And if I want to change my physical body, if I want to cut off my breasts and even my penis, you can’t stop me. Not only that, you must pay for me to get it done!”
• “I want a woman to be President, I dont care if she is competent, she is a woman and that is all that counts. I also want her to be black even if she said she wasn’t two years ago. She says it now, so if she says it now, it must be so. And I am going to get mad if you disagree and push back.”
• “I want to believe in a God that does not send anyone to hell. I don’t care what the scriptures say, I don’t even care if Jesus talked about it in Matthew 25:41, I don’t like it so it must not be so.”

Temper tantrums used to never be tolerated, they were frowned upon mainly because the adult of the obnoxious child was embarrassed. Everyone knew the child needed adults to help them mature and grow up. But the collective opinion of the swelling tide no longer has tolerance for adults. Adults get in the way of what I want. And the biggest problem with adults is they say “No” when you try to take money from their wallets. We can’t have that because your money is my money, and if I want to spend it on something you don’t agree with, too bad. Plus, I dont like to be told no. “I dont care how, I want it now!”

I think our culture has forgotten one simple proverb of a very wise man named Solomon, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death.” If you think about it, all the adult really wants is for his children not to die.