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I largely agree, the degree of conflict-aversion nowadays is fucking infuriating. But yeah: deteriorating social conditions might create badasses if they were based on physical hardship, but the current regime is based on psychological intimidation and dependence (backed-up by physical abuse as threat). First off, people are conditioned from early on, to believe that all rights are earned privileges and to develop a need for approval by authority. Second off, expressions of anger and forthright assertion of rights are Not Acceptable. Decisions are not negotiated, free space is not allowed for the development of hidden transcripts and infrapolitics. Any self-assertion will be met by overwhelming force followed by isolation and humiliation. This functions in childhood as a conditional-love dynamic in which the child's fears of abuse and abandonment are weaponised to produce docility and "compliance". But the current generation carry this through into adulthood. Conflict then carries a high anxiety load because they're expecting imminent annihilation or abandonment. In other words, they're still reacting like a very young child afraid of an angry parent. Third off, people get used to displacing the anger and assertion into passive-aggressive power-games. Add to this a ban on questioning emotional reactions, and an utter failure of current psychologists to see what's happening, and we have a machine for mass-producing extremely conflict-averse people. This is not just specific to the anarchist scene BTW, it's how modern workplaces work, the dominant paradigm of parenting, schooling, the MO of the various social-policy apparatuses, widely used in prisons alongside the traditional brutality, a key mechanism of psychological torture even in the most extreme cases (like Guantanamo)... it works very well at grinding people down, particularly if they're already vulnerable in some way or they've been exposed to this shit since birth. On the other hand, I've seen the cunts in power try this shit on (for example) ex-soldiers once or twice and it has no effect. If you aren't inside this whole mindset where the point is to gain approval from parent-substitutes and conflict carries a threat of annihilation, it all seems rather absurd, though at this point you're likely running up against the extreme violence the system reserves for those who haven't been broken-in.