You ever notice how a lot of leftism these days feels like someone just slapped a political label onto a guy who never learned how to do his own laundry? I mean, remember when you were a kid—like a teenager, say—and you’d get all furious at the world because you, I don’t know, got a bad haircut or couldn’t figure out how to drive stick? You’d blame “society” or “the man,” and maybe throw on a Rage Against the Machine album to help you mope around the basement. Then, ideally, you’d grow out of it. You’d start doing your own dishes, maybe pay a bill or two, and accept that, yeah, life’s got its bumps but you’ve gotta get on with it. That’s what becoming an adult used to mean. But now, I’m looking around and I’m seeing that same teenage-aggression style politics in people old enough to remember dial-up internet. It’s weird, man.

Back in the day, unfiltered rage at “the system” was something you mostly saw in young men who had too much energy and not enough direction. They’d stomp around in combat boots or something, screaming about how society owes them a living—until they grew up and realized, “Oh, I guess I owe myself a living.” It’s a natural part of human development: at some point, you stop yelling at the world and start changing your own oil (or at least knowing where the oil goes—somewhere under the hood, right?). But now we’ve got this bizarre phenomenon where middle-aged adults, including a lot of women, have just decided to keep that same teenage “I hate everything and it’s all your fault” vibe going, well past its expiration date.

It’s as if the whole cultural expectation of “adulthood” is dissolving before our eyes. Used to be you hit your mid-30s and, sure, maybe you still complained about your neighbors, but you didn’t actually take to the streets chanting that your inability to fold fitted sheets is some kind of “structural oppression.” But that’s where we are: folks have trouble performing basic life tasks—balancing a checkbook, preparing a proper meal, maybe even just being polite in a grocery line—and they’re looking for someone or something to pin it on. And guess what’s more fun: blaming yourself for not learning a few grown-up skills or joining an angry political subculture that says “Nah, man, it’s not you, it’s the whole Western civilization thing that’s gotta go”?

I mean, look, life’s tough, no one’s denying that. But part of life being tough is supposed to inspire you to become tougher, or smarter, or at the very least more competent in small, tangible ways. Instead, what we’re seeing is a kind of cultural regression, as if we collectively decided, “Nah, I’m good. I’ll just remain mentally fourteen forever.” Only now those angry fourteen-year-olds are in their forties, and they’re marching around with slogans that sound suspiciously like teenage gripes dressed up as grand political theory. It’s not even subtle. If these folks spent half as much time learning to cook a chicken properly as they do fuming online about societal injustices, they might find they’re a lot less angry after a nice, well-seasoned meal.

And that’s the crux of it: at its core, a lot of this leftist fury—and I’m talking about the performative, bitter kind, not legitimate grievances—is just displaced humiliation. Humiliation at feeling stuck in life’s simplest tasks, at not having built up a meaningful skill set, and at looking around and seeing people who did put in the work. Rather than say, “Hey, I should get my act together,” it’s easier to say, “This entire structure is corrupt and making me feel small.” Which, you know, might sometimes be true. But it’s also convenient when you don’t want to grow up.

So what do we get? A bunch of people raging at the world the way a thirteen-year-old yells at a teacher who marks their essay a C-minus. Except these are not kids. They’re grown, they have jobs (sometimes), and they’re spreading this notion that meeting basic life challenges is some kind of antiquated oppression. It’s basically a mass refusal to leave adolescence behind. And I gotta say, it’s not a good look. Society needs adults—people who can tie their shoes, pay their rent, and still have the decency not to blame the cosmic order for their inability to fold a sheet. At the end of the day, the best way to move forward might be to remind ourselves that growing up is not a conspiracy—it’s the whole point of living.