The Citadel entered a period of stoicism and reflection as we contemplate our response to the historic and systemic oppression we struggle with. We soldier on without the support of our partners at Pacific Cascadia. Our fight for the common man will continue as long as there is a single person unfairly treated by the oppressors. Joyism will continue to be battled. March on fellow soldiers, march on
Breaking news from the cultural front lines! You cannot be happy. Primaris Solenne has spoken. Showing joy is the new fashy mortal sin. Do worry, and whatever you do, don’t be happy. Things will go much better for you. The modern revolution runs on a very specific vibe check that demands total compliance.
It’s just safer to be miserable. People get instant affirmation for being agin’ it. Agin’ what? Pick something. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re mad. Don’t be happy—that’s cringe. Joyism is a literal hate crime against the movement.
A woman wearing an “I hate Men” t-shirt gets an avalanche of likes. Why? Because this entire culture grew its roots in the soil of grievance. To be content, to be happy, or to dare to show genuine joy completely ruins the zeitgeist. Happiness is a mortal sin against the revolution. So go ahead: find your grievance, make sure everyone knows it, and fight for its survival. ¡Viva la revolución!
Joy is Heresy
This grievance engine birthed in the thick of the Industrial Revolution as an academic critique of power structures. What began as analysis slowly metastasized into identity. Since then it infected the world as a series of cultural fevers branding themselves as battles against the outrage of the day. Over its lifespan it morphed into a totalizing reality that requires a constant stream of fresh offenses to keep it alive. It spends its energy eating whatever bitterness it can catch.
Lately, a massive amount of invective is fired at Donald Trump and his MAGAts. The cultural elite elevated him into a dark, omnipotent god-king who threatens everything fought for over the last century. MAGAts cause climate change. MAGAts cause natural disasters. Palasades is in ashes and can’t rebuild because of MAGAts. This frantic fixation misses the mark. Salmon Voldemort is a symptom of our condition, not the cause. Elevating a single political figure to a cosmic villain is “vanity and a chasing after the wind.”
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
This loud, chaotic political theater distracts us from a much deeper, uncomfortable reality. Decades of institutional decay have thoroughly dry-rotted the old cultural house. No amount of yelling at the storm outside will keep the roof from coming down.
Festering in the ideological wreckage carries a massive catch—a permanent state of rage or despair ruins our health. Melancholy or choleric anger will drive you crazy or make you ill. Our Creator never designed our bodies to hold a combat posture forever. Eventually, we need to shut down the outrage machine, catch a real meal, and take a nap. Ignore that need and it is you that is hurt, not the injustice you battled against.
You do not find justice at the far end of this grievance road. Instead, you find an early grave. Your years of fury did not change the world for the better. What happened was the world ate your soul. You become a hollowed out husk with only the shadows of the old causes for companionship. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
We Sell Nothing and You Will Like It
The grievance machine offers sleight of hand. It rewards those who follow its laws with wealth and fame at the price of happiness as the cost of admission. The machine preaches two roads claimed to deliver joyism: self-love or a cold, empty universe. Self-love’s treatment plan demands more therapy and endless struggle sessions. It tells us to look inward and build an internal sanctuary away from the noise. Telling a broken person to save themselves through self-love is like asking a drowning man to pull himself out of the ocean by his own hair.
The second road is paved with words that tells us the universe is empty, nobody is coming to save us, and we must invent our own rules. Proponents of this view proudly imply that God is a delusion and that we must forge meaning out of nothing. Ok. What’s our answer to, “I have the might so I can make the rules?” As a confessed Christian and a lifelong Presbyterian, I cannot go there. This ideology bleeds the magic out of reality. It murders the mystery, kills the Cheshire Cats, and uses the corpses of puckish fairies to build a mirror factory. Down this road Jesus is a mentally disturbed stone mason who told grandiose delusions about himself. Hard pass.
The ancient words of the Nicene Creed clash with modern, self-centered frameworks. We are not cosmic accidents tasked with inventing our own morality; the Almighty created us, and we answer to Him. Both secular paths fail because they try to solve the void by looking inward or looking down. They place the entire staggering weight of the universe right back onto our own fragile, exhausted shoulders. Acknowledging that earthly things are “vanity” frees us from the burden of trying to build permanent human empires.
The Answer is Joyism
The answer to the madness turns out to be small. Practice joyism. Make happiness a spiritual discipline. Do a small act of kindness with great love. Then do another and keep doing those. Pop in your headphones, turn up Bobby McFerrin’s anthem, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, and smile in the face of a miserable culture.
Joyism is a spiritual discipline. Happiness cultivated under the yoke of God’s love and laws brings health and life to the bones. Conversely, unyoked happiness curdles into schadenfreude. The grievance mob rejects the discipline of holy joy. They choose instead the cheap malice of the dark side.
If the revolution demands your destruction, giving them sunshine is the ultimate counter-offensive. To the gatekeepers of grievance, your peace is a disease. It infects people the exact same way a Nazarene stone mason’s martyrdom over two thousand years ago remains infectious to this day.
Empires fall, revolutions consume themselves, and political god-kings vanish into the dust. The joy of the small, the local, and the redeemed remains untouchable. If you want to fight the machine, step away from the outrage, care for your neighbor, and keep your soul intact. March on, fellow soldiers, march on.