Death to Pippelihousut

By Konsta Lindi

The Green movement is afflicted with an illness, and its name is pippelihousut*.

This contagious disease follows every Green politician like an orphaned duckling follows the first passerby. It observes demonstrations at an awkward distance, as to not miss out, yet never be associated with the cause. It makes bold statement while carefully avoiding taking a stance on anything. It fills conversations with unnecessary fabricated words, like "green growth," and invented scenarios, like blue-green voters. Perhaps you've encountered a pippelihousu before. Perhaps you are one.

Pippelihousut have taken over political space and poisoned what was once a rich discourse with their glossy, watered-down communication. Where once youth organizations had opinionated, perhaps slightly clumsy, but rich in expression, angry young people, our generation is now represented by thought-poor, communication agency-trained pippelihousut whose contribution to the world is beautiful nonsense and name-dropping. While an angry young person consistently states that almost every international climate conference has been a flop, a pippelihousu boasts about the list of pop-star politicians they casually met there without exchanging a single thought. What value do these pippelihousut bring to society? An excellent question, dear reader. Absolutely nothing. Pippelihousut are a product of neoliberal hubris, an outcome of abundance surpassing one's own understanding, where an individual feels the need to do, see, and be seen but have no obligation to be of use. The contribution of a pippelihousu to the world is adapting to values of the petite bourgeois and enforcing social control over their inner circle with Foucauldian group discipline. A pippelihousu believes the world is ready and that their task is simply to enjoy it. You might ask, where does this hatred for the pippelihousut come from? Your question is quite understandable, dear reader. I don't hate pippelihousut; rather, I pity them. Humiliating oneself in this way is a very poor coping mechanism. A pippelihousu is a façade, a shell constructed artificially with work and pain, hoping to protect the politically active young person in the tumult of life. What remains in the hands of a working-class young person squeezed into the petty bourgeois mold of a pippelihousu when daddy doesn’t have a technology firm or a twelve-meter sailboat, but instead has a public sector salary and a leaky rowboat? A great disappointment, I suspect. The dominance of pippelihousut does not even benefit the pippelihousu themselves. Death to pippelihousut. In the era of sustainability and environmental crises, we need woollen socks and the fire of ideals. Not bare ankles.

*pippelihousut (‘dickpants’) [pippelihousut] noun 1. tight, cropped trousers with rolled-up cuffs, exposing the wearer's ankles and loafers. 2. consultant or some other pointless made-up profession for the sadly unskilled but abundatly privileged with an acknowledged politics degree