I work as a counselor at a school where there's a lot of 4chan-esque right wing boys who are coming up. The previous generation a year or two ago wasn't too bad, but this generation coming up now is much more right wing.
My question is: how the f**k do I deal with this sh!t? How am I supposed to honestly give counsel to a kid with a pepe shirt on? How do I talk to these kids who literally come to me and rant about affirmative action? 2 years ago these types barely even existed and now they're everywhere, not only men but women too. They literally cannot control their right wing beliefs, they talk about it constantly, everywhere. They can't have a discussion about f**king math without bringing up how women hate math and science and that is why they are unsuccessful. They can't talk about english classes without talking about how colleges are wiping away white authors because of cultural Marxism. A kid came to me and ranted that his history classes 'blamed white people too much' for tragedies in the past and that it made him feel uncomfortable.
I know my job is that people can come to me with whatever possible problems they want, no matter how controversial. But this is getting f**king out of hand. How do I do this?Poor bloody guidance counselor. I'll bet she just. can't. even. She might even be literally shaking right now.
Perhaps we of the alt-left can help. It's what we do, right? The real alt-left, that is, not Sean Hannity or Donald Trump's version of the alt left. Let's get that out of the way right now. Just to recap, the alt-left:
- Is center left to left wing on economic issues. We're mainly social democrats with some democratic socialists and a smattering of anarchists and classical Marxists. New deal era welfare liberalism is good. Neoliberalism is not good. Libertarian capitalism is right out, and so is Stalinism or any variant thereof.
- We're civil libertarians. We like due process and free speech. We don't think government belongs in the bedrooms of the nation. It's not that we like Nazis, sexual harassment or similar kinds of bad behavior. It's that we fear what happens when mob mentality and moral panic get out of hand. Moderate conservatives get conflated with Nazis, idle flirtation gets conflated with sexual harassment and bad things generally happen. So there has to be due process and free and open debate on an ongoing basis.
- We're strict egalitarians across racial and gender lines. We're against misogyny and misandry. We think it's okay to be white, and we think black lives matter. We deeply distrust identity politics and postmodernism.
So, with that out of the way ... Oh boy. I sure hate to say I told you so, because anybody with a shred of intelligence could have seen this coming from a long, long way off. While the kids the counselor are describing sound obnoxious, it's important to emphasize that absolutely everything they're doing they were taught by the counselor in question, or people very much like her. Doubtless the situation described by the counselor comes as a surprise to none of us.
How? Let me go through this. Point by point.
"There's
a lot of 4chan-esque right wing boys who are coming up." Okay. Now, were
you a counselor in this school four or so years ago (we'll assume it's four,
for the sake of this discussion), when there were a lot of tumblr-esque left
wing girls who were coming up? It would help if you were, because that would
make it infinitely easier to get my overall point across. Easier, but not
necessary. I'll skip a bit of the post and continue:
"How
do I talk to these kids who literally come up to me and rant about affirmative action?"
I don't know. How did you talk to the kids four years ago when they literally
came up to you and ranted about the wage gap?
"2
years ago these types barely even existed and now they are everywhere, not only
men but women too." Funny. I remember thinking the exact same thing 4
years ago, when I was first hearing about atheism+. The term "SJW"
was a year or two away from becoming mainstream yet, but damn it if there
weren't suddenly a lot of them, bashing white males left, right and center. Not
only women but men too. Again, the politically correct types had been around a
long while, but quite suddenly in the early 2010s, they were cranking it up to
a whole new level. I remember it like it was yesterday. Once you reach your
40s, you'll notice how quickly time flies.
"They
literally cannot control their right wing beliefs, they talk about it
constantly, everywhere." You can't be serious? That's not good. I mean,
after four years (far longer actually, but for the sake of continuity) of kids
being unable to control their "left wing" beliefs, we now have to put
up with a right wing version of the same kind of nonsense? Can't say I'm happy
about that. Can't say I'm surprised either. Where do you think they might have
learned to be so obsessive politically?
"They
can't have a discussion about f**king math without bringing up how women hate
math and science and that is why they are unsuccessful." Funny, up until
now I've been hearing about how math and science are male dominated or even
patriarchal constructs, and that's why women are unsuccessful. This is sure a
change of pace. Not much of an improvement, though.
"They
can't talk about english classes without talking about colleges are wiping away
white authors because of cultural Marxism." Wanna know something? Kids
learn far more by example than they do from direct instruction. As a guidance
counselor, I'd have hoped you'd know this. After decades now of kids being
unable to talk about english classes without talking about how white authors
reinforce patriarchy and institutional racism, I'd say this new crop of right
wing kids have learned from the last few decades of example quite well, and
they're simply inverting the narrative to work for rather than against them. It
was really quite predictable, when you stop and think about it. While a more
nuanced understanding of the influence of identity and postmodernism on campus
politics would be nice, there sadly were far fewer examples of this. Far easier
to simply demonize white masculinity and be done with it.
"A
kid came to me and ranted that his history classes 'blamed white people too
much' for tragedies in the past and that it made him feel uncomfortable."
Again, they learn by example. If blacks and women could go up to guidance
counselors and actually blame white people for the tragedies of the past and
that it made them uncomfortable, then should it surprise us that white students
would eventually turn this on its head and otherwise do the same thing?
"I
know my job is that people can come to me with whatever possible problems they
want, no matter how controversial. But this is getting f**king out of hand. How
do I do this?"
Let's
get to the point, shall we?
Sauce
for the goose is sauce for the gander.
It's
really that simple. My only question to our guidance counselor is: what the
f**k did you think was going to happen? Are you honestly so naive and stupid as
to believe that the white males you demonized for a lot longer than 4 years now
would be content to simply hang their heads in shamed obedience and let the
postmodern critical theory establishment horde the deconstructionist and
identity politics goodies all to themselves? Or did it ever occur to you that
the neoreactionaries just might one day do what the feminist theorists, the
critical race theorists, the queer theorists, etc. themselves did back in the
1980s? Namely, call BULLSH!T on the establishment and demand their own place at
the table? Since neoreaction is merely a mirror-image version of what race,
feminist and queer theories are themselves, the only thing I'm surprised at
here is that this took as long as it did.
How
do you handle this? You don't. Leave that to us.
And how should the alt-left handle neoreaction? The same way we handle what's been passing for social justice. Keep hammering away at the fact that identity politics and postmodernism are dead end streets. All the things we despised about the SJWs will not go away once the NRx crowd starts doing the same things. Lack of transparency and accountability in government and lack of opportunity in the economy will continue to drive the kind of unreasoning identitarianism and misplaced zealotry that characterize regressivism of both the left and right.
Follow Ernest Everhard on these formats:
And how should the alt-left handle neoreaction? The same way we handle what's been passing for social justice. Keep hammering away at the fact that identity politics and postmodernism are dead end streets. All the things we despised about the SJWs will not go away once the NRx crowd starts doing the same things. Lack of transparency and accountability in government and lack of opportunity in the economy will continue to drive the kind of unreasoning identitarianism and misplaced zealotry that characterize regressivism of both the left and right.
Follow Ernest Everhard on these formats:
No comments:
Post a Comment