The migrant rape crisis coincides with the emergence of the term “social justice warrior” as a pejorative rather than as a complimentary term, especially following the infamous gamergate controversy. Compare with “political correctness” in the 1990s. Both political correctness and social justice warrior denote dogmatism and authoritarianism in identity politics, and both are used interchangeably by the right wing as snarl terms to attack all liberal and leftist thought.
Regressive leftism and SJWs are now a major internet phenomena, with newsblogs and pundits both for and against being major sources of controversy and thus big business, especially in ad revenue generated clickbait social media outlets. The problem is especially bad on college campuses, as the Feb 2, 2017 UC Berkeley riots so recently brought to the attention of so many.
The present form of SJW leftism seemed to kick into high gear during the Obama years, especially at the high water mark of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Beneath the veneer of what came across as a radical protest against the entrenchment of corporate power in American politics were deep strains of regressivism.
Some of it were cultural dysfunctions that plagued American radicalism throughout its entire history: a preoccupation with direct democracy and mass-consensus decision making resulting in movement paralysis. But alongside this was a kind of SJW operational prototype called the “progressive stack” wherein preference at meetings was given to members of "marginalized groups" over the "privileged." White males spoke last at meetings, if at all, Accompanying this were the now familiar accoutrements of the feminization of radicalism: anti-heterosexuality and the insistence upon white and/or male free spaces and ideas being at the heart of the movement. The only way to end the dominance of one group would be, it would seem, is the imposition of the dominance of another.
"We are the 99%" became "Queer womyn of color uber-alles!"
All of this has had the effect of creating a huge space on the political right to capitalize on popular anxieties over Muslim immigration, frustration with frivolous social justice activism and the dictatorial political correctness underlying it all, that the progressives refuse to acknowledge. The results have no doubt contributed greatly to the rise of populist nationalism, of the kind exemplified by Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, across Europe and the English speaking world.
Donald Trump's electoral victory stunned a world that had written him off as an unqualified racist and misogynistic curmudgeon. In retrospect, it is easy to see how his win is a vote of non-confidence against both a GOP establishment that has had no new ideas since Reagan, and a hopelessly compromised DNC establishment that stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton - a corporatist hawk with a lengthy record of voting with the Bush administration behind a thin girl-power veneer. None of this has taught the DNC much needed lessons about the dangers of ignoring public concerns in favor of doubling down on the narratives dominant in their own mainstream media echo chambers.
The sudden emergence of the identity obsessed social justice warrior in tandem with the Occupy movement does give one pause. We also know through WikiLeaks that a well funded and concerted effort to create a “liberal echo chamber” began in the 2007-2008 period. But this echo chamber was built upon a firmly established foundation. Regressive leftism predates America’s first black president. In his 2007 book What’s Left, British leftist Nick Cohen attacks what he perceives as a knee-jerk anti-western tendency in the English speaking western world, which causes them to cherry pick the human rights causes that galvanize them and find common cause with authoritarian government and regimes abroad.
Center left parties in the western world gradually built electoral coalitions around the demographic changes that have been occurring since the 1970s. Both immigration and political correctness are key components of this coalition. It was a politically sensible move back in the 1990s when socialism fell out of favor and the clout of organized labor declined due to outsourcing, automation and a more conservative political climate. But, as Sam Harris enunciates in this video, this coalition is becoming toxic for the center left.
Accusations of racism as a means of stifling debate and smearing opponents have worn thin on once sympathetic populations.
On the subject of SamHarris, it would seem at first glance that the so called new atheist writers of the early 21st century: besides Sam Harris there were Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, among others, who do not seem to typify regressive leftism. Most of these figures are not that left wing for one thing, and for another, their criticisms of the dogmatism and irrationality of religious belief were in direct keeping with the humanist liberal tradition of Bertrand Russel and others like him. It was these authors who first informed the online “skeptic community” that are among today’s staunchest critics of regressive leftism.
But they set many precedents that helped to legitimize the current wave of regressives. Some of this was inadvertent: the doctrine of original sin both created and legitimized internalized guilt and inferiority complexes, which subsequently sought out other forms of expression after Christian theology had been thoroughly deconstructed. White male guilt, by now long institutionalized in some branches of academia for reasons soon to be expanded on, stepped in to fill this psychological void. In even deeply personal affairs, this dynamic proved useful to certain types of people – radical feminism made it acceptable to think sex is dirty again. Notice that regressive leftism wasn’t nearly as successful in regions such as the US south, where the Southern Baptist Convention did not liberalize to nearly the degree that mainline protestant denominations did.
The new atheism also galvanized the current crop of SJWs more directly when they made treatment of women and racial minorities a part of their overall critique of religious belief. Moreover, I think, the new atheism went beyond politics or even relationships between people in their critiques, but also politicized people’s most deeply held beliefs. While lip service was paid to freedom of conscience, as far as the online league of the militant Godless was concerned, one was on the side of wrong, backwardness and oppression merely for having the wrong beliefs. Oftentimes, merely believing in the Christian God was equated to being a racist or a fascist sympathizer.
None of this is to say that critique of religious doctrine is itself inherently regressive, nor did the early 21st century crop of atheist authors pioneer ideological policing in "liberal" quarters. But stating, or at least implying, that one is stupid or morally wrong for holding the incorrect beliefs both sets and follows dangerous precedents, even if sometimes warranted. This is especially so when there is, as there frequently was in online flame wars between Christians and atheists, a strong undertone of classist elitism, with religiosity, together with racism, misogyny and homophobia, being associated with being poor, uneducated or a redneck. While many of Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens's critiques of Christian doctrine were fair and accurate, liberal stances in the culture wars were accompanied, perhaps unwittingly, by a growing tendency to stand above, rather than beside, the poor and marginalized. So long as the poor and marginalized were white, mind you.
Plus, prior to the very recent emergence of controversy surrounding regressive left coddling of Islamism and the whole SJW phenomenon - itself due in part to a schism within the skeptic community over its alleged sexism, the new atheists were extremely sensitive to any suggestion that repression and dogmatism could come from atheists or from the left. But as we shall see, and have seen, it can and does.
Controversies surrounding dogmatism and censorship on western college campuses predate the presidency of George W. Bush. Shock pundits such as Milo Yiannopoulos were not the first to call our attention to fanatical and dogmatic enclaves of left wing ideologues on college campuses. During the Clinton years, and even during the presidency of W’s father, concerns over “political correctness” were raised by authors such as Allan Bloom, Dinesh D’Sousa and Christina Hoff Sommers. The ideological foundations of the present SJW movement had been long in the process of being laid even then.
Concern was raised not merely regarding the radical nature of the ideas being taught in black studies or women’s studies departments, but with the impact leftist movements were having on campuses. Concerns that a western conservatism built entirely on anti-communism and then at the peak of its power and influence, were willing, for the most part, to ignore in the days following the collapse of the Berlin wall and the break up of the USSR.
On the face of it, this is not an unsound concept. So what is so wrong with intersectional feminism that you should not be one? The devil is, as he so often is, in the details.
An an insightful article critiquing of intersectional feminism, author Helen Pluckrose describes the philosophical and ideological shift that took place as intersectionality became the party line in organized feminism. And, by extent, the state religion of all first world nations.
Liberal feminist aims gradually shifted from the position:
“Everyone deserves human rights and equality, and feminism
focuses on achieving them for women.”
to
“Individuals and groups of all sexes, races, religions and
sexualities have their own truths, norms and values. All truths, cultural norms
and moral values are equal. Those of white, Western, heterosexual men have
unfairly dominated in the past so now they and all their ideas must be set aside
for marginalized groups.”
Liberal feminism had shifted from the universality of equal
human rights to identity politics. No longer were ideas valued on their merit
but on the identity of the speaker and this was multifaceted, incorporating
sex, gender identity, race, religion, sexuality and physical ability. The value
of an identity in social justice terms is dependent on its degree of
marginalization, and these stack up and vie for primacy. This is where liberal
feminism went so badly wrong. When postcolonial guilt fought with feminism,
feminism lost. When it fought with LGBT rights, they lost too.
Pluckrose details how cherry picked postmodern philosophy enabled the jettisoning of universal liberal and egalitarian values as underpinning feminist theory and replacing it with moral and epistemological relativism. I detail elsewhere both the strengths and weaknesses of postmodernism, and how it has, on balance, been a negative thing for leftism. Long story short, postmodernism asserts that metaphysics and epistemology - the nature of reality and the nature of man's means of knowing reality were, to a considerable degree, socially constructed and subjective. At the very least, it rejected the idea that there are singular overarching "metanarratives" applicable to all people at all times. Claims to objective reality were to be broken down or "deconstructed" to reveal that their foundations are little more than self serving biases. Implicit in this was a cultural relativism that urged people to not be so judgemental of other cultures, even if those cultures appeared on the surface to be less advanced and prosperous than our own.
This is not so, so bad. But it can be problematic if carried to a natural, logical extreme. If cultures and morality are truly culturally subjective, than on what grounds could it be asserted that cultures that stressed racial and gender egalitarianism are truly preferable to racist or patriarchal cultures? How could claims that universalistic liberalism was a western social construct that could be shown to implicitly favor white males be reconciled with racial and gender equality being values belonging exclusively to western liberalism?
If such questions were posed, they were no doubt deemed taboo. The claims of critical race theory and feminist theory seemed strangely immune to postmodern deconstruction, and tended to be treated as if they were eternal truths binding on all people at all times. Metanarratives, for lack of a better word. It was just implicitly assumed that theories built around marginalized identities were infallible. Best not to say anything, though. It's not wise to point out the cherry-picking when the people doing it could make or break your academic career.
Thus began the move into intersectionality that Helen Pluckrose describes above.
Add Peggy McIntosh's knapsack of privilege dogma that was adopted into the women's studies canon in the late 1980s, and the prejudice plus power encyclical that also became canonical, and the foundations for the most toxic regressive left theory since Lenin were set.
Intersectional feminism in any kind of practice inevitably becomes a complete trainwreck.
People are all inevitably placed on several abacuses of privilege vs. marginalization:
Male vs. Female
White vs. P.O.C (person of color)
Heterosexual vs. LGBTQ
Cisgender vs. Transgender
Thin vs. Fat
Able bodied vs. Disabled
Christian vs. Atheist vs. Non Christian vs. Muslim
With identities falling to the left being considered privileged compared to identities on the right. The tendency in intersectional feminism is to assume that incontestable moral and intellectual authority is conferred by the possession of marginalized identities. Those with fewer marginalized identities are generally expected to shut up and feel guilty about their privilege. At the very least, they are not to challenge people with more marginalized identities on anything. Those with more marginalized identities are implicitly expected to resent their more privileged counterparts, and are given full license via the prejudice plus power rationalization to abuse them as much as they want.
No intersectional feminist will admit to the above paragraph, but that is the observable truth of it in action. The problems have become so glaring that even that even Everyday Feminism - the spiritual successor to Pravda if there ever was one, has speculated that its ideological structure lends itself to abuse. Not that intersectional feminists would deal with such an accusation directly, mind you. If you are more privileged than they, they would simply point this out and, as far as they're concerned, this would shut down the argument.
An exaggerated example to illustrate the way this works in practice: In a disagreement over math, wherein a white male asserted that 2+2=4 and a queer woman of color asserted that 2+2=5, typical intersectional feminist sophistry would not take the form of coming out and saying that the answer was five. Instead, they'd point out that the math textbooks of the past were written by white males, and thus the queer woman of color experienced oppression while being taught, most likely by a teacher who was white, cis and straight, that 2 and 2 made 4. Claims made under a marginalized person's experience of oppression in intersectional feminism can only be compared to outright divine revelation and command in fundamentalist religion in terms of being absolute in all conceivable ways: moral, metaphysical, epistemological and otherwise. These claims supercede any and everything else and to contest them is evil with a capital E, beyond even heresy or treason.
The white male would then be chided and told to check his privilege for arguing with the queer woman of color on the matter in the first place. His insistence that 2 and 2 made 4 would, most likely with some canned formulaic copy-pasta response, be attributed to an unwillingness to relinquish privilege, because "when you are privileged, equality feels like oppression." Expect lots of reference to "angry white dudes" or the like, often some witty portmanteau: "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining", and some likewise clever and satirical misspelling of "dewd" or "wypepo." These kinds of vacuous signalling are, for whatever reason, prized in intersectional feminist circles.
They've also made an artform of other kinds of disingenuous and deceptive argumentation. Expect lots of bulverism - short and vague responses that imply that you've crossed some unseen line placing you beyond the pale of reason, morality or respect. "Wow! Just Wow!" is the ur-copy-pasta here. Greenwalding - intentionally taking parts of opponent's statements out of context and making them say something very different than what they were intended to say, is also common. As are more common logical and referential fallacies including slippery slopes and moving goalposts. True Scotsmen are unheard of among intersectional feminists. Two wrongs making a right is the basis of much of its "prejudice plus power" moral system.
Showing that you "get it" is of paramount importance. Dogpiling on nay-sayers is one of the very, very few actions that privileged sympathizers (that for reasons I can't fathom, are vast in number) can be almost assured of approval of from their more marginalized superiors. Appeals to authority come with the territory here, with the "experience of marginalized people" and the theoretical dogmas underlying this kind of thinking being considered infallible. Emotional reasoning is rampant - a marginalized person being "triggered" is considered oppressive, no matter the intent behind the action that caused said triggering. Bootleg videos of SJW meltdowns, of the kind so often captured at Milo Yiannopoulos lectures, are a result of this.
Catastrophization underlies the dogma of the "microaggression", where even the most innocuous actions or gestures on part of the privileged are taken as indicative of privilege and oppression, and therefore just grounds to trigger a marginalized person. The privileged, of course, are completely responsible, regardless of intent, and cannot argue for reasons outlined above.
The ends always justify the means with intersectional feminists. As with Lenin and his historical idea of "Kto Kovo" - "Who, whom?" actions are judged not on the basis of whether they are right or wrong, but by who benefits and who suffers as a result of them. There is no recourse or appeal for the "privileged."
Another Leninist trait is vanguardism. Intersectional feminists make bold statements on behalf of entire demographics of people. Are they really speaking for all blacks or all women, or are they speaking for the women's studies department or the black studies department? They represent themselves and their ideologies, not all people who share their demographics, whatever they may tell you.
Suffice it to say, this is hardly a recipe for mental health or satisfactory relationships. I do not think it out of the question that there is a disproportionate prevalence of cluster B personality disorders within intersectional feminist ranks. Like fascism, fundamentalism and Stalinism, intersectional feminism is a completely closed and completely authoritarian system. This has been shown, with such examples as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Shock Experiment, to bring about blind obedience to authority regardless of who is getting hurt, and can even attract outrightly sadistic personalities. As Nazi and Stalinist examples demonstrate, absolute power combined with a legitimizing ideology is the formula for atrocity.
Of course, intersectional feminists are guilty of nothing on the scale of the holocaust or the holodomor. But honestly, the only thing holding them back at this point is not having absolute power. But they are given carte-blanche in most media and academic environments. This should be troubling for everyone. No idea should be above criticism. Sacred cows walk the road into regressive darkness.
Not all intersectional feminists are malignant psychopathic nutjobs. Many, if not most are well meaning people who genuinely want to give voice to the downtrodden. The problem is not that every intersectional feminist is a bad person. The problem is that intersectional feminism as a belief system is both tightly closed and - quite ironically - extremely hierarchical. And this does attract antisocial people. Many too deal with psychological problems stemming from abuse, bad upbringings or a general lack of self esteem that they find easy to project onto other people or society as a whole via intersectional feminist rationalizations, as opposed to the challenging work of seeking therapy and healing via challenging themselves.
Beware of psychologizing people, however, unless you have good cause to do so - you've observed clearly bizarre behavior or, as they do surprisingly frequently, the intersectional feminist just comes right out and tells you they have issues. I see this in blog posts and magazine articles quite consistently. Or you are a trained psychologist. Keep poor mental health as a possible explanatory factor for truly unhinged behavior in the back of your mind, as opposed to it being a go-to response that you can use to easily and conveniently handwave claims you disagree with.
It also bears mention that economic inequality is regarded as being of lesser importance to intersectional feminism, and class is treated as race, gender and so on are: as an identity. This is a distortion of the nature of economic class as a vector of identity. Class is attributable to relations of production, not an immutable genetic trait. Another problem with intersectional feminism is that in attributing privilege to genetic factors such as race, gender or sexual orientation, the real halls of power: big business and big government, escape scrutiny. Perhaps that is why media and academia likes intersectional feminism as much as it does. And libertarians have no less reason to balk at intersectional feminists than Marxists do. The smallest and most marginalized minority of them all is the individual, who turns out to be completely invisible in intersectional feminist praxis.
If at all possible, do not deal with intersectional feminists unless they show you that they are at least open to other points of view. Especially steer clear of them if they demonstrate abusive or manipulative behaviors. Do not allow yourself to become subject to their authority. A common intersectional feminist strategy is to assume positions of influence and authority in organizations and use them to impose their will. Stop them if you can, or leave organizations wherein this happens, if you can.
And for the love of God, do NOT let them convince you that they are within their rights to control, manipulate or abuse you in any way simply because they have more marginalized identities than you, and because guilt by association and collective responsibility, you owe this to them. You don't. Let me make that crystal clear. You don't owe it to anyone to be a doormat.
On the other hand, listen with an open mind to claims intersectional feminists make regarding the realities of life for marginalized people. They can be valuable repositories of knowledge regarding specific social issues. Not uncommonly, they advocate for good reforms, if you can sort the moral absolutism and panic from the legitimate claims. Resist the temptation to "whataboutery" in a vain effort to establish moral equivalency. You will not convince them. Sometimes, agreeing with them, especially when warranted, can disarm them. Sometimes.
I do not condemn intersectional feminism because, as a white dude, I get short shrift from it. That is sufficient reason to condemn it, but that it not its greatest sin. What is truly damning about intersectional feminism is its betrayal of the core values of racial and gender equality. It turns all of our backs on the reasons we abandoned racism and sexism in the first place. Because people are more than their genitals, their skin color or who they're sexually attracted to. And people want to be, and deserve to be, evaluated on more than just those characteristics. People told to "check their privilege" rightly feel objectified, reduced to bare biological characteristic, by the praxis of intersectional feminism.
White people can, and should, have opportunities to enjoy healthy and mutual beneficial relationships with people of color. Men can, and should, have opportunities to enjoy healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with women. Straight people can, and should, have opportunities to enjoy healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with LGBTQ people. Poor and working class people should have opportunities to benefit from a progressive movement centered around economic inequality and keeping money out of politics, and the opportunities to rise as high as their talents and efforts allow them. These opportunities benefit everybody. Guilt and shame for the marginalized together with resentment and self righteous entitlement for the marginalized benefit no one. For a fleeting sense of self righteousness, the "marginalized" people who accept intersectional feminism's faustian bargain loose all of the above opportunities.
As I write this, the greatest threat to these opportunities comes not from the Ku Klux Klansman or the homophobic and puritanical fundamentalist preacher. Rather, the greatest threat now comes from those who have usurped the mantle of the good causes that brought us to the brink of victory over the Klansman and the fundamentalist. That victory begins to slip away. We must snatch it back.
I'll make my own analysis of why the Democrats lost in 2016, and how they can win again. Why not? Everybody else is. Like vultures circling a dying animal, pundits are not wasting time in grafting their agendas onto the narrative of Hillary's defeat.
The reasons given inevitably boil down to one of a few things: the Democrats lost touch with the working class and abandoned fiscal progressivism, somewhere along the line liberal smugness and political correctness went too far and pushed frustrated white dudes into Trump's camp, white dudes voted for Trump because they hate women and people of color, Hillary Clinton's decidedly regressive record as Secretary of State, as Senator during the Bush years and as First Lady during her husband's presidency. The system is corrupt, the Russians had a hand in it somewhere, Wikileaks, low voter turnout among traditional democratic voters, take your pick.
Ironically emboldened by Trump's victory, leftist voices ranging from classical liberals to outright tankies are calling for the Democratic Party especially and the progressive left in the western world more generally to give up on identity politics and take a more class and economic oriented approach. No argument here. The Amazing Atheist gave what I thought to be the most rousing video making this claim. I'd love to see that happen. Mark my words. But is a lack of class consciousness on the left - an issue I feel strongly about to do a blog series on it - really why the Democrats tanked?
Let's not rush to too many judgments here. A nation that elected a black neoliberal president for two successive terms did not suddenly turn into Klanland or the dictatorship of the proletariat by handing Trump the keys to the Oval Office. Dream on, guys.
I certainly don't think this was the wisest decision the American people have ever collectively made. But Trump's popular vote numbers are not that great: 61,300,000. Hardly more than either Romney (60,900,000) or McCain (59,900,000). Not an overwhelming difference. Now compare Hillary's popular vote performance (62,200,00) to Obama's 2012 (65,900,000) and 2008 (69,500,000). This is more significant. There's reasons why Hillary lost to Obama in 2008, and her victory over Sanders is marred in controversy and resentment within the party.
Trump did not win. Hillary lost. She consistently failed to energize the party base as Obama did. Hence the fact it's been Obama and not Hillary the last eight years. Why this is so is quite beside the point. Leadership and charisma are esoteric qualities. It's not always easy to explain why some people have it and others don't. But the prevailing narratives being trotted out to explain this don't hold up based on the numbers.
Racism and sexism? Then explain why Obama got many more votes in 2008 and 2012 than Trump did in 2016? Trump appealed to nativist and nationalist sentiments throughout the campaign; to a considerably greater degree than mainstream Republicans in recent history, but this hardly explains his victory.
As for sexism and misogyny, more white women voted for "grab 'em by the pussy" than voted for "I'm with her!" That says quite a bit. That aside, he didn't perform substantially better than McCain or Romney did. His boorishness was a liability to far more people than it was an asset to. White males are a long way from a voting majority. Following his notorious "pussy grabbing" comments, he was all but written off among serious pollsters, and the smart money suggests that he was saved in the last weeks by Wikileaks and Comey.
Were people voting against political correctness and liberal smugness? See above - these things didn't spring out of thin air two years ago. Explain Obama's victories.
Were people voting against neo-liberalism and the abandonment of the white male working class? Again, see above. Explain Obama.
Were people voting against having a woman in the White House? Possibly, but unlikely.
Truth is, people weren't voting against Herbert Marcuse, Milton Friedman or Gloria Steinem in this election. They were voting against Hillary Clinton. It's really no more complicated than that.
Okay, so then THAT happened. And I'd be lying if I told you I was among those who saw this coming.
Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. From the defeated camp, two narratives seem to be emerging. Mainly because the defeated camp is be no means united. Which is why they were the defeated camp, after all.
One of these camps is showing itself to be sadly predictable. As boilerplate in its lack of self awareness as it is in what passes for its ideological content. "I'm not shocked by any of this," began the tweet that the HuffPost described as a "Nightmare Election Night Summarized in 1 Bleak Tweet" - "People hate women for more than they hate racists."
Yawn.
Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of Trump. I have grave reservations about his capacity to govern, given his glaring lack of political experience, among other numerous flaws and blemishes. I do not condone his racial insensitivity nor his boorish attitude towards women. But any kind of evil Hitler agenda will have to get through Congress first - which though in Republican hands, is so only by a margin, especially the senate. And it's not like the G.O.P are solidly behind the Donald in any event.
HuffPost Canada did no better: "Hate and Fear Won!" This saccharine article goes on to say, "When I think of my friends and family in the US, I genuinely
fear for them. I fear for women, for minorities and people of colour. I fear
for their professional and personal interactions, their reproductive rights and
their right to basic safety and security. I fear for the legitimization of
identity politics. I fear for climate change and the EPA."
Hate and fear won?
So too has irony. In a paragraph laden with identity politics - "I fear for women, for minorities and people of color", the author goes on to say that she fears for "the legitimization of identity politics." Oblivious to the irony, apparently. And this is the deeper problem with this narrative: its comical lack of self awareness. Hate and fear - of the uneducated white male working class got us here. The legitimization of identity politics - for the exclusive charmed circle of feminists, minorities and people of color - also got us here.
Hate and fear of unemployment? Hate and fear of terrorism? Specifically, Islamic terrorism? Hate and fear of the horrors Europe has been dealing with during its migrant crisis? Nowhere in sight, apparently.
These articles are but two of a countless number cropping up everywhere online, including all of our Facebook news-feeds, since news of Trump's victory was announced. Baskets and baskets full of deplorables turned loose on our streets. Pepe the Frog on our computer screens! Evil Hitler on the rise!
Can we really claim that racism drove so many to put Trump in office when the same electorate so recently handed a black man two terms in the Oval Office? Was a vote for Trump really a vote against a woman president and for Trump's locker room boorishness?
Maybe. I honestly hope not, but in some cases, people no doubt voted for Trump for the wrong reasons. Or maybe it's an insult to all but a tiny handful of glaringly sociopathic voters to assume they had such dark motives. Which is really part of the deeper problem.
Or maybe it was a vote against an obviously corrupt and Machiavellian DNC establishment candidate who willfully weaponized identity politics for use against Bernie Sander's basement dwelling supporters, and enjoyed considerable DNC favoritism in her race for the candidacy right from the get-go?
Or maybe it was a vote against Hillary's support of welfare reform while her hubby was in office?
Or maybe it was a vote against the war on drugs, or against the war in Iraq?
And perhaps, most significantly, maybe it was a vote against an overarching sense of entitlement. Hillary Clinton was not entitled to sit in the Oval Office. Was she better qualified than Donald Trump to do so? Quite probable. But it doesn't work that way. Hillary Clinton was not owed the White House. Not because she is a Clinton. Not because she is a Democrat. Not because she is a woman. Not because she is a progressive or a liberal. And screaming "dat raciss!" or "Muhsogyny!" at anyone who won't vote for any of the above is just compounding the problem. Shut up and get some self awareness before you drive progressive politics back into late 1980s levels of obscurity and political toxicity.
And this leads us into the second narrative to come from the other side of the defeated camp. A narrative that is quieter and more introspective. More level headed and frankly, more intelligent.
A narrative that wonders if it's such a good idea for progressive media to keep beating the rest of the country over the head with aggressive anti white male identity politics and political correctness?
A narrative that wonders if it was so wise for the DNC to screw the best candidate from a genuinely progressive perspective that they've had in decades, out of the nomination?
A narrative that wonders if the white working class who feels left behind and shut out by changes to the global economy aren't the kinds of people progressives should be reaching out to, rather than simply condemning as racist rubes?
I won't go as far as to say that the Democrats completely brought this on themselves. Okay, who am I kidding? They brought this completely on themselves. With a still popular outgoing two term president - a remarkable achievement - they've quite suddenly stooped to levels of lacking political acumen that we've not seen from them since the bad old days of Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis. An even more remarkable political achievement. This was a very, very winnable election for them, and they lost it to their own glaring lack of collective self awareness.
Two different narratives from two different progressive mindsets. One wants to tell you what to think or else you're a racist and a muhsogynist. The other wants to listen to you and take your fears and concerns, including of racism and misogyny, seriously. One of these has a political future. The other does not.
From the 1990s onward, the left in the west found itself
increasingly dependent on educated urban liberals, minorities and immigrants
for its electoral support as the unions collapsed due to the loss of
manufacturing jobs to places like China. Gradually, dialectics based on
race and gender would come to replace dialectics based on class - despite how
monstrous a misapplication of Marxist theory this was.
It was a new lease on life for the beleaguered leftist
parties everywhere, albeit one that would come at a heavy price.
Critical theory based on race and gender begun its
own "deconstruction" of western culture in academia, supported quite
ironically by state and corporate cash, not to mention student debt. The organs
of western culture - corporate media and academia - expressed increasing worry
that racism and misogyny were "found" to be deeply embedded in
western culture - the same culture that financed and enabled the spread of
feminist and multiculturalist theory.
A quasi Marxist dialectic recognizing all white males
regardless of class as a kind of ruling class, and women and minorities as an
exploited underclass emerged, and analysis of racial and sexual relationships
through this kind of lens became prominent. In the absence of a political
theory of class rooted in relations of production, such views emerged almost
entirely unchallenged. What we now recognize as political correctness
emerged.
When social media allowed for this ideology to extend beyond academia
and into the broader culture, a new plague was released upon the world: the
social justice warriors. Despite their anti-capitalist pretenses, Wall
Street certainly had no objections to the SJWs - better white male tears than being occupied,
after all. Silicon Valley went further, with online magazines and social media of all kinds rushing to give platforms to feminist and anti-racist concerns. The pettier, the better, it so often seemed. If an article got clicks, the article got bucks. Advertising fuels it, after all, and what better way to draw attention than with manufactured controversy? And what worked better for that than some or another instance of "political correctness gone mad."
Each day brought new excesses of social justice trivialities, it seemed. Microaggressions, trigger warnings, cultural appropriations, the ubiquitous phrase, "check your privilege." "Problematic" imagery and words were everywhere, from video games to the shirts worn by astrophysicists while landing satellites on comets and everything else you can think of. A new culture war was underway, and it was much better for business than a class war - narrowly averted coming out of the Lehman Bro's meltdown, would have been.
It should not be a surprise that there'd be a backlash against the excesses of online political correctness. Its core ideology was not new, but its means of delivery and proliferation were as modern as you could get. Politically correct culture was viciously attacked, and mainstream conservatism held to ridicule for its failure to adequately stand up for western culture. Their critique went back to the Frankfurt School, its Jewish-Marxist luminaries and its deconstruction of western civilization as a prelude to socialist revolution. Conspicuous in its absence were Marx's theories of class relations. Nor did it seem to matter to the emergent alt-right that as a meaningful force in 21st century politics, Marxist socialism was extinct; its fire has gone out of the universe.
"Cultural Marxism" was the boogeyman that the alt-right was convinced was hell-bent on destroying the west. And we can all guess (((who))) was to be responsible for it.
The alt-right's bastardization of the cultural Marxist idea
is lifted straight out of Mein Kampf, Hitler decisively and explicitly rejected
the materialism of Marx, and saw instead a Darwinian struggle of races and
nations instead of class struggle. Antisemitism was a
common prejudice in Europe in those days, as was fear of communism.
Hitler wove the two together into a narrative that he used to appeal to the
anxieties of the German people. That Hitler was chosen in preference to the
communists in Wiemar Germany was further proof to the Frankfurt theorists that
culture went deeper than class in the psyches of the working and middle
classes. Hitler differs from the SJWs and their white male counterparts on the
alt-right only in that he was many decades ahead of them in his theories.
Indeed, it is Hitler much more than Marx that underlies the thinking of both
the SJWs and the alt-right, though not directly in the case of the SJWs.
Although it must be admitted that "My
Struggle" would make a great name for an edgy teenage girl's tumblr
account.
More recently, the Fuhrer's old ideas were dusted off by one William S. Lind, a paleoconservative theorist whose attribution of current year SJW
political correctness directly to Marx has, along with Nazi style anti-semetic
conspiracy theories been an ideological impetus behind the rise of the
alt-right. Lacking a better way to understand their declining fortunes in
the 21st century, the angry white male keyboard warriors of the 4chan and
Reddit undergrounds were no less vulnerable to cultural conspiracy theories
than the very SJWs they condemned were.
How could any of them have known any better? The SJWs
and the Alt-Right alike cannot be faulted their lack of education. Class
had been dismissed long ago.
Western civilization has paid a dire price for the loss of
class consciousness and historical materialism from its political mind. We are
without a means of explaining widespread inequality except either through the
lens of racial and gender discrimination, or as a natural and good outcome of
some people just working harder or being naturally more talented than others.
"The distributist" does not hold out much hope for the cultural libertarians in general and YouTuber Sargon of Akkad in particular in the culture wars against the regressive left. This is because, in his view, the cultural libertarians lack institutional support or a means of getting any, the cultural libertarians do not understand cultural narratives on narratives and arguments, and that cultural libertarians do not understand their own ideology, specifically liberalism. Take the half hour needed to view this video.
In my opinion, the distributist is partially correct. But only partially. There are also factors he failed to bring up that also work against the cultural libertarians.
The distributist made a good point in that the cultural libertarians seemed to lack an overarching narrative, and seem to lack an overall strategy above and beyond refuting regressive talking points and demonstrating the superiority of liberal ideas. This is very true. It is very hard to prevail in an ideological war long term without a narrative. This is why I earlier asked what should by the mythology of the alt-left? And when I say mythology, I don't mean that we adopt a pre-existing mythological or religious system. I mean that we need to consider the importance of framing our world view in terms of a struggle of opposed forces and casting ourselves as the protagonist for good in this struggle. The side in any non-violent struggle for control of a civilization that more successfully does this will win in the long term. It's really that simple. The "radical progressives" referred to by the distributist are doing the best job of this right now. But that was not always the case.
Conservatism's success from the 1979 to 2006 time frame was because they were able to frame the debate in moral terms and control the argument. However relevant and accurate liberal talking points were in refuting specific conservative policy positions were, the conservatives cleaned the liberal's clocks come election time, and for a while, made "liberal" a dirty word. If you don't believe me, go over to YouTube and listen to any of Ronald Reagan's speeches. He was an absolute master of this. Once Reagan departed the Oval Office, Newt Gingrich codified this technique and even went as far as to circulate a memo to GOPAC members on the importance of using language to frame the debate.
Some liberals, however, were paying attention to Gingrich's techniques. And the lessons were not lost upon them. Let's keep in mind also that the foundations of the SJW ideology lie in postmodern philosophy and academic critical theory. They are thus quite adept at dissecting the written word and rooting out subtextual meanings contained therein. Or imposing otherwise non existent contextual meanings into text. A progressive (I forget which one) lamented back in the 1990s that "while they were taking over congress, we were taking over the English department." Meant to be ironic, I'm sure. The real irony lies in just how intertwined control over the two turns out to be.
This has been, I think, a key to the meteoric rise of the SJW in the last ten years. Morally ratched up talking points that make it clear that disagreement makes one a terrible person, repeated over and over again, have a definite impact. For a while, at least.
His final point about the only way to defeat anti-liberal forces long term is through "long, slow march through the institutions" is somewhat true. But only somewhat. But let's not forget that in the 1980s and 90s, the most prevalent talking points one heard in the mass media were free market and free trade mantras. The media is much more the tail than it is the dog, and as much responds to as it does direct public opinion on crucial matters. A small number of devotees of a solid and consistent narrative can have disproportionate influence. It's not like the radical feminists always enjoyed such bias, after all. Media runs on advertising, and therefore needs to attract viewers in order to attract advertisers. People are drawn like moths to a flame to controversy, and "political correctness gone mad" is a near perfect way to do this. I quite strongly suspect that the loyalty of most mass media and social media to the SJW cause is less firm than people like the distributist would suspect. Many CEOs of major media corporations are white males, after all. Even a media CEO firmly devoted to social justice and insists that movies, TV programs, video games and so on reflect social justice themes will find themselves facing an irate board of directors if enough financial disasters like the recent Ghostbusters reboot start hurting the bottom line. Besides, it's not like criticism of the excesses of campus radicalism do not also make headlines. Speaking of campus, here is where a more crucial and determined struggle will play itself out. The cultural libertarians, and anyone else interested in a long term defeat of regressivism would be well behooved to focus their efforts here almost exclusively. If PC falls in academia, it's just a matter of time before it falls everywhere. But academia is where its supporters are most entrenched and most driven by ideology rather than mere material concerns. It will not be an easy struggle.
I think the distributist is wrong on some things, though. Namely that the SJWs emerge from, or are part of a fundamentally anti-liberal strain of thought. I think this is only partially true. Their appeal is, in significant part, due to an appeal to social inclusiveness. Due to an appeal to empathy with and care for the weakest and most vulnerable in society, or at least the appearance thereof. The SJWs claim the mantle of causes that are decidedly liberal - equal rights for women, minorities and so on, and much of their success is because of this. This is where the real danger for Sargon, Milo Yiannopoulos and their ilk really lies. If the cultural libertarians lose, it will be because of their own abandoning of liberal principles. This is because most people don't really like actual racism and misogyny very much. Most people don't like seeing things like Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones get hacked and doxxed. Most people don't like the patently obvious meaning of comparing her to Harambe the gorilla. Not far beneath the surface of many a cultural libertarian is something much more socially conservative. Truth is, the libertarian high ground can more rightly be claimed by those claiming to be "genderqueer" or some other blue-haired silliness. Until the SJW's swinging arm truly connects with the cultural libertarian's nose, the later will have a weak case. I'm a fan and a sympathizer with Milo's "dangerous faggot" tour because I know how important it is to see campus political correctness be challenged. But that challenge will fail if Milo and his ilk get lost in their own insular subculture of internet memes and racist shit posting and appeal more to one another's prejudices than they do to the general public's embrace of liberal values. Keep the narrative to free speech and societal openness and the defeat forecast by the distributist won't materialize.
Western liberals a-la Sam Harris and Bill Maher were slow to recognize the authoritarian characteristics of PC for quite some time, especially in the days described in the video when they were united against the Christian right and with the LGBT crowd for gay marriage. The English speaking world has next to no experience with left wing authoritarianism. What surprises me is that the anti-regressive left has emerged as quickly as it has. This will not end in a complete victory for either the SJWs or the cultural libertarians. This is because liberal values are, I think, too deeply embedded in western culture to be uprooted in a single generation. In all likelihood, the cultural libertarians will have to learn to live in a society that recognizes "gender fluidity", and may even come to realize that as silly as it is, it doesn't present an actual threat to their own freedoms. The SJWs, on the other hand, will eventually have to face a world wherein they can't shut down anyone who they disagree with by a false appeal to oppression. The fundamentally liberal western world won't have it.
