Dear Angry White Men

Niko Shimada is right. Angry white men are right to be angry. But let's be angry at the right targets. While I can't say for sure, Niko doesn't seem to be taking us down a productive path here, though I could be wrong and hope I am. Perhaps it would be useful to break this tweet down and look at it in more detail.

"The media despises and belittles you."

Definitely. Hatred of white males is rife in the media. The more important question here is: why? (((Easy answers))) are attractive because they're, well, easy. Blaming some or another group of others comes naturally to us. We're hardwired for tribalism. But ease sacrifices accuracy in cases such as this. Sometimes the real enemy isn't some or another group of others from a foreign land, but rather our own elites - the people we naturally view as beautiful and even heroic - who are much more the real threat, and the situation much more complicated than reactionary conspiracy theorists who lay it all at the feet of "cultural Marxism" would have us believe.

Let's take a closer look.

The most crucial thing to understand about media is how it really works. This is best outlined by Noam Chomsky in his seminal work, Manufacturing Consent - two and three quarter hours of solid red pill - real red pill, if you're ever of the mind to invest the time - wherein he describes media as corporations whose real purpose is to sell audiences to other corporations. In short, it profits through advertising, and it attracts advertisers by offering them large and/or prosperous consumer bases.

So what does this have to do with white male bashing in the media?  If media needs to attract advertisers, it needs a relatively prosperous consumer base. This usually entails an educated consumer base, since education and income levels correlate.  It should be no secret by now that feminist theory and critical race theory, attributing oppression and inequality to racial and gender identity exclusively, have a considerable presence on college campuses.

So called "social justice" and identity politics are a safe, nerfed form of radical deconstruction and protest culture. Engaging in them allows otherwise privileged students to feel as though they're progressive, edgy, subversive, challenging oppressive power structures and on the right side of history. It also gives them an acceptable target on which to project any guilt they may feel over their very real privilege, given that they're able to attend elite post secondary institutions and the numerous benefits this entails, have access to influential media sources and so on. All of this without ever actually posing a real challenge to the real corporate and state power that really calls the shots, to the detriment of most. Were you in a seat of corporate power, what more could you want?

The narrative that white males have gotten where they are entirely off of sexism, racism and oppression is necessary to uphold because it helps make neoliberal economic policies that have devastated the white male working class more palatable. It eases the conscience of the political class. No need to look at who the real beneficiaries of deindustrialization and global capitalism have been, since those who've suffered from it deserve it because colonialism, patriarchy and white male privilege.

Not to say that racism, sexism, colonialism and patriarchy are not now (to some extent) and have not in history been very real evils, worthy of criticism, condemnation and opposition. But let's be honest here, that's not what this vain, pseudo leftism is really about. If these "woke" corporations such as Gillette Razors really cared about the well being of women and people of color, they'd start by looking at the wages and conditions in their 3rd world manufacturing facilities. The pseudo leftism so beloved by academia, Hollywood and Silicon Valley ends rather abruptly where corporate and state power begins.

Plus, white men do not help themselves by consistently being the most conservative, pro-corporate voting block when broken down by race and gender. Look at any internet libertarian, mad as hell about taxes and the "gibmedat" attitude of those stupid liberals and it's usually, though not always, a white male.

But then, what has the left offered him in return? The so called left abandoned the working class long ago. Looking at the US Democrats, this beginning even in Kennedy and Johnson's time and being more or less complete by the presidency of Bill Clinton. So when given a choice between a center right that pretends to sympathize with them, and a center "left" that openly scapegoats them, can white males really be blamed for opting for the former?

Plus, it's worth noting too that most domestic, consumer spending in the 1st world is controlled by women, though the precise figures vary. Some estimates are that women control or strongly influence over 80% of non-business consumer spending. This figure is not universally agreed on, however. But there's no question that the purchasing power is there. Moreover, women constitute a higher percentage of college graduates overall than men.  Most crucially, women are vastly more likely to be activist consumers, display a willingness to organize and participate in boycotts, liaise effectively with corporate media structures and criticize the media, all for its portrayal of their gender and concern, or lack thereof, for women's issues.

So why not pander to the vanity of this group and contrast them favorably against an inferior male of the species? Especially if this can be effectively disguised as social justice and female empowerment, offering up "thoughtful" criticism of "toxic masculinity" or the like? All for their own good, of course. Plus demonizing men makes them less attractive as partners for women, and we all know what happens when men and women get together: love, marriage and the baby carriage, as the child's jump rope chant goes. And from there maternity leave, prenatal health care, K-12 education, dependents to cover with expensive health plans, and so on. All very expensive. Better to outsource our reproduction to the 3rd world in the form of mass immigration. We outsource most everything else these days, so why not that?

Women are more valuable as workers and consumers than as wives and mothers, and since we can't fire them for hooking up with men anymore like we could in the bad old days of early capitalism, better to disincentive all of this heterosexual liasing as heterosexist, objectification and harassment. Men who protest can be dismissed as hypersensitive (even though lacking in sensitivity is precisely what is highlighted in these criticisms of masculinity - but then you don't need logic or consistency because the media won't scrutinize your claims when feminism is your marketing gimmick) or reactionary cranks, yesterday's men and so on. Who cares about them, right?

"Corporations seek to feminize and pacify you."

No argument here. But again, it's worth asking why?

Capital has been seeking to subdue labor since it first emerged out of the middle ages as a power unto itself. So it should not surprise us that a pacified work force is exactly what they want. Wages, benefits and amenities to improve working conditions tend to fall under the 'expenses' section of your average income statement. Since net income equals revenue minus expense, there's a powerful incentive to keep these figures as low as possible.

Historically, this was done in a rather messy and heavy handed way. If the workers got uppity, just send in the Pinkertons, the National Guard or maybe even the Ku Klux Klan to bust some skulls. Prior to Roosevelt's 1935 signing of the National Labor Relations Act, it was not uncommon for labor disputes in the US to result in an actual body count, almost always consisting of labor, not capital. Worker's rights were never genuinely accepted by the US policy making elite, and the presidency of Ronald Reagan is known for being an era of renewed hostility to labour. The 1981 firing of striking PATCO workers was merely the beginning.

This era of mass media presents both new challenges and new opportunities. New challenges in that violent union busting or even scabbing out striking workers poses a significant public relations problem. New opportunities in that mass media can be used to keep workers pacified in other ways. Union suppression and union avoidance is now much more psychological and relational, basically taking on the characteristics of a public relations campaign, although threatening to close the doors and relocate if workers do not accept rock bottom wages and remain non union is always an option, if you have the capital to pull it off.

Of course, you can go the Koch Bro's route and fund media and outreach projects that frame capitalist productive relations along libertarian and conservative lines. This has worked quite well in the internet age, and many young white men trade fast and free in Friedmanite talking points, and are quite understandably icy on working class identity and solidarity. Except when it can be used to attack feminism, of course.

A more subtle technique, alluded to above, is to reframe public conversations about inequality, power and privilege. Again, cast these as race or gender issues. Redefine power dynamics in the workplace, especially in the post me too and time's up era, along gender as opposed to class lines. Better yet to get your work force to internalize guilt-inducing narratives surrounding power and privilege. A white male working class that has been effectively neutered by internalized white male guilt delivered by incessant intersectional feminist propaganda is likely to lack the spirit needed to fight for their interests in the economic sphere. I mean, if you already feel that you have too much because what you already have is the result of unearned white male privilege, how motivated will you be to go on strike for improved wages and conditions?  The deconstruction of western patriarchal culture undertaken by the postmodern left may well have undermined religious and national loyalties, but in doing so has undermined class consciousness as well. Last I heard, white male workers have no need to unionize, since they already have white male privilege, and so would be taking union protection away from more marginalized people by doing so.

Sigh. Yeah.

Moreover, a left wing preoccupied with racial and gender identity politics will care a lot less about class and economic issues and lend less support to working class political and workplace efforts. If all else fails, dismiss working class leftism as "Bernie bros" "brocialists" or "class reductionists" or something like that.

In any event, most politics aimed at working class white males will not be friendly to their political or economic interests in the long term. Besides demonizing immigrants and feminism, these kinds of reactionaries are also anti-union and favor leaving all to the wolves of the free market, often equating anti-white and anti-male politics with socialism and Marxism. The "globalism" they so love to deride is a corporately driven phenomena, motivated by profit and was criticized first by organized labor, who rightly saw the threat it posed not only to the working class, but to the economic and ultimately the social fabric of the nations who so eagerly embraced it back in the 1990s.

Finally, while I do disagree with a lot of feminist deconstructions of masculinity, we would do well to ask ourselves how good this go-it-alone tough guy mindset has really been for us. Machismo and right wing politics have a long history of being in alignment with one another. Unions, social welfare and regulations are for wusses. Real men, with barrel chests and square jaws, don't complain or whine, they roll up their sleeves and power through anything and everything, all by themselves, long as it takes. Gee, I wonder who the long term beneficiaries of that end up being in a capitalist economy?  Oh well, just ball up your fists and punch anyone who asks questions like that.

"Immigrants seek to disempower you, rape your women and murder you."

Now come on. Really? I'd say this is true of a small portion of the immigrant population. But the general sentiment here is just silly. And on top of that, it's mean spirited and distracts, perhaps intentionally, from the real issues.

I'm no fan of open door immigration and am no opponent of "borders." Don't misunderstand me here.  Some militants will exploit loopholes in the refugee system, and the grooming gangs in Europe are not exactly a secret now, and failing to vet immigrants for things like membership in militant organizations for fear of looking "racist" is definitely an act of political irresponsibility. But is it reasonable to think that most immigrants are coming to the west with the intent of destroying our culture and raping our women?

I mean, fair's fair here. If it's wrong to hold all males collectively responsible for the crimes perpetuated by some men against women, as reactionaries and "red pill" types rightly assert, why is it okay to then do precisely this to Muslim, minority and immigrant communities? If it's okay to profile people, it's okay to profile everybody. If it isn't okay, it's not okay to profile anybody. Of course, progressives merely reverse this mistake when they cry racism against protests over grooming gangs, but then attribute rape to a culture of toxic masculinity and privilege which benefits all men, and therefore render all men morally culpable. Double standards are fine because power plus prejudice, apparently.

Realistically, most immigrants come to the west for a better life. Why might that be? Notice that no one asks why they're migrating in the first place? It couldn't be because neoliberal austerity measures imposed on the third world by the globalists stymie economic development in the global south and farm them for cheap exports to be consumed in the west and the profits hoarded by global multinationals? Couldn't be that, could it? It couldn't be because neoconservative foreign policies topple governments not friendly to the aforementioned neoliberal austerity measures, and reduce targeted nations into rubble heaps and war zones? Could it be that also, maybe?

Never! They're coming to the west to burn our churches and rape our women! Yeah, has to be! I read it on 4chan, I heard it on a redpill YouTube channel, and they're never wrong!

"Your leaders want another war for Israel"

I really, really hope this is rooted in a reasoned criticism of Israeli foreign policy and valid concerns over the strength of pro Israeli lobbies in Washington, and not just a stupid anti-semetic dog whistle. Because when reasoned analysis of complicated geopolitical situations that take into account a bevy of historical, economic, religious, ethnic, military and cultural factors runs up against baseless and long debunked conspiracy theories, we all know that people are reasonable and appreciate a factual analysis, right? I mean, we know that people will also take energy politics and the petrodollar into account when looking at western middle east foreign policy, right? Right?

Nah! Our leaders want more war for Israel in the middle east because Elders of Zion. You know, the same Elders of Zion who want the very same Muslims they want our aid in fighting against in the middle east to flood our own nations and convert our populations to Islam because they just hate white people that much. Or something. Who needs logic when you have a good, old fashioned conspiracy theory to make you feel self righteous about being victimized and persecuted!

"Billionaires give your jobs to machines"

Yes they do. And why might they do this, I wonder? And what should we do about that? Increased education and job training? A guaranteed income or maybe even a job guarantee? A sovereign wealth fund, to enable western governments and peoples to share in some of the profits so generated by these newly automated industries? Hell, dare I say it ... nationalize industry and/or place it under some form of worker's or social control? You know, seize the means of production and all that?

Never! That stuff is all communism, and if that's what you want, soy boy, how about moving to Venezuela! Those billionaires legitimately earned all of that money. Every cent of it. Workers should consider themselves lucky they had their overpaid jobs in places like Walmart and Amazon to begin with! Jeff Bezos and the Waltons would not have been successful had then not been both geniuses and saints, and they and they alone deserve every last cent earned by their respective corporate empires, because nobody else did anything at all to contribute to or enable their success. That'll trigger the libtard snowflakes!

So what we really need to do is show these feminists, immigrants, cultural Marxists, liberals and George Soros - who somehow isn't like other billionaires because he apparently hates white people and the west because reasons - who's boss and elect a strong, traditionalist right wing government. Who can then deregulate these automated megacorporations, and give their c-suite executives lavish tax cuts while they're at it. So that they can, in turn, off-shore more industry to further increase their profits, because capitalism and that will somehow make the west great again. Or something.

So I'm going to be serious and honest now. White men, you have every right to be angry. Your leaders have betrayed you. Absolutely they have. But let's be angry at the right people here. While you don't have to tolerate white bashing and male bashing from the pseudo left, and you have been tolerating far too much of that for far too long now, please don't see women, immigrants and minorities as your true enemy. Their anger at white males is likewise engineered and misguided, and by the same people as the people who betrayed you. Surely by now you know who they are, right? At least let's be clear about (((who they are not)))

Perhaps one day, angry women and minorities and angry white men can come to realize that they stand to gain way more together than by flying at one another's throats in a contrived, for profit culture war, and eventually create a world where we all have a good deal less to be angry about.

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Why White Males get Trashed in the Media

"Why Can't We Hate White Men?" asks Suzanna Danuta Walters, a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University in a June 8 opinion piece appearing in the Washington Post. Imagine asking this question about any other demographic? Imagine wondering if women were so oppressed and marginalized, how do mainstream media outlets come to publish articles like this in the first place? The Völkischer Beobachter never asked why Jews can't hate Aryans, after all. The tendency is for the mainstream media to uphold rather than subvert the centers of power. If you don't yet know that, it's high time you learned.

Every Man For Himself!

She then goes on to suggest that "the criticisms of this blanket condemnation of men - from transnational feminists who decry such glib universalism to U.S. women of color who demand an intersectional perspective — are mostly on the mark" but then proceeds to list her reasons why hating men might not be such a bad idea. Muh wage gap. Muh unpaid labor. Muh unwanted sexual advances. Muh patriarchy. Ideological abstractions that your average male couldn't effect even if he wanted to and if he could, or if any of those things were actually real. Standard feminist stuff.

Walters suggests that "the world has little place for feminist anger." Really? Seriously?  This is the new normal. Not new, actually. Checked out Hollywood recently? Or most progressive newsblogs - think The Guardian or the HuffPost?

Okay, sort of new but not at all unexpected.  Why?

The reason is found in the contrast between the white/male world view and the minority/feminist world view.

Articles like that don't get written about women and minorities, because they have strong cultures of effective activism, rooted in a strong sense of collective identity. They're bound together by a narrative of shared oppression that lends itself to strong cultures of effective activism. Write something like this about women or PoC and expect a massive backlash - boycotts, protests and so on. The feminist and minority world views are marked by an attitude of reciprocal expectation towards the broader society - they give nothing unless something is given in return and they're not responsive to social cues and signals that frown upon the demanding of your rights because their narrative of historical marginalization immunizes them against that. They would not have ascended to the extent that they have if they'd not looked out for each other and their collective best interests.

Not so with white males. At least since the Reagan and Thatcher years, the white male ethic is highly individualistic, libertarian and moralistic. In their worldview, bad things don't happen to people who don't do immoral or stupid things. So they have less empathy towards their fellows, who they might even regard as competitors. As such, articles attacking white men barely register with them, because they don't even think of themselves as such. White males do not regard one another as equals, and are more responsive to ideas expressed by celebrity leadership than they are to ideas rooted in collective identity and well being.

This lends itself to a weak or absent culture of activism. They wouldn't know how to, nor would they have the inclination to if they wanted to, organize an effective response to an article like this. It would simply never occur to them. This is because white males, working class ones especially, are marked by an attitude of unilateral obligation and duty towards the broader society, despite their ostensibly libertarian pretensions. They're highly responsive to cues and signals telling them that collective identity and standing up for yourselves is something you just don't do. Instead, they expect truth and rightness to naturally win out on their own. Bad ideas will naturally falter. Karma will prevail, God will provide and protect the innocent, wrongdoers will get their comeuppance, etc.

People with histories of being marginalized are not this bloody naive - they know you have to go out and get justice if they want it. So they do.  This was once true of white western men too - we defeated fascism. We unionized and voted for the New Deal and the Great Society in America and the Welfare State in Great Britain.

Not so anymore. Since Reagan and Thatcher, we've been only to happy to export our jobs, slash our boss's taxes, disband our unions and repeal regulations that constrained his ability to extract surplus value labor out of us. All for the greater good. How ironic. Our concomitant accession to white male guilt, first on college campuses, later in the broader society, was a parallel development. Although seemingly opposite in their political aspects, white western man's succumbing to political correctness on the one hand and neoconservative capitalism on the other are alike rooted in the same basic underlying cause. Loss of identity and purpose, and compensatory cults of self flagellation, atonement and sacrifice.  At this point, the real question is: how would white males respond if their women actually loved them, like they did in their grandfather's time?

There might be some talk of the WaPo losing readership over this, but it won't happen because even those suggesting that would never even participate in, let alone organize, an advertiser boycott or something similar. Hell, by sharing the article without first archiving it, they're actually feeding the monster. Most of them know this, yet do it anyway. In a way, the white male is being devoured by the beast he himself has fed and nurtured, based on his natural political proclivities: a relatively laissez faire capitalist economy wherein media corporations are driven by ad revenue and whatever will be most successful in generating that, even hate speech, is fair game. The deeper question is: would he have it any other way?

We teach others and we teach institutions how it's okay to treat us, especially over longer stretches of time. Noteworthy is the fact that this is what the alt-right has been telling the white male, and what the alt-left has been telling the white male working class, for years now. They've been oblivious. No surprise.

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SJW culture: Dormant, not Dead

YouTuber Prince of Queens is convinced that SJW culture is going to vanish quickly, as though it had never existed.  I wish I could agree with this.  I'd like to see that happen, but doubt we'll be so lucky.  But they are past the peak of their vigor and influence, and will enter a phase of decline, rather like the religious right did after Obama became president.  They've made too many enemies now to have any chance of sustaining the momentum they had in the 2011 to 2016 time frame.  Good news.  In light of what's now in the White House, congress and most state legislatures, I'm finding the enthusiasm to celebrate hard to muster.  Why am I afraid I'll be wishing we had Obama and the SJWs back long before 2020 rolls around?

But few things ever truly end up being dead and gone forever in American politics.  Trends tend to be cyclical rather than linear.  While history never repeats itself precisely, recurring patterns are the rule rather than the exception.  We've seen stuff like the SJWs before, and we'll see them again.  So don't hang up those guns just yet, Prince of Queens.  We'll be needing your vigorous opposition to regressive leftism for a while yet.

The SJW movement itself wasn't new.  It innovated in some key respects compared to previously, but its overall ideology is, at its most innovative, old wine in a new bottle.  Or rather a mixture of old wines.  Look at these Antifa rioters or Black Lives Matter.   We've seen it before.  In fact, earlier incarnations of these were, if anything, more radical.  Look at the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers of the 1970s.  The Maoist student groups.  Feminism too went through a phase of radicalism in the 1970s, up to the point that many of them actually physically separated from mainstream culture and moved onto women-only communes.  If only more of them would do this today.  You can't say they didn't put their money where their mouth is, though.

In fact, a long look at American history shows a 30 to 40 year cycle - give or take a few years - of growing idealism, explosive radicalism, a descent into disillusionment and nihilism and finally retreat on the radical left.  The real reason for this is actually quite simple.  Radicalism is hard.  It's tiring.  Imagine being an Antifa guy who's been swept into this culture of intersectionality, postmodernism, the progressive stack, and so on.  It's a very hard life.  Very austere.  So many everyday actions and things we take for granted are seen as oppressive or "problematic" in some form or another.  It's a rare soul that can keep it up indefinitely, especially after a serious setback.  Like the presidential election results of 1968 or 2016.

And it's always been that way.  In fact, our Berkeley Antifa member of 2017 has it easy compared to most radicals in American history.  The early 2nd wave feminists went through it in the 70s.  When “the personal became the political” in the burgeoning body of feminist theory, in-group policing of one another’s personal lives became quite extensive – to the point where even activist’s sex lives were called out by movement purists who infamously equated sexual and romantic love to rape and enslavement.  This was an understandably hard circle to square for a movement that also insisted that women had a libido to rival that of the male.  

Radical environmentalists - Earth First and groups like that went through similar problems in the 1990s.  Lifestyle demands to eschew the use of fossil fuels, among other things, were incredibly hard to sustain.  Plus, these groups are inevitably absolutely riven with ideological purity, and are prone to paralyzing inefficacy due to preoccupations with consensus decision making and are often hamstrung by bitter divisions over the most paltry matters of doctrine.  People's Front of Judea, anyone?    

Victories are few, seen as being “merely institutional” and serve only to remind the rank and file of just how big a job the road ahead of them is.  Defeats are much more common, and very devastating since radical left groups tend not to have many resources.  Groups are torn apart over leadership disputes.  They're quite often harassed and ridiculed by the outside world and by domestic law enforcement.  The FBI's COINTELPRO was very effective at disrupting these kinds of groups.  The vague and sweeping goals of the movements lend themselves to the often correct assumption  that these goals are simply unattainable. 

Go back further, and you had McCarthyism or the Red Scares.  Further back still, and they were massacred more indiscriminately.  Labor disputes stopped being potentially fatal for strikers only after the New Deal.  Civil rights workers had to wait a few more decades.  Quite a few of them were lynched, found dead or disappeared under suspicious circumstances well into the 1960s, culminating in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination.  None of this is a lot of fun.  On the grand scheme of things, the online stress suffered by the likes of Zoe Quinn or Lindy West at the hands of 4chan trolls, MRAs or the YouTube Skeptic Community has been very mild.

Taken as a whole, all of this is very exhausting and few people can sustain it for more than a few years. Today's version of it - the intersectional SJWs enjoyed a lot of privileges - how ironic - compared to previous cycles.  Loyal strongholds in the form of humanities and social sciences departments on college campuses, a lot of favorable media bias and so on.  That's quite unusual in the history of western leftism.  Usually the radical left is ignored in the media, if not attacked openly.  

I suspect these perks, such as they were, were part of a Faustian bargain wherein intersectional social justice activism would get some institutional support in exchange for staying away from - or better yet derailing - questions of economics, class and political economy.  The powers that be learned a hard lesson with Martin Luther King Jr, whom they had to assassinate when he started straying away from strict racial equality issues and began to agitate around poverty, worker's rights and economic inequality.   Better to buy out groups like Black Lives Matter well in advance, and save themselves the hassle.   

But the SJWs still had a less than easy go of it, though more of it was their own doing.  There's a lot of tedious legwork that goes into organizing marches, protests and so on.  Especially if it's all grass roots and not funded or directed from above in any real way, though it often was for the SJWs, especially on College campuses. Still, ongoing regimens of meeting attendance and organizing and planning around the schedules of activist members takes time and effort.  After a while, a family and a steady paycheck starts to seem like a better deal for most people.

The period of peak SJW success was predicated on a number of things: a liberal trend in western politics in the late Bush/early Obama years and the rise of social media.  The early SJWs - then attached to the so called new atheist movement, discovered that if you took on a belligerent and macho tone and postured and argued from intimidation - "agree with us or else you're a Nazi" - you could win a lot of arguments without actually having to answer hard questions.  This worked for a while, first when the new atheists deconstructed the religious right, then against white male liberals who didn't know quite how to respond to it all, but generally took claims that it was sexist and racist to argue with the SJWs at face value.  But people quickly grew resentful of what basically amounted to ongoing emotional blackmail for political purposes, and the inevitable backlash that ensued resulted in stuff like GamerGate, the alt-right and Donald Trump. 

For a lot of SJWs, it's just no fun anymore.  Trolling the castration anxieties and sexual insecurities of young white dudes online was fun and easy for its core base of white college educated women.  For a while.  It's not so fun being on the receiving end of the same kind of lambasting coming from black women, or LGBT women.  Intersectionality was intrinsically flawed that way.  Increasingly, people perceive - quite rightly – that as a form of activism, it’s highly ineffective.  There were few tangible results in exchange for what really boils down to competitive victimhood and grievance mongering.  Winning gold in the oppression olympics bore few real benefits.  Plus being the internet's favorite punching bag does get old after a while.

But let’s not rest on our laurels just yet.  When surges of radicalism pass from their summer of idealistic success and into the autumn of mounting nihilism and disillusionment, this is actually when they become the most dangerous.  Like a cornered animal who knows its time is limited, they become desperate and fearful.  This is what drove the LA race riots of the late 1960s, the debacle that was the 1968 democratic party convention, and the rise of the violent Weather underground.  2017 thusfar bears an uncanny resemblance to all of this. 

Rising tensions between Antifa and Trump supporters have the frightening potential to take us to a place not unlike what happened in Italy between the late 1960s and early 1980s, the so called "years of lead" wherein cyclical and retaliatory acts of terrorism between far right and left factions resulted in hundreds of deaths.  Worse still, all the way back to Germany in the 1920s and early 30s.  We all know how that turned out.  Wise and enlightened leadership in Washington would do well to take steps to prevent this.

Did I just say wise and enlightened leadership in Washington?  Ha ha ha!  Yes I did.  Ha ha ha!  What planet would this version of Washington be on, anyway?

Moreover, these waves of radicalism never fail to leave the broader society unchanged.  Indeed, the cyclical pattern of advancing and retreating progressivism is much more a mark of social justice activism working long term rather than failing, even if it never perfectly achieves its objectives and some progress is lost in the more conservative periods.  That said, Eisenhower did not repeal the New Deal, Nixon did not repeal the Civil Rights Act, Reagan did not manage a reversal of Roe v Wade and the eras of Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and George W. Bush as president did not see a retreat of political correctness on college campuses, or even slow its advance into the broader society.  Given this pattern, I would not bet heavily on Trump rescinding gay marriage either.

Indeed, the whole SJW phenomenon is a clear demonstration of the fact that the seeds of racial and gender radicalism that took root on college campuses back in the 1970s never ceased bearing fruit.  Do not mistake dormancy for death.  Come the next season, whether in ten years or thirty, a whole new batch of romanticized militancy will ripen, and we’ll be eating again from its bountiful harvest whether we want to or not.

More Empathy, Less Echo Chamber: A Genuinely Radical Proposal

The Press Ombudsman of South Africa brought the hammer down and brought it down hard on the Huffington Post South Africa for its recent blog post suggesting that disenfranchising white males might be a good idea.  I discuss the antecedent action in all its gory detail here.

Quoth the Ombudsman:

The question is whether the blog contained "discriminatory and denigratory" references to white males.

Let me be short and sweet: If disenfranchisement of anybody (whether white males or black females, for that matter) is not discriminatory, the meaning of discrimination should be redefined. Moreover, the reasons given for such a malicious suggestion certainly were denigratory. I do not believe that this statement needs any further justification. 

I do not believe for one moment that such discriminatory and denigratory opinions can be described as being in the public interest – especially given this country's history of its struggle for liberation. To disenfranchise a section of the population once again would indeed represent a huge step backwards – one that may have some serious unforeseen consequences.

This was followed up by a rather stern order that the HuffPost South Africa publish an apology to the general public for publishing material that "was discriminatory and denigratory, amounted to hate speech, was malicious, was against the public interest, contained factual inaccuracies, impaired the dignity and reputation of many people and blaming its system instead of probing deeper into the racist and sexist nature of the blog."

I want to make clear right now that I have very grave reservations about the state having the power to adjudicate what is and is not appropriate for publication.  I have grave misgivings about "hate speech" laws, especially when they can be used to equate criticism of belief systems with hatred expressed towards particular groups of people.  Like when antifeminism is equated with misogyny or when criticism of Islamic theology is equated with "Islamophobia."  Perhaps this ruling is another such instance.  Many a feminist blogger will insist that her quarrel is with patriarchy and male privilege, not men on a more personal level, however caustic and self righteous her views may be.  As Noam Chomsky once so eloquently put it, if we do not favor free speech for our political opponents, we do not favor it at all.

That aside, one must also commend the South African authorities on their consistency here.  No "power plus prejudice" rationalization of double standards here.  They'll bring the boom down on you for blasting white males as fast and as surely as they will for going after any other demographic.  Good on them for at least enforcing their rules consistently.

Much of the complaint against the HuffPost SA piece, which as it turns out was the work of an especially clever troll, was subsequently defended by HuffPost SA senior editor Verashni Pillay on shamelessly ideological grounds.  In her words, the post by "Shelley Garland" consisted of analysis that was "pretty standard feminist theory."  Pillay's shameless apologetics for "Garland's" post was pretty standard feminist apologetics.  Meaning not exactly pulitzer prize material.  In it was:

• A list of tweets, messages and comments that HuffPost SA received in response from "angry white dewds" who were "Upset that everything is not always about THEM" intended to show that the backlash against the article was motivated, as everything always is, by racism and misogyny.
• This monstrous paragraph, making up for in slogans, buzzwords and cliches what it clearly lacks in depth, analysis and creative thought: "Garland's underlying analysis about the uneven distribution of wealth and power in the world is pretty standard for feminist theory. It has been espoused in many different ways by feminist writers and theorists for decades now. In that sense, there was nothing in the article that should have shocked or surprised anybody (or so we thought.) It would appear that perhaps much of the outcry derives from a very poor reading of the article -- or perhaps none at all. Dismantling the patriarchal systems that have brought us to where we are today, a world where power is wielded to dangerous and destructive ends by men, and in particular white men, necessarily means a loss of power to those who hold it. A loss of oppressive power. Those who have held undue power granted to them by patriarchy must lose it for us to be truly equal. This seems blindingly obvious to us."

Any notion that "uneven distribution of wealth and power in the world" boil down to race, gender and identity rather than class, relations of production or political economy reveal quite plainly how deeply flawed what passes for "pretty standard for feminist theory" no doubt is.  

But in terms of what's wrong with Ms. Pillay's defence, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I have, in fact, tried to contact Ms. Pillay and asked her where she copy and pasted this drivel from.  I have yet to hear a response, though I suppose I do not need to.  I can copy and paste such tripe, almost verbatim, from any feminist blog or from the comments section beneath any pro or anti feminist article I can find anywhere on the web.

And that's the real problem here. 

What is "pretty standard for feminist theory" is dogmatism and self righteousness.  Is an inability to self reflect, and to entertain the prospect of its own fallibility.  What is "pretty standard" is that the only way to innovate in any closed system of belief is to carry the one single permissible vector of thought to ever increasing extremes.  That's why it was so plausible to so many readers that a feminist blogger would unironically suggest disenfranchising all white men.  Where to go from there I will not say, but I'm sure we can all guess.

As a result of the furor, Ms. Pillay has since submitted her resignation to HuffPost SA.  Notice that in Pillay's statement of resignation to the HuffPost, she says only, "I respect the office of the press ombudsman and have decided to tender my resignation. Thank you to Media24 for this opportunity and all the best to the team at HuffPost SA going forward."  And that is all.  No admission of either professional or moral wrongdoing.  

The "power plus prejudice" concept - the idea that racism and sexism are power plus prejudice and that it is therefore impossible for women of color such as Pillay to be racist or sexist, was the underlying rationale behind her blind acceptance of the "Garland" piece, and her decision to defend rather than reflect upon her choice to publish it, and defend it in purely ideological terms in the way that she did.  Power plus prejudice means that actually oppressing white males is impossible, since they are a "privileged" and "oppressor" class themselves, and that it is therefore impossible and nonsensical to suggest that the oppressor can themselves be oppressed.

Replace "white male" with "kulak" and one can easily see where this line of reasoning can lead.

In the manner of the true believer, Pillay confers all truth and all morality upon feminist theory, elevating it to the level of an infallible religion.  There will be no self reflection on Pillay's part, and she will doubtlessly regard herself as the victim, and express this sense of victimhood entirely in ideological terms.  Entirely through the use of slogans, buzzwords and witticisms that are the sole stock-in-trade of feminist theory: that she was victimized by "white male fragility" or something of the like.  The failure of the white male to see the eternal wisdom of feminist theory, even when it unironically advocates such rubbish as the disenfranchisement of white males, will doubtlessly be chalked up to white male racism and misogyny.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Verashni.  It's what feminists do best.

As for the HuffPost SA itself, a somewhat more hopeful note is being sounded.  In a HuffPost SA piece entitled "A View On The Fake Blogpost: The Oversight Was That There Was No Oversight," author Gus Silber writes, "Slow down a little, HuffPost. Pause, ponder, reflect. Question fiercely everything you upload. Is it true? Is it good? Is it worth the rush? The world will still be here tomorrow, and there will still be time, in-between the page-views and the engagements, to be social and have fun."  Good advice.  Think I'll try and heed it myself, actually.

The title of another HuffPost piece by Sarah Britten expresses what can be our best hope, not merely for the Huffpost but all around: "More Empathy, Less Echo Chamber: A Genuinely Modest Proposal."

Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

More empathy, less echo chamber.  Nothing modest about that proposal.  It may well be the most radical, and the most necessary proposal of our time.

Regressive Left Pt. 2: Senseless Social Justice

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 Sam Harris, it would seem at first glance that the so called new atheist writers of the early 21^st 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. 

... Continued in Part 3: Academic Anarchy

Thinking Outside the Vox

Way back in the halcyon days of 2010, when hope and change were still things in the democratic party, blogger Julian Sanchez used the term epistemic closure to describe the crisis he saw on the political right in those days.  Long story short, epistemic closure refers to the insulation of both a belief system and the media built up around that belief system against any further knowledge, ideas or lines of reasoning.  Naysayers and dissenters are best ignored alltogether, or tarred by association with the enemy - whoever they are.  But it goes deeper than that: once an ideological system is firmly commited to, lines of thought that even potentially threaten it simply can't be given even the slightest legitimacy.  The rapidity with which the USSR unravelled after glasnost was introduced illustrates the risks invovled.

Hence epistemic closure.  For the American conservatives, the Reagan Era only really ended when our favorite reality T.V star won bigly over the GOP establishment.  Up until then, there was nothing a tax cut couldn't fix and the democrats were forever coming to take everybody's guns away.  Argue with them about any of it, and you'd had the wool pulled over your eyes personally by Obama, Hillary or Nancy Pelosi, who were nothing but Marxists out to destroy all things American.

When Sanchez described this phenomina on the right, he saw little comparison on the left in 2010.   As perhaps a foreshadowing of what was just around the corner, he cited liberal obsessions with racism as being the sole motivation of the tea party as the closest that the left, such as it was, came to its own brand of epistemic closure.

He would not have to wait long for the leftist equivalent to epistemic closure.  Allow me to explain.  Or perhaps I should say, allow me to voxsplain:

One of the most striking examples of this epistemic closure among liberal writers are their forays into “explanatory journalism.” The idea that many people might like clear, smart explanations of what’s going on in the news certainly has merit. But the tricky thing with “explaining” the news is that in order to do so fairly, you have to be able to do the mental exercise of detaching your ideological priors from just factually explaining what is going on. Of course, as non-liberal readers of the press have long been well aware, this has always been a problem for most journalists. And yet, the most prominent “explanatory journalism” venture has been strikingly bad at actually explaining things in a non-biased way. 

I am, of course, talking about Vox, the hot new venture of liberal wonkblogger extraordinaire Ezra Klein. It was already a bad sign that his starting lineup was mostly made up of ideological liberals. And a couple months in, it’s clear that much of what passes for “explanation” on Vox is really partisan commentary in question-and-answer disguise.

The article also mentions the fact that most "voxsplainers" - the tired pontification of liberal canards to the ignorant masses as if they've never heard it before - cannot pass Brian Caplan's Ideological Turing Test, defined as the ability to convincingly and authentically relay their ideological opponent's position on the relevant issues.

Perhaps the most quintessential Voxsplaining I've yet encountered is Aja Romano's protracted voxplanation of How the Alt-Right's Sexism Lures Men into White Supremacy.  It's what you'd expect:

In many alt-right communities, men are encouraged to view women as sexual and/or political targets that men must dominate. The men in these communities don’t see themselves as sexist; they see themselves as fighting against their own emasculation and sexual repression at the hands of strident feminists. 

So called "manosphere" concepts are then used as a kind of gateway drug to interest socially isolated young men deeper into an esoteric politics of crypto fascism and white supremacy.

Well, duh!

The alt-right and the manosphere are full of what the internet nowadays calls cancer - content that is light on intellectual content and heavy on cringe.  But the deeper point here can be summed up in an old African proverb that warns that if you don't initiate your young men into the tribe, they'll eventually come back and burn your village down.  Experts on gang, cult and extremist recruitment tactics have long understood this.  Alienated young men with no roots in the community and little prospect for a good life are easy marks.  Ironic then that the most strident on the alt-right, and their Islamic Jihadist nemesis, are ultimately drawn from the same ranks of humanity.  Ironic, but hardly without precedent.

Absent from Romano's analysis of the Alt-Right and its origins is any prescription of actually countering this that might actually reduce the propensity of young men to be drawn to extremism.  Targets are described as being sexually frustrated and often raised by feminist single moms, and the lure of being a real man as opposed to being weak and emasculated is what's used to draw them in.  The only difference between "Sieg Heil" and "Allahu Akbar" in this case could well be whichever one gets to them first, and what color their skin is.

The article chides the alt-right for offering alienated young men no real advice for dealing with loneliness, emotional issues and relationship difficulties and instead simply scapegoating independent women and minorities for their personal problems.  While this is a fair criticism, it's one that could as easily be leveled against Vox, and its countless clones across the internet.  Apart from scolding young white men for their racism and sexism, what is the mainstream left really offering them by way of an alternative?

Especially since the Vox article traces the history of the Alt-Right through Donald Trump's victory, through the Brexit vote and back to the GamerGate online movement, and to the various segments of the "manosphere" that existed prior to that.  The numbers and influence of these angry white dudes - the rank-and-file, or mooks - to use online video game terminology - of the forces of oppression only grew, despite all of the efforts made by Vox, Slate, Salon, Everyday Feminism, Occupy Democrats, Jezebel, The Mary Sue and other outlets of enlightened progressivism to tell them how very, very sexist, racist and fascist they were being all the while.  In fact, how very Nazi they had always been simply by virtue of being white males.

And now they're surprised when these same angry young dudes turn out to accept and embrace an ideology that actually promotes racism, misogyny and fascism.  They're surprised that the generation of young men these single feminist mothers raised have become exactly what single feminist women have been telling them they were since they were old enough to pluck letters off a computer screen: racist, misogynist and fascist.

Who would have guessed?

That, folks, is what epistemic closure on the left looks like.

Young white males are quite within their rights to reject the online left's obsessive and compulsive idealization of women and minorities.  They are well within their rights to reject the ceaseless narrative of white male "power" and "privilege," especially when it comes from credentialed academics and pundits who have way more power and privilege than many of these young white dudes will ever have.

They are not entitled to have the women to whom they're attracted reciprocate that attraction.  That much is true.  But they are entitled to not have their natural instinctive urges tarred as misogyny, entitlement and objectification.  They are entitled to pursue love in a culture in which all the weight of mass society is not behind the demonization of male sexuality and the equation of female rejection of men with female power and independence.  And they sure as hell are entitled to not have to function in a society that brands their own similar rejection of women (or men passing themselves off as women) to whom they're not attracted as being misogyny, "fatphobia" or "transphobia."

Alternative online communities are not attacking "social justice warriors" because they're all - to the last, racist, mysogynistic and otherwise deplorable.  People of all descriptions object to the SJW's self righteousness, their hypocrisy, their arrogance and their propensity to milk privilege theory and "power plus prejudice" rationalizations for all the self serving double standards and get-out-of-jail free cards they're worth.  This, it would seem, is the real gateway drug to bona-fide fascism, racism and misogyny if indeed there ever was one.  And that should concern us all.

Fighting the alt-right cannot be done by further pontificating to angry white dudes on how very deplorable their anger, their whiteness and their dudeness is.  Perhaps the wisdom of Lao-Tsu could be of help to us - and the wisdom he conveyed in The Tao Te Ching, not The Art of War.  Sometimes the way to victory is by not fighting, but by offering an olive branch; membership in the tribe before the village gets burned down.

The mainstream leftist media shows at best a mixed inclination to do this.  Perhaps the real antidote to the alternative right is an alternative left.  One that might think that full employment, maybe even a job guarantee, might be a more effective way to get young men out of their parent's basements than yet another lecture on girl power would be.  One that has not yet succumbed to epistemic closure and is thus able to think outside the Vox.