My #WokeBreakingPoint

James Lindsay is asking folks on Twitter when exactly they broke with the woke. To me, that sounds like a good topic for a post, so:

Strictly speaking, I never had a woke breaking point because I was never woke. I grew up in a military family; consequently, I'm a cradle conservative. While I spent most of my young life focused on things outside of politics, I still absorbed a firm patriotism and a suspicion of changing things just for change's sake.

There is, however, that one moment at which I transformed from a basically-apolitical-but-instinctively-conservative young adult to an actively engaged conservative young adult: 9/11. The weeks immediately after that attack really opened my eyes to the depravity of the left. Ground Zero was still smoking, yet these people were already blaming us. I learned who the brainchildren were behind the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition - and who they were willing to defend (basically every vile dictator you could think of) - and quickly became hypervigilant when it came to defending basic American values. Consequently, for the next fifteen years, I worked for GOP campaigns, showed up at local conservative rallies, and eagerly jumped into the culture wars whenever they intersected with my fandoms (which they did in a big way after 2010; see my first post on that topic here). 

And then there were the things that convinced me to board the Trump Train despite my initial reluctance. First, the unexamined contempt with which the media treated the Trump voter was already pulling me away from establishment conservatism by the early days of 2017. I may not have been a Trump voter myself, but I had friends who were, I knew their hearts -- and thus, I was certain they weren't unreconstructed bigots. There was something else going on -- and unlike many #NeverTrump conservatives, I was intellectually curious enough to seek out what it was.

Secondly, there were the obvious smear campaigns -- against Trump, against Justice Kavanaugh, and against the Covington kids. The latter, to me, was especially heinous. As I wrote at the time, what I saw there were a bunch of fellow nerds and rejects projecting all of their high school resentments onto a group of teens they didn't know and then acting out their darkest revenge fantasies to the applause of their peers. It was sick, it was abusive, and it only solidified my determination to prevent these people from gaining any more power than they already had.

And finally, there were the things I detailed in the thirteenth paragraph of my extensive open letter to several spineless members of the GOPe. The one thing I hate more than anything in the world is attempts to control me. But just below that is procedural inequality. I say it all the time: I just want the rules to be the same for everyone. Yet 2020 made it crystal clear that leftists, despite all their talk about "justice" and "equity," are merely interested in punishing people they perceive to be "privileged" and rewarding others they like. They have no genuine interest in making things fair -- and they certainly don't care about "the science" or truth.

So there you have it. I suspect this is not an especially original story; I think many people my age would say something vaguely similar. But this, in a nutshell, is why I'm not woke -- and why I never will be.

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Bonus Links:

VIDEO: With Katie Herzog on the Expansion of LGBTQ Identity and How it is Wielded in Political Discourse, an interesting discussion of the ways in which people have appropriated the LGBT+ identity and weaponized it in political debates.

Mass Shooters Aren’t Disproportionately White, a years-old article that needs to make the rounds again because leftwing idiots still don't understand statistics.

Black Intellectuals Send Letter to Smith College President Demanding Apology for Workers Smeared as Racist, in which black moderates and conservatives laudably push back against an elite black student's claim to victimhood. More like this, please!

Victimhood Is No Excuse

As many writers who are not me have repeatedly observed, victimhood is the new path to power. If you can claim it - no matter how flimsy your case - a significant swath of our media class will immediately genuflect and permit you to do basically anything you want. Want a 100% discount at your local Target? Just say you're a victim of -ism and "capitalist exploitation" and said media class will look the other way -- or even applaud your revolutionary spirit. Want to knock down a competitor whose talent outclasses yours? Ditto. Want to be an absolute piece of garbage in your daily interactions with your co-workers/neighbors/fellow citizens? Yep: the victim card works for this as well.

I know that individualists and heterodox thinkers the world over are perturbed by the now widespread idolization of the victim because it clouds our ability to think rationally. But I don't know how many of these commentators are as viscerally disgusted by this trend as I. Whenever I see someone parlaying their victim status into a cushy sinecure at the top of the moral authority mountain, the anger I feel is profound and honestly difficult to describe. And the reason for that is really quite simple: I know a victim - a real victim - who has never done this. She is my MamaGeek.

MamaGeek grew up in a deeply troubled home and was subjected to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. (Normally, I would not disclose this sensitive family information, but earlier today, I asked her if I could share her story for the purposes of making an important point, and she gave the okay.) Needless to say, she came out of that hell with an eating disorder and what would today be diagnosed as a case of complex PTSD. She was, to put it mildly, not well-adjusted by the time she got married; some of my earliest childhood memories involve MamaGeek getting very, very upset and locking herself in the bathroom while Dad slipped her M&M's through the crack under the door in a kind of peacemaking gesture. But here's the thing about MamaGeek: she didn't let this become her identity. Instead, she sought therapy -- and spiritual solace. She worked through her baggage, focused on building the best home - and best marriage - she could, converted to Catholicism, and developed her talents as an artist until she was winning local and national awards for her costume designs.

MamaGeek was dealt an absolutely crappy hand; despite that, she's exercised her own damned agency and has made her life a basically good one (even if chronic illness now limits what she can do). So yes: I instinctively recoil whenever someone tries to sell me the gee-Officer-Krupke excuse. No: even if you have been beaten into the ground, as long as you're cognitively intact, you do still have the power to change your circumstances at least to some extent and you should bloody use it. This idea that we should celebrate people who leave their wounds open and suppurating as badges of honor is, quite frankly, an insult to all those who've quietly stitched their own injuries mostly shut and gone on to contribute as productive members of their families and local communities.

MamaGeek would never use her childhood to manipulate others into doing her bidding and ignoring her personal faults. And that's why when others were riding to AOC's defense because of her alleged sexual assault - just to take one recent example of victim-coddling - I refused to play along. Based on what I've heard, it sounds like AOC was genuinely traumatized by whatever it was that happened to her. But if that's the case, she should get help like MamaGeek did. She shouldn't use her experience as a shield against any and all legitimate criticism -- and she certainly shouldn't use it as a cudgel to attack her political opponents. 

Even if you're a victim, you still have moral responsibilities. That so many have forgotten this is changing our society for the worse.     

My Video: Discussing The Giver

In the second part of my series on 20th century dystopian novels, we discuss The Giver and its relationship to the worship of perfect order, the rise of safetyism, the tension between rationalism and romanticism, and many other topics!

BFTP: Ten Signs Your Movement Is Evil

An essay originally written in 2018 -- but still entirely germane. 

As I hope I've suggested in the past, I happen to think that our society needs right and left, conservatives and liberals/leftists, Republicans and Democrats. Without us conservatives, folks on the left can miss why certain traditions exist in the first place, and why "change" does not always lead to improvement. Without the left, we conservatives can miss opportunities to progress in ways that are actually advantageous for our country and for humanity as a whole.

So why do I spend so much blog space expressing anger at a left whose existence I fully acknowledge is necessary? Because there's a distinction in my mind between left-leaning ideas that are worthy of consideration and ideas that are not. I tweeted recently that I happen to think environmental degradation, corporate abuse, hardening class distinctions, and racial/ethnic disparities are real problems that demand thoughtful solutions, and I still stand by that belief. What I can't abide are the social justice warriors.

Many liberals and leftists seem to be under the impression that the pejorative "SJW" applies to them. "What's so bad about being a social justice warrior?" they ask. "I'm anti-racist, pro-LGBT, and I've never voted Republican. I'm an SJW!" But unless you're comfortable with the methods I'm about to describe below, you're not -- even if your bedroom is plastered with Bernie Sanders memorabilia.

So what makes an SJW? What's the difference, for me, between standard leftists and those I believe are clear and present dangers to me and mine? Quite simply, monstrous leftists do the following:

1. They deny that truth is objective and universally accessible. They tell me, for example, that I can't discuss race relations in the U.S. because I'm white -- or that I can't discuss the transgender issue because I'm "cis." But what you feel as someone who is non-white or trans may not be based wholly in reality. As it turns out, memory and perception are incredibly fluid and prone to error; that's why everyone - and I mean everyone - needs to seek external validation before acting upon an emotional impression. If you just assume you're right at the get-go, you will do tremendous damage.
2. They don't respect boundaries. They block traffic, destroy property, harass and intimidate opponents in public spaces (and even at their homes), and/or gleefully humiliate others in pursuit of their aims -- or they simply refuse to condemn such tactics when they're used by others. But none of these things are okay in our current context; indeed, aside from the destruction of property, which can be justified in a declared war, I don't think these are okay in any context.
3. They're censors. You can discuss why you think certain movies/television shows/songs/scientific studies/etc. are problematic to your heart's content (as long as you're willing to accept push-back). You can even suggest that we modify our speech for the sake of politeness. But the minute you start demanding that songs be removed from the radio, dissident academics be fired, or that our speech and expression be regulated legislatively, you have crossed my line. You don't get to control people that way. I don't trust you - or anyone else - with that power.
4. They magnify offense -- and then respond with no sense of proportion.  Unintentionally insensitive remarks or actions cannot be socially engineered out of existence. I'm sorry, but people are imperfect and should be given room to screw up -- and if we happen to be put out by such imperfections, we should respond with grace, not rage. I'll give you an example: The hotel we stayed at for our recent Thanksgiving trip had clearly tried to make the room we were given accessible for the disabled. Unfortunately, the toilet was not quite high enough, and the flexible shower-head couldn't be dislodged from its post so we could use it while seated. Now, if either my dad or I were an SJW, we might've screamed that this was proof - proof! - that the hotel in question was "ableist" or some such nonsense, and we probably would've sought to shame them in public. But since we're not SJW's, we calmly informed the front desk that we had a few accessibility problems with the room and just left it at that. We assumed that they meant well - and probably didn't realize that their shower-head was not working, oh by the way - and we acted on that assumption. This is healthy; assuming the opposite - that all mistakes are due to malice that deserves punishment - leads to unhappy people and unhappy societies.
5. They think they should be able to break normal rules with impunity. They think, for example, that they can park illegally and then scream "racist!" when someone not of their skin color calls them out on it. They think, for example, that they can show up at a place of business after closing time and insist on being served and then, once again, scream "racist!" when the clerks inside refuse. They think, for example, that they should be allowed to repeatedly dine and dash at Chipotle and then get some poor working folks fired for asking, understandably, for payment in advance. I'm sorry for the language, but fuck you. It's not racist to enforce traffic laws or business hours, and it's certainly not racist to expect to be paid for a product. If you think you have a right to flout these fundamentally reasonable protocols, you're an SJW - and a menace.
6. They play games with definitions to worm their way out of charges of hypocrisy. Bigots with social power do more damage than bigots without that power. But the purpose of the "racism = prejudice + power" equation is not simply to point out this uncontroversial truth; it's to completely absolve certain groups of any wrongdoing. We can see this true purpose in the corollary that always accompanies the aforementioned formulation: that people of color have no power. This is absolutely false on its face. If you can convince large corporations to bend to your will to avoid your ire, you have power. I don't care how many of you are politicians or CEO's.
7. They purposely misconstrue what people say and assign malign motives where none exist. I'm a teacher. I know there are people out there who struggle with reading comprehension. But I don't think leading SJW's fall into this group given that many of them are fairly adept as writers, therefore exhibiting somewhat-above-average verbal intelligence. No: SJW's understand what we're saying; they simply call us -ist and -phobic because it's easier than actually answering our arguments. They're intellectually lazy, not dumb.
8. They congratulate or blame people for things they can't control. Nobody chooses to be born white, male, straight, or cis; nobody chooses to be born non-white, female, gay, or trans. These are immutable characteristics that confer neither moral worth nor moral worthlessness. Being human in a general sense entitles you to be treated fairly and with respect for your rights, but beyond that, it's your character and the quality of your work that should earn you prestige. But SJW's want to upend this idea; they think that some groups are entitled to much more than their basic human rights and that other groups should abase themselves to make this happen.
9. They seek equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. I'm open to the idea that there are process issues with our system that hamper equal opportunity (especially when it comes to our utterly dysfunctional system of education). But SJW's don't care much about process; they just want to give certain people what they have not earned to balance the cosmic scales -- and if that means other people get screwed, well then those "privileged" assholes probably deserved to be taken down a peg.
10. Overall, they're joyless, vengeful, and nasty people. They spend their every waking minute, it seems, trying to destroy people who offend them. They comb through old social media posts looking for dirt -- and when they can't find what they want, they straight up lie. They insist on hectoring people about their politics at all times and in all places, turning apolitical activities that could bring us all together into additional cultural battlefields. They refuse to let us escape and just enjoy our lives for bloody once because they have convinced themselves, beyond all reason, that they - or their mascots - are in imminent danger of persecution and even genocide and that, consequently, their exquisite concerns should be the center of our focus 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. No: we are not in that place. I'm no big fan of Trump, but he's not Hitler; he's not even in the same galaxy as the Fuhrer, and the more you scream, wild-eyed, that we're all going to die, the more I'm going to tune you out.

If you are left-of-center but do not share the features just described, I don't have a problem with you. We can probably come together and work out our political differences in a civilized and rational manner. If you're left-of-center and do share any or all of the above characteristics, then yes: I'm afraid you are my enemy. Please reevaluate your life choices before you destroy this country.