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April 5, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
52:44
The Regressive Left has Become the Religious Right
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So someone on Twitter sent me a blog by someone called Loki the Scottish Rapper, in which they describe the inevitable downfall of the regressive left.
Indeed, the whole blog is a warning to his fellow social justice warriors that there is a movement within the left, which I am a part of, and he mentions me by name, that is going to destroy them.
This post is at once a prophetic warning and a call for reform.
I have to give this guy a tremendous amount of credit for the diligence he has done in representing the people who he is talking about.
I don't know anything about this guy beyond this blog post, but from it I take that he's one of the well-meaning types who get involved with social justice, and not one of the people who are power-hungry and looking to advance their own station in life.
The blog post is entitled Privilege and Prejudice, Social Justice in an Age of Male Confusion.
And it's a bit misleading because this isn't really what he's talking about.
What his conclusions are are essentially about the core of social justice.
Because the article is targeted at members of the regressive left, he presents a framing device in which he discusses the encounter he had in his day job, as I presume a social worker or something like that, with a delinquent male teenager, and how this young man rejects his authority completely, and he fails to help him.
The reason he brings this up is because, through a social justice lens, he can't think of a way of helping this delinquent teenager, because this delinquent teenager is male.
Now personally, I would take that as a sign that I'm probably using a lens that is, frankly, insanely bigoted.
Anything that decides that based on a characteristic a person didn't choose, that is a worthy method of judging them, is just immoral, and without a doubt completely indefensible.
But this guy is clearly entrenched in social justice.
However, he's not so entrenched that he can't see what's going on.
He begins with this paragraph.
If we don't initiate our young men into the tribe, they will come back and burn the village down.
Also the famous slightly paraphrased African proverb warns.
And this is the characteristic of the entire tone, when he says, In today's social media-driven culture, this pearl of wisdom could easily be dismissed as apologising for male violence, but irrespective of the current climate of intersectional identity politics, this old proverb, almost offensive in its simplicity, holds worryingly true.
Now, again, I don't care whether someone would find something offensive, and if it's true, then it can't simply be dismissed as apologising for male violence.
Anyone who does that is wrong.
I'm going to skip over the part where he describes his encounter with the teenage delinquent, because it's to introduce to the social justice audience that some men aren't actually privileged and actually are worthy of empathy, and this is not something I expect that my audience needs explained to them.
He points out the inherent tribalism of all of this, and sums it up with the phrase, all cops are bastards.
And then he says, And we can all go home and shake our wee heads at the thought of these futile young men who visit so much violence and destruction upon our communities.
Uninitiated and wayward, our prisons fill up with these young boys, whom some believe suffer from privilege.
Boys who do not know how to be men because we haven't shown them.
I find this to be a remarkably generous statement towards social justice on his part, and you'll find statements like this all through the piece.
And it's not that he's not right.
I mean, he is right.
No one's teaching these young men how to be men.
But really, he's not giving the whole story because the social justice movement reviles men.
It treats being a male as a character flaw, but I'm going to assume that he's doing this because he's trying to speak to an SJW audience.
He says, while on the outside at trendy activist rallies and public sector jollies, it becomes worryingly fashionable to dismiss their experience as well as much of the hard science around why they are so unruly, because it's politically incorrect to acknowledge it.
This is quite a long blog post and we're not very far in, and already I am baffled as to why this chap associates himself with social justice.
He's just admitted that it is arbitrary and it is also anti-science.
So I really am.
I mean I don't know why he considers himself one of these people or why he joins this group, but at least he can see that there is hard science and that they are rejecting it.
He then goes on to say, there are many theories you could apply to the young boy.
In fact, you could pretty much extrapolate whatever narrative suits your argument, which is why facts are good to fall back on.
I totally agree, and this is again another major problem with the regressive left.
They will extrapolate whatever narrative suits their argument.
Again, I'm very pleased that this guy can identify these problems, honestly, because so many people in the regressive left either will not or cannot.
There is much soul-searching going on within the collective male psyche as the concept of being a man approaches itself by date.
Much like the vacuous self-help industry was on hand when religion fell out of fashion, consumerism will attempt to fill the hole left in masculinity following the collapse of industry.
Who'll be there when the free market drops the ball?
Surely social justice will be on hand to pick up the slack.
Again, to people outside of SJW circles, this seems like an absurd question.
They're busy pathologising maleness.
Of course they're not going to be there to pick up the slack.
But he's just setting this up as a rhetorical device.
Well, not exactly.
You see, the last thing a lefty wants to do right now is stand up for young men.
In every area of life, the very concept of being sympathetic to the plight of the young male, white or otherwise, has become laughable.
And the thing is, I can't believe that this guy hasn't written that down and gone, wow, I'm part of a really horrible movement.
Imagine looking at an individual who is in clear need of empathy, and then dismissing that, and in fact laughing at the idea, because that person was born as the wrong sex.
He goes on to say that, with a genuine political need to make its values visible in a climate dominated by nationalism, much of the left seems, understandably, eager to capitulate to non-rational outrage, using it as a Trojan horse to push its agenda into a public mind currently consumed by constitutional politics.
This is quite a fascinating sentence, because I can't imagine being okay with taking a non-rational position and using that to push my agenda.
I would be abhorrent to the idea.
If I was taking a position that wasn't rational, any outrage or feeling I had behind it, even if it was going to advance my agenda, I would like to think I would feel the need to address that first, before advancing my agenda.
But like he says, there is a problem with which the regressive left is fine with being the non-rational side, as long as they get shit done.
He carries on saying, in this particular conversation, the topic of male identity is often discussed in increasingly narrow terms and even referred to as an obstacle to progress, unless of course the male is aligned with the prevailing orthodoxy.
Again, I do think that he's really downplaying how much feminists think masculinity is an obstacle to progress.
I mean they are often just outright in stating that.
But again, he's trying to speak to a different audience than you or I.
But once again, I really have to question Loki on why he is accepting of a movement that is prepared to take such a stance.
Why would you want to do something as flagrantly immoral as turn around and say to someone this inherent characteristic of yours?
That makes you the problem.
It's no different than calling a black person a nigger.
or calling a woman a whore.
It's no different to this at all.
So why is it considered less wrong?
And the thing is, you can tell he can see that they are not consistently applying a moral principle.
They're saying it's one rule for one and another rule for another.
And he says, but what kinds of conversations are going on beyond this echo chamber?
And what are the tribes on offer for a young man who might feel the left no longer speaks for him?
I'm sure I'm not the only person who is getting really tired with the broad usages of the words left and right when it comes to politics.
Neither one is a monolithic political position.
There are plenty.
is a spectrum on either side, and there are plenty of people on the right who would be, they would be abhorrent if you were to consider them part of the authoritarian Christian religious moralizers.
Now this is where it gets interesting, and this is where Loki is really showing his virtue.
Recently Roosh V, a right-wing pseudo-intellectual pickup artist, attempted to hold a gathering in Glasgow for his followers to meet and discuss their sexual exploits.
This in itself is not a crime.
The issue caused fury because Roush is also a writer with some controversial opinions on extremely sensitive topics like rape culture.
He goes into more detail for the uninitiated SJW and concludes with, in other words, Roosh is a complete fucking douchebag using free speech to antagonize feminists for media exposure.
As well as clearly holding some retrograde attitudes about women, which he cloaks unskillfully in a reasoned veneer.
Now this is the point that's really relevant.
He says, one aspect of the debacle that many of us missed was the nature and intention of those who piped up defending his right to free speech.
People who did not agree with his views, but were alarmed nonetheless by many lefties' eagerness not only to speak out against him but also intimidate and humiliate his followers.
While targeting Roush was completely understandable and necessary, more attention could have been paid to the people on the periphery who were drawn to him for a multitude of reasons, not simply by a hatred of women.
You can already see the SJW come out while targeting Roosh was completely understandable and necessary.
Well, I don't think it was.
I don't think, I think in fact, it was a waste of your time and resources and did more good for Roosh than for SJWs.
It obviously directly hurts SJWs, which is why you're using this as an example now.
But more importantly, I'm glad that he understands that there are people like myself who don't care what Roosh has to say, we just care that he has the right to say it.
And part of exercising this right is for him to say it and remain unmolested by the regressive hate mob, either on Twitter or in real life, which Rush has had encounters with both.
Again, I don't support Roosh at all.
But goddammit, he has human rights like the rest of us.
And therefore, if we want freedom of speech, Roosh must have freedom of speech.
We also missed some of the skilled advocates of free speech who surfaced, like us.
Not all raging woman haters.
Not all.
The majority maybe, but not all.
Again, I know he's writing for an SJW audience, but just the idea that you can categorise any amount of people as raging woman haters is beyond me.
You don't know any of these people.
You could find an individual person who clearly hates women.
You could say, right, that person is a woman hater.
And if he did start a club saying, you know, the He-Man Woman Haters Club, and all the people who join it literally say to you that, yes, we hate women, you can say they are woman haters.
But to people you don't know, and you don't know anything about, you can't even name a single one of them, how dare you suggest that they might be woman haters?
That's just presuming the guilt of them in advance, that they can't possibly have a reasonable rational thought.
Of course, this isn't his position.
He's just representing the average SJW.
He instead thinks that this is part of a school of thought gaining serious traction in the United States and elsewhere.
We simply told ourselves that anyone defending Rush's personal liberty must be a bedroom-dwelling sexual failure or a feminist-hating rape apologist.
Sadly, what's coming is not going to be as simple or predictable as dealing with misogyny.
What we'll soon be dealing with is a groundswell of cultural libertarianism that has the progressive left firmly in its crosshairs.
And so he concludes this bit with, it's time to wise up or receive the hiding of a lifetime.
And he's right.
He knows that with the current trajectory the regressive left is on, and with opposition like us, we're going to whip them.
But the thing is, we're not going to whip them because we're using their tactics.
In fact, we are using the opposite of their tactics.
We're using transparency, honesty, freedom of speech, intellectual interrogation of ideas.
We are in the right.
We are actually in the right.
And he goes on to explain why we're in the right later on in this article.
And since he can see all of this, I can't understand why he remains a part of the regressive left.
I can only assume that it's tribalism, like he was discussing earlier.
You know, which tribe are people going to belong to?
Well, he's decided he's part of this tribe.
And instead of leaving the tribe that's obviously in the wrong and going to lose, and changing his opinions to match what he's proposing here.
And again, we'll get to what exactly he's proposing.
He can't do that.
And instead, he's going to try and reform the SJWs.
Well, I mean, good luck, frankly, my friend.
He continues with, what they're fighting for is, on the surface, both tangible and morally just.
Well, it's also tangible and morally just beneath the surface, but again, he's talking to the SJWs.
There is a simplicity in their message that resonates with a broad range of people and this coupled with the low entry level to their ideas has made them the new go-to tribe for those frustrated at being shut down, hounded or shamed by lefties online.
This is interesting because I would agree with him.
I mean I think the things that we are saying here are incredibly simple.
If you're going to maintain a principle, apply it consistently.
Don't come up with a whole bunch of rationales that are frankly ridiculous to then justify breaking these principles.
Especially when someone like Loki here can give you a solid example of how these rationales are vacuous, how they don't hold any weight, they don't stand up to scrutiny, which is why the regressive left has to avoid discussing them.
He says this movement is giving expression to countless people across the whole political spectrum at the end of their tether with a left they feel is obsessed with identity politics.
Well, they do feel that, but that's because it is.
I mean, you've talked about it non-stop in your article, how the virtue of your delinquent being male means that no one's going to feel sympathy for him.
That's a consequence of identity politics.
It's a failing of identity politics.
And he goes on to say, that's why it's absolutely essential that we realize we are not dealing with a band of neo-Nazi skinheads or socially detached Tories.
What we are dealing with is a new, improved version of ourselves.
Now, for me, if I was writing his article, that would be the point at which I would renounce social justice.
If there is a better option, which he has just described our position as the better option, why would you hold to the inferior option unless out of a sense of tribalism?
But either way, Loki has accurately assessed that most people opposing them are probably not neo-Nazis or Tories.
In fact, they appear to be the actual liberals who are frankly being betrayed by social justice, attempting to speak in their name.
He says this is an intelligent and focused intellectual counterculture, emboldened by the new atheist movement of the early 2000s, referred to pejoratively and without a hint of irony as the Dark Enlightenment by socialists and progressives aware of its existence.
I had no idea that they thought of that.
I thought the Dark Enlightenment was something the alt-right had invented.
But where Hitchens and Harris used delusional creationists as polemical target practice on Bible-belt university campuses, this ascendant, multifaceted philosophy has turned its critical eye on the all-knowing religion of social justice.
Again, just the way he describes this, I am shocked that he describes himself as an advocate of social justice.
That social justice has become so easily comparable with religion should really raise red flags.
This is a movement equipped for the social media age, much like Scottish nationalism that sees itself as the antithesis of the intellectual status quo.
Like nationalism, its arbiters unite around a founding principle from which they can never be shifted, and this becomes the glue that holds millions of individuals in place.
This is completely correct.
There are indeed a core of, I don't know, five or six foundational principles that make up this counter-movement, and I think, broadly, they could just be termed as humanism.
Online, there is a new pantheon of polemicists, thinkers, writers, artists, and philosophers championing the libertarian cause, responding to current events like the recent no-platforming of biologist Richard Dawkins, among other things, with not only contempt, but genuinely sophisticated and sometimes entertaining arguments rooted in more than just reactionary emotion and vaguely articulated principle.
The aim of the game is to push back against what it believes to be a pernicious and pervasive progressive dogma that compartmentalizes society into subgroups based on arbitrary factors like race and gender, while superimposing subjective, freedom-inhibiting social theory onto every aspect of life.
Now, I don't want to just, you know, pat ourselves on the back and say, yeah, we are that sophisticated.
But I do think he's accurately representing what I and I'm sure many people like me believe when he says about compartmentalising society into subgroups based on arbitrary factors like race and gender.
He doesn't include the then Marxist analysis of these things, categorising one group as the oppressor and one group as the oppressed.
But he does represent accurately that it is a subjective and freedom-inhibiting social theory that they are trying to impose on everyday life.
He says the very movement the left adopted to stay relevant is now giving it a bit of an image problem, but the sensitivity around some of the issues being discussed, like gender-based violence, of which there's no such thing, there is violence between the genders, almost equally in some cases, mean people are anxious to challenge certain prevailing points of view, even if they disagree.
Not only does this stifle the free exchange of ideas, but also creates resentment, which can quickly escalate into heated accusations.
Again, he is right, but he is certainly downplaying the issue.
The heated accusations are usually the first port of call, which is why he has had to explain to his audience that not everyone who disagrees with them is a misogynist.
Or a neo-Nazi.
In particular, advocates of victims of abuse hold more influence than ever before, and some feel this can distort discussion of certain issues, which is true.
Enemies from all sides can smell blood, while much of the left, unfortunately, is too caught up in its own conversation to notice.
It's an interesting way of saying that they're all blocking people who disagree.
Those who are more aware are either considering defecting to a more libertarian viewpoint, or naively underestimating the threat.
Led by YouTubers such as Sargon of Accad, Thunderfoot and the uncomfortably compelling Stefan Molyneux, along with many others, this movement is comprised of individuals many of whom can be easily dismissed as Zoomers.
I have no idea what that means, so I went to Urban Dictionary and I still don't know what that means, frankly.
It's either slang for magic mushrooms, a sniper in gears of war, or in parts of southeast Michigan, a person who tells tall tales and shows off a flashy person.
A person who originally drives around a lot.
A person who sells fake drugs and then takes off before being found out.
I assume that he means a charlatan.
But who nonetheless consider themselves radical free thinkers inspired by Enlightenment values.
While lefties are seen as quick to dismiss their critics as racists, rape apologists, scumbags and misogynists without a second thought, these libertarians identify as the real defenders of free speech and human rights in the face of neo-progressive tyranny.
And he, presumably on purpose, substantiates these impressions within this article.
If they weren't a problem, why would he be trying to address them?
Where many on the left would find it politically incorrect to call a spade a spade, as it were, this emergent counterculture is not only unafraid of slanderous accusations, but they also come to the party armed to the teeth with facts and data supporting many of their controversial positions.
This is where the science denialist SJWs diverge from rational thought, because facts and data that support a position should not make that position controversial.
but i'm glad that this guy's noticed that slanderous accusations have become passe they're not they don't do any damage anymore you've used them too much they were They were the strongest weapon and the first one that the SJWs reached for.
And now they've worn out their welcome.
They just don't work.
I know I'm going to get some sort of white nationalist alt-right retard in the comments, then saying something like, oh, but you said black people and white people are the same.
No, I didn't.
On average, black people score lower in IQ tests than white people.
Like, white people score lower in IQ tests than Asian people.
This is empirical data.
The question is then, what do you want to do?
And for some reason, the white nationalist answer is, to discriminate against all black people regardless of their IQ, despite the fact that average IQ was used to determine who to target.
So he goes on to say that positions that are usually associated with the political right, but which are becoming more mainstream as Western media and politics adopts a more anxious and protectionist posture in the wake of global economic uncertainty and escalating military conflict.
But while many of the issues raised by this movement are synonymous with the right, this new movement also has a healthy culture of open debate and intellectual inquiry, and for this reason has become attractive to larger numbers over the last few years.
This is not necessarily because of misogyny, but more the allure of reasoned, non-accusatory discussion, in an age where the white man is much easier to dismiss out of hand.
And this paragraph really sums up the problem with the whole situation.
The idea that political events are tied to a political position is insane.
The idea that the left can't ever say things like, mass immigration is bad, even if the data will show it to be bad, is mental.
It's absolutely crazy.
But I think it's a fantastic advertisement that instead of simply lumping us in with the sort of authoritarian right, he understands that we do have a healthy culture of open debate and intellectual inquiry.
And I don't think that's just the reason this has become attractive.
I mean, the base reason that people are finding people like myself is because they hold to the same principles, and they are seeing these principles violated in real life.
And finally, again, in an age where the white man is much easier to dismiss out of hand, that's the problem.
No one should be dismissed based on the fact that they are a race or a gender.
That's wrong, that's fundamentally wrong.
It's precisely the same logic by which plantation owners dismissed the cotton-picking niggers.
In the same way the SJWs say, you're a white man, so your opinion doesn't count, the southern plantation owner would say, you're a Negro.
You're too stupid to understand.
And if you find that offensive, then you must necessarily find dismissing a man because of his skin colour or gender equally as offensive, or you're not applying your principles consistently.
He says, there's also an element of taboo at play, which doubles up as entertainment, as these libertarians are not shy to speak out against many of the left's sacred cows.
Again, it's that you have sacred cows that are the problem.
I mean, I adore listening to Christopher Hitchens speak.
It's not listening, get stoned and just listen to Hitchens demolish people all day.
But when he says something I disagree with, and someone else were to say, I disagree with you on this point, Christopher, I would never tell them that they can't criticise Christopher Hitchens.
I would never say he is beyond criticism.
And that's what you guys do with any Sarkeesian.
Just seeing other people say this stuff out loud offers catharsis to thousands of people who would otherwise identify as lefties, but who are increasingly at odds with how issues are discussed and advanced.
There is a feeling that this particular strain of well-intentioned progressivism inadvertently implicates everyone, but the progressives themselves, in an industrial-scale cycle of abuse.
Every human interaction being part of a wider, sinisterly orchestrated power dynamic.
Yeah, it's conspiracy theories, frankly, at this point.
I mean, you fall into this trap as well.
We'll get into exactly why in a minute.
But you fall into the trap as well, because there is a distinct crutch that both the left and the right use.
The left refuse to recognise human agency, and the right refuse to recognize systems.
And never the twain show me.
This is why they can't talk to each other.
They don't speak the same language.
The right are not prepared to accept that there might be systems in place that really do make it very, very difficult for an individual to express their agency.
They assume that everyone is as competent and capable and upwardly mobile as they are, and have the same life advantages.
Whereas on the left, they assume that nobody has any agency.
That because they've been dominated by systems, everyone is dominated by systems.
It's something I'll explore in more detail another time.
He carries on with, but ultimately, beneath the politics and rhetoric, people are flocking to see the world through this particular lens, because they feel rejected for being honest about how they feel.
Now, that's a very interesting way of describing this, because so far you have pointed out that we are using facts and logic, and your side is in fact in the business of denying science and reason and all these sort of things.
So, are we actually looking at it through a lens when we take actual things that have happened and then apply reason to them?
While many of the high-profile libertarians may be of genuine concern to us, many of their followers are just everyday people who are confused and isolated in the catacophony of modern life.
They look online and attracted to the idea of being accepted unconditionally into another tribe.
Um no.
No, I don't think that's true.
For starters, you can't join my tribe unconditionally.
My tribe comes with a whole host of conditions, which is why there are lots of people who might watch my videos, but don't really like me because they're not part of my tribe.
They're part of a different tribe.
They just want the information that I'm giving them.
I talk to as many people as I can on my comment section and on Twitter, and I really think the feedback I get in general is that people are sick of seeing their principles violated for rationales that just do not hold up to scrutiny.
I mean, anyone can really, with a good reason, anyone can accept having their principles violated.
For example, collectivism.
I talk about collectivism quite a lot these days, and people think I'm just flatly against it.
No, that's not true.
In times of dire emergency, collectivism is a necessity.
Individual rights are a luxury in these times, and I would have absolutely no question with abandoning individual rights if the need was present.
However, the need isn't present.
In fact, as far as I can tell, the need is a return to individual rights and to prevent the people arguing for group rights from gaining any kind of supremacy.
And if the situation changes, I'll change my opinion.
But this is far from being unconditional tribal acceptance.
And I really think that you're doing a disservice, Loki, by representing it that way.
I think you're doing a disservice to yourself and to the skill you have displayed in describing your opponents thus far.
He thinks that everything else follows from that, this tribalism.
And this is what we must understand.
And you know what, that's actually not the case.
The problem is that the people who are watching my channel aren't tribalist.
And I mean, I really think that we are probably going to need some kind of political influence at some point in the future.
And that requires becoming at least a little bit tribalist.
And I honestly see a lot of people resisting that, just on the premise that they don't want to be tribalist.
And I really don't blame them.
But it's going to be really hard to affect any actual meaningful political change in our direction if we don't.
But again, it's a discussion for another time.
He continues with, Over here we only seem to talk about what we are against or who we're shutting down next.
That's because the dogma is pretty much settled on the progressive side, isn't it?
I know that this is not the case for those involved in grassroots activism, but this is the dim light we are currently giving off to the wider public.
Over in shiny new libertarian land, our traditional open and shut topics like immigration and rape culture can be openly discussed and debated without accusatory language and condemnation.
It's a movement that prides itself, unjustly so at times, in the art of debate, where a firm grasp of the facts is underscored by an unshakable belief in the free exchange of ideas.
And that's probably true as well, but it's interesting that he makes the point of without accusatory language and condemnation, and that's the point.
The accusatory language and condemnation is there to shut down the exchange of ideas.
That's the problem.
That's why you guys have become so insular.
The very notion that you think the people who oppose you are immoral rather than just simply wrong is why you won't talk to them.
Which means they're not talking to you, they're talking to each other, and it turns out there are a lot more of these people than there are of you, and these people share the same belief that ideas should be discussed without aspersions being cast on someone's character.
And unsurprisingly, there is a lack of concern for protecting people's feelings.
Least of all, those who would thoughtlessly impede on personal liberty, all in the name of personal liberty, which is completely correct on.
If I don't know someone, I don't care about their feelings, and I'm not obliged to.
I'm obliged to care about the feelings of the people I know and care about.
That's it.
That's all anyone is obliged to.
And it's one of the many reasons that political correctness is coming undone.
Nobody with any common sense is going to agree to try and protect the feelings of a collective.
Now this next part is very interesting.
He says, we have to separate what parts of this movement we could constructively engage from the parts we need to fight.
The first instinct would be to attack its moral failings, but their response would be brutal, reasoned, and devastatingly entertaining to hear.
And the thing is, that could only be true if we were not fighting for morality.
This is the point.
This is exactly the point.
You can't attack us on moral failings because we are not the ones exhibiting moral failings.
Ironically, it's you guys, the progressive racists and sexists, that are demonstrating moral failings.
And you've got all manner of justifications and word redefinitions to justify how this happens, but it doesn't matter.
Either way, a justification is an excuse for a moral failing.
Sometimes it's necessary, absolutely.
You know, like bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Sure, it's completely immoral to have done this.
And so we acknowledge that we are taking an immoral action for contextual reasons that are entirely rational.
It's not just an arbitrary display of power.
And that is what the SJWs think they're doing, but they're not.
Their reason is bad, and that's why they're science deniers.
That's why they have to block people and retreat to safe spaces, because any hole that's punched in the narrative suddenly puts the whole thing into doubt, and suddenly the justification for the immoral action of judging someone based on their race or gender unravels, and now you are the person being immoral.
He continues with, by dismissing it as misogyny, we're playing the man and not the ball, and we're being willfully aloof to the fact that the intellectualization of prejudice is something that every one of us is guilty of from time to time.
Well to start with, I mean, well done for accepting that you're ad homing the people you're talking to.
But it doesn't even matter, because realistically, misogyny is rarely an actual reason that people do anything that they do in opposition to social justice.
It's not out of a hatred of women that most people oppose feminism.
And I mean I assume that when he says we're all guilty of intellectualizing prejudice, that's him talking about SJWs, because that seems to be the opposite of what we're trying to do in this sort of humanist movement.
And this is where it gets really interesting, because this is where he starts proposing reforms.
We should be unafraid to own up to our own absurdity, and in fact, welcome the critical gaze from within our ranks as well as behind enemy lines.
How do we show our better side to the people we disagree with, those who are more moderate and likely to engage?
May we be out of step on some issues or out of intellectual shape in terms of spotting where we are falling short?
Again, these are rhetorical questions to which the answer is obviously.
The fact that you've cloistered yourselves in echo chambers, refused to listen to any reasoned criticism, have made you weak on the intellectual field.
Can we, for example, concede that some feminist activism is unhelpful while also asserting unequivocally that society as a whole benefits from gender equality and that it's the opposite of rational to generalize all feminists based on the misguided actions of a few.
How unbelievably ironic considering how often feminists will generalize men on the actions of a few.
And yet when it's done to feminists, oh my god, this isn't fair.
It's the same with the alt-right and the white nationalists.
As soon as you do it to them, they hate it.
But as soon as they, you know, as soon as they get five minutes to speak, they'll tell you what men think or blacks think or Jews think or whatever.
It's unbelievable hypocrisy.
Can we accept that while nebulous, thorny, self-referential and indulgent identity politics can also be a transformative vehicle for empowerment and has already contributed greatly to enhance rights and freedoms of all people, including white men?
Well, I'm sorry, that's simply not happening, is it?
I mean, your first example was how SJWs could never empathise with an impoverished, delinquent young white man who has no structure and nobody who cares about him.
You literally can't say that this includes white men, because white men are the ire, the target of your movement.
And again, identity politics, you can't use the tools of evil for good.
You have come to a position where you know that what you are doing is effectively oppressing certain people.
I mean, identity politics, it's the same as nationalism.
It's exactly the same as nationalism or communism.
Any identity that creates an in-group and out-group is going to be oppressive to the out-group when it achieves power?
This is the pro- I- I can't believe I have to explain this.
But again, maybe he's just modulating what he's saying for an SJW audience, so fair enough.
Are we able to detect when it's disappearing up its own arse and gently make one another aware, or will we continue to walk on eggshells around socially mobile, relatively privileged activists who rarely have to interface with everyday people?
Well, the problem is that it's all about power dynamics.
As soon as you can use identity politics to gain power, then you will use it as a weapon to attack others, because that's what it is.
It's a weapon.
And you're using it on each other.
Oh my god, not a day goes by before someone else who goes, I'm a feminist, is then castigated by the online SJW hate mob for a trifling, absolutely trifling infraction.
And he makes a really interesting point here.
Can we accept that some women whipped up into a frenzy by radical feminists have inadvertently denigrated the very concepts that were created to support those who have suffered genuinely harrowing abuse?
Safe spaces and trigger warnings have now become a source of misunderstanding, which is a lovely way to put it, as libertarians cite countless examples of privileged women using them in absurd ways.
Very true.
We hear stories of women who claim tweets can trigger their PTSD, and examples of safe spaces being invoked in public places, while a growing culture of no platforming stifles debate.
In the case of trigger warnings, while completely rational and understandable concept, we can also engage with an argument that says there is no real evidence to suggest that being protected from recalling distressing memories is conducive to a healthy recovery from a traumatic event.
And he says this as someone who is triggered from time to time and can say with certainty that any attempt to reorder the external world and its inhabitants around my own personal difficulty has ended in complete failure, as if there was ever going to be any other outcome for that.
You can't reorder the objective world on your subjective desires.
Grief must be faced head-on if it is to be understood and overcome, like every normal, healthy adult.
We should not be indulging safe spaces and trigger warnings and all this sort of nonsense, and he knows it.
Can we accept that progressivism has an image of largely being about middle-class white people assuming the role of spokesperson on behalf of others, and that class therefore must be at the forefront, running parallel to any other social theory being discussed or debated?
I would like to think that they could, but they probably can't, because again, it's just these generalizations.
You assume that you speak for black people, even though you might be arguing with a black person.
Can we accept that the social theory of privilege is probably best served as a means of articulating one's own experience, but is maybe not the best way to pitch social change to other individuals and groups, namely as it tends to implicate them in horrendous acts of oppression with no recourse to dispute the accusation?
Is acknowledging some of this admitting defeat or whittling our task down to a more manageable size?
Well, this is entirely the problem with this sort of collectivist mentality.
You can't generalise all white people like this and then claim that they have privilege.
Privilege theory does not stand up to scrutiny, as you have disproven in the beginning of this article by talking about your underprivileged white male who will not get any sympathy.
The idea that you can implicate entire demographics of people in horrendous acts of oppression that they're not aware of, nor are the oppressed people aware of, is obviously ridiculous.
And again, just the Kafka trap of, well, they've got no recourse to dispute it, they don't need to.
It's obviously nonsense.
But the thing is, it is admitting defeat if you admit that privilege isn't everything.
Not that privilege doesn't even exist, that it doesn't dictate everything.
Because everything about social justice is built on the concept of privilege.
It's the concept of oppressive classes, directly one above another.
And if that's not true, none of it's true.
If looking at the world through your collectivist lens doesn't yield accurate results, then anything you have done based on this, and that's everything, is false.
When it comes to foreign policy and immigration, can we accept that opposing points of view are not necessarily immoral?
Well, I can, but can the SJWs?
Can we present rational arguments for our assertion that casting a critical eye on the institution of Islam itself, as opposed to just extremist elements, will do more harm than good in the struggle to fight terror?
Can we essentially make a positive case for a religion, or does this contradict our secular rational leanings?
Well, it really does make people question whether you have secular rational leanings, if you are science deniers who think that averages can be applied to individuals and will dismiss all criticism of this.
And when a group of people do really terrible stuff and tell you they do it in the name of a Dark Ages religion, you will defend those people and their Dark Ages religion.
How does political correctness affect our ability to discuss uncomfortable facts?
Well, I don't really find facts uncomfortable.
I really don't see why anyone does, frankly.
But obviously political correctness completely stifles all of this.
It shuts it down, that's the point of it.
Based on presumed hurt feelings, facts cannot be discussed in a rational way.
I mean, who would think that that kind of movement could survive if it didn't exhibit cult-like patterns of behaviour?
How can we say that gender-based violence is a problem for men because mostly men perpetrate it, but on the other hand, skip over the fact that most terrorism is perpetrated by radical Muslims?
As much as I admire the attempt to apply a progressive principle consistently, what this is is also false.
There is no such thing as gender-based violence.
It isn't one gender doing it.
Even if it's the majority, that doesn't make it gender-based, because there are some on the other side doing it.
I mean, look at the statistics in lesbian relationships for domestic violence.
It's higher than gay relationships for domestic violence.
So there is clearly something going on there that's not based on gender.
And to say that most terrorism is perpetrated by radical Muslims, I mean, that's true.
But again, it doesn't mean that we can't deal with terrorism that isn't perpetrated by radical Muslims.
But it also doesn't mean that we ignore the terrorism that is.
We take each individual case on its merits.
We're coming to the end now, and he says, most of all, can we humble ourselves to accept when a rational idea originates in the mind of a disagreeable person?
Good question.
Can we accept, for example, that while we see a net economic benefit from immigration, that this benefit is never felt by the poor and disadvantaged, and therefore we can empathise with those who question the logic of letting migrants resettle poor communities already under immense social and cultural strain?
Well, I would love to think that that's the case, and that is an astounding argument against immigration, I'm very impressed, and one that maybe we should be making more often.
But that would probably make you a racist.
Which of our positions are about standing by principle, and which are about outdated, rigid dogma?
Let's not be afraid to confront this question openly and without fear.
Okay, the question I have is what principles do you think you're standing by?
Because I see nothing but rigid, outdated dogma.
I can't even remember the last time an SJW came to me and said, look, I want to discuss this principle.
I can't even remember the last time they put out an article trying to discuss principles.
Most of them seem pathologically against the idea.
They want to talk politics instead of principles.
They want to contextualise their violation of liberal principles so they don't have to change their minds.
With the very concept of masculinity up for renewal, it is extremely important that we do not, in our virtuous attempt to make overdue space for marginalized voices, inadvertently set up an esoteric talking shop that sneers at the very thought of a man, white or otherwise, like that's a distinction that needs to be made here.
But it is.
May have an option on his place in this new plural society.
Again, very authoritarian, but the concept of masculinity isn't up for debate.
I'm sorry, it's not.
Masculinity is what it is, and it's going to remain what it is.
And if you don't like it, you can create something new, but it won't be masculinity.
This is also an interesting point, and it really belies the authoritarianism of SJWs.
This new tribe is advancing because they promote a worldview where the men don't have to change.
This is where they are most deluded.
Again, the men.
You complain that feminists are getting broadly brushed, and then you say, the men have to change.
No, they don't.
Some men want to change, some men won't change, and you just have to deal with it.
They don't have to do anything you want them to do.
They aren't actually oppressing anyone.
I know you think they are, but they're actually not.
But again, the men aren't going to do anything.
They're not a group.
Stop referring to them as a group.
Much like the unionist politicians and press not so long ago, we may find ourselves totally supplanted by this new taboo and altogether simpler way of thinking, with nothing but our petty sense of entitlement to blame.
Well, there will be a lot of other things to blame.
For example, what you call simple is actually real.
I mean, you've said as much yourself.
You are on the side of the science deniers, the irrational, emotional-driven people who use this as a Trojan horse to push their agenda.
This is your words.
And you are like, oh, they've got a simple way of looking at things.
No, we've got the right way of looking at things.
You have the wrong way of looking at things.
You have created a fiction for yourselves, and now you are so mired in it, you don't even remember that it's a fiction.
Even when you are admitting to us that it is a fiction?
We have forgotten how to engage with opposing ideas in a respectful and constructive way.
Oh yeah.
At least in the public's eyes we have, and that's what counts ultimately.
This lack of self-awareness coupled with a right-on, slightly trendy cowboys and Indians worldview, which otherises the darker aspects of human nature in favour of moral posturing, is driving people away from us and into the arms of a movement which is sure to find political expression soon enough.
And mark my words, we'll be the first thing they come after.
And you're fucking right.
You are damn right.
We are coming for you.
We will find political expression, as you say, soon enough.
And it's because you are not morally right.
Your moral posturing is the moral posturing of the people in the past who are reviled today.
And you don't even seem to understand that.
You don't even seem to understand that you are adopting the same stances as the butchers of the 20th century did.
It's exactly the same fucking rhetoric, just with a different group, a different tribe replacing it.
This is why people are terrified of you.
This is why people say, oh, you're feminazis.
You know, you're fascists.
This is why they call you that.
Because you adopt the same principles, you use the same tactics, and you want the same fucking results.
It's just abhorrent.
It's so illiberal.
It boils my blood.
And you're goddamn right, you're going to be the first thing we come after.
As soon as we find a cohesive form of political expression, you're fucked.
Your days are done.
Your side is over.
We will crush you.
The reason you gave the example of Hitchens is because this is what he did to the religious right.
We are going to do it to the progressive left.
And it's because deep down you understand just how much a reflection of the religious right the progressive left has become.
This is my favourite part of the whole article.
We need to become champions of freedom of expression as well as arbiters of social justice.
And we have to reflect on which of our mutually exclusive, non-negotiable principles are incompatible with each other.
Free speech and insidious political correctness, I'm looking at you.
We do not have to agree on everything, but we have to respect people with other ideas and remain mindful of the young men our all-inclusive echo chamber nonchalantly excludes.
The second you do this, your movement will die from the inside.
We won't even need to beat you.
The second you become champions of free expression is the second that your ideological dogma crumbles.
Because reason and facts that are so long denied by your side are going to simply tear down the edifice of social justice.
You can't do this.
What you're asking for, what you're asking SJWs to do, will never happen.
They will never become champions of free speech.
They abore it.
They think it's wrong.
They think it's morally right to suppress speech.
It can never happen.
And if you want free speech, man, and you want to improve society, why not be one of us?
I don't understand why you're clinging to the SJW so hard.
When you know they're in the wrong, consistently, you know we're in the right, consistently.
You could just change your position.
You don't have to be tribal.
He continues to gender this issue.
But again, it's not gendered.
There are men and women on this side and men and women on the SJW, regressive left side.
So I, again, this is just him showing his natural inclination, I guess, but anyway, whether we like it or not, young men as a social group, which they're not, wield such a level of potential force in society.
It doesn't matter if that's fair or not.
It's simply a fact.
We absolutely must handle this evolving issue with care and understanding and be ready to rein in the zealots in our own ranks who allow personal prejudice to fuel their politics under a veil of social inclusion.
Well, I completely agree with them on that.
And, you know, to their credit, like, people like Kevin Logan, in fact, who a lot of people are like, oh, he's just this annoying feminist or something.
He's actually not.
He recently did a video where he was calling out a bunch of radical feminists for being pathological man-haters.
And more power to him.
More power to him.
Seriously.
That needs to happen.
But again, when it does happen, then the whole thing will start crumbling, which, again, is fine with me.
Partitioning ourselves off from the complexity of the male experience and ignoring the implications of pursuing non-rational, ideologically driven, politically correct solutions to male violence and misogyny will only suffice for so long.
If we continue engaging in our own exclusive conversations where people must agree with certain non-negotiable precepts or be excluded, then don't be surprised when the young men we inadvertently shun eventually find another tribe.
And be even less surprised when they return to the debating village one day with fire torches, and it won't be to perform a juggling show.
Well, again, it's not young men.
It's just rational thinkers on the left who are deeply, deeply disappointed.
And a lot of the time feel betrayed by how the SJWs and the regressive left, the authoritarians in the left, have adopted these ideologically driven, non-rational, politically correct solutions and tried to oppress them with them.
That's the thing.
These people are fighting oppression and that's not even hyperbolic to say it.
You're trying to stop them.
Well, not you, but the regressive left is trying to stop them from speaking.
It's trying to stop them from expressing themselves.
That's oppression.
You don't seem to understand that the road to hell is paved in good intentions.
And despite all of your best intentions, you have now become the monster you were fighting.
You have stared long into the abyss, and the abyss has gazed back.
Because you thought you could use the tools of evil for good.
And you can't.
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