Not to keep banging on the nails that Brad has so expertly hit on their heads, but I go back and forth as to who drives me maddest w rage:
First of course are the Red Guard themselves, the infantile narcissists of the identity age, who so obviously are just stoked to have a socially approved pretext to destroy anyone they don't like while basking in self-righteous sadism, who really most resemble those kids in that old Twilight Zone ep that terrorize a whole town and torture whichever adult pisses them off.
But really I think what stings the most is the pandemic of spinelessness, and not just spinelessness but obvious supine dogmatic conformity. Of course there are the admins and corporate VPs and PR people and other parasites, but then there's our entire upper-crust culture class—writers and critics from the NY Times, New Yorker, NY Review etc—with decades of published work who all woke up one day and decided that Hey, everything really is White supremacy and all art & culture need to be aligned w Leftist propaganda and the most important part of an artwork is the racial identity of the artist.
Writers against free speech! Journalists against getting both sides of a story! Artists against free expression! Actors against acting! Intellectuals against nuance! Segregation (of the imagination) now and forever!
I guess we're getting to experience what so many other generations did when some kind of fundamentalist upsurge appears and society (or at least your section of society) demands: OBEY OR PERISH!
9 out of 10 of your friends, relatives and neighbors are Good Germans. I always suspected, now I know for sure.
"First of course are the Red Guard themselves, the infantile narcissists of the identity age, who so obviously are just stoked to have a socially approved pretext to destroy anyone they don't like while basking in self-righteous sadism, who really most resemble those kids in that old Twilight Zone ep that terrorize a whole town and torture whichever adult pisses them off." 👏👏👏
replacing "white" with Bourgeoise might make it a bit more obvious. Especially when minorities who deviate from their proscribed roles (the woke believe in racial stereotypes more ardently than the Klan) as "acting white."
Yes! Great analogies all and scary precedents abound. Don't forget the French Revolution! The Equity guru at my workplace looks a lot like Robespierre with his blond man bun and the DEI squad are so like the Jacobins. The French revolutionaries were obsessed with language too, changed the calendar (Brumaire?!), and everything Ancien Regime had to go (really go, as in off with their heads.) History will surely see a Reign of Terror in all these cancellations. Whether this is just the beginning or we are able to head it off (!) depends on what happens now. Thanks for your voices of reason.
"Their political culture has inculcated them to believe not only that they can comfortably silence whatever views they arbitrarily place into this category without being guilty of censorship, but that if they employ vague language about oppression, they can essentially operate however they’d like and attempt to ruin the life of those with whom they disagree."
----------
You saw this with Mr. Walker of Project Veritas fame. He runs through the entire progressive victimization playbook -- because it's never failed him before.
This is amazing. It's so embarrassing that these neurotic Karens are usually white professional middle aged women. As a white, professional middle aged woman I promise we aren't all like this!
As a whatever the f*ck woman I don't apologize for who I am and I expect people to take my arguments on their merits, not my identity. Isn't that the whole point here? Speaking of historical precedents, women's support is crucial to any successful movement, and women are tired out here. Lots of women are sick of the woke shit but would like to keep the vote too, thanks. The Karen type exists, like every stereotype, and she is easy to mock, but don't mistake Hollywood and social media hype for reality. Name calling, whether it's Karen or TERF or whatever, is a dehumanizing and shaming tactic to silence dissent. Don't fall for it. The movement that energizes women and our voices will seize this moment if history is any guide. Liberty leads the people.
Congrats on an excellent article, supported with evidence. I agree with your viewpoint. While the major company I worked for had managers & HR open to discuss the DEI program and ask questions with little fear of retribution, I still felt a self-protective need to watch and hold back normal business comments from fear that I'd trigger someone.
That being said, I am a huge advocate for free speech, and also have to call out those on the right who support removing books from libraries.
I didn't have a name for it, but I now realize that I met my first woke person in 1971. I was a singer/instrumentalist with the European Army Chorus. We had the top floor of a barracks building, and both living and working spaces were on that floor. At the time it was all men.
One evening after work I was talking with a far-left pacifist, what would today be a conservative in the Democratic party. His roommate was black, and after about an hour I offered an observation: Talking to the black man, I observed, "You merely are black." I turned to the white guy, and told him, "You, on the other hand, want to be black. I don't think that makes you any blacker than I am."
People have been losing their jobs for innocently using real words in context for a long time.
"On January 15, 1999, David Howard, an aide to the mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony A. Williams, used the word 'niggardly' in reference to a budget. This upset one of his black colleagues, who
interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25, Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it." Wikipedia
I just made a phone call to apologize to a friend who I offended over the weekend. We are on a Trivia team, and we came in first last Tuesday although we didn’t know who was paid $24 million for one performance in Dubai. Saturday I forwarded the Free Press article by Tanya Gold about Beyoncé’s performance--and our email exchange went off the rails. My friend was deeply upset that Tanya Gold mentioned “some idiotic elements on the left” and thought I was making a jab at her. I had trouble sleeping and my daughter scolded me for my choice of sources yesterday. Now my friend had made some nasty comments to me about me, and didn’t acknowledge my emailed apology.
Since we have Trivia again tonight, I called and groveled. She replied, “Let’s just drop it.”
Goaded by my daughter, I asked Google about the Beyoncé performance and found it’s controversial in many quarters. The Guardian and The Root have criticized her! I ought to ask Google who’s trending today to prepare for tonight’s contest.
Your friend seems like a tit, no offense. I've maintained friendships over worse blowouts (including calling each other "stupid idiot") without groveling, so getting pissed over some obvious sell-out celeb and a mild indictment of leftist follies seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Not that I recommend calling your friends stupid idiots. That stuff should be left behind to the charming memories of youthful over-exuberance. But a blow up over an article strikes me as extreme.
Good luck with trivia night, though. I recommend against bending the knee. Keep your pride and dignity, because groveling won't save a doomed friendship.
Not to keep banging on the nails that Brad has so expertly hit on their heads, but I go back and forth as to who drives me maddest w rage:
First of course are the Red Guard themselves, the infantile narcissists of the identity age, who so obviously are just stoked to have a socially approved pretext to destroy anyone they don't like while basking in self-righteous sadism, who really most resemble those kids in that old Twilight Zone ep that terrorize a whole town and torture whichever adult pisses them off.
But really I think what stings the most is the pandemic of spinelessness, and not just spinelessness but obvious supine dogmatic conformity. Of course there are the admins and corporate VPs and PR people and other parasites, but then there's our entire upper-crust culture class—writers and critics from the NY Times, New Yorker, NY Review etc—with decades of published work who all woke up one day and decided that Hey, everything really is White supremacy and all art & culture need to be aligned w Leftist propaganda and the most important part of an artwork is the racial identity of the artist.
Writers against free speech! Journalists against getting both sides of a story! Artists against free expression! Actors against acting! Intellectuals against nuance! Segregation (of the imagination) now and forever!
I guess we're getting to experience what so many other generations did when some kind of fundamentalist upsurge appears and society (or at least your section of society) demands: OBEY OR PERISH!
9 out of 10 of your friends, relatives and neighbors are Good Germans. I always suspected, now I know for sure.
"First of course are the Red Guard themselves, the infantile narcissists of the identity age, who so obviously are just stoked to have a socially approved pretext to destroy anyone they don't like while basking in self-righteous sadism, who really most resemble those kids in that old Twilight Zone ep that terrorize a whole town and torture whichever adult pisses them off." 👏👏👏
forgot to add that that was a really great post
replacing "white" with Bourgeoise might make it a bit more obvious. Especially when minorities who deviate from their proscribed roles (the woke believe in racial stereotypes more ardently than the Klan) as "acting white."
Yes! Great analogies all and scary precedents abound. Don't forget the French Revolution! The Equity guru at my workplace looks a lot like Robespierre with his blond man bun and the DEI squad are so like the Jacobins. The French revolutionaries were obsessed with language too, changed the calendar (Brumaire?!), and everything Ancien Regime had to go (really go, as in off with their heads.) History will surely see a Reign of Terror in all these cancellations. Whether this is just the beginning or we are able to head it off (!) depends on what happens now. Thanks for your voices of reason.
"Their political culture has inculcated them to believe not only that they can comfortably silence whatever views they arbitrarily place into this category without being guilty of censorship, but that if they employ vague language about oppression, they can essentially operate however they’d like and attempt to ruin the life of those with whom they disagree."
----------
You saw this with Mr. Walker of Project Veritas fame. He runs through the entire progressive victimization playbook -- because it's never failed him before.
Oh, and I'm sure you saw this, but this is exactly how you push back:
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1619126074641612800
No, I hadn't - that's perfect!
Yay! Glad to be able to share good news then :)
This is amazing. It's so embarrassing that these neurotic Karens are usually white professional middle aged women. As a white, professional middle aged woman I promise we aren't all like this!
As a whatever the f*ck woman I don't apologize for who I am and I expect people to take my arguments on their merits, not my identity. Isn't that the whole point here? Speaking of historical precedents, women's support is crucial to any successful movement, and women are tired out here. Lots of women are sick of the woke shit but would like to keep the vote too, thanks. The Karen type exists, like every stereotype, and she is easy to mock, but don't mistake Hollywood and social media hype for reality. Name calling, whether it's Karen or TERF or whatever, is a dehumanizing and shaming tactic to silence dissent. Don't fall for it. The movement that energizes women and our voices will seize this moment if history is any guide. Liberty leads the people.
WOW I LOVE THAT MAN
Rufo steamrolled the Karenocrats
Congrats on an excellent article, supported with evidence. I agree with your viewpoint. While the major company I worked for had managers & HR open to discuss the DEI program and ask questions with little fear of retribution, I still felt a self-protective need to watch and hold back normal business comments from fear that I'd trigger someone.
That being said, I am a huge advocate for free speech, and also have to call out those on the right who support removing books from libraries.
Thank you!
I didn't have a name for it, but I now realize that I met my first woke person in 1971. I was a singer/instrumentalist with the European Army Chorus. We had the top floor of a barracks building, and both living and working spaces were on that floor. At the time it was all men.
One evening after work I was talking with a far-left pacifist, what would today be a conservative in the Democratic party. His roommate was black, and after about an hour I offered an observation: Talking to the black man, I observed, "You merely are black." I turned to the white guy, and told him, "You, on the other hand, want to be black. I don't think that makes you any blacker than I am."
People have been losing their jobs for innocently using real words in context for a long time.
"On January 15, 1999, David Howard, an aide to the mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony A. Williams, used the word 'niggardly' in reference to a budget. This upset one of his black colleagues, who
interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25, Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it." Wikipedia
I just made a phone call to apologize to a friend who I offended over the weekend. We are on a Trivia team, and we came in first last Tuesday although we didn’t know who was paid $24 million for one performance in Dubai. Saturday I forwarded the Free Press article by Tanya Gold about Beyoncé’s performance--and our email exchange went off the rails. My friend was deeply upset that Tanya Gold mentioned “some idiotic elements on the left” and thought I was making a jab at her. I had trouble sleeping and my daughter scolded me for my choice of sources yesterday. Now my friend had made some nasty comments to me about me, and didn’t acknowledge my emailed apology.
Since we have Trivia again tonight, I called and groveled. She replied, “Let’s just drop it.”
Goaded by my daughter, I asked Google about the Beyoncé performance and found it’s controversial in many quarters. The Guardian and The Root have criticized her! I ought to ask Google who’s trending today to prepare for tonight’s contest.
Life is hard these days.
Your friend seems like a tit, no offense. I've maintained friendships over worse blowouts (including calling each other "stupid idiot") without groveling, so getting pissed over some obvious sell-out celeb and a mild indictment of leftist follies seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Not that I recommend calling your friends stupid idiots. That stuff should be left behind to the charming memories of youthful over-exuberance. But a blow up over an article strikes me as extreme.
Good luck with trivia night, though. I recommend against bending the knee. Keep your pride and dignity, because groveling won't save a doomed friendship.
Oddly enough, Trivia night went fine, but it was easy for her, since she’d decided to forget all about the “tiff.”
That's good, right? Congrats on a less-awkward than-it-could- have-been evening!
Had a situation recently where I was on a course with a couple 23 year olds. I’m 37. They did not like the opinions that I had.
Very clearly said.