I end up packing a lot in and it is hard to shake the language one consumes—I read a lot of academic texts. I need to work harder at approachable clarity.
Actually, I was a bit envious of your eloquence and wished I had been able to synthesize everything I've read into such an elegant and as Woman Writer says above "coherent narrative." It worked for me.
Isn't that kind of an artifact of that being the preferred signaling campaign of the left?
It's interesting, if you buy Haidt's moral foundations theory (I've grown increasingly skeptical post-COVID), that 'justice' (along with 'care') is one of the two main moral foundations modern progressives still believe in. I think because of the use in 'criminal justice' by law-and-order conservative types they have to qualify it somehow.
I think that might be backwards. They use “justice,” which they neither understand nor accept, to push “social” as in “socialism,” which is their next goal on the way to totalitarian communism. It’s the adjective that’s their focus; the “justice” part is just camouflage.
I think they really consider it justice in the traditional sense though. Bad stuff's been by group X to group Y in the past, so now group Y gets to do bad stuff to group X.
I've written a novel partly set during the Nazi period and Lorenzo's medieval history/language of particular interest is Germany/German and we both noticed it as well. It's even come up at conferences we've both attended.
For those who haven't encountered him, he is essentially the German George Orwell when it comes to analysing the misuse of language to advance ideology. Directly from the horse's mouth, written by a converted Jew in the middle of the 3rd Reich.
Leftists are compelled to make up a story, like children, as adults because they need a front, a Potemkin Village, to disguise what they really want to do to other people, which horrors we have witnessed just recently, and which history demonstrates time and again in other contexts unless language is deftly used to destroy their idea world. One sees how readily it collapses under the weight of truthful expression.
Thankfully. Seeing the truth so aptly articulated was a breath of fresh air. I'm slowly starting to hope that there may be a way out of this horrible state of affairs.
Thanks for sharing the insights in such depth. It is fascinating and depressing to see how what is a national scandal relegated to yesterday’s news and an argument about mean tweets. It shines a bright light on the piety signalling classes. Some in media and government know what they are doing but also rely on the collective psyche to play along. Nothing to see. Be kind. What’s on Netflix tonight? I don’t know what you think is the role of the rest of us? We can see what is wrong, but are powerless to do anything about it? Totalitarian states rely on a passive, powerless mass of people to get their way.
Another consideration in the drift to narcissistic anarchy is that we are also downstream of the Enlightenment. We have killed the divinely ordered state that understands virtue and imposes duties we are keen to shake off. It is much easier to be a victim oneself at the centre of one’s own world if there is no Universal Victim occupying your place of worship.
The fat acceptance movement is, perhaps, the purest expression of moral wokery. Morbid obesity leads to myriad health issues and, often, early death. Because of the constraints imposed by the physical world, being significantly overweight carries a healthy social stigma - healthy to the extent that it encourages people to exercise and eat right. “Fat shaming” may also be a product of our ancient hunter-gatherer past in which food was hard to come by and such food as could be obtained was shared. In such a world, anyone who was grossly overweight would naturally attract suspicion and resentment.
Fat activists see such stigmas, not as natural results of physical reality, but as arbitrary, artificial, and irrational oppression. They long for a revolution that will banish anti-obesity prejudice and usher in a world where people see morbidly obese people as beautiful and sexually desirable.
But this is magical thinking. By what mechanism will people’s perceptions of beauty be changed? How can any revolution eliminate the negative medical impacts of obesity? Their enemy isn’t social oppression, the enemies are the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and the limitations of the human body.
I remember when I first read about fat acceptance in (I think) one of Helen Pluckrose’s articles and being astonished that no-one was saying obvious stuff like “I bet the NHS begs to differ” or “have you talked to your GP about this?”
Some GPs agree with fat acceptance. People underestimate how much 'woke' has infiltrated general medicine. I had a diabetes nurse educator say that type 2 diabetes was unrelated to being obese - it was 'genetic'. When another scientist and I challenged her she said, words to the effect that she wouldn't be as 'judgemental' as we were. These are the people charged with helping patients get their disease into remission!
Time zones don’t match for me so I suspect I will have to stay up late to catch any of it. I hope Snoop Dogg is on early enough to catch his performance.
Yet another brutally insightful takedown of the PMC - keep up the good work! I always loved that Sailer line about political correctness being a war on noticing.
Thank you for your excellent article. You have woven into a cohesive narrative all the threads of the Left’s tactics and pieced together a whole picture, something a bystander like me, struggling to understand, can finally grasp. It is easier to fight when you understand the methods of the enemy.
By extraordinary coincidence I spent the weekend preceding this article reading To The Bitter End, a book written by Hans Bernd Gisevius, an insider account of the Gleichschaltung. The irony is that the methods used by the Nazis and the SJW class are precisely the opposite - the former appealed to anger and resentment, the latter appeal to good will and sense of fairness.
But a lot of Nazi propaganda was motivated by love of land and volk. While a lot of Communist propaganda is motivated by anger. Marx’s writings, for example, are full of anger. The emotions of the immediate political oratory and the emotions of the propaganda provide something of a complementary package deal.
The SJW claim good will, fairness, 'equity, inclusion, acceptance.' However their reactions to anyone who doesn't groupthink along the same lines as them is utter rancid hostility, contempt, anger, etc. There is a pompous, self-important, holier-than-thou aspect to their attitudes which severely judges anyone holding opinions that fall outside the prescribed ideological positions. It is truly cult-ish - all outsiders must be shunned and have no hope of reaching the SJW equivalent of 'Heaven.'
I really don't see how you can characterize the progressive Left as anything but the textbook case of resentment. The entire program revolves around redefining fair and unfair--and success and failure--in an ambitious and self-serving attempt to turn society upside down and punish excellence. The conspiracy theory and scapegoating elements are also very clearly front and center.
Very nicely done. The bit about Foucault, Luxemberg et al. reminded me of Nietzsche’s “last man.” And there’s a lot of Nietzsche in your essay, as I suspect you’d agree.
The moral elevation of the “oppressed” calls to mind an Olympic broadcast where, during an ad, the camera lingered in slo-mo on a disabled runner’s prosthetic leg — “upliftingly,” but in fact quasi-pornographically. For it’s not that she was disabled, it’s that the rest of us are only “temporarily abled.” Cut the non-marginalized down to size!
And indeed empathy for the low in status can be a beard (as N again points out) for dark impulses. Like in that movie, you know the one: “Make her one of us!”
In terms of understanding the culture of social justice, I recommend taking a glance at “Genealogy of Morals.” There are two concepts – master/slave morality and ressentiment – that are very useful.
I end up packing a lot in and it is hard to shake the language one consumes—I read a lot of academic texts. I need to work harder at approachable clarity.
Actually, I was a bit envious of your eloquence and wished I had been able to synthesize everything I've read into such an elegant and as Woman Writer says above "coherent narrative." It worked for me.
Any adjective preceding “justice” obviates the concept.
Probably Hayek’s greatest insight, or at least up there with the knowledge problem.
Isn't that kind of an artifact of that being the preferred signaling campaign of the left?
It's interesting, if you buy Haidt's moral foundations theory (I've grown increasingly skeptical post-COVID), that 'justice' (along with 'care') is one of the two main moral foundations modern progressives still believe in. I think because of the use in 'criminal justice' by law-and-order conservative types they have to qualify it somehow.
I think that might be backwards. They use “justice,” which they neither understand nor accept, to push “social” as in “socialism,” which is their next goal on the way to totalitarian communism. It’s the adjective that’s their focus; the “justice” part is just camouflage.
I think they really consider it justice in the traditional sense though. Bad stuff's been by group X to group Y in the past, so now group Y gets to do bad stuff to group X.
You don't have to agree with them; I don't.
Interesting about the connection to National Socialist operational methods. I noticed this too and look forward to your next essay.
I've written a novel partly set during the Nazi period and Lorenzo's medieval history/language of particular interest is Germany/German and we both noticed it as well. It's even come up at conferences we've both attended.
I've found yourself & Lorenzo very well read so I fear assuming you haven't heard of Viktor Klemperer & his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii
For those who haven't encountered him, he is essentially the German George Orwell when it comes to analysing the misuse of language to advance ideology. Directly from the horse's mouth, written by a converted Jew in the middle of the 3rd Reich.
I hadn’t heard of it, thank you for the reference.
Fascinating, thank you.
Leftists are compelled to make up a story, like children, as adults because they need a front, a Potemkin Village, to disguise what they really want to do to other people, which horrors we have witnessed just recently, and which history demonstrates time and again in other contexts unless language is deftly used to destroy their idea world. One sees how readily it collapses under the weight of truthful expression.
Thankfully. Seeing the truth so aptly articulated was a breath of fresh air. I'm slowly starting to hope that there may be a way out of this horrible state of affairs.
There is. It's happening now and we are part of it, with every little word of Truth sent into the world.
Thanks for sharing the insights in such depth. It is fascinating and depressing to see how what is a national scandal relegated to yesterday’s news and an argument about mean tweets. It shines a bright light on the piety signalling classes. Some in media and government know what they are doing but also rely on the collective psyche to play along. Nothing to see. Be kind. What’s on Netflix tonight? I don’t know what you think is the role of the rest of us? We can see what is wrong, but are powerless to do anything about it? Totalitarian states rely on a passive, powerless mass of people to get their way.
Another consideration in the drift to narcissistic anarchy is that we are also downstream of the Enlightenment. We have killed the divinely ordered state that understands virtue and imposes duties we are keen to shake off. It is much easier to be a victim oneself at the centre of one’s own world if there is no Universal Victim occupying your place of worship.
A fascinating read, thanks!
The fat acceptance movement is, perhaps, the purest expression of moral wokery. Morbid obesity leads to myriad health issues and, often, early death. Because of the constraints imposed by the physical world, being significantly overweight carries a healthy social stigma - healthy to the extent that it encourages people to exercise and eat right. “Fat shaming” may also be a product of our ancient hunter-gatherer past in which food was hard to come by and such food as could be obtained was shared. In such a world, anyone who was grossly overweight would naturally attract suspicion and resentment.
Fat activists see such stigmas, not as natural results of physical reality, but as arbitrary, artificial, and irrational oppression. They long for a revolution that will banish anti-obesity prejudice and usher in a world where people see morbidly obese people as beautiful and sexually desirable.
But this is magical thinking. By what mechanism will people’s perceptions of beauty be changed? How can any revolution eliminate the negative medical impacts of obesity? Their enemy isn’t social oppression, the enemies are the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and the limitations of the human body.
I remember when I first read about fat acceptance in (I think) one of Helen Pluckrose’s articles and being astonished that no-one was saying obvious stuff like “I bet the NHS begs to differ” or “have you talked to your GP about this?”
Some GPs agree with fat acceptance. People underestimate how much 'woke' has infiltrated general medicine. I had a diabetes nurse educator say that type 2 diabetes was unrelated to being obese - it was 'genetic'. When another scientist and I challenged her she said, words to the effect that she wouldn't be as 'judgemental' as we were. These are the people charged with helping patients get their disease into remission!
The substitution of concern for “bad feels” over the facts of the matter is a very unfortunate modern trend that “wokery” puts on steroids.
Brilliant 👍
So watcha doing for Inauguration Day?
👀
Time zones don’t match for me so I suspect I will have to stay up late to catch any of it. I hope Snoop Dogg is on early enough to catch his performance.
What a brilliant essay.
This articulates so much of what I agree with, yet I struggle with eloquence to communicate the same.
Thank you for yet another excellent piece.
Yet another brutally insightful takedown of the PMC - keep up the good work! I always loved that Sailer line about political correctness being a war on noticing.
Yes. I am absorbed the point so thoroughly, I forgot where I got it from.
I was fat-shamed as a kid. One of the best things that happened to me.
Thank you for your excellent article. You have woven into a cohesive narrative all the threads of the Left’s tactics and pieced together a whole picture, something a bystander like me, struggling to understand, can finally grasp. It is easier to fight when you understand the methods of the enemy.
^^^This!
By extraordinary coincidence I spent the weekend preceding this article reading To The Bitter End, a book written by Hans Bernd Gisevius, an insider account of the Gleichschaltung. The irony is that the methods used by the Nazis and the SJW class are precisely the opposite - the former appealed to anger and resentment, the latter appeal to good will and sense of fairness.
But a lot of Nazi propaganda was motivated by love of land and volk. While a lot of Communist propaganda is motivated by anger. Marx’s writings, for example, are full of anger. The emotions of the immediate political oratory and the emotions of the propaganda provide something of a complementary package deal.
The SJW claim good will, fairness, 'equity, inclusion, acceptance.' However their reactions to anyone who doesn't groupthink along the same lines as them is utter rancid hostility, contempt, anger, etc. There is a pompous, self-important, holier-than-thou aspect to their attitudes which severely judges anyone holding opinions that fall outside the prescribed ideological positions. It is truly cult-ish - all outsiders must be shunned and have no hope of reaching the SJW equivalent of 'Heaven.'
I really don't see how you can characterize the progressive Left as anything but the textbook case of resentment. The entire program revolves around redefining fair and unfair--and success and failure--in an ambitious and self-serving attempt to turn society upside down and punish excellence. The conspiracy theory and scapegoating elements are also very clearly front and center.
Very nicely done. The bit about Foucault, Luxemberg et al. reminded me of Nietzsche’s “last man.” And there’s a lot of Nietzsche in your essay, as I suspect you’d agree.
The moral elevation of the “oppressed” calls to mind an Olympic broadcast where, during an ad, the camera lingered in slo-mo on a disabled runner’s prosthetic leg — “upliftingly,” but in fact quasi-pornographically. For it’s not that she was disabled, it’s that the rest of us are only “temporarily abled.” Cut the non-marginalized down to size!
And indeed empathy for the low in status can be a beard (as N again points out) for dark impulses. Like in that movie, you know the one: “Make her one of us!”
Thank you and yes. I have read very little Nietzsche directly, but absorbed quite a lot indirectly.
In terms of understanding the culture of social justice, I recommend taking a glance at “Genealogy of Morals.” There are two concepts – master/slave morality and ressentiment – that are very useful.