You Say You Want a Revolution

Posted on | February 10, 2017 | 2 Comments

 

Why did the anarchist “black bloc” riot at Berkeley? Because students are learning what their teachers are teaching them:

The major student-run paper of UC Berkeley ran five op-eds Tuesday defending the riots on campus, and arguing that violence was an acceptable response to a speech from Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.
The Daily Californian editorial board published five op-eds from five students and former students, who uniformly believed the riot was justified. . . .
“The violence that forms the foundation of Yiannopoulos’ ideology is far worse than any tactic the black bloc uses,” argued Desmond Meagley.

 

“Desmond” Meagley is actually a girl — “non-binary” or transgender — and her/“his” argument boils down to “Yiannopoulos’ sexual harassment, white supremacist ideals and Nazi sympathies are inexcusable.” Who has Milo “harassed”? In what sense is Milo a “white supremacist” or a Nazi? Meagley cannot answer these questions, because pejorative smears like this are about as well-defined in Meagley’s mind as her/“his” gender.

In the Trump Age, the Left keeps inadvertently reminding us of George Orwell’s quote from Politics and the English Language, “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’.” We find it impossible to debate public policy, not only because the Trump-haters insist on playing Orwellian word games like this, but also because they insist that disagreeing with them is “hate.” However, what the desperately confused Meagley actually demands is that the rest of us participate in her/“his” gender delusions, and she/“he” is justifying violence as a reaction to our refusal to do so.

If we state the obvious — i.e., Meagley is emotionally disturbed — we will be accused of “harassment,” and even diagnosed as afflicted with an irrational fear (“transphobia”) and so what Meagley actually demands is the authority to silence those who speak the truth.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
— John Adams, 1770

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . She is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, 1786

Let anyone examine the sociopathic syndrome called DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) and tell me that this is not what Meagley is engaged in, with her/“his” claim that “violence . . . forms the foundation of Yiannopoulos’ ideology.” Who is the ideologue here? And who is justifying political violence? (Hint: Not Milo.)

 

 

Words mean things. Facts matter. When young Democrats dishonestly label their opponents “Nazis” and incite violence as a tactic to prevent the president’s supporters from speaking, we are witnessing an attempt to redefine reality by the abuse of language. And this is not coincidentally related to the feminist gender theory — the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix — popularized by University of California Professor Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. As I have demonstrated (see “These Discourses of Heterosexuality Which Particularly Oppress All of Us,” Jan. 12), Professor Butler’s theory relies heavily on the work of French radical lesbian Monique Wittig, and on a handful of other writers (e.g., Michel Foucault and Gayle Rubin) who shared Wittig’s hostility toward heterosexuality, per se.

Feminists insist that the mere experience of being female makes women victims of oppression — because patriarchy! — and condemn heterosexuality as an “institution” of male supremacy, so that feminism’s “subversion of identity” requires redefining reality. She becomes “he” and he is “she” and if you don’t agree, your disagreement is transphobia. Dissenting from Professor Butler’s theory is hate speech, and your words are “violence” and “harassment,” you Nazi!

Some conservatives have criticized Milo Yiannopoulos for his deliberate use of insulting language as if this were the reason the Left is rioting in its attempts to silence him. Yet does anyone suppose that if I were to submit this little article to the Daily Californian, they would publish it? Don’t be absurd. You see I use no slurs here, but that’s not what really offends them. They are offended by the truth — facts are “hate” and dissent is “harassment,” according to 21st-century Third Wave feminists.

Vox Day is contemptuous of these “social justice warriors” (SJWs):

It’s rather amusing that the SJWs are now reduced to openly arguing that violence is a justifiable response to speech. But it’s not hard to understand why they are so frightened and irrational; there is no place for them in Western civilization, or indeed, any advanced and civilized society. . . .
They cannot stop us, they cannot beat us, all they could ever do was whisper “shame” and “surrender” and “submit” in our ears. But we are not listening to them any longer. They shriek and babble in vain.

Well, a good general never underestimates his enemy, and I do not expect the defense of Western civilization will be easy, nor do I take for granted that it will be successful. We seem to be somewhere in Revelation 20, and “the camp of the saints” is surrounded by Satan’s armies. While we are assured that good will defeat evil in such a battle, every soldier must be vigilant and well-trained, so that he is always ready to fight for truth.

Speaking of truth, “Desmond” Meagley has actually discussed the childhood origins of her/“his” gender confusion:

I was about eight or nine when I moved from a rural town in Oregon to the San Francisco Bay Area. It was one of seven moves my family made during my elementary years. The culture shock of moving from country to city hit me hard. I stuck out at my new school. It was hard to make friends with my new classmates. My parents argued often. So I spent a lot of time doing my own thing, trying not to think too hard about the rapid changes happening to my life.
This is when I started drawing.
My interest in drawing started as a way to deal with my feelings. I was a young kid with a changing family moving from city to city, and drawing gave me a distraction. When I felt lonely, homesick, or just bored, I drew my imaginary friends and characters from my favorite games. It was hard to make friends when my family moved so much. So I took characters out of computer games, books and movies and imagined them like they were there hanging out with me.

This is a familiar story — the lonely misfit child who resorts to “imaginary friends” to cope with her misery. What happens next?

In middle school, it became increasingly difficult to relate to girls from my class. So I mostly hung out with a group of guys who shared my interests in drawing, internet culture, and video games. I thought I fit in with them, but then one day, I was talking to one of them over lunch and he said, “You know it’s weird that you’re a girl and you hang out with us.” I was surprised. Then confused. Then hurt.
I felt bad in a way I couldn’t describe yet. It wasn’t fair. It didn’t make sense. And it was one the first moments I realized that my gender mattered to other people — that the way I experienced gender was not the way that other people thought about it. . . .

You can read the rest of that. Anyone who has studied child psychology — a subject I aced in college more than three decades ago — recognizes that the root of this problem is not “gender,” but rather Meagley’s troubled family life and an adolescent identity crisis exacerbated by a sense of rootlessness caused by the family’s frequent relocations. Nobody’s asked me to give a lecture on psychosexual development, but as a father of six children (three successful adults, and three popular teenagers who show good prospects of success), I know the challenges even the most conscientious parent faces in trying to steer kids away from trouble. Parents have to be alert to warning signs, and from Meagley’s tale, one gathers the impression that her/“his” parents were rather negligent, as they were dealing with serious problems of their own. But I digress . . .

Transgender ‘Social Contagion’ https://t.co/67jCq5sV97 pic.twitter.com/4cXf2LUGJR

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) February 8, 2017

Political activism is a poor substitute for psychiatric therapy. The professors at UC-Berkeley who indoctrinate students with radical theory are clearly complicit in the anarchist mob violence on campus, because the “progressive” politics of the UCB faculty justify the dishonest sociopathic rationalizations of DARVO tactics. Radical theory tells the maladjusted misfits that “society” is the cause of their problems. Believing yourself to be an oppressed victim of “imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy” (see “The Cult of Social Justice,” The American Spectator, Dec. 21, 2015) is sort of like the lonely misfit child imagining herself “hanging out” with characters from “computer games, books and movies.” The self-pitying children need an oppressive villain to make their fantasy narrative work, and so Donald Trump is Hitler and Republican voters are Nazis and Milo Yiannopoulos is Heinrich Himmler. By the way, am I the only one who’s noticed the number of young feminists who are using themes from Harry Potter to describe their opposition to Trump/Voldemort? Doesn’t this suggest that, like Meagley, many of those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome are trapped inside their own childhood fantasy world?

To fully understand this problem, you must read Eric Hoffer’s 1951 classic The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, especially Part 2 (“Potential Converts”) and sections IV (“The Role of the Undesirables in Human Affairs”) and VI (“Misfits”). What Hoffer writes about the influence of “the inferior elements in a nation” (p. 24) and the “incurably frustrated” who have “an unfulfilled craving for creative work” (p 47) applies to many of the angry young men and unhappy young women who rush to join the mob of disgruntled “progressives.” The desire to belong to a mass movement, to “make a difference,” is exploited not only by those who wish to harness radicalism as a force to help elect Democrats, but also by those in the journalism/entertainment industry seeking to “brand” themselves by hopping aboard a trendy bandwagon.

Lady Gaga singing “Born That Way” at the Super Bowl halftime? Ha! Katy Perry will outdo her by advocating an anti-Trump “revolution”:

The lyrics to a new Katy Perry song timed to coincide with her re-branding as an anti-Trump “activist” includes a line that openly encourages her fans to riot.
Released earlier today, the pop star’s Chained to the Rhythm track features lyrics by reggae singer Skip Marley that include the lines, “We’re stumbling, we’re crumbling, and we’re about to riot / They woke up, they woke up the lions.”
Elsewhere, the lyrics make reference to “liars” and the “empire,” clearly placing it in a political context. . . .
Perry, who now considers herself an “activist” according to her Twitter bio (no doubt a genuine lifestyle choice and not just an avaricious form of virtue signaling to make more money), endorsed Hillary Clinton multiple times and headlined a concert in her honor back in November.

Yeah, I can still hear John Lennon’s cynical reaction:

You say you want a revolution.
Well, you know,
We all want to change the world. . . .
But when you talk about destruction,
Don’t you know that you can count me out.

Those of us old enough to remember the late 1960s know what to expect from radical misfits and their revolutionary dreams. Childish tantrums and “talk about destruction” — destroying the society you blame for your own misery — never lead to anything but violence and failure. It’s very easy for a professor to tell a young misfit that “the way she experienced gender” can be explained by the “social construction” of gender, but when the misfit tries to silence those who reject such theories, she is denying others access to those “stubborn things” called facts.

It is not at all surprising that the Left has rioted because the Democrats nominated a 1960s-era feminist who led them to defeat. Nor was I surprised by the destructive violence at Berkeley: Feminism Is a Totalitarian Movement to Destroy Civilization as We Know It.

Feminism: A Synonym for Insanity pic.twitter.com/rSAqzxZPNc

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) January 29, 2017

P.S.: Please hit the tip jar. It makes my wife happy, and Mrs. McCain is the only woman on the planet whose happiness really matters.

 

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! You can find Sarah Hoyt (and also me) on Gab, the free-speech alternative to Twitter.

 

 

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