Over at Steve Sailer, there's a chart showing that Democrat belief that "racial discrimination is the main reason why many black people can't get ahead these days" has gone from 28% in 2010 to 64% in 2017. Really, what planet are these people on? So racial injustice has gone up in the Obama era?
Or what about the Kavanaugh nomination, where crowds of educated white women were ululating in misery when nominee Kavanaugh was approved by the United States Senate? Really, what planet do these women live on? Are packs of men really preying on innocent helpless women?
I mean, has there ever been a society in history that has shown more concern for a minority population than the United States has shown for black people? Or more concern for women than the United States has shown for educated white women?
So why are Democrats all wigged out about racism? And why do well-born educated white women think that it is the end of the world if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade?
The answer, of course, is religion. It is an error to think of Democrats, especially educated Democrats, as merely supporters of a political party. Anti-racism is their religion. Anti-sexism is their religion. And the point of post-Axial Age religion is to keep the Good vs. Evil opposition at white heat.
No matter that civil-rights laws were passed 50 years ago. Racist Satan is still a threat! No matter that well-born women have been educated to a fare-thee-well for the last generation and now represent up to two-thirds of youngsters in higher education. The forces of evil are still there. Sexual harassers are out there in the bushes; glass ceilings are stopping women from succeeding in their careers; a world without abortion on demand is unthinkable.
My point is that what we see about us today tells us more about the religious needs of well-born educated Americans than the real facts on the ground.
You see the problem at its clearest in millennarian cults that are predicting the end of the world. End-of-the-world is what you need to keep your members energized and committed. It is a question of morale. You keep morale up, in an army or a religious cult, by reminding your members that they are special, members of an exclusive elite, people with a special insight on "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything," and that they must stay mobilized and alert, anxious to stay the course and win their way to Heaven and/or the perfect society. And when the predicted millennium fails to appear? Well, there is only one thing for the leaders to do, and that is to double down.
This fits into the Reign of Terror notion in the analysis of political revolution. Political revolutions are messy and ultimately failed endeavors. Because, after all the speechifying and organizing and revolutionizing and promising and all, we all still have to get up in the morning and go to work. And so, as a revolution proceeds, and the promised heaven on earth fails to appear, the revolutionary leaders have to amp up their rhetoric to keep their supporters mobilized. Until the day of Thermidor and inevitable reaction.
So is that where we are today? With the promise of the civil-rights revolution and its heavenly justice receding inevitably into a messy everyday existence? With the promise of heaven on earth for educated women -- where wages would be equal, where women would move comfortably up the corporate ladder, where sexuality would be safe and predictable -- all dissolving into the truth of life as uncertain and imperfect and contingent?
Don't worry. If today's millennarian hopes collapse, there will come a new religious awakening and the whole process will start all over again. Maybe they will be on the right this time.
Meanwhile Democratic pollster Doug Schoen is warning Democrats that they have gone too far leftr. But will anyone listen to him?
Or what about the Kavanaugh nomination, where crowds of educated white women were ululating in misery when nominee Kavanaugh was approved by the United States Senate? Really, what planet do these women live on? Are packs of men really preying on innocent helpless women?
I mean, has there ever been a society in history that has shown more concern for a minority population than the United States has shown for black people? Or more concern for women than the United States has shown for educated white women?
So why are Democrats all wigged out about racism? And why do well-born educated white women think that it is the end of the world if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade?
The answer, of course, is religion. It is an error to think of Democrats, especially educated Democrats, as merely supporters of a political party. Anti-racism is their religion. Anti-sexism is their religion. And the point of post-Axial Age religion is to keep the Good vs. Evil opposition at white heat.
No matter that civil-rights laws were passed 50 years ago. Racist Satan is still a threat! No matter that well-born women have been educated to a fare-thee-well for the last generation and now represent up to two-thirds of youngsters in higher education. The forces of evil are still there. Sexual harassers are out there in the bushes; glass ceilings are stopping women from succeeding in their careers; a world without abortion on demand is unthinkable.
My point is that what we see about us today tells us more about the religious needs of well-born educated Americans than the real facts on the ground.
You see the problem at its clearest in millennarian cults that are predicting the end of the world. End-of-the-world is what you need to keep your members energized and committed. It is a question of morale. You keep morale up, in an army or a religious cult, by reminding your members that they are special, members of an exclusive elite, people with a special insight on "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything," and that they must stay mobilized and alert, anxious to stay the course and win their way to Heaven and/or the perfect society. And when the predicted millennium fails to appear? Well, there is only one thing for the leaders to do, and that is to double down.
This fits into the Reign of Terror notion in the analysis of political revolution. Political revolutions are messy and ultimately failed endeavors. Because, after all the speechifying and organizing and revolutionizing and promising and all, we all still have to get up in the morning and go to work. And so, as a revolution proceeds, and the promised heaven on earth fails to appear, the revolutionary leaders have to amp up their rhetoric to keep their supporters mobilized. Until the day of Thermidor and inevitable reaction.
So is that where we are today? With the promise of the civil-rights revolution and its heavenly justice receding inevitably into a messy everyday existence? With the promise of heaven on earth for educated women -- where wages would be equal, where women would move comfortably up the corporate ladder, where sexuality would be safe and predictable -- all dissolving into the truth of life as uncertain and imperfect and contingent?
Don't worry. If today's millennarian hopes collapse, there will come a new religious awakening and the whole process will start all over again. Maybe they will be on the right this time.
Meanwhile Democratic pollster Doug Schoen is warning Democrats that they have gone too far leftr. But will anyone listen to him?
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