Just Because I Made a Little Joke

A while back in American Thinker I penned a piece about "Women, the Public Square, and Cancel Culture." In it I made the point that I had spent years pondering that women don't like the public square, and if we give them too much opportunity they will abolish it. See the "cancel" culture and microaggressions and safe spaces. Oh, and I made a little joke:

In other words, women don’t confront someone that has insulted them [in the public square]. No. They complain about it to a third person, as in “I can’t believe President Trump tweeted that.” And the complaint ripples through the “hive mind” of the community of women, and sooner or later the culprit is named, shamed, and shunned. Or, as we now say, “impeached.”

A couple of days ago I was searching Google for my use of "Culture of Insult" and I found that back on December 10 that AT piece had been featured over at Right Wing Watch in a piece by Kristen Doerer: "Women in the Public Square Are to Blame for Impeachment, Right-Wing Blog Says."

As Foghorn Leghorn said, so many years ago, "That's a joke, boy." I think I am going to send Kirsten Doerer an email:

Attn: Kristen Doerer, Managing Editor

A couple of days ago I came across your report on my thoughtful article at American Thinker on women in the public square.

Do you know? I think that the headline of your piece "Women... are to blame for impeachment" was what we postmodern thinkers call "overdetermined."

As Foghorn Leghorn said, so many years ago. "That's a joke, boy."

Of course, I realize that, racist-sexist-homophobe as I am, that I would not be as sensitive to modern readers like you as I might have been.

But jokes and pejoratives aside, I was trying to think through a serious question. What if women are different than men? What if women cannot stand the free-for-all of the public square? What then? What happens to the free exchange of ideas? What happens to politics? What happens to the culture?

What do you think? What speech is acceptable, what what speech is to be named, shamed, and shunned? You tell me.

Of course, my larger point, encapsulated in one of my maxims -- at https://americanmanifestobook.blogspot.com/2019/01/assorted-opinions-and-maxims.html -- is that progressive activism and the left in general represents a Great Reaction, an attempt to re-politicize the world in an age that can probably do with a lot less politics. Here is my short version: 

"Great Reaction: Socialism is a return to slavery; the welfare state is a return to feudalism; identity politics is neo-tribalism; reparations is neo-vengeance; activism a return to revolution, rioting for the ruling class, part medieval knight-errantry, and part activisme, or gentry kids putting on a school play for their parents; helpless victims are a return to sacrifice, social justice is good old loot and plunder."

My point is that all the progressive instincts are a lunge back into the past. If we think in Jungian terms we would say that the left is mining the collective unconscious for ancient archetypes, and using them in a project of power.

But I want to talk to you directly about activism. As Managing Editor of Right Wing Watch I imagine your experience yourself as a progressive activist, fighting for justice against the forces of bigotry and superstition that abound on the right.

But I think that "activism" is similar to medieval knight-errantry. I was re-reading some of the medieval romances and I realized that the romances are an absurd effort by minstrels toadying to the feudal barons to make them into noble disciples of Christ saving damsels in distress in between epic feasts. But in fact they were thugs.

I'm here to say that your average revolutionary, whether Robespierre, Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Franco, Castro, or Pinochet is a thug. So in my view anyone with a misty idea of being an activist and fighting injustice is probably kidding themselves. Because politics is a game for thugs. Actually, I have a maxim for that:

There is no such thing as justice. Only injustice.

My point is that it is all very well to be an activist for human rights and justice and fight against injustice. But I am here to tell you that many people on the receiving end of your fight for justice are going to experience it as injustice.

In that case, would you be right or would they be right?

Hey! If you are ever in Seattle, get in touch and let's have coffee!

sincerely,

Christopher Chantrill

Hey whaddya think readers? Ain't I a stinker! As Bugs Bunny would say.