It was not revolution. What is was, instead, was regime supporters getting to let off a bit of steam after the glorious emotional experience of the George Floyd riots.
And it was, as all left-wing activity is, a reactionary moment, a nostalgic recreation of the good old days of organic, pre-city, community.
In a way, you can say it was a scientific experiment. Let's see what happens if you set out as a new Adam, as "he drives his spade into, and sets up his stockade around, the most fertile patch of land he can find?" That's Bernard Shaw, writing the first pages of Fabian Essays in Socialism.
Well, thanks to intrepid reporter Andy Ngô, we know that it means going through a couple thousand years of history in ten days. First of all, establish the borders. Then the men start to fight over who will be boss. Then you have to figure out the laws. Then you have to keep the peace. Then you identify that people that dress like you are the good guys and you start to hate the people beyond the border.
I suppose that one of the things that drives the Great Reaction, the movement of the left to recreate the primitive community, is the annoying realization that all the cool stuff has already been done. No Fair!
So you decide to do a redo, to re-enact the scenes from the past. Setting up a new community. Enforcing the peace. Competing to see who will be leader. Hating the monsters on the other side of the border.
What you are not, are revolutionaries. You are regime-sponsored "activists" doing what you have been carefully taught: You cannot be a revolutionary when the local mayor pats you patronizingly on the head and talks about a "summer of love." When activism is taught in government schools to children. When degrees are awarded in government universities in grievance studies. When the media reports on "mostly peaceful protest" in a burning city.
What you are doing, you activists, is doing the dirty work for the ruling class, frightening the Commoners, canceling the stepmother of an accused policeman. Roughing up conservative websites for their comment section.
If your protests were real revolution then the functionaries of the Inner Party -- the Nancy Pelosis, the Chuck Schumers, the tame journalists that parrot their sound bites -- would be coming down like a ton of bricks on the protesters, invoking the End of Days, the brutal behavior, the pile of skulls, the racism-sexism-homophobia of the terrorists, the wild violence of the protesters, er, riotous mob.
When you walk around my neighborhood full of nice white liberal ladies and see Black Lives Matter yard-signs and protest signs you are not seeing revolution. Nice liberal ladies do not do revolution; they instinctively seek out the approved line on everything and chant the responses with the rest of the faithful.
Here's a lovely tweet out today about the Beckys supporting revolution (Or are they Karens?):
Woke White Women continue to take over these protests. https://t.co/ZvlVLPuzkT
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) June 23, 2020
As Instapundit puts it: "White Women's Self-Esteem Matters." And Woke White Women don't do revolution, baby. They do and say what they have been carefully taught. By Mommy, by Daddy, by teachers, by professors, by other Woke Women. Women Don't Do Revolution.
And this reminds me to make the obvious point.
The reason we have cities and states and police and the market culture is because it is staggeringly beneficial to humans that get with the program. That's what the Great Enrichment of the last 200 years is about.
When you stop fighting over affronts to your sacred honor, and stop the vengeance culture and trust anyone that acts trustworthy to you, then a thousand flowers bloom. Not to mention a million IRAs.
But there is a problem. A part of the human instinct is the instinct to protect your little patch of land from looters and plunderers, to only trust your kind of people, and to be ready to drop like a ton of bricks on anyone that "disses" you and yours. A part of the human instinct loves to dump on the neighbors, whether in the women's gossip network of "I can't believe she did that" or in the man's honor culture of "you wanna back that one up, pal?"
What we need is a way to sublimate the women's gossip network into something that isn't mean-spirited naming and shaming and shunning, and a way to sublimate the men's insult culture into something that doesn't end in a fist-fight or worse.
And I don't know how we do that. Not when the ruling class prefers to keep the Commoners frightened and demoralized.
No comments:
Post a Comment