The Intersection of Innocence, Victims, Chastity, and Complaint

Yesterday I had a brainwave while categorizing a bunch of blog posts into my Culture of Innocence category.

I said to myself: but aren't helpless victims and innocent virgins and Little Darlings and women resisting the public square with their "safetyism" all the same?

They are all humans in the pre-responsibility culture. They are Adam and Eve before that nasty serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted the innocent Eve into tasting the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.

So let's rehearse all this:

Three Peoples: The People of the Subordinate Self are people that attach themselves to a lord -- a feudal lord or a political boss -- and they are saying, thanks very much but responsibility is not for me. Of course, the Subordinate has no problem complaining if his loving lord goofs up and fails to protect him.

Little Darlings: If you are a Little Darling of the ruling class, given loot and plunder in return for your vote, you are like the rich man's mistress. One fine day, when your prettiness is not quite what it was, your Sugar Daddy will dump you for a newer model. In politics this is the fate of the white working class. I say that it will also be the fate of the feminists as the ruling class favors transgenders over whiny women. And blacks too as the ruling class pivots to illegal immigrants.

Women in the Public Square: I maintain that women don't want to be responsible people in the public square. That is what #MeToo and "safetyism" is about. Women expect to be protected, and rightly so. But that means that women are never going to accept the proposition of the public square, that you take the good with the bad, the ups with the downs. The very difference between the male Culture of Courage and the female Culture of Chastity that issues from the different conceptions of honor experienced by each sex mandates this. Women are not into courage. Their job is to stay alive and keep the kids alive. That does not include dying in a Forlorn Hope after King Henry V bellows "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

Culture of Innocence: I maintain that it is the natural and physical imperative for small minorities to develop a culture of innocence. Small minorities always feel embattled and vulnerable. They never know when they will need to join together as one to defend themselves from the cold cruel world outside. To maintain the necessary unity the small minority has to develop a culture of innocence, that all the world is against us and the only way we can survive is if we all hang together. And when did we do anything to deserve this? Obviously in our own time this Culture of Innocence is most obvious in Jews and Blacks. But I believe that all ethnic immigrants to the United States have gone through this stage. We will probably see it grab hold of the white commoners in the next few years as the implacable acts of the educated elite make life more precarious for them.

 Notice that this Culture of Innocence is mandatory for anyone fighting a war. The leader must unite the country to fight the war if he is to have a hope of winning and he always does this by representing the enemy as a guilty monster and we the people as innocents. If the leader fails to unite his people in this declaration of innocence then he will fail to mobilize the necessary will to win. In fact, if you are the anti-war party you will always try to insist that, hey, we aren't so great. Whatabout such and such... Our liberal friends did a bang-up job on this front during the Vietnam War and also in the the Iraq War after a decent interval to mourn the dead of the 9/11 attacks.

I say that the beginning of wisdom is to get beyond the Culture of Innocence. And that is the meaning of the Garden of Eden story. Once Eve had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge she was no longer an innocent, and Adam and Eve had to leave the pre-conscious Paradise and "eat the herb of the field" and "eat bread." Sounds like the Dawn of Agriculture.

Then there is the human guilt from putting Christ on the Cross. Admitting guilt and getting beyond the Culture of Innocence is the beginning of responsibility, admitting that you are not perfect, and that, here and there, you may have done things of which you are ashamed, and for which you are sorry.

Notice that our liberal friends have a peculiar version of this with their BLM signs and their #WeBelieve yardsigns and their "oppressed peoples, allies, and white oppressors" narrative. They are saying "we are the good guys" because we help oppressed peoples and the other guys are the haters. There is not a whisper of doubt, that we think that, on the margin, we are doing the right thing, but you never know. No. We activists are the good guys, and don't you forget it.

To live successfully in the city you have to get rid of all this innocence. You have to accept personal responsibility for your life and surrender to the will of the market. If something goes wrong you pick yourself up and get back in the game. There is a big upside to this: you get to be a happy camper. You ditch the Culture of Complaint for the Culture of Courage and Responsibility. Even if it's not always your fault.