Fashionable madmen

“Because when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.” -Joan Didion, On Morality, as quoted here

I have spent the past year or so observing and absorbing current events, not so much to stay up to date– I’ve never really cared about that– but more so to understand something I had willfully ignored and completely misunderstood up until now, namely the misguided ideology and narrative of the Left. While I mostly refer to what is more commonly called the ‘progressive Left’ and is less commonly– but perhaps more accurately– called the ‘regressive’ or ‘illiberal Left,’ the ideology of the regressive Left is gaining traction and infiltrating both common politics (see AOC) and arenas where politics shouldn’t even be (see quotas in the tech industry, publishing, and air traffic control, for examples). So for brevity, I will simply write the Left. Understandably, the question has been posited to me and to others who write about the Left, why focus on the Left? In other words: What bone to I have to pick with them? How can I just overlook the wrongs done by the Right? At first, I thought that maybe I did hold a grudge, that maybe, because I made it a big deal that I no longer considered myself a feminist, I had to justify that action and calm any cognitive dissonance I may have felt by searching out incidents that supported my newfound belief system. But I don’t think so. I’ve tried to observe with open eyes what is happening– what I wouldn’t let myself see before– and it’s been deeply troubling. If what has been increasingly upsetting to me was done by the Right or any non-Leftists, I would write about that. It’s just that the triggering moments have been due those on the Left.

Still, I have been checking myself over and over these past few months, wondering if I am being unfairly biased, if I am falling for the algorithmic trap that all social media platforms have in which they direct you to more and more extreme content until your views are so drastic they seem absurd and dismissible to the opposing side. I am hesitant to answer that, as I could be wrong, but the more I see and read, the more I think that the answer is no, I’m not being unfair. I’m just a witness to a baffling and even frightening moment in history and feel the need to express what I see.

So what have I observed? As Joan Didion wrote in the quote above, it is fashionable to be on board with certain ideas right now– fashionable to the point of hysteria, where those who are not on board are punished. This is not an exaggeration: people have lost their jobs and been beaten up simply for not believing the ideology of the Left. I say ‘simply,’ but it is often actually a messy formula that has roots in mob mentality and laziness: someone who does not believe the Leftist ideology is mischaracterized as something horrible, like alt-right, far-right, neo-fascist, racist, homophobic, or sexist; anything that person says or does is from that point dismissed or held up as an example of what’s wrong with the world; when that person or supporters of that person are seen in public or publicly state some contrarian view online, they are ridiculed or worse; and thanks to social media– Twitter in particular– news of the presence of the individual or their supposed misdemeanor spreads like wildfire, and the mob takes to the streets and/or the Twittersphere to lambast the person for their perceived sins. The laziness at play here is in the trust in the members of the team for others on the team to do the homework for them: if so-and-so says this person is a neo-Nazi, he must be; therefore, it’s totally ok and even justified that we attack. But they haven’t actually gone to the source themselves. They haven’t listened to or read anything directly by the accused person. They don’t really know if they’re a neo-Nazi. Yet, having passed off the responsibility to do the homework to someone else, they harm others, whether it is their reputation, their livelihoods, or their lives.

Sometimes, one of the tribe gets caught in the cross-fire. For some perceived infraction, they are punished by those whose side they were on just moments before. This is often far more painful to witness because, more often than not, the accused lays him/herself down before the mob-jury and offers an apology, one usually filled with promises to do better and ‘listen harder.’ But, just as often, the apology is not enough. The mob doesn’t accept it. The accused is either ex-communicated indefinitely or starts working on ingratiating themselves with their tribe again with head bowed and tail between the legs.

Ah, but how can a person sin without a religion? That’s just it: the Left is a religion, one that has been described here, here, here, and here.  This religion is marked by the identity first and foremost: white = bad; male = bad; black/latino/trans/women = victims; victims = sacred and must be protected, believed, and defended at all costs (even at the cost of truth and, sometimes, the safety of others).

The resulting culture of victimhood has all kinds of repercussions, from the expected to the bizarre:

• Censorship— the requisite strict adherence to the dogma results in self-censorship and censoring each other to stay in line with the dogma;
• Concept inflation— for example, words like ‘safety’ and ‘harm’ are stretched to describe effects of words, not just physicality, which devalues their meaning;
• Deplatforming— to protect the ‘safety’ of those ‘harmed’ by opposing views, it is imperative not to let those with those opposing views express them ever, either in person or online;
• Virtue signaling— to let others in the tribe know they are toeing the line, they post their support on social media, in conversation, or in action (such as protests, ‘punching a Nazi,’ or calling out racist, sexist bigots);
• Anger— anger is lauded as overdue and justified after so many years of oppression and ignoring the lives of the victim groups listed above;
• Violence— those outside of the religion of the Left represent abhorrent views, are undeserving of empathy, and therefore must be fought by whatever means so that the good side wins (this is one of the least bizarre and more expected ones);
• Blatant lies— this can be seen in the lie of false statistics or statistics misinterpreted being pushed to further a cause (like feminism or police racism), in the lie about a racist attack that won support in the religion of the Left by preying on the victim ideology for selfish motives, and in the lie about being racially profiled for bringing a homemade clock rather than a bomb, which resulted in an outpouring of sympathy so strong that the White House issued an invitation, Microsoft donated $10,000 worth of technology, and Qatar provided a sponsorship, all because the victim ideology was exploited for personal gain;
• Emotions over context and reason— it doesn’t matter the actual story or the complications of the details that would require thought to work through because if it feels bad (like children crying or people not being able to live in whatever country they choose), then it must be bad;
• Narrative over nuance— whether it’s passing judgment before all the facts are known because an image is easier to latch onto than the actual event, or ignoring the facts even once they are out because a narrative is simpler and brings out a bigger, more desired reaction, narrative trumps nuance when the nuance would require rethinking one’s beliefs; and
• Avoidance of cognitive dissonance— when confronted with thoughts and opinions that do not fit into the ideology, deny them, attack the character of the person spewing them (or at the very least, of those the person quotes), become angry, and, if all that fails, walk away.

I am a heretic. I no longer belong to this religion, though I once did; it is not mine, yet I live in a world where it dominates. I’ve seen what happens when people stand up against it, but I also see where it’s taking us. For the sake of my as-yet-unborn niece or nephew, for the sake of those of us who would like to have fulfilling and self-directed futures, I want to prevent that from happening. I just hope– despite my fears– that it doesn’t get too much worse before it gets better.