reflexive woke backlash

declining the invitation to become the monsters we battled

WW2 in europe was largely caused by the treaty of versaille. it so emasculated, impoverished, and humiliated the germans that basically nothing but "violent nationalism" could result. they, the biggest, strongest country in the area, were pushed past endurance by "outsiders" who forced it on them because the US was there to require it. but as soon as "dad" went back to north america, the germans and itialians and austrians rounded on the rest of europe and reminded them who were the productive, strong, capable folks around here while being eaten by some truly odious reactionary ideologies.

the rest, as they say, is history. fascism, genocide, and another war to end all wars right on the heels of the last one.

i’m a bit worried about a potentially impending parallel.

imagine what happens to woke and the DEI denizens when they lose the government. imagine the folks who have been marginalized and humiliated by these struggle sessions and forced to play these retarded reindeer games as they rise and reassert themselves.

because it’s coming. in fact, it’s well underway.

on the one hand, i'm all for effacing woke from the face of the earth. it’s an odious and joyless destruction of society and prosperity that has no real place among those of sound mind.

but on on the other, i fear the response that may emerge here because people are angry, the anger is long simmering, and over-reaction is the rule in situations like these.

are we going have some kind of CRT kristalnacht?

because i really, deeply think we do not want that.

this kind of movement can get really, really ugly in a huge hurry. the reflexivity of social forces can get pretty intense and deranged and once it starts getting out of control, it can really spiral.

as the woke creed recedes, it’s creating a vacuum into which an awful lot of pressure could be released.

and i have some real concerns about what we may be in for.

many seem cheered by the rise of “counter protest” on campus and while much of the anti-woke, anti-crybully wrecker action has certainly been laudable and i find myself cheered by and cheering for it (especially the newfound appetite for holding leaders and teachers accountable for the awful offal they have been shoveling), some of it seems to carry some very worrying undertones as well and if we’re going to be the side of civilization, then we may want to be sure that we sustain some semblance of seeming civilized.

i found this video a bit disturbing. it has the zeitgeist of a mob (or at least a proto-mob) and one that could turn quite nasty without too much additional provocation.

and i’m more than a bit worried that that may be just what the DEI denizens and wokester warlords want.

there is an important distinction between standing up assertively and rushing headlong onto a rigged battlefield to which your enemy has invited you.

you think you’re heading for glory, but perhaps you’re merely a bull being baited into a matador’s sword.

as you yourself become a mob, you lose the high ground, both moral and institutional.

just as it’s wrong for a university to privilege people for their race or gender or sexuality, it’s also reasonable for a university (or any voluntary association or institution) to demand that its members treat one another with a certain level of respect and just because “the other side” is yelling nasty racist and violent stuff (and increasingly starting to pay a price for it) that’s no reason to jump into the skillet with them and get yourself cooked as well.

it makes you as bad as they are.

people are, with justification, angry.

the irony that in institutions like universities, white heterosexual males have been so aggressively marginalized and attacked by the very “champions of the marginalized” who profess to abhor such practice is thick enough to stand a spoon in.

but none of this makes simple maxims of strategy any less apt:

“if your enemy is angry, enrage him” is a classic for a reason.

and you really don’t want to fall for that one.

it’s how you make stupid mistakes.

we seem to be at a sort of cultural boiling point where large groups have just had it and are spoiling for a fight.

and i think that auron’s interpretation of it is pretty much spot on:

i think this culture war is coming in earnest. it’s basically inevitable now. frankly, it’s probably desirable and may well be the only way to get back to a sound society with respect for rights and right and wrong. this has been a one-sided fight for too long and much has been lost and sacrificed upon the altar of this misbegotten “empathy” that has been fashioned into such a pervasive societal cudgel.

but if it’s going to happen, it should be on a field that works for us and for the future, not some mob rule nastyfest. that’s their game. let’s not join it. let’s not surrender the commanding heights of principle and probity.

there is a really important lesson here which is:

we are winning. now is not the time to get pulled offside.

it's natural to dislike or be fed up with the crybully industrial complex that has spent so long attacking everyone in grossly unfair and vicious fashion while hiding behind "protected class” rules to mask the fact that they are, in fact, everything they purport to hate: intolerant colonizers forcing their "culture" onto everyone else.

it's natural to want to vent that pent up aggravation.

and that's what makes it easy for this to go wrong and for the side of "rights and reasonable society" to become the very monster its trying to battle.

that's what makes it easy to get whipped up into a mob as reprehensible and nasty as the ones you're trying to shout down.

there is no path to victory or to civilization there.

you're just playing into the hands of those who want to unify opposition to you. you become the pastiche they said you were as they derange you down to their level.

winning a culture war by becoming toxic yourself is a pyrrhic victory.

it’s fixing to be a “hot” summer.

stay centered, sane, and civilized; implacable but peaceful.

do not join or applaud mass formation even and especially if the mob is braying for something you happen to like or against someone you oppose.

the path to success here is easier than it looks.

many seem to feel that we’re not making progress, but i would argue this:

watch what's happening.

4 years ago, all manner of absurdity was getting a free pass.

today, it's getting reams of derisive opposition and it's just going to keep building.

politics is downstream from culture and has not caught up yet, but it will.

woke was over the minute it become OK to mock it.

the entire ethos is a self-defeating ideology in the process of defeating itself.

the wokelords are making mistake after mistake and self-immolating in shrillery and clownworld antics because they cannot handle the criticism and the mockery.

do not interrupt them.

do not aid them by becoming the enemy against which they want to fight and frame.

just step out of the way and help them along this path to self-nullification and irrelevance.