Monday, August 14, 2017

Needlehooks

I admit that I agree with all of this:
It's becoming so clear now why the war of words between SJWs and the new white nationalists is so intense. It isn't because they have huge ideological differences -- it's because they have so much in common. Both are obsessed with race, SJWs demanding white shame, the alt-right responding with white pride. Both view everyday life and culture through a highly racialised filter. SJWs can't even watch a movie without counting how many lines the black actor has in comparison with the white actor so that they can rush home and tumblr about the injustice of it all. Both have a seemingly boundless capacity for self-pity. Both are convinced they're under siege, whether by patriarchy, transphobia and the Daily Mail (SJWs) or by pinkos and blacks (white nationalists). Both have a deep censorious strain. And both crave recognition of their victimhood and flattery of their feelings. This is really what they're fighting over -- not principles or visions but who should get the coveted title of the most hard-done-by identity. They're auditioning for social pity. "My life matters! My pain matters! I matter!" The increasing bitterness and even violence of their feud is not evidence of its substance, but the opposite: it's the narcissism of small differences. - Brendan O'Neill
For those blissfully unaware of our common societal dysfunction, SJW stands for "social justice warrior", those most commonly associated with dressing in black and smashing shop windows in the name of...anti-fascism.  The alt-right are the latest form of a "white identity" group.

While much of the media is fixated on "right wing extremism", it is part and parcel with the equivalent on the left wing, an aspect that the media seems to studiously avoid.

Clearly, the "alt-right" and "antifa" are in a codependent spiral of violence.  So far, a leftist has shot a congressman and some others, and a rightest has committed vehicular homicide.  It is going to get worse unless we admit that this is happening on both sides of the ideological divide.  Such are the wages of a post-Christian age.