Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: I am become a Leftist, destroyer of worlds.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
A hallmark of the broader Left, from Rousseau to Bernie Sanders, is that they blame all problems on some sort of boogie-man and justify all the horror they impose on people on the need for a witch hunt to deal with the boogie-men:
“[I] t is innate to leftism to always identify some group as the source of all problems in society, some class that makes all mankind choke. For, you see, leftism is nothing but one unending witch hunt.
“Now having made such a claim, it is necessary that I reference facts. Once upon a time there was a certain thinker who thought the thought that would pave the way for all modern liberal double-think, or rather un-thought. His name was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and he famously quipped that ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Many found this idea appealing; but it begs the question. If man is born free, who has enthralled him? So a 200-year chase commenced to find the witch who had brought such maleficence to mankind.
“…
“This is the fundamental madness of the Left, that, in assuming man could ever be free and equal, must blame something for the fact that no one is free or equal; that thing, whatever it is, must be destroyed, so egalitarian freedom may reign.”
This imagined conspiracy of “Privilege” is aimed squarely at the most vulnerable in society…
The concept of “unearned privilege” is how the Left views the world: A manichean struggle between the Privileged Oppressors and the Non-Privileged Oppressed. “Privilege” however, is not just about race or gender, but about all differences in society that might lead some people to have happy productive lives while others OD on the streets:
“‘Check your privilege’ is a meme that’s gained traction on college campuses and other venues where privileged people tend to gather. Loosely translated, it means ‘Shut up.’
“More specifically, it means that your attitudes, habits, values—and hence any idea you may express—are caused by the unearned privileges you enjoy based on your demographic classification. So, your mission—whether or not you choose to accept it—is to engage in self-criticism instead of conversation.
“Confused? Privilege theorists are here to help. They explain that privileges—whether material, social, or professional—come from being male, healthy, prosperous, safe, white-skinned, heterosexual, non-gender-dysphoric, or any number of things that cause you to experience the world in a different way than somebody who comes from a different category in today’s social matrix.”
The real predictor of success and thus “privilege” is a proper upbringing.
“Herein lies the real root of ‘privilege’—its deepest root, in fact. Having loving family bonds is the foundation for success. The good news is that a society need only have an ethos that recognizes and supports such family bonds to make them accessible to virtually all children.
“Obviously, there’s nothing ‘white’ about valuing family and personal relationships. Likewise for good habits, such as thrift, common courtesy, or diligence. What about attitudes of kindness and generosity? Good attitudes are equal-opportunity decisions. They don’t belong to an ethnic ‘ideology’ that causes inequality. Quite the contrary. Everyone is capable of good habits, and such habits are worth praising and instilling in everyone.”
Ah, but the insane Left say that having good parents results in everyone else being oppressed by one’s “privilege”. And thus it is Social Justice to destroy good families because an equality of poverty and misery is considered a social good.
“The question then becomes: how to get people to willingly give up their family and friendship bonds in the name of social justice? Well, I suppose first you’d have to promote policies that foster the conditions that normalize family disintegration. The groundwork for that has been well-laid.
“According the Centers for Disease Control, the current rate of births to unmarried black women is at a mind-blowing 71.5 percent—three times higher than it was in 1965 when Daniel Patrick Moynihan sounded the alarm over the disintegration of black families. In 1965, the out-of-wedlock birth rate for white women was 3.1 percent. Today it is more than eight times higher than that for white women: 29.3 percent. Instead of heeding Moynihan’s 1965 report, elites maligned it.”
Paging Harrison Bergeron!
Ultimately this is just the social equivalent of the Left’s desire for economic justice and income inequality. As Margaret Thatcher said, they’d rather the poor be poorer, provided the rich were less rich; just as long as the income gap is smaller, they’d rather the poor be poorer.
But, as Cultural Marxism has replaced traditional Marxism, the Left doesn’t just want the poor to be poorer, they wand to destroy all social mores and traditions that lead to happiness and prosperity just because not everyone is partaking of it equally.
They’d rather the failures fail harder, provided the successful were less successful.
TTFN.
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