Another In The NYT's Continuing Series: Good Progressive Boy Starts Noticing Things...Goes "Alt-Right"...Thankfully Returns To The Fold

Stage 1: YouTube

Stage 2: Questioning progressive dogma knowledge

Stage 3: Nazi!

Stage 4: Returns to the congregation / contacts NYT for feature story

   In the beginning, we're told, Cain was a good liberal boy--he was worried about wealth inequality and climate change! But then he dropped out of school and watched the YouTube. Whereupon he began thinking terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thoughtcrime. Then he became an alt-right Nazi. Then he became progressive again. Happy ending!

   Compare: Smith was raised a fundamentalist, and was taught that to even question the reality of the baby Jesus was sinful. But then he read some bad philosophy and started thinking. Before you know it, Smith was a Satanist! Then he returned to the fold and all was well. -fin-

   The important thing--for both the crazy right and the crazy left--is to assiduously conflate two very different kinds of things:

• (a) Reasonable thoughts/concerns that the Ctrl-left labels bigoted / fascistic  in order to keep them outside the Overton Window
• (b) Actually bigoted shit.

Inter alia, this involves conflating the following two things:

• (i) Seriously considering ideas that progressivism represents as thoughtcrime
• (ii) Replacing lefty dogma with righty dogma.

   I probably won't be able to resist wading into this mess later. But for now I'll just say: both the far left and the far right have a tactical interest in making it seem as if questioning progressive views about certain issues (e.g. race, sex, immigration) is a road that inevitably leads to the far right. Progressivism does this in order to keep its congregants from thinking about those things. It's part of the illicit moralization of inquiry: if you think about x, y, or z, you'll end up evil; so don't think about them. The far right has an interest in promoting this idea as a way of greasing the rails for people with the temerity to think for themselves--You're an independent-minded fellow...you already see that progressive dogma is bullshit...that means you belong over here with us...

   As I've said many times, I believe that the ctrl-left is currently more dangerous than the alt-right. It's much bigger, much more prestigious, much more powerful. The very fact that it controls the NYT and the rest of the cultural superstructure and can produce this genre speaks volumes. Similarly: that a few YouTubers can so easily constitute a challenge to the orthodoxy--despite the fact that a leftist megacorporation controls YouTube. Progressive dogma is so rotten and overextended that even raising the most obvious questions and objections endangers it. It maintains its grip on polite society largely via brainwashing and moral terrorism: You must believe these things...these things are obviously true...only a Nazi would question them....are you some kind of Nazi, or what???

   And notice some of the ideas mentioned in the story--ideas that are simply assumed to be insane. No argument is given. It's taken as axiomatic that even thinking about them is wrong and evil: that race is real, that feminism is socialist and that it limits basic liberties, that "cultural Marxism" represents a threat to Western civilization, that the left has blown sexism, racism and homophobia out of proportion, that there are innate IQ differences...and my favorite: that Frozen is a story about female vanity. But all of these things...except the last one maybe...are perfectly reasonable and probably true. Race is real, and arguments to the contrary are intellectually indefensible--they survive only rhetorically, on the strength of political correctness. (See e.g.) Feminism probably does tend to incline toward socialism; there are certainly socialist feminists who would argue that there is a necessary link between them. And I have no doubt that there are innumerable arguments from feminism to socialism via "intersectionality." As for limits to basic liberties: well, it's pretty standard among contemporary feminists to explicitly reject liberalism, to argue that free speech protections should be weakened (e.g. with "hate speech" exceptions), and to argue that basic rights (like the right to be seen as innocent until proven guilty, the right to an attorney, the right to face and cross-examine one's accuser) should not be recognized in cases of sexual harassment and assault. Although "cultural Marxism" isn't the greatest term, there is no good term for the amorphous mass of views in question--I resort to calling it "the postpostmodern mishmash." And it does represent a threat to Western civilization. Even ignoring everything else: it's common for advocates of such views to explicitly admit that they believe Western culture to be the root of all evil. They explicitly say they want to end it. Is it at least permissible that we take them at their word? The left has blown sexism, racism and homophobia out of proportion; the only people who don't realize this are leftists. That there are IQ differences--across races and the sexes--is an almost-entirely uncontroversial finding of cognitive science. And the most plausible hypothesis given what we currently know is that they are at least partially innate. As for Frozen...which I've never seen and have no desire to: I'll bet money that there are feminists out there arguing that it's a tale of female vanity. Which should be fine by the lights of the NYT, of course... It's only when righties do it that it's evil...

   And remember: none of these things even has to be true; all that matters is: they're all ideas that are within the bounds of rational discussion. The NYT story is predicated on denying this; even considering them constitutes some kind of reductio. As in: Cain was so far gone at one point that he believed that the left blows racism, sexism and homophobia out of proportion!!!...dun dun DUUUN...

   And it's basically perfect that the penultimate chapter of the story involves referring to a man as a woman without even batting an eye--with no acknowledgement whatsoever that such representations are predicated on a large number of indefensible premises the acceptance of which is entirely limited to the progressive left of the last five years or so. The real subtitle of this story should be: How Progressives Are Hilariously/Horrifyingly Blind To Their Own Dogmatism...

   And to whatever extent this really is a story about YouTube pulling people past the point of rational questioning and toward the crazy right--well, that's bad. If there's a real tendency for YouTube's algorithm to do that, then bad on the algorithm. I'll take this opportunity to say that there's undoubtedly a general tendency for one's intellectual and moral pendulum to swing past the optimal position at one point or another. So this phenomenon isn't entirely a creation of YouTube. And I'm much more concerned about the fact that much more important institutions like universities and the media tend to seduce people past the center and into the crazy left. But one can worry about both things.

   I mean...I'm sorry that Mr. Cain became a right-wing zombie. But I'm sorrier that his story is being used as a morality tale to reassure left-wing zombies that their smug zombitude is rational and morally right. The lesson I'd prefer people take away from this is that zombification is bad...especially the smug kind. 

Hey, a boy can dream, can't he?