Hanson: "The Strange Case Of White Supremacy"
Mostly a myth.
Contemporary progressivism is largely a cultish superstition, a tissue of myths and conspiracy theories; it's a kind of left-wing analog of the religious right / Moral Majority. White supremacists exist, of course--that's who mostly composed Unite the Right. And they star in Blood in the Face, in case you haven't seen it...and you really should. But contemporary progressivism has spun out yet another myth--the myth of "white supremacy" as a pervasive force in America.
But actual facts about racial attitudes give the lie to that. A white supremacist is someone who wants, well, whites to be supreme. And there just aren't many of those people left. And they certainly aren't in positions of power.
The neologistic use of 'white supremacy' is another jargonistic train wreck on the left. For awhile it seemed like it was just a nastier-sounding term for white racism generally. Now it seems to be rather like "white privilege"--a term associated with a conspiracy theory about...and here's another one: "systemic racism." Again, there are real examples of systemic racism: slavery and Jim Crow, for example. But today? It's mostly a myth.
Most of this stuff is a dodgy way to keep the faith in pervasive racism alive in the face of vastly improved racial attitudes. Racism still exists--it'll always exist. That sort of thing never goes away completely. But white supremacy isn't a major force in American life. And are there any real, contemporary examples of racism that's systemic? The most obvious example that comes to mind is affirmative action, actually...and that works in exactly the opposite direction it's supposed to.
As with Straw Trump, the progressive left is mostly complaining about Straw America. The actual item is so horrible...that it's not nearly horrible enough and a much more horrible alternative has to be manufactured in the ideology factories of the humanities and social sciences.
When you lurch to an extreme, that's basically the same as losing your mind. And that's what's happened to the vanguard of the contemporary left.
Contemporary progressivism is largely a cultish superstition, a tissue of myths and conspiracy theories; it's a kind of left-wing analog of the religious right / Moral Majority. White supremacists exist, of course--that's who mostly composed Unite the Right. And they star in Blood in the Face, in case you haven't seen it...and you really should. But contemporary progressivism has spun out yet another myth--the myth of "white supremacy" as a pervasive force in America.
But actual facts about racial attitudes give the lie to that. A white supremacist is someone who wants, well, whites to be supreme. And there just aren't many of those people left. And they certainly aren't in positions of power.
The neologistic use of 'white supremacy' is another jargonistic train wreck on the left. For awhile it seemed like it was just a nastier-sounding term for white racism generally. Now it seems to be rather like "white privilege"--a term associated with a conspiracy theory about...and here's another one: "systemic racism." Again, there are real examples of systemic racism: slavery and Jim Crow, for example. But today? It's mostly a myth.
Most of this stuff is a dodgy way to keep the faith in pervasive racism alive in the face of vastly improved racial attitudes. Racism still exists--it'll always exist. That sort of thing never goes away completely. But white supremacy isn't a major force in American life. And are there any real, contemporary examples of racism that's systemic? The most obvious example that comes to mind is affirmative action, actually...and that works in exactly the opposite direction it's supposed to.
As with Straw Trump, the progressive left is mostly complaining about Straw America. The actual item is so horrible...that it's not nearly horrible enough and a much more horrible alternative has to be manufactured in the ideology factories of the humanities and social sciences.
When you lurch to an extreme, that's basically the same as losing your mind. And that's what's happened to the vanguard of the contemporary left.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:37 PM
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