Posted on 07/20/2019 6:14:52 AM PDT by Chickensoup
An excellent in-depth article about the tribalism and victim pandering current in our society.
...The Virtuous Victim possesses a basic goodness that brings life to members of the multiculturalist clan. But as Durkheim observed, totems operate in a binary system: The sacred is under constant threat by the profane. The profane forces are in radical opposition to the totem, and they can sometimes take on form as an anti-totem. Members of the clan honor the totem by protecting it from pollution by the anti-totem.
The Twitter discussion of the Smollett case brought out some of the multiculturalist clan’s anti-totems. Celebrities and other status-rich multiculturalists embraced Smollett’s narrative and condemned President Trump and everyone who supports him. Actor George Takei tweeted: “This is horrific. What kind of country do we live in?” His followers answered in terms that evoked pollution and the need to purge society of the profane:
“A broken one. Magat [i.e., ‘MAGA hat’ transformed into a homonym for ‘maggot’] gangs roam the streets, causing ruckus, then news outlets spend weeks arguing on their side. Magats are dangerous. They have a sadist streak a mile wide.” “We live in a sick and twisted Trump America. MAGA is indeed a dog whistle for racism, homophobia, and misogyny.” “It’s time for the maga gang to be identified as an organized criminal entity with intent to harm & disturb the peace. They are a gang and the redhat is a gang symbol. People need signs that say ‘no redhats’ at this point. No gang members allowed.” “Is this okay with you, America? @Alyssa_Milano was right: maga hats really are the new white hoods.” The red MAGA hat is an anti-totem. The symbol alone is enough to evoke the fury of multiculturalist clan members. Even the acronym has dreaded symbolic power. The anti-totem is sacrilege.
Over the last two years, the multiculturalist clan has stigmatized MAGA hats as symbols of a polluting racism. This was true in the reactions to the Covington boys and to Smollett. Even after evidence debunked the early accounts of both incidents, MAGA hats remained potent images in the minds of multiculturalists. I am confident that a young white man wearing a MAGA hat to class at any major university would become an object of fear, anger, and anxiety among students who are members of the multiculturalist clan. Indeed, it is striking how emotional students now become in response to what once were conventional means of political partisanship: hats, banners, buttons. But it is wrong to see this as a sign of fragility. In my experience, the outraged students are anything but fragile as they seek to destroy the source of profane power. They are better viewed as participants in a primitive religious mindset, fiercely loyal to the Virtuous Victim and ruthlessly antagonistic to its anti-totems....
...The Virtuous Victim possesses a basic goodness that brings life to members of the multiculturalist clan. But as Durkheim observed, totems operate in a binary system: The sacred is under constant threat by the profane. The profane forces are in radical opposition to the totem, and they can sometimes take on form as an anti-totem. Members of the clan honor the totem by protecting it from pollution by the anti-totem.
The Twitter discussion of the Smollett case brought out some of the multiculturalist clan’s anti-totems. Celebrities and other status-rich multiculturalists embraced Smollett’s narrative and condemned President Trump and everyone who supports him. Actor George Takei tweeted: “This is horrific. What kind of country do we live in?” His followers answered in terms that evoked pollution and the need to purge society of the profane:
“A broken one. Magat [i.e., ‘MAGA hat’ transformed into a homonym for ‘maggot’] gangs roam the streets, causing ruckus, then news outlets spend weeks arguing on their side. Magats are dangerous. They have a sadist streak a mile wide.” “We live in a sick and twisted Trump America. MAGA is indeed a dog whistle for racism, homophobia, and misogyny.” “It’s time for the maga gang to be identified as an organized criminal entity with intent to harm & disturb the peace. They are a gang and the redhat is a gang symbol. People need signs that say ‘no redhats’ at this point. No gang members allowed.” “Is this okay with you, America? @Alyssa_Milano was right: maga hats really are the new white hoods.” The red MAGA hat is an anti-totem. The symbol alone is enough to evoke the fury of multiculturalist clan members. Even the acronym has dreaded symbolic power. The anti-totem is sacrilege.
Over the last two years, the multiculturalist clan has stigmatized MAGA hats as symbols of a polluting racism. This was true in the reactions to the Covington boys and to Smollett. Even after evidence debunked the early accounts of both incidents, MAGA hats remained potent images in the minds of multiculturalists. I am confident that a young white man wearing a MAGA hat to class at any major university would become an object of fear, anger, and anxiety among students who are members of the multiculturalist clan. Indeed, it is striking how emotional students now become in response to what once were conventional means of political partisanship: hats, banners, buttons. But it is wrong to see this as a sign of fragility. In my experience, the outraged students are anything but fragile as they seek to destroy the source of profane power. They are better viewed as participants in a primitive religious mindset, fiercely loyal to the Virtuous Victim and ruthlessly antagonistic to its anti-totems....
And we need to fight this, both intellectually and emotionally.
I’m thinking of starting to post pictures of American accomplishments and labeling them as “American greatness, the kind the left opposes.”
These can be anything: first national park in the world (Yellowstone), airplanes, electric lights, radios, etc. Anything worthwhile that was invented or conceived in America would do the trick.
“Anything worthwhile that was invented or conceived in America would do the trick.”
Google search American inventors.
That is a great idea!
Lord of the Flies writ large.
A horrible thought.
But spot on.
What we're experiencing today is the "noble victim." The idea here is that if you can assert a claim of victimhood, regardless of its substance, you stand on the moral high ground and everyone below must bow to you.
So the most powerful thing you can be today is a victim of some sort. Racism, patriarchy, discrimination, abuse, rape, economic disparity, gender bias ... something.
I think that the analysis while interesting gives short shrift to the potential in modern multiculturalism for developing into more evil form such as genocide...
This alone is just cause to reject its teachings.
The Virtuous Victim is a powerful totem because it plays on our desire for the full and final triumph of justice—a sentiment at odds with the logic of totemism. The totem raises spiritual expectations. I see it in my students, whose eschatological expectations of the dawning era of justice become vivid when they worship the Virtuous Victim. But the mechanisms of totemism are ordered toward managing spiritual tensions between the sacred and profane, not guiding us toward their final resolution. Thus the anguish, frustration, and bitterness that so often accompany multiculturalism. Members of the clan are anguished because they never seem to see any progress. But progress is not the aim of totemism.
In sociological terms, identity politics might work as a mechanism for distributing spoils in a postmodern competition for social status and economic resources—ritualized warfare among clans in a late-modern pluralistic democracy. But it cannot work as a mechanism for achieving a more just society, since that project entails a standard of justice that transcends the conflict of totem and anti-totem. Again, the dilemma: The proponents of identity politics draw purpose and resolve from their desire for a more just society, but their methods work in a very different fashion, leading to frustration and calls for still more finely sorted identity categories applied with still greater urgency and indignant fury.
It is with curiosity and trepidation that I await further developments in the evolution of this strange phenomenon. The stakes are raised by the fact that the multiculturalist clan’s beliefs are so widespread among our cultural elites. The Virtuous Victim is held up for veneration by many American institutions—educational, media, corporate. By my reckoning, we are likely to see still greater anger at the lack of progress, shriller calls for loyalty to the totem, and more aggressive efforts to purge the anti-totem, until the clan members collapse in spiritual and political exhaustion. May that time be soon.
____________________________
this is the point of change, either they colapse or we die.
I like the term Victimhoodlum.
Ping!
Exactly. It’s dialecticism at work.
Lord of the Flies
Gulliver's Travels
Are these classics still required?
these classics are disparaged or ignored.
The ignorance of the people who consider themselves educated today is profound.
That is why things have gotten so bad.
The Goals 2000 education manifesto, warned about in the late 80s and nineties by homeschoolers, Focus on the Family and other conservative groups, has had its way with our culture.
I read your bio. I found Free Republic in 1997 as a hotlink on Drudge Report!
Drudge discontinued the hotlink shortly after.
Until last Wednesday morning (following his headline re:President's rally) I deleted Drudge from my morning perusal.
I now look at Free Republic, Weasel Zippers, Briebart.
Yep! We are in a slow motion French Revolution for sure. Also, Rousseau made the false smear that Marie Antoinette would say, “let them eat cake”, causing it to become the rally cry of the Godless French Revolution. Lies have serious consequences
Rousseau’s pontifications certainly begat a lot of savages. I’m not sure how noble any of them were.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.