Stop Making Martyrs

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

James Damore is another individual added to the growing list of “mundane martyrs” – a list of boring, every day people who speak out against obvious insanity and get attacked by the radical leftists for it. No one cared or knew anything about Bret or Eric Weinstein before the left freaked out over someone not complying to their insane demands, ending with him being unsafe on his own campus. Jordan Peterson now makes hundreds of thousands of dollars through Patreon. If the goal of these radical leftists was to silence and dehumanize dissidents, then they are doing a spectacularly poor job.

Going farther, shutting down speakers (especially in over the top ways) also hinders their cause. If Milo, or Ann Coulter, or Ben Shapiro were allowed to speak, 50 to 100 people would show up, 99.99% of them already supporters. Instead, by lighting their venues on fire, smashing windows, and stalking them at their dinners, they end up getting a book deal and a spot on Fox News. All the left needs to do is let them speak and then write a by-line in the school newspaper about how a racist fascist showed up, and then distort what they said (since no leftist would ever look into the person themselves).

But their ideology won’t allow for that. Quietly silencing enemies isn’t viable for them because they won’t get to grandstand otherwise. This becomes the main point (which cannot be stressed enough): the radical left’s ideology is fundamentally incompatible with winning the culture war. The only reason they have succeeded thus far is because they control almost all of the pillars of society, and also due to the fact that the Right does not actually want to win the culture war. They’re insane and over the top, but not in the correct or productive ways. They can’t have fun. They can’t mock themselves. They’re easily triggered by anything and everything. They excommunicate members for thinking slightly incorrectly. They literally can not win.

And since they are a cult, the left is unable to change their ideology in any significant manner. They must go with what the leaders say. They can not make radical leftism “cool” in its current form. They’re boring, easily mockable, authoritarian, and downright unlikable. There is a reason that the majority of Generation Z is conservative. There is a reason that Whites went for Trump (and not because of “muh racism”). No one wants to join a group of people who call others racists and sexists for having slightly different opinions. It’s not effective marketing. When all the “feminist fail” videos present them in an easily mockable light, while most rebuttals to the Right are overly serious, contrived, or downright unfunny, what do you think happens to younger, rambunctious people? The “Left can’t meme” observation isn’t a joke, and it isn’t to be dismissed as a failure of their group.

So let the left keep making martyrs. Let them keep shutting down guest speakers. Let them keep showing the egregious bias in media and academia. They keep putting themselves at a disadvantage every time they do so. The moderates are watching, and they don’t like what they see.

Academic One Liners

If you do weave one-liners into a story, you have to have an overall story as well, otherwise it doesn’t really count as narrative.
– Tim Vine

One may question the need for ideological preservation. Why are ideologies so fragile? One of the main reasons is that most ideologies can be reduced to a single sentence summary. All you have to do to disprove an ideology is find something that goes against the summary. This is why ideological preservation is so important. Science is made up of laws, whether in physics or chemistry. One would have to disprove every law in order to disprove those scientific paradigms. All it takes is one survey, one poll, one study, or common sense to destroy an ideology.

Let’s start with an established example. The religious right claims that “violent media creates child killers”. While there is link to increased aggression, there is no link to actual violence. This of course completely destroys the ideology, sending its members into a panicked frenzy of ideological preservation.

Now, let’s take that same example, and replace “child killers” with “sexism”. This is of course a prime narrative in feminist circles, that the portrayal of women and minorities in media contributes to negative behavior in real life. A study came out proving this. Of course, an analysis of the study proved it was completely wrong (ever notice how ideologues who use studies only care about the headline, instead of having any actual analysis, or God forbid actually looking at the data?). This again goes against the one-liner narrative.

This holds true in academia as well as in mainstream ideologies. One of the tenets of postmodernism is “everything is socially constructed”. So when people start looking into things such as universal grammar, which says that language learning and creation is biological, people get upset. Any biology regarding humans goes against postmodernism. I’ll leave a riddle that no one seems to want to answer: Transgender people are born with the brain of the gender they claim to be (this of course also destroys the idea that biological gender is a social construct). This therefore concludes that there are differences between male and female brains. Yet, females and males have brains that are “not too different” and “differing behaviors are a myth.” Have fun with preserving that one.

One can argue that ideologies are broad movements that can’t be summarized into one line. Scientific laws can certainly be summarized in a line or two. The problem lies in the fact that science is harder to break. If you found evidence that contradicts gravitational laws, then there would be ideological preservation taking place. However, these theories have been tested for centuries. It is very easy to find and argue against thought rather than hard science. The ideas or laws are also very linked to each other. If social constructivism is not entirely accurate, then that’s many many more theories and ideas that are now inaccurate or flat out incorrect. Obviously, science is played out in the same way, but it is still much harder to break evidence with evidence. It is much easier to break theory with evidence.

False Offense Offends Me

If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say,  “I’m still waiting to hear what your point is”

– Christopher Hitchens

The words “that’s offensive” or “that’s a sensitive subject” have no place in academia or universities, and in blunt honesty, the world. Many things that need to be debated are these so called sensitive issues, such as abortion rights or whether Islam encourages violence. If we are not debating sensitive subjects, what are we? And yes, you can use that right to ignore that people tout so frequently. Either ignore or debate with ideas, however. Do not attack the other side with “I’m offended”.

A similar tactic is to say that the person can not debate a subject due to their race or gender. The whole “you don’t know what it’s like to live as a woman!! ” card. Firstly, this is what ideologies like feminism hinge on. If men can’t criticize / analyze females or feminist ideals because they haven’t had experience as a female, then women can not criticize or analyze how men act because they have no idea what it is like to live as a man. But of course, men can criticize how other men act in a female or feminist perspective. Secondly, there are women who disagree with modern feminism. There are blacks who disagree with Black Lives Matter’s tactics or ideology. This aspect should not matter. But that’s ok. You can just tell them they have internalized misogyny or racism. This entire argumentative device depends highly on polylogism, the same reasoning that brought us actual racism.

Even so, these words bring us the idea that no ideology can have holes. That some issues are too big to criticize. What does this bring us? Things like A Feminist Glaciology or (because I hate it so much) postmodernism in general. It brings grandiose, insane, illogical, and ill-argued ideas. But you can’t criticize them! After all, A Feminist Glaciology is a feminist paper! You wouldn’t understand, silly white boy! There are critiques. There are critiques of critiques. There are critiques of critiques of critiques. This is how academia operates.

 

As a side note, two of the articles on the front page of Google when searching for “A Feminist Glaciology” say it was criticized by conservatives and climate change deniers. Yes, they have criticized it. Anyone with a brain can because they have that right. Always label your opponents and their arguments with the most extremist point of view possible. Especially when you haven’t even heard their criticisms yet, silly white male conservative!!