I think this is maybe the best elucidation of the “inegalitarian” perspective and some of your clearest, most compelling work. Excellent article that I intend to share.
The 1940s Progressives were down playing the atrocities of the Nazi Party. Only through modern press outsized control have they been able to obscure that truth.
This is a great piece. I discussed the mentality that leads to such outbursts here. If you’re someone with too much empathy for their own good and are constantly worries that Bad People will do Bad Things to your pet victims (even when they deserve it, because you encouraged them to “advocate” eg act in an antisocial manner), you’re going to get Brie Brie.
LOL, this would be perfect for a piece on ‘bad faith reasoning.’ Inegalitarians also deny violent atrocities. Denying atrocities has zero to do with egalitarianism, and everything to do with partisanship. What also makes this bad faith is that there are no egalitarians who deny that members of any group can commit crimes or act immorally. You’ve abandoned rationality altogether in this argument. What makes someone do that?
Excellent article & well penned, but do not *ever* use the term "subhuman" - it is rather a constant part of human nature that some commit evil, from the richest to the poorest. They are human nonetheless - which does not, however, plead mercy for such crimes.
And I insist you find three other characters covering their eyes, ears & mouth respectively. It's a common metaphor; you should be able to do so easily. (Or drop it, since it's not new to anyone, nor does it add much. And for what it's worth, primates don't have the intelligence to avert their eyes. Curious & honest creatures they are all, unlike many of us human beings.)
"Abstain from all [even remotely plausible] appearance of evil" - 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (my brackets - and that may be the first time I've pounded a bible.)
To the subject, I think the sticking point for the Sanders ex-spokeser is actually the use of "systematic" which, she is saying, implies that this specific horror was planned on some higher level by leadership - which without evidence is indeed a leap, though they planned the plan in general, and must have known it was likely to happen. The problem is, she's unable to make her point well & clearly - she has to open it by foo-faffing about whether *any* rape happened, because, well, you know why. Young men let loose do bad things often. Not a hard thing to admit, but she can't. So she beclowns herself. (More.)
Yet I have to raise a small caution where the article: says, "Someone like you or I would not mass rape women regardless of whether we were at war. That would be completely unimaginable." Yes, indeed - we never imagine or expect that any of the people on our team could do such things, but inevitably, with a large enough team, a few do, so we must police ourselves most harshly, as Hamas failed to do, lest our own causes be marred with bitter little tragedies.
They may have been elected by the Palestinians but their first act was to slaughter the members and supporters of the deposed Fatah party. Since then there have been no elections so, no, they may once have been the elected representatives but they are now the tyrants ruling by force and fiat. In 2017 Gazans rose up to demonstrate against their leaders as they were without electricity while the rulers live in luxury, and the people were beaten in the street and their limbs broken.
The entire point of your reply is incomprehensible: Hamas is not bad, but the ordinary Palestinians are bad for having elected them, despite the fact that you've just said Hamas is not bad, and the entire reason for all the bad in the region is Islam, despite that you've just said the Israelis are awful, liars, and violent and their religion is overwhemingly Judaism?...and despite the fact that Hamas killed Israeli Arab Muslims who, despite being equally Muslim, are overwhelmingly taking the side of Israel, as have multiple Islamic organizations, and entire Muslim countries remain allied with Israel and have not yet broken off relations despite the strain...so clearly it's all a wee bit more complicated than "Muslims vs Jews and the entire non-world because Islam bad", as one would expect from a situation in which this is just the latest volley in a 1400 year old war between Shias and Sunnis in which the rest of us are either proxies or just happen to be in the way between their modern day power centers, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
imo unless you assume that most of your readers have read most of your work, you need to make clear - as you did on your "The Rule of Midwits, One Year Later" piece from Jan '23, that when you write "egalitarian left" you mean the "anti-meritocratic oligarchy".
I had to go search earlier of your articles to fully figure out what was going on - at first I thought your reference to the "egalitarian left" was code for "those woke DEI advocates who worship at the temple of 'equity' (equality of outcomes)"
There is something of an egalitarian thought experiment that does make sense. Something along the lines of "If I were in that condition I would behave the same." While this isn't the egalitarianism you're attacking, I think its a deep rooted one here as well. It's in the words of contextualization.
I'm not sure there's anyway to respond to that without having to discuss some hard and disturbing facts about the world. Some things are best destroyed even if (or especially because) they don't have agency. It might be horrific for Frankenstein to kill his monster because of its evil nature, but it might be better than to let it live.
"Focus less on intent...." I have to disagree with this bit of your essay. The most effective attack on SJW virtue-signalling is a psychological attack. It is to show that it not born of humane compassion for the downtrodden. It is about personal VANITY (feeling superior to your 'deplorable' peers. It is a (primarily) self-engrossed white middle class mind-game with not a vestige of anything noble about it. Its trump card (for decades now) has been this false equation (even by many conservatives) Left=caring/Right=hard-hearted. This is the link that must be broken.
I think this is maybe the best elucidation of the “inegalitarian” perspective and some of your clearest, most compelling work. Excellent article that I intend to share.
Right up there with, 'the Protests were mostly peaceful' as overturned cars and buildings burn in the background.
Is the line in paragraph 3 that says “imaginable” meant to say “unimaginable”?
It's the genius strategy of these murdering, raping barbarians; they present themselves as the underdog.
Yeah it's really inexplicable to watch this sort of behavior. The situation seems so clear. But they have to complicate it.
The 1940s Progressives were down playing the atrocities of the Nazi Party. Only through modern press outsized control have they been able to obscure that truth.
This is a great piece. I discussed the mentality that leads to such outbursts here. If you’re someone with too much empathy for their own good and are constantly worries that Bad People will do Bad Things to your pet victims (even when they deserve it, because you encouraged them to “advocate” eg act in an antisocial manner), you’re going to get Brie Brie.
https://madogiwazoku.substack.com/p/on-pet-victim-protection
so beautifully put
LOL, this would be perfect for a piece on ‘bad faith reasoning.’ Inegalitarians also deny violent atrocities. Denying atrocities has zero to do with egalitarianism, and everything to do with partisanship. What also makes this bad faith is that there are no egalitarians who deny that members of any group can commit crimes or act immorally. You’ve abandoned rationality altogether in this argument. What makes someone do that?
Excellent article & well penned, but do not *ever* use the term "subhuman" - it is rather a constant part of human nature that some commit evil, from the richest to the poorest. They are human nonetheless - which does not, however, plead mercy for such crimes.
And I insist you find three other characters covering their eyes, ears & mouth respectively. It's a common metaphor; you should be able to do so easily. (Or drop it, since it's not new to anyone, nor does it add much. And for what it's worth, primates don't have the intelligence to avert their eyes. Curious & honest creatures they are all, unlike many of us human beings.)
"Abstain from all [even remotely plausible] appearance of evil" - 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (my brackets - and that may be the first time I've pounded a bible.)
To the subject, I think the sticking point for the Sanders ex-spokeser is actually the use of "systematic" which, she is saying, implies that this specific horror was planned on some higher level by leadership - which without evidence is indeed a leap, though they planned the plan in general, and must have known it was likely to happen. The problem is, she's unable to make her point well & clearly - she has to open it by foo-faffing about whether *any* rape happened, because, well, you know why. Young men let loose do bad things often. Not a hard thing to admit, but she can't. So she beclowns herself. (More.)
Yet I have to raise a small caution where the article: says, "Someone like you or I would not mass rape women regardless of whether we were at war. That would be completely unimaginable." Yes, indeed - we never imagine or expect that any of the people on our team could do such things, but inevitably, with a large enough team, a few do, so we must police ourselves most harshly, as Hamas failed to do, lest our own causes be marred with bitter little tragedies.
They may have been elected by the Palestinians but their first act was to slaughter the members and supporters of the deposed Fatah party. Since then there have been no elections so, no, they may once have been the elected representatives but they are now the tyrants ruling by force and fiat. In 2017 Gazans rose up to demonstrate against their leaders as they were without electricity while the rulers live in luxury, and the people were beaten in the street and their limbs broken.
The entire point of your reply is incomprehensible: Hamas is not bad, but the ordinary Palestinians are bad for having elected them, despite the fact that you've just said Hamas is not bad, and the entire reason for all the bad in the region is Islam, despite that you've just said the Israelis are awful, liars, and violent and their religion is overwhemingly Judaism?...and despite the fact that Hamas killed Israeli Arab Muslims who, despite being equally Muslim, are overwhelmingly taking the side of Israel, as have multiple Islamic organizations, and entire Muslim countries remain allied with Israel and have not yet broken off relations despite the strain...so clearly it's all a wee bit more complicated than "Muslims vs Jews and the entire non-world because Islam bad", as one would expect from a situation in which this is just the latest volley in a 1400 year old war between Shias and Sunnis in which the rest of us are either proxies or just happen to be in the way between their modern day power centers, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Claiming Israel is perpetrating genocide is dehumanizing.
Well, I watch a bit of The Hills rising with BJG, and she often prefaces her points with acknowledging ignorance of the topic.
BJG opens, "Well, I don't know if rape happened or not..."
That is the dehumanizing part.
imo unless you assume that most of your readers have read most of your work, you need to make clear - as you did on your "The Rule of Midwits, One Year Later" piece from Jan '23, that when you write "egalitarian left" you mean the "anti-meritocratic oligarchy".
I had to go search earlier of your articles to fully figure out what was going on - at first I thought your reference to the "egalitarian left" was code for "those woke DEI advocates who worship at the temple of 'equity' (equality of outcomes)"
There is something of an egalitarian thought experiment that does make sense. Something along the lines of "If I were in that condition I would behave the same." While this isn't the egalitarianism you're attacking, I think its a deep rooted one here as well. It's in the words of contextualization.
I'm not sure there's anyway to respond to that without having to discuss some hard and disturbing facts about the world. Some things are best destroyed even if (or especially because) they don't have agency. It might be horrific for Frankenstein to kill his monster because of its evil nature, but it might be better than to let it live.
Do you have a different take on this?
"Focus less on intent...." I have to disagree with this bit of your essay. The most effective attack on SJW virtue-signalling is a psychological attack. It is to show that it not born of humane compassion for the downtrodden. It is about personal VANITY (feeling superior to your 'deplorable' peers. It is a (primarily) self-engrossed white middle class mind-game with not a vestige of anything noble about it. Its trump card (for decades now) has been this false equation (even by many conservatives) Left=caring/Right=hard-hearted. This is the link that must be broken.
Other than that I think your essay is great.