Skip to main content

The consequences of liberals insisting on a truly awake existence




(originally posted at Clio's Psyche, Nov. 9) 

This is going to be hard thought to express, but here goes: 

Most are assuming that the massive power of #metoo right now means we've finally become more progressive. I'm not sure that's the only reason for the timing of this, though, this mass demolition of opponents, of predators, who successfully cowed people for decade after decade. I think in play is also a public's sense that this is all about licentiousness, about people using their power and having revelled in it (picture Weinstein right now; his gloating), and believe it or not I think this could hurt progressives more than it will conservatives.

I think people assess that when liberals partake in "spoils" it's all done for their own enjoyment, their own sick pleasure; but when conservatives do so it's somehow not the same thing, for they assess conservatives as those who fundamentally have forsaken themselves the right to self-individualize, to reach heights never reached before, to glory on top of fallen bodies to themselves be the ones who grasp at a crimson flag, who touch the very hand of "god" and reach even beyond. Rather, they assess them, they understand them, as those who began the climb up but were immediately cowed away from further doing so, and thus they conserve, halt, stop, rather than progress, for they are broken; are stewards of the broken, and count amongst the miserable. Liberals reach for the new, the forbidden, the apple in the garden -- and they are understood as essentially sinful for this: sex, drugs, rock and roll. Conservatives never go there, and so their behaviour, however egregious, tastes differently to us; can be surprisingly easy to pass over when nothing makes us more anxious than "immodest," "spoiled" behaviour. 


At the end of this we may find that liberalism loses. For being for full individual self-realization, for what is ostensibly a quintessentially American ambition, an American glory -- the undeterred right to happiness -- still arouses guilt in almost all of us, creates chaos in our minds, and this can be "addressed" in projecting our own sinfulness into others and punishing them for it. Many powerful liberals, simply for being possessed of something genuinely virtuous -- an unwillingness to deter their own self-growth -- may be guilty of a surprising degree of predatory behaviour... it might be lopsided on the liberal side, at least amongst the powerful. If they are all outed, a culture may decide that the lesson to be learned is that we must be more modest in our ambitions -- for look what belief in intrinsic human goodness rather than sinfulness leads to when its lead propagandists arrange things so they go unsupervised, unchecked.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Discussion over the fate of Jolenta, at the Gene Wolfe facebook appreciation site

Patrick McEvoy-Halston November 28 at 10:36 AM Why does Severian make almost no effort to develop sustained empathy for Jolenta -- no interest in her roots, what made her who she was -- even as she features so much in the first part of the narrative? Her fate at the end is one sustained gross happenstance after another... Severian has repeated sex with her while she lay half drugged, an act he argues later he imagines she wanted -- even as he admits it could appear to some, bald "rape" -- but which certainly followed his  discussion of her as someone whom he could hate so much it invited his desire to destroy her; Severian abandons her to Dr. Talus, who had threatened to kill her if she insisted on clinging to him; Baldanders robs her of her money; she's sucked at by blood bats, and, finally, left at death revealed discombobulated of all beauty... a hunk of junk, like that the Saltus citizens keep heaped away from their village for it ruining their preferred sense

Salon discussion of "Almost Famous" gang-rape scene

Patrick McEvoy-Halston: The "Almost Famous'" gang-rape scene? Isn't this the film that features the deflowering of a virgin -- out of boredom -- by a pack of predator-vixons, who otherwise thought so little of him they were quite willing to pee in his near vicinity? Maybe we'll come to conclude that "[t]he scene only works because people were stupid about [boy by girl] [. . .] rape at the time" (Amy Benfer). Sawmonkey: Lucky boy Pull that stick a few more inches out of your chute, Patrick. This was one of the best flicks of the decade. (sawmonkey, response to post, “Films of the decade: ‘Amost Famous’, R.J. Culter, Salon, 13 Dec. 2009) Patrick McEvoy-Halston: @sawmonkey It made an impression on me too. Great charm. Great friends. But it is one of the things you (or at least I) notice on the review, there is the SUGGESTION, with him being so (rightly) upset with the girls feeling so free to pee right before him, that sex with him is just further presump

When Rose McGowan appears in Asgard: a review of "Thor: Ragnarok"

The best part of this film was when Rose McGowan appeared in Asgard and accosted Odin and his sons for covering up, with a prettified, corporate, outward appearance that's all gay-friendly, feminist, multicultural, absolutely for the rights of the indigenous, etc., centuries of past abuse, where they predated mercilessly upon countless unsuspecting peoples. And the PR department came in and said, okay Weinstein... I mean Odin and Odin' sons, here's what we suggest you do. First, you, Odin, are going to have to die. No extensive therapy; when it comes to predators who are male, especially white and male, this age doesn't believe in therapy. You did what you did because you are, or at least strongly WERE, evil, so that's what we have to work with. Now death doesn't seem like "working with it," I know, but the genius is that we'll do the rehab with your sons, and when they're resurrected as somehow more apart from your regime,