Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad)

YouTubers Andrew Klavan and Tim Pool are both saying, as I have recently, that the contemporary left looks as though it is going mad. It actually no longer seems possible to have a rational conversation. The latest evidence is the bizarre way the BBC and others are going after Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), as candidate for UKIP in the upcoming Euro elections. All they will talk about is how he is endorsing rape by having joked that he would not rape someone. His YouTube channel has just been “demonetized,” taking away his livelihood. On the same day, the NDP is making a public outcry because Jordan Peterson, internationally bestselling author and public intellectual, has been invited to appear before a Canadian Commons committee to express his views. In the US, YouTuber Gavin MacInnis reports that he must now stay up nights with a gun in his home, because of death threats. 

Yet these people are only making entirely reasonable—often humorous—comments on current politics. If it matters, if it justifies refusing to allow them to speak, there is not a whiff of racism or hate towards any identifiable group in anything they have said publicly. Unlike many other commentators on YouTube. But of course, refusing to allow them to speak ensures that nobody learns that what they are saying is reasonable. The approach, if it is not deeply dishonest, is insane.

The BBC seems to be getting aggressively more partisan. This almost looks suicidal in a public broadcaster committed to being non-partisan, and entirely reliant on tax dollars. See the recent shenanigans with Nigel Farage. Imagine a state broadcaster publicly dismissing a political candidate as an extremist just as he seems poised to win a nation-wide election. They are in open rebellion, it seems, against their viewership. They seem to be actually forcing their own demise.

CNN in the USA seems to have been behaving similarly. Facing stiffer competition every ratings period from Fox News and now MSNBC, in addition to the new media, they are getting less reliable on the news. They are doing this just as consumers can quickly double-check for themselves and see when they are lying. Chris Cuomo, for example, supposedly the neutral reporter, recently tried to shout down his guest Rick Santorum with the charge that he lied about something easily proved by anyone with access to YouTube. Again, this seems suicidal.

The same might be said of the mainstream press, the NY Times or Wapost. They are becoming less reliable on the news, more reckless about traditional journalistic ethics, and more overtly partisan, just as their audiences are shrinking through online competition, as they are losing ad revenue to online agents, and as their accuracy can be double-checked online with increasing ease. It looks like a death wish.

As for the left more generally, their recent priorities, supporting Islam and transgenderism, seem to be similarly self-destructive. It is not just that transgenderism literally requires the denial of external reality—the physical and biological differences between male and female. They also seem to demand that leftists take the reverse of stands they were expected to embrace only recently. It was the left, scant years ago, that was anti-Muslim, against the hijab, against supposed patriarchy, and against female genital mutilation. It was the left that, scant years ago, defended homosexuality with the slogan “born this way.” Transgenderism denies the validity of that premise directly, almost as though it were calculated to do so. It is as though being sane disqualifies you from the club.

Cognitive dissonance, illustrated.

At the same time, these two new causes, Islam and transgenderism, look like a direct assault on the left’s prior largest constituencies. Most obviously, and largest, women. Not to mention Jews—the left is now often openly anti-Semitic—and Catholics, who used to be loyally leftist, now openly treated with contempt. It is as though the left is daring their supporters to abandon them.

Why are they acting so irrationally? With transgenderism, for example, we are at the point at which the left is in full denial of obvious reality. That’s insanity by definition. It looks a lot like what used to be called hysteria.

We see it again on the abortion  issue. Just as soon as Trump successfully appointed Kavanaugh, giving the Supreme Court a possible majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, the pro-abortionist lobby doubled down by pushing legislation in New York and Virginia declaring a right to unrestricted abortion up to the moment of birth. It is as though they were daring someone to call them on it.

The image that comes to mind is that of a spoiled child. Called out, caught doing something naughty, as the MSM and the left are increasingly now by new media and newly heard conservative voices, instead of accepting their fault and striving to do better, they throw a tantrum. They start breaking anything in reach. Often their own toys.

But why does a spoiled child act like this?

It is, I think, the voice of conscience. A healthy conscience would accept fault, amend, and be better for the experience. Because a spoiled child has developed such a huge sense of privilege, they cannot find it in themselves to do this. They are perfect. To admit the slightest fault is unthinkable. It is reality that is being unfair. As a result, their conscience drives them to self-destruction. Their thought is no doubt to destroy the world, for not doing as they wish, but the practical effect is going to be self-destruction. And at some level they seem aware of this. It is like the serial killer who left the message in lipstick at the scene of one rape-murder, “For God’s sake, stop me before I kill again!”

We are watching an irresponsible, privileged elite in emotional meltdown. They are thrashing about madly, and the collateral damage may be awful.

Images of supposed hysterics

By watching for the signs of such hysteria, we can perhaps predict which current institution will be next to circle down the drain. They will start to act loony as they see the first signs of trouble appear. And then they will insist on dying.

We are now seeing such obvious insanity in the academy. They know they are doomed. With new technology, the traditional model of the academy is unsustainable. So they are all partying like there is no tomorrow on their arbitrary power, because there is no tomorrow. The Dean of the Harvard Law School was just fired by his university for doing his professional duty as a lawyer and defending the unpopular Harvey Weinstein. Lindsay Shepherd was censured by her department for showing her class a clip from public TV--without comment.

It ten or twenty years, it will all be gone. Now we know. Prepare accordingly.

We are seeing it too in the public schools. The now-abandoned new Ontario sex ed curriculum was an example. They know the el-hi model is also no longer justifiable. It can all be done better online by Khan Academy and the like. So it is time to pull out all the stops, riot, and smash windows on the way out.

Who’s next?

Does the most recent madness emerging from Silicon Valley, the fit of arbitrary deplatforming, mean they know something we don't know? Are corporate critters like Facebook, Twitter, Patreon, PayPal, and Google also seeking dazzling lights in the tunnel heading towards them? It may well be--they are in the best position to know first what new technologies are imminent, and the life cycle of a high-tech company can be especially short as new technology appears. I'd sell.