No Weapon Forged Against Them Shall Prosper

Stop arguing, you're making it worse.

I wonder what it feels like to fight on the side of the “righteous” in the 21st century Holy War? Put aside for a moment your knee-jerk instinct to point out the obvious fact that those fighting for Moloch think of themselves as righteous in this day and age. Instead, just suspend your judgments for a moment and drink deeply of the sheer impressiveness of your enemy’s armaments.

Just imagine what it would feel like to be one of them; to don your blessed armor of pronouns, helmet of glow-up filters, pauldrons of amplified voices. To be clad in twin gauntlets called “Bodies” and “Spaces.” Imagine the glimmer of holy light forming a triangle of white hot rightness as you unsheathe your blessed blade called “Do Better”

Imagine the thrill as you charge into battle on “This ain’t it, Sis,” your noble steed. Imagine holding the “progress” flag high into the air as you do, freshly re-stitched just yesterday with a new shade of taupe to represent the legions of skoliosexuals who live among us, unrecognized and marginalized by those fascist bastards who don’t even know what they are or that they exist in the first place. “How could you?” they think, “to the poor skoliosexuals of all people, who definitely exist and have always existed!!”

If you can manage for one fascist moment to put aside the fact that these noble warriors are actually some of the pettiest, cruelest, weakest, and most indulgent group of unpaid inquisitors in human history, please do. You simply must, because the last thing you must imagine here is the most awe-inspiring component of the modern crusader’s regalia of all: the invisible shield.

Picture now this, pilgrim: a shield made of thrice-hammered dwarf iron, forged in the heat of a thousand dying stars, and emblazoned with the many sigils of identity, so many identities that they had to start putting the details on the backside of this stupid massive shield. And then best of all, it was ensorcelled by a polycule of wizards and made completely invisible. A bulwark of protection that allows its user complete safety while under attack, and at the same tim complete visibility so that everyone can bear witness to just how terribly they are being attacked by everyone.

Tucking one’s self behind such an aegis must be a feeling comparable only to that of the birthing person’s first embrace of their newborn child, or like the tender hug of a million likes on a tweet that you just made up.

This shield is massive, invisible, impenetrable yet almost weightless, and takes absolutely no training to wield. What is especially unique about this shield, even more than its invisibility, is that it is available for almost anyone to use, and costs nothing at all (other than your soul, as if you believe in something like that lol!). And yet no matter how ubiquitous this shield is in the inventory of the they/them’s Majesty’s Holy Ordos, there is as of yet no name bestowed upon it!

Those of us who could be called heretics and blasphemers are proper-stymied by this shield. No matter how hard we swing our clubs against it, no matter how deftly we try to stab our swords through it, no matter the zeal with which we charge into battle, we are flummoxed by it again and again. Not only do our offensives not work, they somehow serve to make the shield stronger. Why is this so? Is it because our techniques are found wanting? Our blacksmiths lack the craft? Is it our battle formations?

No. It is the namelessness of the shield. We have no name for it, and like any lesser demon in need of exorcism, it cannot be thwarted unless its name is known.

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper”

Isaiah 54:17

I have wanted to write about it many times before, but alas - I am no different than you. I cannot name the hell-forged shield any better than you can. But I can try to describe it and hope that this will be enough for you to realize that you know it too. I have trust that you know, because I predicate much of my writing on the fact that you and I, whoever we are, work tirelessly to untangle the same knots. I have to trust that, like me, you also follow the path of flowcharts in your mind, attempting to map out the quagmire of modern society, and repeatedly hit dead ends. I have to trust that, like me, you can see it and feel it but you cannot quite name it.

And so, it is my hope that describing it might pull together two strands for you, and two for another, and on and on so that together we can pull together the pages of apocrypha, sift through them to find the name of the demon-targe so that it can be banished.

Here is what I know:

Sometimes at night, after a particularly galling or frightening or maddening day of life in the world I scarcely even recognize anymore, I close my eyes and try to figure out what I can do about it all. I lay and I think about this city I grew up in, a city now tethered to a runaway train of childish idealism, so powerful and threatening that it can convince people of things that are so far beyond the boundaries of credulity that it almost seems like science fiction. I think about whatever it is that corrupts the thoughts of otherwise reasonable people, that twists them into mind-states that support the cost-free release of the guilty and the over-taxing of the innocent and for the privilege of being re-victimized again and again.

I try to understand why the cultural dialogue is dominated by people who are so plainly arguing in bad faith, who so obviously make overstatements of harm and fabricate victimization. I wonder why a country - in which most of the families are comprised of men and women and their children - are subject to an endless theater performance of culture in which they are mocked, humiliated, cursed, and propagandized against, even though they form the financial, spiritual, emotional, and productive role in almost everyone’s life - including the many people who decry them.

I am want to know why it is now the norm for people to deprecate and castigate and disrespect themselves publicly in order to be considered “good” (though still tainted). How can this be the way that so many people choose to live, even though we know and have known forever that it is important for people to love themselves and be proud of themselves in order to be happy and live a fulfilling life? And yet we instill values into children that teach them to hate themselves for things they don’t even understand, that they hold no culpability for. How is it that this is happening?

I am not asking for the same answers we always get. Do not tell me “social media” or “the 24-hour news cycle” or “advancing technologies,” or birth control or latchkey kids or cell phones or AI or single mothers or lack of values or loss of religion or failed education systems. I know all of that already. All of these explain the etiology of the disease but fail to describe the physiology of the system in which the disease propagates itself. I want to know why humans are like this? Why do they do this? Why are we unable to stop it? How can such a small group win such an astounding coup over the American mind without a single shot fired and without holding any meaningful political office? Why are adults afraid of the opinions of 19-year-olds with Borderline Personality Disorder? Why are we letting 15-year-olds diagnose their own Autism and allowing 12-year-olds to authorize surgeries on themselves? We have always had stupid youth, but never before in history have we actually taken them seriously, and certainly never allowed them to make the rules.

I don’t want to know what got us here - nothing “got us here,” we have always been here. There are external factors that have unleashed this potential that, prior to now, has gone unrealized, but whatever this is has existed all along. It is a dormant sickness of the human soul that remains latent until summoned. What have we summoned? What is it about us that even made it possible that we could get here in the first place? How could we have let this happen?

It is the last question that always halts me, because there is another question automatically generated the moment that first is asked. That second question is, of course, “how could *I* have let this happen?” After all, if there is anything useful I’ve taken away from a liberal arts education, it is that every system is made of humans, and it is a pitiable though common error to think of ideas like “politicians” and “this city” and “people in general” as being something completely separate from me. As if I run on a very unique set of rules and am able to stand outside of these groups as some sort of unaffected third-party observer who is both smarter than everyone else, and also not required to perform the moral tasks I prescribe unto the rest of the world

Because I’m not special or separate; I am one of the people who lets this happen as much as you or anyone or everyone. And I can make an excuse as to why I let it happen - whether that be financial considerations, or my health, or it being “not the right time,” but ultimately I have to consider the fact that people over 20 years younger than me throughout history died in trenches from mustard gas blown into their faces or had their lower jaws hacked off in some war against Carthage. I am completely capable of fighting, and I even think I have what it takes to fight back. Which, in this age, is less about martial prowess and is more about rhetorical quickness, calmness in the throes of conflict, and confidence in myself. In fact, if anyone has what it takes, I think it is someone like me. Except one thing: I’m just smart enough to see the contours of the problem, but too dumb to figure it out.

Hence, back to the invisible shield.

Shield, attributed to Girolamo da Treviso ca. 1535

Let us speak once again of the nameless invisible shield that provides this cultural movement with complete and total protection. This shield is the reason why I don’t just go charging into battle screaming “Don’t Say Gay!!!” and letting the chips fall where they may. Because I am smart enough to see the completeness of this shield, I know it is impenetrable. Or at least, I know I see no way through it, and so all I can do now is run simulation after simulation after simulation on how I might overcome it.

I am not smart enough to figure it out, though. And I think the reason for that is because it cannot be brought down. At least not by the weapons in the armory of my mind and soul.

I think it will now be helpful for me to get more specific.

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The greatest source of wasted energy in the culture wars of today is people on the right attempting to argue their position or point out flaws in the increasingly silly arguments of the culturally progressive left. The only group who wastes more time than the right is the the disenfranchised and disillusioned former left. We are uniquely baited by this and are also uniquely helpless against it. Why? Because we were always the ones that championed the approach of applying a logical framework to solve something before blowing it to smithereens (i.e. “Let’s just talk about this, please Mr. President! We don’t think there are Weapons of Mass Destruction there! Sir? Please Sir! Mr. President!!!)

For this reason, we are exponentially fucked by the invisible shield of the cultural-Left. We endlessly consider how to argue against the absurd talking points of the progressives of today, as if they are real arguments. As if they are arguments wrought from a place of seeking truth and not just out of a sense of popularity, provocation, or recreational signaling. We hear something as absurd as fatphobia is a form of anti-blackness and neo-colonialism or that “the audacity of white feminism is the core of white supremacy” or a million other over-cooked nonsense ideas that require nothing more than a gopher’s brain to realize they are less arguments and more like “things to say out loud if you need to self-induce an aneurysm.” But we hear the aneurysm-riddles about “the transformative liberation potential of xenofeminism and the dismantling of the core family unit as a means to deconstruct patriarchy” and we begin doing the (admittedly very gay) liberal work of researching and preparing opening statements. In other words, we do what we have always professed a commitment to, even when we have missed the mark: we try to figure out what the truth of the matter is.

But something along the way made figuring out the truth not that valuable. And for this, yes, we can probably look at my list of “modern developments” from before that reshaped discourse and normative behavior in 21st century society. Rapid information dissemination and uneven saturation of said information has resulted in an informational arms race, in which careful consideration of new developments is almost always disadvantageous to one’s personal brand and increases the likelihood of cringe.

Personal brand and cringe. These are the only two cultural values remaining: personal branding is holiness, and being cringe is the lone cardinal sin. Every other social value has been demoted to less than a tertiary goal. Some of them, such as “letting other people talk in a conversation” or “not blaming people for stuff their grandparents did” have been completely erased from the Imperial Records. These goals were needed as we were building this world, but once it became mechanized and self-reinforcing and able to run without constant human collaboration, those values became instantaneously invalidated. Good thing we don’t need those - I’m sure people can keep living in their parents’ houses for the next 300 years. And if not - if it all falls apart because we are only appearing to survive as a society at this point because of extraordinary wealth accumulation, planning, and some systems of social stability standing on their very last legs - then we can just lie and say we never supported any of the things we said we supported. That should solve it, right?

I hate to say this, because it obviously is not true across the board, but I think it’s true enough that saying gets to the heart of what is happening here in society writ large:

Gen Z, and their simping millennial and boomer acolytes, no longer believe it is important to be honest.

Relieved I said it, actually. Not happy, but relieved. It needs to be said more often: Generation Z, for whatever reasons and for whatever social determinants they ascribe their pathology to, are rotten to the fucking core. And I take no pleasure in saying that, but it must be said and - according to their rules - it doesn’t matter why they are who they are, as they relentlessly criticize every other generation for everything and take no interest in the myriad root causes for those malignancies. They just say “fuck them” and hope that we “un-alive ourselves.” So yeah, I don’t care, and they don’t care because they won’t read this and if they do they’ll just brigade me or say something ironic that keeps them in the realm of being moral, aka on brand and not cringe. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them, I hope they come around, I will help them if they ask, but for now - I can’t stand them and I’m tired of paying attention and time to perhaps the most useless group of young adults in history. And anyone who is not in Gen Z and still mimics their affectations and strives for their values, you are actually truly lost, spineless, and vacant. You have no excuse.

They find no use for any of the core cultural values that form the bedrock of our society. To write out what those values are feels embarrassing because they are so elementary, but I feel for clarity I must. They do not believe in: truth, honesty, authenticity, forgiveness, fairness, kindness, mercy, faith, community, consistency, or humility. They certainly do not believe in anything being sacred. They only value their brand, and just like everything else in this culture - movies, music, tv, books, art - their brands are all derivative. Copies of copies of copies. And so should it be any surprise that their morality is also a mere facsimile? It is no longer important to be good, but only to maintain the aesthetic of being good. It is only necessary that you have vibe and appearance and “feel” of a good person.

Ask yourself this honestly - of all of the people on TikTok today who are making videos decrying the treatment of trans teens and the hatred of young black girls and the rampant othering of neurodivergence and any other stupid fucking social messaging - have any of them done anything today to help these groups? How about this week? I would venture to say that less than 0.1% of them have ever done anything to support those groups, other than make public displays of support. That is all that is required. Because morality is now virtual. It is something that exists not as a platonic ideal or an Aristotelian mean, but a moving target of fashion.

That is the shield. That is why it cannot be penetrated. That is why it always wins.

We think we can fight them by finding the gaps in their defenses. We think we can win by having better sword-fighting skills, or by hardening our armor. But we cannot win, because they will never concede defeat. And that is, after all, the metric that we have set for victory, is it not? Because if not - if they never admit failure or defeat - then they will truly never go away and never stop. In fact, if we try to push them aside by power of imaginary fiat (i.e. the Trump presidency) they in fact become more rabid and more powerful and more grotesque in their manipulations of social and cultural and capital systems to punish those who do not support the messaging of the regime.

And the messaging, again, is this:

YOU MUST APPEAR TO BE A GOOD PERSON AND HAVE THE RECEIPTS TO PROVE IT.

That is it. And also why it is so fucking sickening to those of us who actually wanted to make this a better place. We wanted a world where people could have conflict but still honor the constraints of truth and evidence and even a degree of sportsmanship for the other based upon mutual respect for anyone who was invested in making the world better, even if the ideas differed. We have lost that, and yet we do not realize it. We still cling to it, we even make-believe that if we keep acting as though it is here, it will come. We keep having the “great debate” with memelords on our timeline. They don’t care. Your arguments are useless. They don’t even feel them. They don’t even read them.

There is no argument that will penetrate the shield. There is no “epic put down” that will silence them. You cannot prove them wrong because they are not constrained by truth. They can make up evidence and they can twist statistics and they can - at times - just outright lie and then circle around each other to support the lie and absolve the speaker from blame. They will never, ever, ever concede defeat because THEY DO NOT HAVE TO and - get ready cuz you’re gonna hate this bitter pill - YOU CAN’T MAKE THEM.

That is the shield. That is why they always win. That’s why their argument is always better than yours. And if it isn’t, it still is because you are arguing as a person of privilege against someone with “lived experience,” and even if you aren’t, then your line of questioning in and of itself is a form of violence, and if it isn’t, then of course you would like to think that because you live in a world in which you are protected from the type of concealed aggression that you are now propagating.

You can’t win!!! You lose every time!! They laugh at you if you even try!

I want you to try to imagine what it looks like to win against them. What it would look like for an activist with a bullhorn to concede your point? What would it take for them to realize they have taken something too far and, even though they disagree, they should probably back up? NOTHING. This would never happen. They have literally beat the shit out of the elderly in order to prove a point. Where would they stop? Can you imagine where they would stop? If you can’t then let your imagination keep running, because that’s what we will be dealing with soon.

No longer should you be sullied by those who say you are overreacting, no longer should you give into the mocking of those who say you are fear-mongering or paranoid because we are indeed headed for very serious trouble. And if we continue to attempt to engage these automatons in a way that looks like a fair fight and an honest argument, please understand that their morality does not require them to have an honest argument…it only requires them to APPEAR as though they are having an honest argument.

So what do we do? Stop listening. Stop taking the bait. Stop making points. Stop doing anything other than watching their actions and responding to political actions for exactly what they are: measurements of power. Focus on rallying and making communities with those who are like-minded. Protect kids at any cost. Start planning the future government that we will be responsible for once these cultural monsters, these golems of Moloch finally run this project into the ground. Start mourning the end. The only thing that will make it stop is when their hubris finally inflates to the point of combustion. Take cover my friends. It is inevitable, and all we can hope for is to maintain in the communities they occupy, form enclaves without, and never let this happen again.

Do not forget that - even if it looks like a fair fight - it is not. They have a shield that cannot be penetrated by the weapons of liberal western thought. Oddly enough, the best way to think of the cultural left today is to think of them in the same hyperbolic language they accuse others of: their words are LITERAL VIOLENCE.

Always shakes out that way, doesn’t it. Always a projection. Easy to project from behind a shield that can’t be breached. Take relief in one thing - there is one thing that can get behind the shield and hurt them. It’s already there. It’s them.