"We are Building Utopia"
There is no humanity in this ideology.
Here is how it goes down:
The world is a nasty place, with lots of people enthusiastically blasting and enslaving each other, stealing stuff from lots of people who don’t have much and giving that stolen stuff to a few people who already have a lot. The people who have a lot keep doing this and no one stops them because they set the parameters for the systems by which stuff is transferred, and so anyone who is not already part of that system has next to no possibility of getting all the stuff they need, let alone extra stuff. In this way, the very few people who have a lot are insulated from the people who have little by a complex system of stuff-related rules, and also by people with guns who will enforce those stuff-related rules with said guns in exchange for dependable income.
Note: those who enforce the stuff-related rules with guns are bad people, as anyone who uses violence to enforce things is bad, except in certain situations that are determined on an ad-hoc basis.
Lots of people hate lots of other people who look different from them, or who put their thingy in the wrong hole, or take a thingy in the wrong hole, or who just touch their thingies together. These people hate people who have a thingy but say they are actually a person who shouldn’t have a thingy, or who say they still have a thingy but feel on the inside that they don’t actually have that thingy, or who say some days they have a thingy and some days they don’t, and so you have to just sort of ask them about their thingy all the time so that you can use the right shorthand to refer to them. If you fail to do this, you have made an affront to common decency, and run the risk of achieving a sort of heretical status. ,
Heretical status is given to those who employ something called “hate.” Hate is a thing that one does when they make public declarations that run counter to the prevailing consensus regarding certain things, especially thingy-related things and skin-tone related things. The term “prevailing consensus” is different than what it used to mean. It used to mean that most people agreed that something was true, or that more people thought it was true than un-true. However, it is now possible for a “consensus” to be “prevailing” even when less than half of people agree to it (or even understand it). Only some people can utilize this new form of “prevailing consensus,” and who can use this is determined by prevailing consensus, and usually involves something about your identity that gives you a special sort of insight. The nature of this special insight is unknown to people who do not have it, as only those who have it can feel it and those who do not have it cannot understand it. Thus, they should simply trust those with the special insight to know the nature of their special insight, and be trusting of the conclusions that are reached via this special power. The best way to trust the conclusions of this special insight is to abide by their usage of this more free-form version of “prevailing consensus.” Having usage of this prevailing consensus means that they are able to declare someone a heretic because of something they did or said, but sometimes they can also do it by just guessing what the heretic wants to say or do (in their heart of hearts). This is usually not a verifiable guess, but if you are someone who is allowed to use the super-charged version of “prevailing consensus,” then all of your guesses are correct.
Here’s the deal:
This world is a project that we are all working on, and we are working on it a little bit with laws and treaties and budgets, but also with tv shows and Superbowl halftime performances and targeted choices regarding the gender and race of people in advertising. We are also doing it a lot with things we post on Twitter and TikTok. This is very important because it disseminates important information about what is good and what is evil.
Things that used to be considered indulgent, mean-spirited, or selfish are now considered forms of identity-based self-reverence. Customs such as showing up to meetings on time or allowing people to talk without yelling at them or waiting for facts to unfurl before making a definitive determination of one’s culpability have been revealed as covert acts of supremacy and bigotry. Customs such as being mean to people, insulting them in front of crowds, and filming them when they are having a difficult time are now considered ethical and justified, as long as the right person is filming and the right person is being filmed. Some people deserve to feel bad because of the history of the body-type they were born into, and some people deserve to be cruel because of the history of the body-type they were born into. Old constructs such as politeness and subtlety and restraint are now considered outdated models of morality. New constructs of arrogance, pettiness, and extreme physical indulgence are now considered to be a form of empowerment. The notion that this is up for debate is considered a form of “hate.” It is as hateful as saying the sky is not blue.
Here’s the problem:
Some people have a great idea of how to make the world safe and nice and “proper,” but then other people have different ideas on how they want to do that. The problem is that some of those ideas directly contradict other people’s ideas. The historical solution to this has always been to fight. They used to fight with fists and then rocks and then swords and then guns and then really big guns and then bombs. After bombs people thought we were going to go to lasers, but instead a lot of folks lost their appetite for seeing severed limbs and stuff, and so other than a few places on the planet that haven’t caught up yet, most of the fighting now happens with what some people call “ideas,” but really this warfare of “ideas” is just a complicated game of reputation demolition, verbal cruelty, and backstabbing.
People who used to be really weak (because they couldn’t fight with their fists or guns or bombs) are now really strong (because now they get to fight with words and put-downs and gossip). Occasionally some of the people who used to fight with fists and guns and bombs feel that nobody cares about their opinions anymore, so they use fists or guns or bombs to get people to “listen,” even if they don’t really have a coherent message that other people are supposed to be listening to. Sometimes these “fists” people do things like shoot a group of unarmed innocent people and then themselves. They think this is a really good way to get their message across, but it is basically the most convincing reason one could offer as to why the “words” people should be in control.
We are lucky to have the “words” people in control though, because the “words” people have a goal to create a utopia, which is a world in which each person has all they need and everyone is happy all the time and is free to pursue interests and express themselves in any way they please. The “fists” people say this isn’t possible, that it’s far better to learn to tolerate a certain level of friction and disappointment and strife. But the “words” people do not agree. Sometimes the “fists” people won’t back down on this point, and they stand ready to fight the “words” people on this point. So they roll up their sleeves and prepare themselves to fight the way they know how to fight (with their fists), but the “words” people don’t fight with fists…they fight with words, and so the fists people end up looking like real dummies, and also look at them with their fists up, they’re just like the psychos who shoot up supermarkets! The “words” people really look more and more like the safe alternative everyday. Plus they are building a utopia so it’s probably a good thing that they have the reins.
Not to mention, the “fists” people are just plain wrong about people. They think people can’t get along without fist-fighting, but people have gotten better at sharing space and using words. People in big cities live really close to each other, uncomfortably close to each other, and look at them. Yes, it’s true that there are a few “issues” every now and again, but on the whole they are doing pretty well. So rather than polishing brass knuckles and gun barrels awaiting a confrontation with a neighbor every five years, nowadays people in big cities have run-ins with each other every five minutes, and people online have run-ins with each other every five seconds, and usually they just holler at each other and press the buttons of the other person in the way they know will hurt the most. One person might win, or it might be a draw, but either way both parties walk away feeling bad about themselves and the world. Those who walk away feeling neutral or even better are more rare, but these people are those that western psychiatry would call narcissists, sociopaths, and borderlines, and these people are very successful in the modern culture precisely because they can be cruel to others without feeling bad about it. The rest of us feel bad all the time, whether we win an argument or not. BUT - feeling bad on the inside is not the same as feeling physically wounded or dead! Your body, which is central to your identity, but also not central to your identity, is preserved. Meanwhile your feelings, which are central to your identity, but also not central to your identity, don’t matter as much.
It must be noted that occasionally those who are poor and less educated and overall have less access to “words” will still use fists and guns, but the prevailing consensus is that this usage of violence is pitiable, the outcome of a complicated network of historical/social/cultural transactions that have yielded this unfortunate state. Why this pity cannot be evoked for other people who use violence, even though they are also at a clear chain of systemic causation, is a mystery. Or actually, it’s not a mystery, it’s just something that people ought ignore. People ignore a lot of things now, mostly because thinking too much about them will lead one to ask themselves difficult questions that may lead to difficult answers. This is especially true when those answers put you at odds with the prevailing consensus of modern urban society. In other words, failing to ignore inconsistencies is a hallmark of the heretic.
Here’s the Scoop:
This modern urban society holds a few dogmatic principles to heart with astounding inflexibility, and will engage in profoundly ridiculous arguments in an attempt to maintain a sort of internal consistency. This task often fails, but one’s ability to behold this profound internal inconsistency and still profess belief in it is the actual true measure of one’s acquiescence to modern ideology, and ergo “goodness.” In this way, the modern ideology is less about ideas and more about targeted fetishes around ideas and groups of people. The reward for supporting this ideology is dependent upon your identity. If you are in certain identity groups that are saintly in nature, your adherence to the ideology affords you the ability to rearrange social reality according to your whims, a strategy that is especially useful in the avoidance of social and (especially) institutional consequences. This evasion of consequence has not yet fully extended into the financial and legal sectors, but it is encroaching on these realms quickly, and the process of institutional capture should be complete within the decade. All that one must do is make a spurious claim of discrimination - a claim which portends to know those swirling vapors of feeling that exist within the heart of another - and declare that these feelings created an actual intention that is discordant with their professed intention. In other words, they are attempting to give someone a consequence not because they did anything wrong, but because they just don’t like the person (or people like the person). This is, of course, a form of hate and therefore heresy.
If you are not a member of certain identity groups, then your reward for adherence to ideology is that you will (probably) (maybe) avoid punishment. But even if you do accidentally still get punished, the punishments are not physical in nature and, although we are asked to believe in the “violence” of “invisible” things like discrimination, structural racism, systemic oppression, prejudice, profiling, and microaggressions, we are simultaneously told that “invisible” forms of punishment, such as reputation demolition, institutional exclusion, social shunning, and character assassination are not real. If a person is not placed in jail, tortured, or executed, then the punishment is one of only moral weight, and has no implications on a person (regardless of these punishments ability to cut one off from their income, starve them of social interaction, and force them into alcoholism, depression, or suicide).
Despite a professed wish to create a utopian society, those who control the reins of the current cultural narrative often act with extreme cruelty, callousness, and dehumanization. These are just a few nasty things that they must regrettably participate in on the road to utopia. Once they get to utopia, they won’t have to do these regrettable things anymore.
People who say the wrong thing, or don’t ascribe to all of the same ideological beliefs, or associate with the wrong people, or merely question ideology, are accused of the hyperbolic charge of “violence.” Even though these people rarely commit actual violence (or even have the will/capacity to do so), it is inferred - by a very loose set of associations - that their beliefs and actions propagate the sorts of beliefs and actions that propagate actual real physical violence. The evidence provided for this is presented in various aesthetically pleasing graphics, but a review of the raw data often shows that the conclusions reached are based on a skewed interpretation of the data, an over-exaggeration of the data, or, at times, outright fabrication of data. It does not matter. If you question the data, you are a heretic to the ideology and must be subject to social punishment. You are not allowed to complain about this punishment either, because - again - this punishment does not exist and attempting to say it does exist will result in social punishment.
Most people are baffled by these changes, which happened rapidly over the last 5-6 years and demanded immediate acquiescence. Even though people remember things from just a short time ago with a high degree of clarity, they are told that their memory is subject to distortion. Even though it may seem like civilization was heading in a better direction, with less war and more food and less disease and more cooperation, this is not the case. The world was actually very evil, and in fact, you yourself are evil, and in fact, you are perhaps the most evil type of person of all because of the way that you never even knew about these things (even though you never heard of them before and were just minding your own business and trying to be a good person, again, it doesn’t matter).
The multitudes of baffled people have some choices to make. They can choose to try their best to adopt the current ideology. Very few of them understand it and those who do think it’s “a bit of a stretch,” but if they are able they can learn the right words to say and the right things to take issue with and the right moments at school board meetings to stand up and say, “I think we need to consider the perspectives of those who are afraid to speak up today because of the threat of literal violence should they make their opinion known.” As you look around the room, you see no one who appears scared to speak, and you are pretty good friends with most of the black families in the school district, and Jim and Yvonne come over for dinner with the kids every now and again so you’d hope they’d feel comfortable to say something if they felt you were doing something wrong, but…then again you really don’t want to mess up here so you also nod your head in a sort of “life-affirming” note of pleasant liberal agreement with the notion. It’s the least you can do to support those who don’t have a voice, even though there are no voiceless people in the room, and even though no one in the room agrees with the current measure, you vote for it anyway just to prove to everyone else that you’re “one of the good guys.”
The only one to speak up is Leonard Kraft, and he is a known “gun nut,” a guy who takes some of his right-wing things too far, and so him speaking up is really not a threat to the core goings-on of the school board meetings. It’s more of like a comic relief moment, an anticipated character of this one-act play who exists only to be batted down by the more sensible and bespectacled in the room. Someone tells Leonard that he needs to spend less time talking and more time “sitting and listening” to the black and brown voices in the room, and everyone claps. You clap. You don’t know if the black and brown people clap because you don’t want to look at them because that might set off a red-flag that you are looking for approval, or tokenizing them, or applying the “white gaze,” which you’re not sure if that’s a thing, but it sounds like it could be thing and so best to steer clear. Also you’re not certain if any of the black or brown members of the school district are even here tonight. It doesn’t matter. You just need to steer clear. Keep steering clear.
Here’s how it Ends:
On the way home from the meeting, you feel proud because you brought so little attention to yourself. You applauded and boo’d at the right times, and you didn’t say any of the wrong things.
A small itch forms in the back of your mind, though. Nothing to worry about, certainly, just a little tiny itch. A little itch about that right-wing gun-nut Leonard Kraft, and about how he was the only one who supported you when you got sober 15 years ago. In fact, he let you sleep on his couch for four days and cooked you breakfast and helped you up from the toilet when the withdrawals made you puke and shit your guts out. Just the little itch that, during those long nights when Leonard stayed up with you and talked just to keep your mind off the booze, he intimated to you that he was once right where you were, and that it was his duty to give back to those who helped him by helping people like you get clean. He confided in you that he used the drinking to cope with his inability to get over the way his father sexually abused him when he a kid and, even though his father is long dead, he keeps a gun in the house because he is still afraid of his dad coming back. He knows this doesn’t make sense, “and to be honest I never use the thing, I don’t even think I could get the lockbox open in time if someone did break in.” He says this with a note of embarrassment and, even though you don’t really think it’s good to own guns, you see in his eyes something that could only be described as “humanity.”
In the depths of your despair, grief, disastrous loss, you feel a tenderness toward this human named Leonard Kraft. A gratitude that transcends the normal tabulation of what one human owes another. Looking at him, himself frail, himself wounded, and yet somehow he has the strength to help you in your frail and wounded state to get your life back. And you did get your life back. Your wife let you back in the house and forgave you and you haven’t had a drop of alcohol since. On your fifth anniversary of sobriety you thanked Leonard for being there for you, and he was the first person to show you what it meant to experience “grace;” the feeling of being rescued even when you don’t deserve it, even when you are too wrong to be forgiven, even when you can’t ever pay the person back. You thanked Leonard for that grace and promised, in front of all of your AA brothers and sisters, to pay it forward. You still remember the line you closed with: “we are all broken people, but somehow, the through the miracle of AA, this group of broken people can help each other to become whole again.” Leonard never cried in front of you, and he didn’t cry then, but you could see it took everything in him to hold back the tears that night. He held back tears because he was proud of you, and you were proud that you got to make him feel proud.
But you stopped going to AA meetings for the past three years. Not since you overheard someone at the school board meeting talking about how the AA approach is outdated, that “harm reduction” was the new science and that AA was a sexist organization anyway that enforced religion on people and encouraged people - especially men - to justify their shitty behavior. Leonard still goes, though, and even though you haven’t been there in three years he still texts you to see how you’re doing. He still texts you even though he knows you two have a different way of seeing the world. He still texts you now, even as you drive home, even after you clapped at him being publicly shamed. You clapped along with everyone else. You stayed safe. He is the bad guy. And as long as he is the bad guy, you aren’t. You’re not necessarily the good guy, but at least you’re not the bad guy.
That’s the goal:
Just don’t be the bad guy.
Well done! If only some of the 'righteous ones' would read this piece.
Great article!