Addicted to Outrage

  11

  * * *

  Fascism—the Logical Consequence of Postmodernism

  A postmodernist believes that there is no objective natural reality, and that logic and reason are mere conceptual constructs that are not universally valid. Two other characteristic postmodern practices are a denial that human nature exists and a (sometimes moderate) skepticism toward claims that science and technology will change society for the better. Postmodernists also believe there are no objective moral values. Thus, postmodern philosophy suggests equality for all things. One’s concept of good and another’s concept of evil are to be equally correct, since good and evil are subjective.

  Postmodern philosophy—Characteristic claims, from en.wikipedia.org

  We are now approaching a time when what our Founders called self-evident truth is no longer self-evident, and worse yet, we no longer even believe in truth. At the same time we have lost our self-restraint.

  Most people have never read the words of wisdom from men like Ben Franklin, who, when asked for his vote on the Constitution, “confessed” that he wasn’t entirely for it, but in the end, “I do agree with this Constitution, faults and all, because I believe General Government is necessary and there is no form of government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered, and this is likely to be well administered for the Course of a few Years and will end in despotism as other forms have done before when the people become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” Has Franklin’s “course of a few years” come to an end? Have we indeed become so corrupted?

  “This system is wholly inadequate for an unethical, immoral, and irreligious people.” To have freedoms, we must also self-govern and set internal limitations, not because a government, a group, or even a person told us to but because we are men and not animals. The fact that we can say something doesn’t mean we should. The fact that we can fire someone doesn’t mean we should. Perhaps if ABC’s god wasn’t money, fame, or ratings, it wouldn’t have ignored Roseanne’s character and track record and wouldn’t have hired her in the first place. For a network that prides itself on “virtue” and political correctness, their god must be powerful indeed. The problem with self-governance is that without “Nature’s Laws and Nature’s God,” there is no “truth.” So, to many, laws become mere suggestions imposed by a “patriarchal hierarchy.” So, if you have no “governor” in a society that doesn’t reward or even value character, who is going to stop you? We can see the answer right in front of us. If there is no “magic man in the sky,” then Big Brother will watch you and correct you. He must, because you as a citizen no longer feel as though you have a duty to anything other than not getting caught. Ever received a speeding ticket in the mail? That is now man punishing you for doing something that before only God saw you do.

  Someone will always be in charge. Entrepreneurs learn this quickly. “I want to be my own boss.” Well, maybe, but unless you are independently wealthy, you will always have a boss—shareholders, the bank, customers, or even your car payments.

  Meanwhile, while we are trapped in our addiction to outrage watching the sideshow, under the same circus tent, something much more serious is happening in the main ring. Someone is taking charge, and when they get out of school, they are going to be bringing this into the real world. Into our workplaces and our halls of government and justice. If the old rules no longer apply and there is no objective truth, you’d better pray you are in the right gang or mob. Because someone is always willing to play God and issue new rights and revoke the old ones.

  * * *

  What has been happening at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, should have led the news for months, but instead it was quietly tolerated, perhaps in hope that it would just go away. I grew up in Washington; it is a place I thought I understood, but I remember my grandfather complaining bitterly after an increase in our population in the mid-seventies, “The people who are just too weird for California are moving up here.” Well, it isn’t weird that bothers me; I can happily live next door and even enjoy “weird.” What is happening is fascist.

  Every American, left and right, should be shocked by what was done to Bret Weinstein.

  Evergreen State College is a very progressive liberal arts school. It has a unique curriculum in which students work closely with faculty teams to choose “from more than sixty fields of study to create [their] own area of emphasis.”

  It was the perfect place for Bret Weinstein, a self-described “deeply progressive” biology professor who supported Bernie Sanders, Glenn Greenwald, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. For years Weinstein was one of the more popular instructors; at registration his classes were quickly filled, and “Greeners” wrote glowing reports about him. But that began changing in 2015, when a new president was hired and began making significant changes. “The president took aim at what made Evergreen unique,” Weinstein and his wife, biology instructor Heather Heying, wrote. In addition to tightening the budget while increasing the size of the administration, “He went after Evergreen’s unparalleled faculty autonomy, which was essential to the unique teaching done by the best professors.”

  One result was that student protests began occurring more frequently. Students interrupted the fall 2016 convocation; they shut down the swearing-in of the new head of campus security, and even demonstrated at the dedication of a campus building to the previous Evergreen president. As Weinstein explains, the whole collegial atmosphere on the campus changed; an “Equity Council” produced a thirty-eight-page strategic plan stressing “diversity and equity” as the criteria for new faculty members.

  Weinstein objected publicly, claiming that the plan would hurt minority students. In response, he was attacked online. In this new environment, he wrote, “What was happening . . . amounted to a campaign of intimidation. Dissent was impossible.”

  The breaking point came in April 2017. Beginning in the 1970s, Evergreen has held an annual “Day of Absence” on which students and faculty of color stay off the campus to demonstrate their contributions to the college. That was followed by a “Day of Presence,” with events and workshops fostering discussion. But in 2017, organizers decided to make a fundamental change: As the school newspaper reported, “White students, staff, and faculty will be invited to leave campus for the day’s activities.”

  Weinstein objected in an email to the school’s faculty and staff, writing, “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles, and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away.”

  It was a reasonable challenge to a change in policy, an invitation to discuss and debate it. Instead, he was attacked by staff and students, who accused him of being a racist who supported “white supremacy.” The world was turning upside down.

  Several weeks later his class was interrupted by fifty shouting protesters, who yelled at him and prevented school police from entering the building. That same afternoon Professor Weinstein joined hundreds of people at a forum. But rather than any discussion, he and the few students who tried to defend him were shouted down by mobs of students who called him a racist, sexist, and worse.

  The next day a faculty meeting was interrupted by yet another mob of angry students, and the library was blockaded. A small group of radicals had essentially taken over the campus, holding faculty members hostage, not allowed to speak but forced to sit and listen as they were screamed at and chanted at by crowds of angry students. One faculty member sympathetic to the protesters warned her colleagues, “You are now those motherfuckers that we’re pushing against.” When the college president attempted to reason with the students, he was told to stop waving his hands in an aggressive manner and was allowed to use the restroom only with an escort. For several hours, Professor Weinstein and numerous other faculty members were effectively held hostage and forced to sit through a grotesque mock tria
l reminiscent of 1600s Salem, where people were not allowed to speak in their own defense. After several hours, they were “released” by the students, after having been verbally branded as if they were Donald Trump appearing in effigy on The View.

  At that point, Weinstein was warned by the police that they could not guarantee his safety on campus. They suggested he stop riding his bike because it made him a highly visible target. He was forced to hold his biology class outdoors, in a park. The names and photographs of his students were posted online. Graffiti demanding “Fire Bret” was painted on campus buildings. The Weinsteins and Bret’s class appealed to the governor for help, explaining that the campus “had descended into a state of anarchy.” There was no response.

  Weinstein accepted an invitation to appear on Fox, an act that might have been unthinkable to him months earlier. That caused the situation to become even more toxic. Several faculty members called for disciplinary action to be taken against him, essentially for exercising his right of free speech. But he also received more than a thousand responses from viewers, which were overwhelmingly supportive.

  His continued presence on campus became untenable. A liberal professor at a liberal college was losing his job because he had dared to challenge the “establishment”—that is, if you consider the “establishment” to be outraged politically correct students threatening physical violence, unrestrained by any legal authorities. The college was shut down for three days in June, and graduation ceremonies were moved to a stadium in Tacoma. His career ruined, Weinstein sued Evergreen for $3.85 million, claiming the college had failed to protect him. He eventually settled for $500,000, and both he and his wife resigned.

  “We come from the left, and our values and world view have not changed,” they wrote, adding, “A democratic system needs intelligent dissent, which means that it must create and protect the conditions in which people can learn how to think critically, and how to critique ideas and proposals. Those are long-standing values on the left, but today, they are hanging by a thread.”

  This is where we are.

  * * *

  I believe those “values” Bret describes are the same values I hold dear. They are those values or rights enshrined in and protected by the Bill of Rights.

  The contradictions of a postmodern world are dizzying. They are confusing and at times even funny to track. But that is only because we are only halfway to the postmodern finish line. The next steps take us to Evergreen and beyond.

  We are told to be tolerant and accepting of those things, lifestyles, or even ideas that make us very uncomfortable or go against everything we feel is right or moral. But then those same people not only destroy those who will not comply, they destroy even those who have always complied but now have a slight difference. How do you take RuPaul, someone who took all of the slings and arrows for the transgender movement, and destroy her when she doesn’t use the exact language you currently insist on? The formerly most tolerant have become the least.

  Each time, I hope that these “firings”—a gross overreach—will wake us, but with the technology that is coming our way and the direction the entire world is heading, during the week that put Roseanne Barr, Samantha Bee, and Joy Reid on social media trial, I could, sadly, not help but think: First they came for Glenn Beck, but he was just some crazy guy on TV, so I didn’t say anything.

  Then they came for Bill O’Reilly, but I heard he was a bad guy, so I kept quiet.

  Then they turned on Bret Weinstein and his wife, because they wouldn’t fall in line, but I don’t believe in the theory of evolution, so I looked the other way.

  When Hillary went from saint to villain who had to be destroyed, seemingly overnight, just because she lost the election, she wasn’t my candidate, so I just didn’t care.

  Then they came after Roseanne, who had been an outspoken Marxist and dedicated progressive her whole life, but I heard her show was pro-Trump, so I cheered when she was dragged away.

  Next it was Samantha Bee, but I really didn’t watch her show anymore, so I barely noticed.

  That same week it was Joy Reid, for saying things in 2004, many of which were the same things that Obama, Hillary, and all the Democrats said in 2004, and hey, I also might have said them back then, and I don’t want to bring that up because now “I am woke,” so I looked the other way. . . .

  We all know how this ends. The question is, how many more will be silenced? Most will say that Joy Reid doesn’t really even belong on this list. But to me she is the canary in the coal mine for the average citizen. When will there be another virtue upgraded or redefined? Each of us now has a very long record of what we believe online. The words we used and the positions we took. All saved, all archived and kept in a central database in an NSA facility in Salt Lake City.

  When newspeak decides that you were or are now politically incorrect and need to be isolated, blackballed, or removed, who will speak for you?

  Perhaps now we can begin to see the truth of political correctness. It isn’t now nor has it ever been about the handicapped or people’s feelings. It is all about power. How foolish we will appear to later generations, when they see the term itself: POLITICALLY CORRECT. As the Weinsteins are seeing today, if you are not saying the correct things to those who hold the real political power, be they the government or just the mob, you will be destroyed. Unless you are one of the “lucky ones” who can be of value yet to the movement. Perhaps you will be given the chance to recant and announce to the world how joyful you are to see the light and the error of your former ways.

  In 2010 I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about Google and its impact on our individual futures. It seemed almost like fiction then, but I believe I am just beginning to see how our words, thoughts, and images from the past can dramatically affect our lives and freedom.

  I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable, and recorded by everyone all the time. Every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrassing photographs and material stored on their friends’ social media sites. (Google CEO Eric Schmitt)

  How did this happen?

  12

  * * *

  Link by Link

  Life is simple; it’s the people who are complex.

  —Someone on the internet, or me—I can’t remember the difference anymore

  When I was drinking, I was so preoccupied getting through every day that I didn’t waste time thinking about the future. When I did think about it, it was pretty scary. I doubted anybody would hire me if they found out I was an alcoholic. I was afraid that if I stopped drinking, my life on radio would be over, and I didn’t have any idea what I would do. I was getting hammered every day, but somehow I managed to maintain an image of Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, clean and pristine. One day, though, when I was at KC101 in New Haven, a caller told me that I didn’t know what it meant to struggle. “Really,” I said, a little annoyed, and then to my surprise I heard these words coming out of my mouth: “You don’t have any idea who I am. Let me tell you . . .” Everyone in the studio just stopped what they were doing. They had no idea what I was going to say. “I’m a raging alcoholic,” I continued. “I’ve made mistakes, like you, that are awful and embarrassing. I’ve done some despicable things. And I make myself feel better by drinking.” When I was done I shut off my mic, turned to my producer, and told him, “Write this down: This is the day Glenn Beck ended his career.”

  I finally was able to stop drinking when the consequences of continuing became greater than my fears of the unknown. In AA, an important step is believing that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That doesn’t apply here in quite the same way. In this case, that power greater than ourselves is the bedrock constitutional principles that our leaders have relied on to steer this country for the last 250 years. It’s pretty amazing; if Ben Franklin popped up one day, he wouldn’t recognize the physical country, but he certainly would be thrilled to learn
that we have somehow managed to adhere to those basic values that he helped create. Principles that should continue to guide us as surely as that star in the Bethlehem night guided the wise men.

  That’s what worries me about the future. I think we agree that we are addicted to outrage, and that it has become an important part of our life. And just as with any other addiction, we derive pleasure from it. So the obvious question is, why do we need to break that addiction? And what might happen if we don’t?

  Apathy and arrogance: These are the real culprits that affect us all to one degree or another. Even the students at Evergreen. The arrogance is easy to see, but with all of us, apathy can quickly turn into self-imposed ignorance.

  Ironically, as technology, transportation, and mass communications began offering Americans ways to be closer together, instead we grew further apart. At the same time the small farming communities began to die out. Today the average age of a farmer on a family-run farm is nearly sixty. But that hardly matters, since less than 10 percent of the food products grown in America come from family farms anyway, instead being grown on massive automated farms owned by corporate giants. As a result, we’re not connected to the real stuff of life that comes from being connected, day to day, with the land, plants, and animals that sustain our lives.

  13

  * * *

  Urban Proximity, a False Togetherness

  Maybe all of this was inevitable, from the moment the ox was replaced by a diesel tractor.