Introduction
The inimitable Iowahawk recently tweeted this:
“Campuses today are a theatrical mashup of 1984 and Lord of the Flies, performed by people who don’t understand these references.”
To which we may also add the worthies who inhabit the indignation stampede grounds of Twitter, the people who are in charge of “best practices” protocols in use throughout all HR departments of America, and the shills of the new order who inhabit the editorial boards of our legacy media.
Now my purpose here is not really so much to critique the content of these contemporary moralistic stampedes, although their content is usually wicked and/or silly in equal measure, and thus quite deserving of anything we might throw at them. Rather my point lies elsewhere—although I do grant that I might get a jab or two in with regard to the content along the way.
But no, my larger purpose is simply to point out that they are in fact stampedes, that mankind in the first quarter of the 21st century remains a herd animal, and that the free thinking and liberated of today are wearing so many chains that they clank when they walk. They also wear blinders so that when they run into things there is even more clanking. Now it might seem strange to accuse individuals who are both bound and blind of being held captive by groupthink, but do not forget that all their peers are clanking also, which makes it really easy for today’s nonconformists to locate and conform to one another just by sound alone.
Chains notwithstanding, the liberated mind of the contemporary scene is just a slow motion murmuration. Today’s free thought is just an exercise in synchronized swimming, organized by some campus functionary in that great Olympic-sized pool that we built in Diversity Hall, located just behind the Center for the Elimination of Involuntary Wrongthink. Today’s left embraces the free exchange of ideas the same way that the Spanish Inquisition protected academic freedom.
One Example, Fer Instance
Take, for example, the way we handle discussions of climate change. Take, for example, in the next section, how we are handling the issue of trans-sexuality.
It is not my purpose here to dismiss the idea of climate change as a scientific theorem, as fun as that might be. My point is simply to point out that it is enforced as though it were a dogma from Holy Mother Church sometime in 15th century Portugal. It brings to mind something H.L. Mencken said about democracy—a method for ascertaining truth by means of counting noses, and promulgating that truth afterwards with a club.
And the people perpetrating this farce will say, over and over again they will say, and with straight faces they will say, that this is a matter of scientific consensus. Consensus? Consensus is what scientific breakthroughs disturb. Consensus is why Max Planck once said that science advances funeral by funeral. Thomas Kuhn showed us, or at least he showed some of us, that scientific advance is not a cumulative effort, like the formation of a coral reef. Scientific advance happens when certain brave individuals find themselves in the right position, a position that allows them to summon up the courage to merrily jettison—what’s the plural for consensus? Science is surrounded with a debris field covered with notions that we used to think were true. And all those pieces are fragments of previous consensus.
Anybody who is enforcing the dictates of scientific consensus with a club, as in, threatening the jobs of dissenters, doesn’t have the foggiest notion of what science ought to be. They do, however, know what a groupthink operation the 21st century is turning out to be. I know, let’s call them climate deniers, thus to lump them in with Holocaust deniers.
Another Example, Fer Instance
Nor is it my purpose to point out that a man cannot become female by the simple expedient of declaring himself to be a female. Which, incidentally, he can’t. No, my purpose here is to point out that just a few short years ago, virtually everybody agreed with that, agreeing with what is still my current position. So I missed a couple of memos. Sue me.
And now, just a few calendar years later, if you were, say, a hapless sportscaster who said on air that he didn’t think it was right for Bruno to walk away with the women’s cycling trophy (again), you would be frog-marched to the nearest window and promptly defenestrated.
No, it is worse than that. Suppose the sportscaster in question had read all the HR memos, and he had kept current, and let us say that he was a true conformist, with the backbone of a freshly baked maple bar right out of the oven, and consequently he had dutifully checked all the appropriate boxes, and then one fateful day a decision was announced that this coward was being promoted to the head position of something or other. All it would take for that promotion to fly away with the whistling wind would be for some enterprising soul to dig up some old tweets of his from ten years before, condemning the Bruno of that day. But he was tweeting the way he did back then precisely because he was such a conformist, doing what everybody else did. Guys, guys. It was okay back then.
That would not matter. Our sportscaster would be made to beg, and crawl, and grovel, and apologize, and to thank his persecutors for his upcoming and richly deserved defenestration, asking them to ensure, please, that he land on his head.
The Thing That Is Different Now
The great mass of mankind has always been a herd animal, and always will be. The great flock of sheep has always been a great flock of sheep. What is different about our era is not that we are sheep, but that we are delusional sheep. We have believed all the propaganda about how independent, and tough minded, and street savvy, and fiercely non-conformist we are.
Flocks of sheep have always trotted across the meadow together. It is just that today when they do it a bunch of them think they are “going Galt.”
And another difference is that our contemporary shepherds are corrupt. There have always been shepherds (and sheep dogs) who understand the situation, and who are not affected by those things which spook the flock. But when the shepherds are wicked, they feed only themselves (Ez. 34:2). Back in the day, the sheep knew who the shepherds were, knew who the sheep were, and also knew the difference between good and corrupt shepherds.
Today we act as much like sheep as ever we did, and all with a serene cluelessness about the true situation. The only way, really, for anyone to get free of this oppressive and claustrophobic situation is by embracing our true calling, which is to listen to the good shepherd. We need to hear His voice, and if we do hear His voice, He returns to us that which we surrendered, or thought we surrendered.
We give up to Him our grand pretense of individuality, which is the first step for Him in making us true individuals.
In the meantime, Mencken again:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Today’s Giveaway Deal
Sorry for the late posting on the giveaway deal. Today’s deal is Evangellyfish. For details, you may proceed here.