Flaming out

A column in these pages ("Looking Outward: Just Look at the Facts," Dan Glode, The Nugget, October 19, page 23) posits that opposition to HRC is rooted in genetically inherited misogyny. The author, after speculating whether white males might be "hard-wired that way," goes on - in a bizarre and inescapably racist twist - to tell us that white men should move to the back of the bus.

The operating theory behind that appalling suggestion is a byproduct of the secular fundamentalism that is eradicating free speech, re-segregating communities, and ruining college campuses around the country. Beneath the banner of inclusiveness - and just how one becomes inclusive by insistence on exclusivity is a notion you can try to figure out - the theory suggests, among other things, that opposition to their party's candidate simply must be based in racism or misogyny.

The new social fundamentalist has, as in Glode's piece, completely abandoned the legacy of Martin Luther King, who gave his life attempting to unite by faith and example, and by lifting the discussion above myopic divisions. Instead of that magnificent dream, where the only judgment is based on "the content of character," all things must now be understood in the context of skin color and plumbing. Don't like the female candidate? You must hate women. Don't like the President? You must be a racist.

Worse, the adherents of this shame-based fundamentalism like to claim the moral high ground on both sides of an argument. The tactic is to make a claim: "mostly white men are clinging to power and don't want to share," begging us to assume that is both true, and that the alternative on offer is some sanctified, untainted, and thoroughly righteous other. That flawed suggestion - even a cursory study of world history reveals it as a canard - is then generally followed by the claim that because you are a white man, you cannot possibly examine yourself, defend yourself, or even reasonably address the proposition.

That's racism.

What they really want is for the opponents of their philosophy, those clingers and deplorables, to shut up and sit down. Which is also why they are so fond of "rules of discourse" and other such nonsense, so long as those rules insulate their ability to project theory as fact.

What is more, the secular fundamentalist relies on wholesale indictment, projecting their own sentiment as if it were unassailable, and as if we all share in their virtuous condemnations and self-loathing. They have become particularly adept at "virtue signaling," which is newspeak for wearing T-shirts and pasting bumperstickers aligning themselves with one alleged victim class or another.

Instead of elevating the conversation, which they inherently cannot do, these fundamentalist strains ultimately retreat into a kind of pathetic and spinning carousel of accusations and pleas. And always, just underneath the surface, one detects a malignant kind of seething.

That seething is also behind the creation of the now-widespread university Star Chambers, where students - and even faculty - can be thrown out of school for "micro-aggressions" and any number of other alleged violations of conduct without even the right to see the evidence or cross-examine the accuser. The new breed of social warrior loves that take on justice, because nothing trashes their theory faster than an actual and thorough investigation of the facts.

Not least of the problems, beyond asserting that opposition to a political candidate is rooted in an entire race's DNA, is that at the end of the day, this philosophical bent can't help but remain essentially accusatory and divisive, lumping entire classes of people into labeled baskets, and therefore perpetuating exactly that which it purports to dislike.

We can only hope that this new kind of militant fundamentalist philosophy - which might properly be understood as a cult - will ultimately flame out in the face of the more common desire to seek mutual prosperity and success.