Four Lights, Two Sexes, Zero Gods

"Sacrifice to the cause

Turn your code into law

Compensate to validate the loss

To take a thief and nail him to a cross"

 

KMFDM - Anarchy

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"In a country where equestrianism is assertion I suppose one must be equestrian..."

H.G. Wells - The Research Magnificent

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"One does not have to be unusually astute to see that when an obscure woman's charges of sexual harassment have the potential to topple the president of the United States, a major redistribution of 'power' has taken place."

Daphne Patai - Heterophobia (1998) (during the Lewinsky scandal) 

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"Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth."

 

George Orwell - The Prevention of Literature

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"You’re bitching about those kids over some friendly fornication - but do you know what I’m worried about?"
"What?"
"Christ was crucified for preaching without a police permit. Think it over."

 

Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

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Last year my inbox treated me to this Kafkaesque little routine courtesy of our overlords at Google:

"Hello,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Pillars of Immersion" was flagged to us for review. This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content; the post is visible at http://werwolfesden.blogspot.com/2016/10/pillars-of-immersion.html. Your blog readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read the post/blog.
We apply warning messages to posts that contain sensitive content. If you are interested in having the status reviewed, please update the content to adhere to Blogger's Community Guidelines. Once the content is updated, you may republish it"

 

You may notice the obviously bot-generated message neglected to point out my guilt. What exactly was the "sensitive content" which warranted censuring and censoring? You'll find nothing on that page but some fairly milquetoast praise of Pillars of Eternity's graphic design, a cartoon skeleton and a weak offhand joke about young Earth creationism. One can't damn well "adhere" to so slippery a prozess, but then what would be the point of ruling fairly and failing to fabricate criminality? Of course, if you'd like the hypocritical icing on that cake, note Google was at that very time arguing it should not be censored by the countries in which its users reside (to wit: all of the countries) but only by whatever tax shelter it bases its regional mailbox headquarters in - in its case Ireland. Was it Ireland then which objected to my praise of crossbow cranks? Or was it California (where Google seats its main power) which objected to my appreciation for rancid zombies? Heaven knows SoCal of all places would never traffic in tales of living dead...

 

Google (likely by automation) soft-censored a random page based on flagging by what (for all I know) could very well in turn have been another crawler bot programmed to do exactly that: flag random pages. The mere possibility that someone somewhere may have taken umbrage at something is enough to justify a conviction. Pretext is result.

 

"We've come to expect never to be offended. What you say is offensive to me" mocked Richard Dawkins during his 2008 tour for The God Delusion "I'm offended by some things. I'm offended by chewing gum. I'm offended by backwards-pointing baseball hats. But I don't try to get a version of the blasphemy law passed to prevent people chewing gum or reversing their cap. So what if I'm offended? So what if my feelings are hurt? Does that give me the right to prevent others from expressing their opinions?"

 

At the time, he was responding to religious uproar over his insistence on discussing religion like any other topic, refusing irrational faith the moral umbrella it so unjustifiably claims. Three years ago Dawkins was instead rescinded his 1996 award by the American Humanist Association, for daring to discuss other topics like any other topics, refusing other brands of irrationality the moral umbrella they so unjustifiably claim. The self-appointed arbiters of humanism are a bit fuzzier on justifying their own support for racist theories (be honest, if "black identity" had been proposed by David Duke, it would be reviled instead of applauded*) or the frankly supernatural precept that females can outright become males or vice-versa by the thaumaturgy of contemporary cosmetic surgery and hormone shots. No weighing of rational arguments was needed. The unilateral pretext of social activism was enough to do what they wanted all along and strike down a colossus bestriding their all too narrow little world of favor-currying - and by such reflected importance elevate their own increasingly farcical organization's status.

 

Last year, after recovering from his near-fatal stabbing by a Muslim terrorist, Salman Rushdie redirected his warning of the threat on free speech also to the dubiously secular historical, sociopolitical and antiscientific revisionism now running rampant in the United States. Sam Harris, J.K. Rowling, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, etc., our culture is now littered with famous left-wing examples unpersoned by rainbow-headed social activists, convicted on one or more counts of intellectual integrity. Desmond Morris might've been the canary in this particular coal mine come to think of it, raked over the coals by feminists from forty years ago for daring to include women in the human race.

 

In 2021 I called upon Samuel Beckett to elucidate the hollow spectacle of mob rule which had gripped most American cities the previous year, as only a master of the absurd could hope to explain the George Floyd riots' pretense of social "justice" by torching your aunt's Honda Civic and braining random bystanders in the streets - as well as the degenerate dregs of academia who lent that millions-strong Peste a transobscurent lacquer of erudite legitimacy by postmodern fabrications. So in that spirit, let me recommend another absurdist on the topic of our current kulturkampf.

 

Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros could be seen as an extroverted version of Kafka's Metamorphosis, its viewpoint character watching helplessly as his society loses its mind, as his every friend and coworker willingly give themselves over to a bestial transformation. A formerly vibrant intellectual landscape is effaced under a single banner of group identity. Once critical, analytical individual minds are lost in the herd. Sound familiar? Rhinoceros aimed its frustration more narrowly than Godot at the intelligentsia, but the various fascist logicians, apologists and theologians throughout 1930s Europe could themselves not have existed but for widespread support among the rabble looking for a pretext to murder their neighbours. And that is what Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Hollywood's gay mafia and the rest of the now endless dogmatic host of celluloid censors or academic millstones supply, much as phrenology and social "darwinism" did a hundred and fifty years ago, or the apologists for Stalinism or for Nazism. They market that all-important perceived legitimacy, casus belli, the pretext to attack. The contagious hordes of our degenerate Peste and their "daemon swineherd in the twilit grotto" of academic and media circles are in fact forced to endlessly legitimize each other. Who else would?

 

Here's the thing though: the same capacity for reason which criticizes nationalism, corporatism, Christianity or the nuclear family will also criticize matriarchal communes, Islam, overpopulation and political correctness. The same skepticism which let me call bullshit on Wiccans or "compassionate conservatives"** twenty years ago protects me from Scientology and PETA. You can argue about whether Stalin was a communist or a fascist, anti-religious or set himself up as a demigod, but to the tens of millions he murdered, to the hundreds of millions he enslaved, it all ended up the same anyway. Stalin was first and foremost the most ardent Stalinist, and all philosophy he preached to the masses served only as pretext for powermongering. And anyone capable of calling into question his justifications had to go. Rhinoceros is particularly apt to remind us of an immutable early step in the rise of any dictatorship: smash the schools, smash the papers. The free press, universities, academia, the fourth estate, the intelligentsia, call it what you will, but it all serves as an unending font of inconvenient critique which any would-be tyrant must muzzle, leash, curb, neuter or put down for fear it might give the masses the wrong idea - that is to say, any idea. The rich and powerful will do this by any means at their disposal, by any pretext.

Do you not understand this?

THE RICH DON'T CARE!

They don't care which big lie they spout to seize power. You think the multibillionaire investors astroturfing your non-profit organization or gutting universities by turning them over from professors to ever more bloated administrations give a flying fuck about your personal pronouns, about your petty, narcissistic little word games? Or which magic sky-daddy you worship? All they care about is an unthinking workforce willing to be worked to death or marched onto the battlefield as cannon fodder.

If they can't do it by nationalistic fervor, they'll do it by proletarian fervor.

If they can't do it by christianity, they'll do it by hinduism.

If they can't do it by promises of a kingdom of god, they'll do it by woke utopianism.

If they can't do it by antisemitism, they'll do it by pro-semitism.

If they can't do it by white power, they'll do it by black power.

If they can't do it by religious sexual puritanism, they'll do it by feminist sexual puritanism.

It does not matter whether they force you to say that Lazarus rose from the dead or you'll be reincarnated as a cow or biological sex is a social construct or extraterrestrials are playing ping-pong at Roswell or JFK was assassinated by Atlantean Keebler Elves. They need to exterminate thought, instill absolute obedience. Anyone who criticizes nonsense must go, anyone who does not simply jump on the bandwagon, worship the fad, toe the line mindlessly at every opportunity must be deplatformed, censored, exiled. Remember the punchline of Aristides' anecdote is not only that he signed his own ostrakon, but that he was asked to do so by someone who knew nothing about him and only wanted to take a swipe at someone nicknamed "the just".

 

Oh yes, they always have a reason. Europeans in 1800/1900/1930 didn't attack Jews "just because" they woke up one morning with that idea. They had reasons, oh yes, those jews were foreign subversives, they were sapping the vital force of the mother/fatherland, they purveyed immorality and decadence, they drank baby blood, they had a million reasons! With zero analysis. Religious reactionaries aren't beating homosexuals to death just because they're bored and have nothing else to do. Oh, they've always had reasons, those gays were all disease-carrying pederasts, didn't you hear? And besides, God hates fags! Didn't you hear!?! "Why do you always make me hit you" the domestic abuser shouts. "Stop hitting yourself" the schoolyard bully shouts. A woman can't harm a man, she's only turning his patriarchal aggression against him. The designated enemy is always a threat, always blamed for the violence.

And of course "minority" groups only want to censor hate speech. Never mind that any group with the power to dictate both public opinion and intitutional access is not marginalized. They're under threat! You are harming some random narcissistic bitch by denying her an invented honorific like the royal "they"; you are an enemy of the public. Google's guidelines state "we need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide this service and the freedom of expression it encourages" got that? Google is THREATENED by the notion that men and women are not identical. Google is THREATENED by da lawd's name taken in vain. Google is THREATENED by cartoon skeletons. Google is THREATENED by old cranks. Google is RANCID about the word threatened. If any bystanders get caught in the algorithmic censorship crossfire, well, those are acceptable losses. Pay no attention to the side-effect of fomenting a culture in which those momentarily in power can now silence any voice of dissent, choreograph the ostracism of any individual at any time for any reason or no reason at all; all it takes is the claim that someone, somewhere, is offended by your existence, and you're gone - so ya'd better keep yer head down, keep yer yap shut, keep yer noggin void of any unsanctioned thoughts.

That automated censorship is even considered an option sounds the death knell of free thought. Any hate speech law is by its nature a thought crime law. It hinges on perceived motivation or the parties' implied relative moral standing, very much in the same vein as blasphemy or lese-majeste. Social activist naivete works on the presumption that you will always control the narrative, that you personally will always stand in judgment of others (being after all perennially "on the right side of history") but you won't. History's wheel has trampled greater rabblerousing powermongers than you (ask the Jacobins, ask the Leninists, ask the Templars and Huguenots) and will not slow its roll no matter how many knights say "ni" or "zee" at it. Having served your purpose in justifying censorship and repression by your hollow sophistry, having built the pyre, you will be of no further use to the rich and will take your place upon it.

 

After all, rhinoceros burn as readily as do monkeys.

 

 

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* An apocalyptic streak akin to Christian Zionism runs through all modern "minority" identity politics angles in that White Nationalists, White Supremacists and the like seem to love hearing the very targets of their hatred validate their fractionalist worldview and hasten race wars.

 

** In that context, isn't it funny to see the American Humanists adopt the "compassionate" rhetoric in their very subtitle? Smokescreens block vision from both directions, it turns out.

P.S.: Believe it or not, the joke in my title was accidental. I don't even indulge. I do indulge in ST:TNG, but if you didn't get the reference: There. Are. Four. Lights!