“Look there, friend Sancho, and behold thirty or forty outrageous giants, with whom, I intend to engage in battle, and put every one of them to death…for, it is a meritorious warfare, and serviceable both to God and man, to extirpate such a wicked race from the face of the Earth.”
“What giants do you mean?” said Sancho Panza.
“Those you see yonder,” replied his master, “with vast extended arms; some of which are two leagues long.”
“I would your worship would take notice,” replied Sancho, “that those you see yonder are no giants, but wind-mills; and what seem arms to you, are sails; which being turned with the wind, make the mill-stone work.”
“It seems very plain,” said the knight, “that you are but a novice in adventures.”
Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote de La Mancha is about a middle-aged nobleman who spends his leisure time reading tales of knight-errantry. Well-bound tomes of epic romance cover his library walls. Chivalrous quests of valiant knights vanquishing evil foes invade his imagination. He devours the tales until, one day, “the moisture of his brain was exhausted” and “at last he lost the use of his reason.” To the dismay of his family, Quixote then sets off on an aged horse and dedicates his life to wandering the countryside as a gallant knight, confronting wickedness, performing virtue, and conforming in every way he can to the values of the knights populating the stories he read.
Everyday people whom Quixote encounters are transformed into enemies. Unsuspecting townsmen fetching water for their horses are mauled on suspicion of thievery. A group of merchants, failing to proclaim the beauty of a woman they had never met, are denounced as wretches and blasphemers. In his most famous sally, Quixote identifies a field of windmills as giants, engages them in battle, and is struck to the ground by a rotating sail.
Fast forward four centuries. In late 2018, the independent, non-profit New York-based research institute Data and Society released a report entitled Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube. On paper, the report certainly appeared authoritative. Data and Society itself boasts of having received support from dozens of respectable groups, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to The New York Times to UNICEF. Their professed goal is to identify “thorny issues at the intersection of technology and society, providing and encouraging research that can ground informed, evidence-based public debates.” In every way that I can determine, Data and Society presents itself as a perfectly ordinary mainstream left-leaning research institute.
In Alternative Influence, Data and Society researcher Rebecca Lewis purported to identify a network of “political influencers”—a group of 65 named public figures whose work, the report warns, can lead unwary viewers to embrace “a range of political positions, from mainstream versions of libertarianism and conservatism, all the way to overt white nationalism.” Noting the smooth too-easy transition from conservatism and libertarianism to white nationalism, Lewis explains that “social networking between influencers makes it easy for audience members to be incrementally exposed to, and come to trust, ever more extremist political positions.” What’s worse, Data and Society warns us, “YouTube incentivizes their behavior,” even permitting the listed personalities to “cultivate alternative social identities and use production value to increase their appeal as countercultural social underdogs.”
Go down the list of these gateway “influencers,” and you do find some genuinely dangerous people, such as self-professed white nationalist Richard Spencer. Fair enough. But interspersed among these names are people who seemed, at least to me, suspiciously out-of-place, like University of Toronto Psychology professor and New York Times best-selling author Jordan Peterson, comedian and talk show host Dave Rubin, and podcast host and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan—all names you might encounter in the window display of your local book store.
Data and Society’s “Alternative Influence Network”
Accompanying this array of names in the report is a web of interlinking lines portraying vectors of influence from one figure to the next, a dizzying constellation of alleged hate. Land on a single node in this diagram, the graphic suggests, and one becomes entangled permanently in an all-consuming web of hateful ideology.
The term that Lewis uses to describe many of these figures is “alt-right.” It is employed repeatedly throughout the report as a catch-all descriptor for people with supposedly dangerous views, but never once does Lewis define it. The closest she comes to a definition is implicitly, through a footnote to a self-declared social-justice activist group, which presents “alt-right” as a species of “white nationalism.” If Lewis is to be believed, all 65 people she identifies are either proponents of, or gateways to, this white nationalist creed.
As noted above, this would seem to include Peterson, whose most recent book has sold more than three million copies and was published by no less a mainstream outlet than Penguin Random House. It also includes Rubin, who began his comedy career as an intern under Jon Stewart for The Daily Show, and once won LA Weekly’s “Funniest Twitter” award. And it includes Rogan, whose most recent stand-up show was produced and aired by Netflix just last year.
So: We have here a benign-sounding, if somewhat obscure, research institute casually accusing various popular, mainstream public figures of being gateway agents to an ideology commonly associated with genocide and slavery. How can this be? Are we so blind, we subscribers to Netflix, we habitués of Barnes & Noble? Are we akin to the Germans of the 1930s who ignored the warning signs? Has our society become so degraded that cultural staples such as Penguin Random House, Comedy Central and Netflix are now helping to spread dangerous ideas, like a contagion infused into a defenseless host society?
While this exercise in social panic may appear bizarre to ordinary readers, it will not appear especially unusual to anyone who spends any time at all in a Communications department at certain universities, or in certain areas of Twitter, where the portrayal of such pundits as agents of alt-right evil is a matter of casual consensus. If anything, in fact, Lewis cast her net too narrowly for this crowd, which often will throw in everyone from Harvard University professor Steven Pinker to Quillette’s own editors and writers, myself included. (Not so narrow, mind you, that she didn’t manage to include a few Jews—including James Damore, Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro. Lewis appears okay with the cognitive dissonance required to accuse Jews of flirting with white supremacy.)
In late 2018, I sat down with my former Master’s thesis advisor, an academic at Concordia University who had presented with Data and Society at an academic event in Montreal. Having read the 2018 report, I asked him flat out whether he thought I was a white supremacist simply on the basis that I enjoyed listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast. He responded as follows: “I don’t want to say, because the definition is always changing. Can’t we just disagree about this?”
This is what my life had come to. Someone who had volunteered to guide my thesis work could not fully swear off the possibility that I was a servant of white supremacy. Like Goebbels. And merely on the basis of my podcast preferences.
It is not that my advisor is a bad person, or even unique in his views. Many progressives throw terms such as Nazi and white supremacist around now like confetti. White supremacists proliferate throughout society, we are led to understand, occupying the highest stations of cultural and intellectual life, apparently undetected by their colleagues. The danger is spreading. The tide is rising. And yet, Harvard keeps employing them. Netflix keeps producing them. Penguin Random House keeps publishing them. And millions of people, from various walks of life, keep enjoying their work.
There seems to be a discrepancy here. If all these public intellectuals are as dangerous as these claims suggest, why are we not progressing toward a dystopia—something like Nazi Germany, or Panem from The Hunger Games? Canada, my own country, recently was cited in a Social Progress Imperative report as being among the most progressive countries in the world, according to an analysis of factors that include personal rights, personal freedoms and choice, and inclusiveness. That seems inconsistent with the state of high anxiety that animates Alternative Influence.
There are, of course, dangerous people in the world, spreading genuinely dangerous ideas and doing real damage. Among these are actual white supremacists like the gunmen who shot and killed 50 people at the Linwood Islamic Centre and the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. These concerns are real, and need to be continually confronted. But the existence of such concerns does not explain why mainstream conservatives, libertarians and even classical liberals are now being lumped in with the worst elements of humanity. Why are so many seemingly respectable intellectuals and institutions tilting at windmills?
Don Quixote, I believe, may provide something of an answer. The novel is animated by the juxtaposition between Quixote’s old world of faith and certainty, and the complex modern age that Cervantes and his contemporaries were beginning to embrace in the 17th century.
Eventually, over time, the transition from the old world to the new freed Europe from the strict dogmatism of the church, something for which most of us are quite grateful. But as any cursory reading of European literature over the next century or four could affirm, a world without an overarching God-given meaning can be a terrifying place. Easy, transparent notions of right and wrong have a romantic appeal. They provide order and meaning in life. They create a singular path to follow, promising a heavenly utopia at the other side of death. Quixote’s world, like our own, bombarded people with too many voices, too much noise. Seen in this light, Quixote’s madness is a symptom of his hunger for a simpler place, with a simple moral code providing salvation and a clear strategy for thwarting evil.
So Don Quixote chooses to live in a world of his own imagination. Like any good Christian knight, he sees himself as a “redresser of grievances, a remover of wrongs and injuries, a corrector of abuses, and a discharger of duties.” And there is never any doubt as to what those wrongs and duties are. Members of the modern progressive movement, I would argue, often see themselves much the same way.
Graphic from “You Shall Not Replace Us!’ White supremacy, psychotherapy and decolonization,” published in the British Journal of Medical Psychology
Consider the image above, a visual aid provided courtesy of Dwight D.L. Turner, Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. It was included in a peer-reviewed academic paper titled You Shall Not Replace Us!’ White supremacy, psychotherapy and decolonization. Take a look at some of the items listed. Ever emphasized our common humanity instead of the different colours of our skin? Ever failed to challenge a racist joke, say at a party? Ever disbelieved, even once, a single experience communicated by a person of colour? You are apparently on the path to white supremacy.
Racists themselves succumb to a version of Don Quitoxe’s delusions when life becomes overwhelming or tumultuous, and spuriously organize society into binary categories of us and them. But progressives do this, too. This notion of white nationalists and neo-Nazis skulking everywhere seems to result from the urge to streamline society, neaten it up, clarify its ideological categories, make everything luminously simple. Either you are an ideal citizen, or you are out. Either you are an active knight in the progressive cause, or you belong on a list.
But the real world, as Cervantes knew, is not that simple. Someone can be skeptical of the existence of “non-binary” genders without being a transphobe. Someone can suggest that women might, in general, be inclined to possess different interests than men without being a misogynist. Someone can think that things in the western world have been getting progressively better on the whole for centuries without being a white supremacist. These opinions are not indicative of a moral deficiency. These opinions may be correct, or they may be incorrect. They may also be changeable, or nuanced, or based on differing life experiences. The people holding these varied opinions are not thieves or blasphemers or giants. They are your fellow townsfolk.
The biggest danger of Quixotism, to my mind, is that people will be turned off the entire progressive project. All the antagonistic jargon and lists and simple black-and-white morality and name-calling and moral self-righteousness reads as madness to people who might otherwise be sympathetic or potentially persuadable to progressive causes. If progressives want to make headway, frankly, they need to get down off their high horses.
The truest and most productive path for all of us is that offered by Sancho Panza, whose role is to state simple truths, none more important than that “those you see yonder are no giants, but wind-mills.”
Terry Newman is currently an MA student in the Sociology Department at Concordia University in Montreal. Her SSHRC-funded research is on the candidate controversies that took place during the 2015 Canadian federal election. She is also a Teaching Assistant in Concordia’s Engineering Department. She tweets from @tlnewmanmtl. She is the author of the Quillette article Through the Looking Glass at Concordia University.
Featured image: Illustration by Armand-Louis-Henri Telory, produced in 1850 for a child’s book about Don Quixote
We live in a world that has displaced religious faith — but by and large without finding anything that can adequately replace it. I suspect much of the progressive movement is driven by people who are hungry for certainties but subject to a philosophy that nominally denies them; the fanaticism of the radical left suggests that their politics has become their religion, insofar as it fills a gap in their lives that was once the province of faith.
Even if you don’t believe in God, you’ll f–king well believe in something.
I agree with you that the decline of religion has created a “meaning-shaped hole” in people’ hearts and heads. However, most of the people I grew up with were not religious at all, yet we still managed to squeeze some meaning out of the dried husks of our spiritual selves. Do you think this is because we (I’m 48) are only one generation removed from a more religious society, and that we “borrowed” a sense of meaningfulness from previous generations? Is the current exodus of young people toward lazy-minded activism the result of bridges finally being burned between their generation and the last remnants of a more religious society? Or is it due to the proliferation of half-thoughts masquerading as realpolitik through social media?
A loaded question, I know. But I can’t believe that in the space of one generation everybody suddenly became too stupid to find meaning for themselves.
It is indeed a loaded question so I’d like to point out a likely contributing factor, rather than a full explanation.
I think the alternative sources of meaning were seriously attacked and presented in a very negative way to the next generations. Most notably, family and children are presented in a very bad light. For example, the “revolutionary insight” that maternal instinct is a social construct is quite popular with my generation (I’m 32). Extreme romance is also glorified and functional relationships portrayed as boring or, ironically, lacking any meaning.
Other potential sources of meaning are portrayed in similar fashion. I’m having a hard time trying to come up with something other than career and activism that would be deemed an acceptable source of meaning for my generation.
I googled your phrase “extreme romance” and couldn’t find anything enlightening. Uncle Wiki is silent. Could you explain what it is?
“I don’t want to say, because the definition is always changing. Can’t we just disagree about this?”
It’s stunning how they refuse to have a stable definition of the term they are using as the basis of their work and with which to slander people. In a well-functioning environment having a poorly-defined and ever-changing definition would prevent an idea from being taken seriously.
That wasn’t a true statement of his beliefs. It was a way to back out of the conversation. He knew that when talking with a smart and curious person who is more likely to ask questions than go on a rant, the argument could not be won. The same issue occurs if you interview actual white nationalists….their arguments quickly show themselves to be the nonsense they are, based in nothing but their faith, identity and disgust of others.
The Data and Society Report by Lewis is bunk science that sullies science’s good name. The methods section does not list any criteria by which Lewis selects these 65 people to track. It says she watched lots of video, but doesn’t list the methods by which she chose which to watch and which to ignore. In other words, the reader has no idea how the analyzed data came to be chosen for analysis to begin with. And worse still, the reader has no idea which data were ignored, and why. Any discerning reader would’ve known to stop wasting their time right there.
But I am curious about the approach of the author of this OP. The Report can and should be eviscerated for the garbage that it is. And not much more needs to be said. However, i don’t think you counteract victimhood culture by clamoring to be the bigger victim. The tenor of the piece seems to be bemoaning how legitimate criticism is conflated with hate. Classic liberals/centrists are being misunderstood…boo-hoo. I think a more persuasive tact would be to identify the premise of the victim-folk, that legitimate criticism does equal hate, then demonstrate that they have been unable to sustain that premise, and so the premise itself deserves to be rejected.
SC – you raise a good point, but I think also miss a main point. Yes the report is absolute garbage, which no doubt started with a pre-determined outcome and thereby created the data to support it, but despite the obvious flaws and faults of the report the main point is whether it will be taken seriously by people with power and authority. This would be indicated by how many people on that network diagram have been deplatformed from social media (temporarily or permanently), or had events and honors cancelled due to Left-wing protests, and how many have been found guilty by association, which the diagram neatly enforces – see Jordan Peterson is only a hop, skip, and jump away from Richard Spencer. If someone is placed on a “Nazi list”, and people in authority are hunting for Nazis, it is safe to assume that most Nazi hunters will not be looking at the method footnotes of the report to determine how accurate the list is before using their power to “punch a Nazi”.
E. Olson,
I agree that, based on this one Report, Lewis comes across as a tool, but no doubt this work-product is simply a means to an end, which I presume (again based on n=1) to be someway/somehow to deplatform folks she doesn’t like. Welcome to 2019, I suppose.
And yet, I’m still of the teach-a-guy-to-fish vs the give-a-guy-a-fish school of thought. The OP to me seems to want to tell us that this report is garbage. I think it would be better served to tell us why/how this report is garbage, and doesn’t sustain its underlying premise, such that readers can go forth and identify similar garbage on their own the next time.
It didn’t take much reading to conclude that this “report” is unadulterated bull sh*t, and that anyone even vaguely right of the author’s position was considered to be far right/alt-right.
I have to question that the author really had watched much of the content of those listed on her “AIN” (learned a new woke buzz acronym) list. My Utube subscription list contains many of these channels and very little of the content is even remotely objectionable, to a rational viewer. Like: Dave Rubin. Seriously? wtf?
Stating, “YouTube monetizes influence for everyone,” also makes me wonder if Lewis really is as clueless as she seems to be, about her own topic. Any regular Utube viewer of these “AIN” creators knows that since the ‘adpocalypse’ their content has been largely demonetized, and their viewers have circumvented the platform’s ludicrous policy violation decisions and now fund the creators directly. But then possibly that is something that even more so ”scares” the author and her cohorts, that the viewers are willing to fund these relevant creator’s product. After all, the funders are simply enabling the thought leaders of bigotry, sexism, racism, ‘islamiphobia’ , fascism and all the other obias/isms that fit within Lewis’s list of the “AIN” deplorarables so they are then, in many ways, even more deplorable than the creators are, right? The fact that these “AIN” creators are more successful and relevant than author and her ideological ilk are, must drive her completely around the “left turn only allowed” bend.
It’s quite apparent that we have now reached a point where ‘regressive progressive’ is no longer an oxymoron.
Sigh…
Saw file,
IKR. Dave Rubin is now the gateway drug to white supremacists. Based on degrees of separation…based on the people he interviews. Literally the only way he stays off the list is if he doesn’t interview anyone within a “7 degrees of Kevin Bacon”-sized sphere of anyone remotely white supremacist-sy. In other words, Rubin not only needs to self-censor, but he also needs to self-censor who he talks to…and who they talk to.
In some ways, it’s brilliant. Folks like Lewis would no longer need to deplatform anyone, if she can get folks to do the deplatforming for her. It’s mind-numbingly stupid…but clearly there is a market for this trash.
@S. Cheung
When I saw ‘Blaire White’ on the list, the wtf factor kicked in big time. More than half of the list are classic liberal, and/or moderate political/cultural commentators.
Did Lewis choose her list by watching a few ‘recommended’ sites, and then following the algorithms? If that was her “methodology”, then it’s apparent that it wasn’t followed to it’s conclusion. I could say triple her ” AIN” hate list. Outside of the occasional link that’s Utube, I seriously doubt that the author often ventures out of her echo-sphere.
Specular ‘religion’ is now real. It’s exemplified by it’s fanatical zealots.
In respect to equating white nationalism, i.e. IDENTITY, with white supremacism, Quillette is no different from the MSM, which is disappointing.
America’s founding fathers were the original white nationalists, so, if you are going to demonise us, you should demonise them too, & reject the Constitution they wrote for their fellow white men & women. I do not accept that they were just reflecting the “bigotry” of their age.
They knew that it would be difficult enough forging a new, WHITE, American nation from all the different ethnic groups coming to America from Europe (a single race of closely related peoples), & that it was unthinkable to include other races, which at the time would just have been Native & African Americans.
There is nothing morally wrong with white identity & nationalism. Quite the contrary. The reason it is demonised, is because of the threat it poses to the STATE & its spurious claim to represent a single, multi-racial nation. It’s all about state power, which I elaborate on in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/rogerahicks/status/1109784291960082432
Everything you say is true — and academics are aware. Unfortunately, you stand in the unique position of being disliked by everyone. White’s, who subliminally understand this, are made uncomfortable by hearing it aloud. They want to now think of themselves as “individuals.” Moreover, critical-race theorists and Marxist historians, who preach it concretely, would disavow any person of merit from normalizing the truth as an ideology — unless fighting it and indoctrinating minorities. Nonetheless, one cannot deny historical fact, at least if they want to survive with an institutional culture and identity in-tact.
Anyways, go away you disgusting racist!
“At the time,” I doubt anybody considered slaves to African Americans. If it was a white nation, why isn’t that term used anywhere in any of the founding documents or the law? There were free blacks from the start, along with other ethnicities that were not considered “white” at the time — even the Irish and Italians and Germans and Catholics (often overlapping of course!) were not part of any preferred racial class.
Your zero evidence suggestions that there was an intent to create a white nation proves nothing.
Besides, what’s the solution now? You expect Hawaiians to retake those islands? Mexicans will take back Texas and California? Whites will retake the rest?
The implication from his assertion is abstract and requires one to delve below the surface of Jeffersonian platitudes.
Have you heard of the Three-Fifths Compromise?
That would be a “founding document.”
Nonetheless, if one is to evaluate American history, they will find overt attempts to construct a white nation. This includes: Native American removal, immigrant exclusion acts, anti-miscegenation laws, and segregation which was upheld
by the Surprene Court for decades.
Moreover, even Abraham Lincoln supported deporting former slaves — he was shot before action could be taken. That is not something we teach schoolchildren.
The Irish were never truly considered non-white. That is the most misunderstood argument which holds favor by the contemporary left. Now, they were considered dirty, drunken, and ethnically inferior. However, the Irish were never legally segregated. To compare African Americans to Irish immigrants is futile.
As for a solution?
Keep the country predominately Anglo and European — not Hispanic and Mestizo.
“It is not that my advisor is a bad person..”
So, he must be mentally ill then? What mindset causes a person to equate listening to Joe Rogan with ‘white supremacy’?
What mindset causes a person (who has likely never personally listened to Joe Rogan) to equate listening to Joe Rogan with ‘white supremacy’?
Answer: Perhaps someone who reads the NY Times or Bezos Post, watches MSMBC/CNN, and hangs out with fellow Leftists in the faculty lounge?
Agreed. Her advisor is, in fact, a bad person.
A “bad idea” (presumably any idea that you do not agree with) does not make a person bad.
Bigotry absolutely makes you a bad person, and her advisor is absolutely a bigot.
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“…find some genuinely dangerous people, such as self-professed white nationalist Richard Spencer.”
“Dangerous” is not one of the words that comes to mind when I think of Richard Spencer. Try “inept” or “unprepared.” Do you think Jared Taylor is also “dangerous”?
I’m curious how black youtubers Canada Owens an Some Black Guy, Jewish youtubers Ben Shapiro and Faith Goldy, and gay, black-loving Milo, found themselves on a list of people who are making white supremacy more “palatable.
It can’t be because the “study” started out with a biased agenda.
The “new” Nazi party seems to be much more inclusive than the old, as it obviously welcomes blacks, Jews, Christians, atheists, females, and homosexuals. In fact, I expect a similar list of influential alt-Left (aka Marxist/Socialists) would be far more pale and straight.
The left used to include white men, so don’t be so sure membership offers protection. It could just be power cover, and once the power is attained, you see their tyranny of their ideas come to pass.
*Candace…. Quillette really needs an edit button on their comment board.
What has surprised me is not merely the social eradication of overt “white supremacy” by the middle-class and re-normalizing standards. That outcome could be foreseen — as it should. But the acceptance and complete acquisition of multiculturalism and diversity as legitimate initiatives, all while moving the goal-posts back for any homogeneous white identity, if one may exist.
The latter two constructs are post-war fads. They were wholly created by mainstream media platforms — Disney being the worst — and subliminally transcribed into fiction books.
Harry Potter is the best example of subliminal post-modernism and multiculturalism. J.K. Rowling had intentionally made the series girthed in the conflict for magical-inclusion or exclusion. In reality, she was writing about immigration in Britain. By casting Voldemort and his lot as murderers — which they were in the book — merely for wanting a homogeneous magical community, she had very subliminally indoctrinated millions of people into this fantasy of multiculturalism.
Now, one may be laughing — as they should. However, modern theories of psychology show that individuals draw their worldview, or schema, from a complex set of emotional factors. Post-modernism is built on narratives which bind to these biases. When people think of racism in England, some can subliminally connect-it to previous experiences of fiction in which can be mistaken for truth and fact.
My point is that diversity initiatives are just as radical as Jordan Peterson. However, the mainstream acceptance of these values is what precludes debate. In the 1950’s, Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris would have been considered elitist, liberal academics. Diversity would have been seen as more dangerous than the KKK. Now, the Jordan Peterson’s of the world are cast as neo-Nazi’s, overt white supremacy is generally shunned by the masses, and radical, leftist ideologies are mainstream.
One cannot tilt at windmills if this is all too real.
Liberty and Equal Protection is not directed at any tribe, group or class of people. Multiculturalism fails because a nation needs a culture if it hopes to stick together. E Pluribus Unum allows that people of great variety can join together (though most of the world did not agree with this experiment in nation building), but not remain divided. Current American culture includes much from those of Hispanic, African and Asian cultures, especially in terms of food and . Tribalism leads to war.
What’s Equal Protection? Is that like freedom of association? Am I allowed to not bake someone a cake? Am I allowed to not paint someone’s portrait? – confused, lonely and freaked out
As said elsewhere: The real situation is that we’ve got giants charging at us screaming “WE’RE JUST WINDMILLS, YOU PARANOID BIGOT!”
“But the real world, as Cervantes knew, is not that simple. Someone can be skeptical of the existence of “non-binary” genders without being a transphobe. Someone can suggest that women might, in general, be inclined to possess different interests than men without being a misogynist. Someone can think that things in the western world have been getting progressively better on the whole for centuries without being a white supremacist.”
Actually, the real world is very often simple. No matter what surgery is done, or what hormones are taken, the “science” clearly shows a person born female or male will never be the opposite, and to think otherwise is clearly a form of mental illness. And anyone who has ever seen baby boys and girls choose their toys, or adult men and women choose reading materials, hobbies, or career paths will obviously see differences in interests, which the “science” again confirms. Similarly, “science” and history clearly confirms that Western society and culture is predominately the product of white minds and efforts, and its superiority is clearly demonstrated by the huge flow of non-white peoples to the West. It can therefore not be sexism, or racism, or some sort of phobia to point to clear empirical and observable facts that support such viewpoints, nor the science and theory that suggest differences in genetics and culture as key explanatory factors in the disparate outcomes observed between individuals and groups. Thus the Left is clearly taking a Quixoten role in name calling and deplatforming the truth tellers, and deserve to be slapped down hard by the blades of their windmills.
Bravo! As Jeb Bush would say: “please clap.”
@E. Olson
“Similarly, “science” and history clearly confirms that Western society and culture is predominately the product of white minds and efforts, and its superiority is clearly demonstrated by the huge flow of non-white peoples to the West.”
It is quite astonishing how the various ethnic/racial/religious groupings of nations tend to have very similar metrics on any number of social indicators. All Latin American countries are very much like each other. Catholic heritage European countries are similar in their difference from their Protestant neighbors. African countries share many traits. The entire Muslim world shares a largely common culture and politics.
The nations that I myself would say have produced the most prosperity and freedom for the greatest number of people are almost invariably nations founded by white Christian Europeans. Oh, and Bhutan. Some say this is just a coincidence but I don’t think so. I suspect that when Europe has a Muslim majority it will become very much like the rest of the Muslim world. I suspect that when America has a Latino majority it will gradually become more and more like Latin America. Am I a white supremacist?
Ray – yes you are a white supremacist if you believe that white culture and white institutions are superior to non-white cultures and institutions. I think baseball great Dizzy Dean’s saying: “It ain’t braggin’ if you done it”, is very relevant in this case, however, as we can translate it for the current purposes into: “It ain’t supremacist when white culture really is better.”
@E. Olson
… and then adding the final crime of suggesting that the nearly perfect relationship between white people and white culture and being an immigration destination might not be a coincidence. It is somewhat breathtaking that many immigrants to Europe openly state that they intend to replace European culture and people with their own and the woke celebrate this. But somehow everything is to change, yet the conditions that have everyone trying to get in (to this racist, sexist hell that we call the West) will remain.
Except that I think the progressives actually have a chance to tear down the windmills, which are static and do not attack. They are in the foundations. The analogy falls apart at some point. IMO, It’s cool that people are willing to speak out, but the progressives win this one. We have until the next Democrat president. All the West is in turmoil. China and Russia are clearly salivation for the curtain call.Then the gloves come off.
The Matrix of Hate above is pure malicious propaganda and hunger for power. The average no-name prog comes by their faith honestly, but the power players in the media and politics know what they are doing.
By the time the danger is obvious, it’s too late. It’s too late.
The tribe in action. Nothing more. Nothing less. All part of their work to destroy national sovereignty and wipe Western culture off the face of the earth, to get their One World Government “utopia”. BAMN. Because, after all, 50 million murdered by Lenin and Stalin with their enthusiastic help is not enough for them.
Oh, do piss off, Nazi.
Where’s the lie, though?
@Stephanie
Yes, where? Global government, on the face of it, is a very good idea, the question is who runs it? ‘The Nazis’ might suppose it’s some SJW version of Jew-Communist Victimocracy, the commies suppose it will be the global corporatists. I suppose that it will be something like a melding of the UN, the EU, the African Union and all our other pan-national institutions, all overseen by Davos.
Where is the lie @Stephanie? You mean you’re genuinely asking this idiot Mark Mathis why it’s not true that The Joos are secretly pulling the strings of the world with our evil plot to destroy national sovereignty and wipe Western culture off the face of the earth? Some plotters we are. It’s really worked well for us this past century and it’s working great now–I’m afraid to wear my Jewish star of David outside, but I guess now that I know I”m part of a plot for a One World Gov’t Utopia pulling the strings of the world, I’ll force everyone to wear it too! Bwa ha ha ha.
“I don’t want to say, because the definition is always changing. Can’t we just disagree about this?”
This quote perfectly illustrates the absurd and malevolent aspects of the alt-Left and their allies.
There is first the absurdity and eminent soft-religiosity of believing in something that literally cannot be defined but which is so evil that they’re terrified of even speaking its name; but at the same time, unafraid of flinging this supposedly nebulous term at their perceived enemies at will.
And then simultaneously, there is the subtext that what is really going on is not that the ‘definition is NOT always changing.” “White supremicist” has a specific meaning: a person who believes that a) there is a white race and b) that race is superior to all others & thus has inherent privileges.
What is always changing is not the meaning of the word but the accusations and the punishments as more and more people and organizations are tossed under its umbrella (as the absurd pyramid illustration ‘shows.’). So because the meaning is quite clear but the application is not, best to self-censor, best to be silent when a colleague is accused lest you too be thrown over the cliff. The advisor is so terrified he won’t even affirm his own student is not a white nationalist lest he be called one too. This isn’t the definition changing; it’s the willingness to apply to to anyone at will no matter how little it makes sense. Hence, Ben Shapiro can be called a white nationalist and alt-right even as he is a Jew who is despised by said group. Jordan Peterson can be denied a visiting position at cambridge because of a single photo of literally thousands he took with a fan, when the fan was wearing on his T Shirt, “I am an Islamophobe” (which doesn’t even mean he is a white nationalist, but again, logic doesn’t really matter)–so guilt by physical fleeting association can get you called one too.
So most people stay silent. We don’t need the boot of a tyrannical government. We have instead very powerful people in Silicon Valley, billionaires, wealthy people and academics, who will shame, silence, and threaten you with calling you ‘white nationalist’ should you dare to step out of line. Those who are not True Believers but who stay silent or refuse to condemn or even name an injustice (as the mentor does here) are simply appeasers and cowards, or useful idiots who have always been the best friends of despots.
The being reviled and marginalized (anyone non-left) will continue to suffer at the hands of this intersectional insanity and the left will feel the pressing need to do more. They will move from calling people names to physical violence, and if they acquire enough political power they will move on to arresting, detaining, and eventually eliminating all non leftist compliant individuals…
They are the Nazis they seek to destroy.
d: “We have instead very powerful people in Silicon Valley, billionaires, wealthy people and academics, who will shame, silence, and threaten you with calling you ‘white nationalist’ should you dare to step out of line.”
Unfortunately, malevolence is not confined to “very powerful people in Silicon Valley, billionaires, wealthy people and academics”.
Sacredness of ever-shifting concepts allows pretty much everybody to “shame, silence, and threaten you with calling you ‘white nationalist’ should you dare to step out of line” – to gang up and destroy you. Grass-root psychopathic behaviour is a pillar of totalitarianism.
This chart is 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Some of these people, especially Denis Prager, Rubin and Rogan interview people who are controversial and with whom they have often opposing ideas. Another ham fisted attempt at slapping labels on people which, apparently has become our national pastime.
I’m around a lot of liberal Californians and many are convinced that there a ‘dangerous tide of fascism’ washing over America, now apparently caused by the likes of Prager, Rubin, Shapiro and Rogan.
We all have our windmills, I suppose, but scientists should be designing better ones, not tilting at them.
Quillette has been offering a place of refuge for “dangerous ideas”, but the results are not impressive or inspiring.
Much of what is implied by the articles on this website, snd that we are definitely getting in the Comments sections, is alarmist rhetoric about the threats to Western civilization, and endless repitition of unproven “common sense” ideas (e.g., high-IQ Jews, Asians, and “Europeans” create modern technologies that racial defectives — blacks snd some Hispanics– are incapable of appreciating or absorbing). Academic research provides little support for such ideas.
Clearly, many people participating in these conversations are narrowly educated and their heads are full of misinformation. Colin Johansson adamantly states that Chile is a white country, and refuses to back down when corrected. Johansson, Olson and others peddle simplistic theories about IQ and economic and cultural development that are clearly refuted by the history of abject poverty and technological backwardness (until very recently) in high-IQ Asian countries.
I would therefore suggest to the editors of Quillette that they take note of the educational deficiencies of their client-audience and offer articles that will provide these people with more objective facts about world geography and world economic history. Otherwise, the right wingers who feed at this site will cling to their predetermined religious beliefs – beliefs that are so harmful to the peace and tranquility of America.
@Chad Chen
Perhaps you would like to offer the editors of Quillette an article, in addition to your usual comments.
@Morgan Foster
That would not be possible.
Writing an article on Quillette requires deep, profound thought — regardless of ideology. Not absolute platitudes, red herrings, begging the question, or any other sophist arguments perfected at the modern bastion of academia one would call a university.
Chad has never once cited evidence for any rebuttal and refuses to engage in debate.
As a pre op female trans other kin, I need to say that quillette is mean, and the articles are bad and everyone here is a dumb dumb meanie. I am so very well educated I am not even sure what I am anymore. By the way. Shut up racist.
Where “narrowly educated” is defined as “disagrees with a communist”, apparently.
I suggest you get help. You are in a cult.
Isn’t “white” just a term to mean the ethnic group in power and preferred over others? Chile must have this.
So you suggest that IQ measures nothing of value as it relates to intelligence or performance in modern society? Nobody said if you have a high IQ you will be successful, but that among a population, those with higher IQs perform better than those in the society with low ones. Comparing countries fails to account for the fact that government coercion and culture can harm people that liberty and equal protection resolve.
@David of Kirkland
White now means no longer entitled to Victim status. Jews and Asians are now white.
Ray
Agreed. It seems white no longer refers to race/ethnicity but instead means anyone who is an oppressor in the oppressor/victim way of thinking.
Working-class white men have more experience with blacks and Hispanics than affluent whites who can afford to buy isolation from them. It’s easier to hold misconceptions about an Other group if you don’t interact with them very much. Occam’s Razor suggests that familiarity with the Other leads to forming assessments of the Other’s character, not ignorance, superstition or mistaken beliefs about them.
@Mark Plus:
A concise & plausible argument.
Chad, I second Morgan’s suggestion: put up or shut up. If you think you have something to contribute here, despite never having done that before in these comments sections, pitch an article.
It is not Quillette’s job to peddle your politically correct narrative. If you want people to take your overused narrative seriously, put together a well-researched and -reasoned piece. Something we all haven’t read a million times on mainstream outlets, please. Otherwise, consider learning from people here or finding an echo chamber where you’ll be happier.
I suggest you read Orwell’s many essays. Comments on those who consider themselves left wing intellectuals ” They play with fire and they do not know it burns and they believe only what an educated person could believe “. Orwell along with Muggeridge observed the absurdities of left wing intellectuals from the mid 1930s onwards . Another comment by Orwell ” I do not fear the dictatorship of the proletariat but the that of the intellectuals”.
As the 1930s showed, the common decency of ordinary British people was the best bulwark against communism and Nazism. The ordinary British person never fell for communism but the middle class intellectuals did.
If one looks at those who fought Nazism, the one group which was absent were the left wing middle class intellectuals, Auden, Isherwood and Sartre being examples.
I didn’t see any of that talked about in the article. I will say the article is rather light, I have read and seen much better breakdowns of the flaws in the data analysis and the obvious ignorance and bias of the person who write the report. Indeed the great irony is that when properly analyzed it became clear that people like Jordan Peterson were being watched by members of the radical right, and he was convincing them to not be radical rightists. The connection is a positive one of deradicalization and reintegration into larger society.
How about you right an article and see whether it stands up to scrutiny or not?
«Clearly, many people participating in these conversations are narrowly educated and their heads are full of misinformation»
Perfect argument! You could make it even clearer by saying that we are all pure idiots here. As I recall, this is called ‘despicere’ in demagogy
Well said. Enjoy your trolling, Chad Chen.
“But the existence of such concerns does not explain why mainstream conservatives, libertarians and even classical liberals are now being lumped in with the worst elements of humanity. “
Answer: Because it is easier to dismiss them than debate them.
The author is correct the self righteous attitude of the Left is driven by fear, like Don Quixote. As the evidence discrediting socialism and Keynesian economics continues to mount the progressives are reduced to flailing at windmills. The Left has learned that debating in the arena of ideas is a losing proposition, so it has resorted to labeling and silencing.
Progressives are not going to get off their high horses as the author recommends if to no other reason than the progressive project he seems to support had as its objective the destruction of western civilization. The civil mask is coming off because we deplorables had the nerve to fight back.
Merely windmills you say?? don’t you realize that WINDMILLS CAUSE CANCER!!!!!
Apparently Trump is secretly a progressive
The “network” diagram looks like it’s right out of A Beautiful Mind.
Haha! Yes
Not that I should need to tell people here but plenty of minorities in this country are quite racist. You want to see some racists show up at a black lives matter rally you’ll fine plenty there or at one of Al Sharpton’s protests. Spend five minutes listening to one of Farrakhan’s screeds. Those are worse then then any the insipid Richard Spencer has ever spewed forth. He also has many more followers then Spencer who could probably barely fill the conference room at the local Marriott. Its not remotely close to a white thing. Its a sign of mental illness in my opinion to come up with the type of bizarre diagrams and charts embedded in this article. You might want to rethink your entire life if that’s what your spending months at a time researching and vomitting up trying to guilt people by imaginary association. That so called friend that wouldn’t clear the author of being a Nazi well thats not a friend at all or someone worth associating with.
White nationalists want normal white people to flourish securely in their own countries. This situates white nationalism in the humanist tradition and its philosophical concept of eudaimonia, but oriented towards white people’s interests.
Critics of white nationalism owe us the due diligence of explaining up front why they oppose the perfectly reasonable goal of white flourishing.
Not really. Humanists see all humans as equal and this don’t differentiate by skin colour. The regressive left and alt-right who ignorantly and stupidly divide the world into white people and everybody else are thus seen as the problem, not the solution.
Referencing a classic Spanish novel for this piece is ironic, because Hispanics generally don’t read,not even the literature in their own tradition. Go into American supermarkets which service Hispanic areas in American cities, like the Food City stores in Phoenix, and notice the absence of magazines. The New York Times a few years back published an article about the absence of a reading culture in Mexico, so you can’t blame this observation on racism.
And yet our elites have bet the country’s future on these mentally inadequate people. No wonder they have floated the idea of a Green New Deal: They realize that the country won’t have enough of a smart fraction in another couple generations as it rolls over demographically into a nation full of people best suited for stoop labor, so they want to dismantle and dumb down the energy system we have now.
Nuclear power makes an especially cognitively challenging demand on a population – it is literally the product of superior human minds, whereas dumb people can dig up coal out of the ground and burn it – so it has to go away as America becomes increasingly dull witted.
What is this weird confusion Hispanic and Spanish?
It’s something I’ve seen from other North American commentators, and also in North American media.
Spain, the last time I looked was not in Latin America, it is in Europe. Its people are Spanish, not Hispanic.
And Antonio Banderas is not an ethnic minority actor, he is a white European man from Spain.
Not saying I agree with Mark Plus, but Spain during the Renaissance and the early modern era was also notable for its relative lack of printing press and scholarship in general.
Identity politics is to the left what conspiracy theories are to the right.
Matthew,
interesting observation. Those things do appear to be the catnip for folks on the extremes of either end.
Hate to liberals is like sex to the Victorians.
”Hate to liberals is like sex to the Victorians.”
Yes.
In some feminist circles sex is like sex to the Victorains
Speaking of which, I thought we were going to shut down hate speech. How come only 2 mentions of hate in the entire article? And only a few in the comments. Come on people, focus.
One thing to keep in mind is that the people who populate social media are a world apart from the people that don’t. Turn off media and you find a lot more Sancho Panzas than Don Quixotes.
Thanks for the illustration, now I know where to look for like-minded people 🙂
“All the antagonistic jargon and lists and simple black-and-white morality and name-calling and moral self-righteousness reads as madness to people who might otherwise be sympathetic or potentially persuadable to progressive causes”
So much this. Of course, you can very well scream at the wall, because progressives are so deep in self rightousness that they will never get it. For them the only way is being 100% with them or you are against them. Nothing between, Someone argues that trans women shouldn’t be allowed to participate in sports against cis women, but either with men or get their own category? Obviously it means to hate trans entariely and being disgusted by them. IAAF wants to remove very long runs from Diamond League? Obvious racism, because 5000m run is dominated by Africans so of course the only reason to cut it off is to erase African athletes.
There was time I really wished I was born in different country, cause thing here were rather bad. Now – og boy, I am so glad I can stay away from Western idiocy.
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“The biggest danger of Quixotism, to my mind, is that people will be turned off the entire progressive project.”
They should be. Progressivism was tainted from the beginning with racial/ethnic pseudoscience, and has now come full circle and arrived back to Bolshevism. Self-identified progressives who actually care about improving the human condition should switch to the only belief set that has ever served that goal – classical liberalism. The rest are as lost as Adolf Hitler, sitting in his bunker and fantasizing that the remains of his armies were going to turn back the Soviets.
Studying history rewards anyone about human nature. Whether the writer of history is biased (as we all are) or not if you consistently are inquisitive and critical, truth will find its own way out.
During the Stalinist era there was a crime against Article 58. When the archives were searched it was found that there was either no Article 58 or it was a abomination of words that was a catch all. Such is the nature of fanaticism.
“The biggest danger of Quixotism, to my mind, is that people will be turned off the entire progressive project”
This is the logical conclusion to “progressive project”. Correction, not conclusion, because it can and will get worse. Thanks “progressives”.
It made me think and frankly shiver. I recognized many names in that web that was illustrated. I follow many names in that web. Twitter knows who I follow. When do they create a “watch list” for us suspected “white nationals” based on our participation within that web.
Maybe twitter can work with the Southern Poverty Law Center and begin identifying the “haters” using the metric provided in this web.
Be afraid, be very very afraid…
The consistent long-term pressure by so many outlets to try and label any forums that allow discussions that are not sj approved is working its way deep into the brains of our emerging generations. They see from so many sources that people like Jordan Peterson or Dave Rubin (or you) are “basically” alt-right and therefore can and must be dismissed out of hand, therefore taking them off the board. It is a conscious effort to distort truth and control the medium to push a political agenda. The classic tools of tyranny are happening right now, as we watch, everywhere we look.
Good luck to you. Thanks for providing this forum.
Thanks for this. One of Quillette’s best.
“The biggest danger of Quixotism, to my mind, is that people will be turned off the entire progressive project.”
What turns me off “the entire progressive project,” in addition to the self-righteousness of many “progressives,” is that there is always SOMETHING that progressives are shouting that needs to be changed. Today it’s one thing; tomorrow it’s another. It gets a little tiresome.
The goal posts keep on changing.
It gives me the impression that the only principle “progressives” have is to have something to force others to do. One thing, and then another.
Does Lewis ever explain her methodology? It would be interesting to apply it to the left. Not to limn the same asinine preordained conflations, but simply to map and to quantify our foes.
Listen to No More Heroes by the Stranglers. JJ Burrell said that Pancho was the real hero.
“The biggest danger of Quixotism, to my mind, is that people will be turned off the entire progressive project.”
The behavior the author derides before making the above statement is the progressive project. The progressive project is illiberal, regressive and authoritarian. The entire progressive project should be written off.
And hence the power of memes. The only reasonable response to such Leftist totalitarian garbage is satirical stuff like the children’s book, “Everyone Who Disagrees With Me Is Literally Hitler.”
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Since it’s apparent that the author has never read the Quixote in total, it’s important to correct the record. If you’re reading of the Quixote suggests Sancho Panza is some sort of example of the voice of reason, I suggest you finish reading both books of the Quixote. Sancho certainly begins as a voice of reason and If Sancho’s story arc ended when Don Quixote tilted at the Windmill’s, then his character would absolutely be a great example to follow. However, Sancho’s story does not end with the giants. Throughout the course of both books of the Quixote, Sancho’s experience around Don Quixote eventually leads Sancho into becoming a mindless, uncritical devotee of the Quixotic illusion who would, in fact, tilt at windmills in order to further the illusion. Sancho ends the story needing the Quixotic more than Alonso Quijano did when he tilted at windmills. Sancho, rather than an example to follow in calling out realities to Don Quixote, is a warning to all those who uncritically follow opinionated, strong-willed, and charismatic Quixotes-you will become even more Quixotic than the Quixote the longer you follow the Quixote around.
Actually, I have read the whole book. And, if you’ve read them too you know that they are VERY different books. I’m not trying to comment on the entirety of Don Quixote in this article. That would take too much time. I’m simply employing it as a literary allusion, specifically in regards to the windmill scene and the first book.
You could make the argument the title makes Sancho seems less complicated if you’re looking at the book in its entirety or from a certain perspective. That’s fair. But keep in mind I didn’t choose the title, nor do most journalists.
No, your thesis adviser is a VERY bad person, one who places ideology above people, even people he knows well.
I am not suggesting he would act on it, but ideology over people is where Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and many others entered the stage.
Nice article on the madness of seeing ideologically benign figures like Rogan, Rubin, Pinker, Peterson, Shapiro and other denizens of the IDW as gateways to right wing extremism, on the ticking off of errant moments in one’s life—once told or laughed at a racist joke, let alone harbored temporarily a racist thought—as pushing one down the path to that extremism.
Not so strong, respectfully, on the overdetermined causes of it all, which are various, single category defying, complicated and interrelated.
And, too, there are other ways of reading Don Quixote.
For a small example:
…The career of Don Quixote…illustrates how a critical realism that will not see what is unseen, misses the potential in reality to become something else, and in this way misses reality itself. For, if, with those who are opposed to Don Quixote, you only see what is (that is what has been) then you do not see what might be. That is why the ‘madness’ of Don Quixote is perception, and his heroic quest, while the ‘sanity’ of those who surround him is in an important sense blind to realities, to the possibility of noble action.
Don Quixote’s view is faithful to a nobility that might be, to a nobility that by his own action, he makes exist, that he (to use a Sartrean construction) exists. Under the pressure of his vision, ‘nobility’ is no longer potential: it is. By contrast, the view that mocks Don Quixote, being faithful only to the limited reality of what generally appears exerts no pressure on ‘reality,’ but rests in this limit as its end.
The fault is not Don Quixote’s if no one follows him. His view of the world is extravagant, but is not in its essence impossible. He is committed to what is noble in life, to every valued principle of social man, to truth, to honor, to justice, to the protection of the helpless against the strong, to the intense, rich experience of living—all of which is seized in the image of the golden age that is to come again…
David Horowitz, Shakespeare: An Existential View, p 17 and following (still the most beautiful book on Shakespeare I’ve ever read.)
Sorry, that’s not a reply. I intended as a stand alone comment.
James Damore is Jewish??
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That Brighton university professor’s triangle can be easily simplified:
White = racist
No need to waste time drawing a pyramid with lots of words. Now he/she/it can save time and look for racists under the bed.
I would observe that it seems naive in the extreme to spit on western societies’ institutional and cultural heritage while pursuing an intersectional grievance-based agenda and expect things to end well. It is willfully blind to dismiss the latter observation as bigotry, shut down discussion; and call people names.
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The editors of Quillette should feel insulted that they weren’t included in Ms, Lewis’ diagram.
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