Bonding over hatred
David Futrelle points out that organized misogyny (aka men’s rights activism) is a gateway drug to white supremacy. Of course it is. Noisy vituperative hatred of women is congenial to noisy vituperative hatred of Other races and Other despised groups in general.
There are good reasons why men’s-rights activism has served for so many as a gateway drug to the alt-right: Both movements appeal to men with fantasies of violent, sometimes apocalyptic redemption — and, like Cantwell, a tendency to express these fantasies in bombastic prose. And both movements are based on a bizarro-world ideology in which those with the most power in contemporary society are the true victims of oppression.
In other words, if you can convince yourself that men are the primary victims of sexism, it’s not hard to convince yourself that whites are the primary victims of racism. And it’s similarly easy for members of both movements to see white men as the most oppressed snowflakes of all.
Or, more crudely – if your idea of a good basis for friendship and collaboration is hatred of all things progressive, aka “politically correct,” then naturally these combinations will be inevitable.
Call it Lenny Bruce syndrome. (Or it could be Hitchens or Dawkins or Ricky Gervais or you get the idea.) See yourself as a scalding contrarian telling the truth to Power, and away you go.
We have our parliamentary elections in a few weeks. Having been following news about Trump and his campaign since he declared, it’s interesting to note that commentators who speak with admiration of him also appear on other articles displaying nasty attitudes towards women, minority races, poor people and our more progressive parties. They also follow the fake news line single mindedly, ironic as they use the websites of the free press to complain of censorship and suppression of countering views.
I console myself that in New Zealand the true Trump supporters are a small minority. Unfortunately misogynists and racists form a pretty sold plurality. Politics has the potential to be very uplifting, but more often seems to bring out the populations base instincts.
This is understating it. If you read what some of these groups write, it becomes clear that women (white women who don’t accept the precise role white men have determined for them) are for them the real criminals and – especially – race traitors. Hence the “white sharia” idea.
Stewart, I don’t doubt that for a second. Luckily the number of people prepared to publicly state that in New Zealand is limited to a few tens, maybe a few hundred at most. I suspect more might think that, but keep it safely locked inside their skulls.
The general take away in this for me is that, unsurprisingly, arseholes are arseholes.
Rob, my saying it was being understated referred more generally to the content of Ophelia’s post than to your comment specifically. It’s just rather shocking to see that, much as they hate Jews and other races that they don’t consider their own, it’s their own non-obedient women (one of the articles I saw makes a point of reassuring obedient women who may be reading that they are not meant and should not be offended) who are even greater enemies. And it feels like this point links these movements to religion – and they are uniformly very anti-secular.
Stewart, don’t worry, I wasn’t being hyper-sensitive. I think we’re on exactly the same page.
I understate sometimes because my instinct is to overstate like crazy.
I just felt it important to make clear that the hatred of women is more than just baggage that goes with the rest, it’s practically the foundation.
And that’s pretty much all there is to say. Angela Nagle points out how seemingly paradoxical it is that traditional conservatives – who, for all their hypocrisy, at the very least value a pretty facade and the appearance of piousness – should end up supporting such an openly rude, obscene, vulgar pussygrabber and probably the least pious man alive. But as long as he hates the same people they hate, that’s all that matters.
Nagle also makes a point of how many liberals and lefties have tended to see anything “transgressive”, or “shocking” as inherently progressive in itself (because it offended their own hate-group – the traditional conservatives) and thus ended up initially celebrating alt-right trolling as a force for progressive change, even if the “trangressions”, “taboo-breaking” etc. was at the expense of women, p.o.c., gays etc. Bottom line there is an essential difference between being against the “establishment” because it’s too racist, sexist, homophobic etc. and being against the “establishment” because it’s not racist, sexist or homophobic enough, and there are no points for wanting “change” if the change is for the worse.