A Plea to the Unrighteous

If not you, who?

This is a guest post by a Finnish poet who goes by the name The Appollonic. I plan to post occasional essays by other writers when I think they are both good and fit the spirit of Unsafe Science (which includes social and cultural commentary; facts and science are not the same thing, but they are kindred spirits).

I had a very nice history with guest posts over at Psychology Today before they became stricter and much more intensely bureaucratic about … everything (look for more on this in a subsequent post). But in the olden days, I had lots of guest posts, which were usually widely read. My favorite was this one: The Sexism in Science Controversies, by Claire Lehmann BEFORE she founded Quillette (I like to believe this whetted her appetite for the whole public intellectual gig).

The Apollonic (artist name) is a Finnish poet who has written 1,2k poems in 41 books on existential freedom, and 80 existing or upcoming albums composed and voiced by 4 AIs for the poems.

As he described it, he became awoken to the dangers of increasing Wokism in the early 2021, and was, eventually inspirited to write this essay.

I have now read it several times. Appollonic writes prose like a poet, so be prepared for a very different style than mine. Also, if you subscribe here, there is not a lot of “news.” But the other thing I love about this essay (besides the almost-lyrical prose) is that it pulls together in one essay that things have gone batshit crazy in a zillion ways, over a long period of time. Its a view from 20,000 feet. Or, rather, from Finland. I hope you enjoy it.

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There’s a pebble, just one small pebble that with enough mass and velocity it has enough momentum to set off an avalanche. A cascade with a widening bell curve as it moves further down the mountain. And the pebble most responsible for the current avalanche of cancel culture is the Floyd Riots. It’s a tangled tale weaved for ensuring justice for an unjustifiable death, ending with the perpetuation of mass injustices against law abiding citizens for thought crimes.

GEORGE FLOYD

We all know how the murder of George Floyd happened. The body slowly suffocated by pressure, George Floyd begging for his life and expressing he cannot breathe. I only needed to watch it once to have it all perpetually imprinted in my memory. An injustice devoid of humanity. The kind of a void that compels you to help when someone is pleading for his or her life, followed by the inevitable protests of millions of people witnessing the same event.

DISPLACED FLOYD OUTRAGE

It wasn’t long until the anger was directed against the police as a whole. “Defund the police” became the next mainstream beat along with “racial reckoning.” Y. Safeguarding the citizens with policing was now a sin in progressive cities and it wasn’t long until CHAZ was born (the “police free” anarchist/protestor held zone in Seattle). And what’s become of the progressive led cities that embraced the notion? The anger did what fire always does, sought for more fuel. The helplessness to stop the cops gone wrong and the compulsion to do something spread through the institutions like wildfire

And soon, seeking justice for George Floyd moved to find it from the office of the literature professor Joshua T. Katz. Naturally. In his critique of the racial reckoning, he wrote in 2020 a fateful critique of what was happening to his university: ““Acknowledge, credit, and incentivize anti-racist student activism. Such acknowledgment should, at a minimum, take the form of reparative action, beginning with a formal public University apology to the members of the Black Justice League and their allies.” The Black Justice League, which was active on campus from 2014 until 2016, was a small local organization that made life miserable for the many (including many black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands. Recently I watched an “Instagram Live” of one of its alumni leaders, who—emboldened by recent events and egged on by over 200 supporters—presided over what was effectively a Struggle Session against one of his former classmates. It was one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed, and I do not say this lightly. ”

Campuses became grounds for battling the injustices the white supremacist culture the United States was founded on had imposed. News cycles routinely blamed all sorts of modern social ills on racists and white supremacists. The anger had once again expanded from the first pebble. The George Floyd murder was the pebble, but as a cultural movement, it absorbed into something already set in motion in the cultural continuum.

OFF THE DEEP END

“Toxic Masculinity” and “Parasitic Whiteness”

First, masculinity was made into a mental illness.  The American Psychological Association released an intersectionality-based assessment of the human condition of an entire gender, relying on several sources emphasizing “harmful masculinity.” The broad definition:

“Western culture defines specific characteristics to fit the patriarchal ideal masculine construct. The socialization of masculine ideals starts at a young age and defines ideal masculinity as related to toughness, stoicism, heterosexism, self-sufficient attitudes and lack of emotional sensitivity (Wall & Kristjanson, 2005), and of connectedness. Boys learn to be men from the men in their lives, from their own experiences navigating our social norms, and from the large social and cultural context. Boys live under intensified pressure to display gender-appropriate behaviors according to the ideal male code. Looking at the development of aggression throughout childhood, we know that not only do aggressive behaviors can emerge at an early age, they also tend to persist over time, without early prevention intervention (Broidy et al., 2003; Moffitt, 1993; Zigler, Taussig, & Black, 1992). The socialization of the male characteristics mentioned above also onsets at an early age making it a prime time-period for prevention intervention.”

The male psyche was made into a mental illness.

Then being White was made into a mental illness.

This, by Donald Moss, publishing in a peer reviewed journal:  

“Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function 2 either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.”

Kangaroo Courts

The quintessential nature of cancel culture  was Harvard’s suspension of Roland Fryer. His prodigious research on racial disparities revealed something the mainstream narrative wasn’t promoting:  

“This concerned me. I had been following the academic research on BLM for years (for example, here, here, here and here), and I had come to the conclusion that the claim upon which the whole movement rested—that police more readily shoot black people—was false. The data was unequivocal. It showed that, if anything, police were slightly less likely to use lethal force against black suspects than white ones. ”

Both Katz and Fryer were subject to sexual impropriety charges, and both had been punished for them. But neither was comparable to Harvey Weinstein. As a European I cannot fathom being punished for a consensual relationship (Katz) or some innocent flirtation (Fryer). The charges of sexual impropriety seems to have been a mask for the real “sin”: hurting the cause of racial reckoning and inconveniencing its narratives with facts. This is academic cancel culture and if you voice your opposition to cancellation, you’re likely next in the line of fire.

But the avalanche didn’t stop with racial reckoning. It was the setting of the stage where more speech would be defined as harmful by the far-left. Here the Floyd riots stop with 25 dead and at least $2 billion in property damage in mostly peaceful riots, Donald Trump is out of the office and Biden is the new president. It was calm on the surface, but the avalanche had only gained more momentum and expansiveness. The United States was awoken to racialization of the children and the re-introduction of racially segregating spaces and policies. Teachers, like Paul Rossi, who exposed the new anti-racist lessons the children were subjected to were fired. In the exposed frame of thought, even White children are perpetually oppressors. Critical Race Theory had been inducted into the curriculum with Ibram X. Kendian logical fallacies such as “The only remedy for present discrimination is future discrimination ” setting in a precedent for a perpetual cycle of vengeance in the name of justice.

Kendi & DiAngelo

After the star treatment given by mass media to Ibram X. Kendi, interested more with promoting narratives than the truth, standing against policies that were discriminatory and in their essence, demeaning to all people regardless of their racial or ethnic identities, became impossible. Would you so readily give up the livelihood you have had for a decade or more, studied, took student loans and made the craft an identity a part of you like a blacksmith of old, throw it in the fire by speaking against the reawakening of racial hostility, now in the name of “social justice”? Paul Rossi had the strength to do it and lost his livelihood. Merely being White was treated as a disease in mainstream academic journals after all, how could you have known that opposition was the right position after all?

But children were nonetheless exposed to the racial hatred of the anti-racist movement. It was labeled under the benign expression of having discussions that cause discomfort. Then another star entered the scene, Robin DiAngelo, who called the White folks resenting the racist treatment they received as having “White Fragility.” If you harbored resentment for a person for their ethnicity and skin color, you weren’t a racist if you weren’t white. If you are a White person who resented being called a racist, you were experiencing white fragility.

“White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This paper explicates the dynamics of White Fragility.”

Despite the meritless claims made by the White Fragility, its infliction of collective guilt was successful enough for it to become a bestseller.  Collective punishment is banned by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. 

Trans”phobia”

Trans culture & ideology then took the stage.  Colin Wright, a biologist arguing for the biological basis of sex, became the next example of what can happen to you if you criticize trans ideology (although there is a long list going back decades now, that includes Michael Bailey, Alice Dreger, Jesse Singal, and every feminist targeted as a “terf”). Designation of yet one more psychological disorder was to follow, this time as transphobia. Why? Because of publicly declaring that biology determines the difference between a male and a female. J. K. Rowling drew in the anger for defending the definition of a woman; Kathleen Stock for believing companies or institutions with public areas such as locker rooms can’t be entrusted to differentiate between a trans man and male just abusing the grey area for some voyeurism at this point in time.

Ideas Matter but Words are not Violence

What drives much of these examples of cancel culture is the the ideological posturing that words can be violence. But criticism, skepticism or being outright rude isn’t violence. Presenting truths that contradict the narratives of change aren’t betrayal of movements, but will ultimately help causes to root into reality. Because a sustainable reality is not a fad. Cancelling folks from climate skeptics to folks who serve to maintain the integrity of the cause is harm to the accumulation of collective knowledge

A Plea to the Unrighteous

But I don’t blame the young for cancellations. It’s the university administrators and the folks in businesses with position of power who enact cancellations for speech. Instead of disillusioning the young who believe activist talking points, they yield to them. So how to regain the function Universities, mass media, and other thought leaders supposedly serve? No one knows, and there are probably many answers. Unionization might provide some protection when employees are targeted by administrators and employers. More effective and more powerful watchdogs who strive for objectivity and due process are needed. Embrace skepticism so the next pebble won’t suck you in. As for the broader society, all I can do is to plea for the unrighteous masses to stop the avalanche (as they did by showing up in the thousands for Dorian Abbott’s canceled MIT talk). The landscape is already scarred. The unrighteous can help it heal.