Will The New Culture-Wars Wreck the Leftist/Liberal Alliance?

For those skeptical, the short answer is probably no.  Nevertheless, I think it's time we have a talk.

For some of us (not myself, but more on that later), what felt like one of most poignant examples of left-wing cultural shaming in years came in the form of 2014's The Lego Movie; pictured above. (Actually, a film within the film is pictured above; the actual movie's comedy is much better.)  After a short-but-dramatic prologue, the film opens in the life of Emmet Brickowski; a dopey, vacuously giddy peon living and working in Bricksburg, a glossy but nearly-as-dopey dystopia run by the bureaucratic dictator President Business, whose citizens' minds appear to have been proactively numbed into impotence by inanely optimistic pop-songs (actually; just one inanely optimistic pop-song that plays endlessly) and the one-meme sitcom pictured above.

Fortunately, the movie's satire isn't actually all that one-sided.  In due time, the film also points out some things that are beneficial about this environment; its big failing just being that it's a dictatorship, and jokes are made at the expense of the pretentiously pessimistic and avante-garde with as much enthusiasm as they're made at Emmet's empty but comfortable life.  The Lego Movie is probably one of those rare works that makes fun of all sorts of things and people while not really hating on any of them, and I love it for that; among other things.  Yet the amount of people who have concluded differently; both critical of the film (as with Fox News, whose critique I am not linking) and fond of it, is rather revealing of broader trends that have always been brimming within our culture and have up until recently avoided scrutiny.

Authoritarian cultural whinging from moral conservatives; typically of a religious persuasion, has become well-known to our society.  From dancing to rock and roll to Playboy to Dungeons and Dragons to Pokemon to Harry Potter, birth-control to pre-marital straight sex to promiscuous straight sex to gay sex, drink to drugs, religious old fogeys have constantly condemned pleasure-centric popular culture in deference to religion's greatest built-in asset against innovation and free-thinking; prophetic fear-mongering.  Whether it's called Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Ragnarok, Kali Yuga or any number of other things, fanatics have maintained that the falcon is being lured further and further from the falconer, until society becomes so sinful the world will end and the select few will be judged worthy to ascend to the kingdom of Heaven.  Fortunately, as liberalism and science have consistently made our kingdom of Earth increasingly more heavenly, we've increasingly ignored these sanctimonious old bores, and they may have met their functional Waterloo last decade, when George W. Bush's application of divine right to patriotism led to some very unpopular policies both at home and abroad, and we saw one rapture prediction after another proven resoundingly false.  The deaths of Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps probably helped, too.

Yet even as we have sneered down our noses at the once-loud; now ever-softer Religious-Right authoritarians bemoaning the supposedly degenerate state of our popular culture, another bout of moaning has been coming in from another direction; occasionally satirized but not, until recently, recognized for the danger it potentially is.  Largely associated with what have become known as hipsters, the idea that bread and circuses (to borrow an old Roman term for "spit in the bucket") have neutralized us has never been far away from self-assumed rebels acting in the name of progress and liberation.  To their credit, I believe many of these people do sincerely believe that; they are not religious fundamentalists in sheep's clothing--at least not to any official religion.  What they are, however, is so obsessed with the romantic rebellious notion of going against the grain, that they do so without thinking of whence or wherefore that grain came; it's not always from the same old discredited religious ideals, and in many modern cases is, in fact, from their own.

There was a time in intellectual history when free-market capitalism was considered a radical idea.  A time where the idea that someone should attain wealth from hard work and merit flew in the face of the long-standing tradition of landed nobility hording it, a time when state-sanctioned merchants had the unique power to exchange goods between nations, driving their monopolistic prices to levels only such grandfathered-in aristocrats could afford.  When capitalism rode into intellectual favor with liberalism and democracy, it's not even an exaggeration to say that it was, in essence, the "socialism" of its time; the lofty but always desirable ideal that economic power, just like political power, should belong to the masses.  Unfortunately, some years and industrial technology later, there was also a time when the free market seemed to be undermining itself, as those who succeeded from it bought up the means of success until they were in short supply for others, and then reduced the others to cogs in mass-production.  Fortunately, pragmatic regulations and sub-state organizing for economic justice have largely saved the system, but from that grim-but-departed era of Carnegie, Dickens and Marx, more recent left-wing cynics have unearthed the premature conclusion that capitalism is inevitably oppressive, and applied it to capitalism's unique brand of culture.

The result, especially when taken to its logical (and, when a defense of contested culture is mounted by the contented, probably inevitable) extreme, thus becomes eerily similar to the old argument of religiously-minded critics; while they hollered slogans along the line of "The degenerate liberal media is making you sinful; repent before Satan takes our souls!" progressive critics have warned "The fascist corporate media is making you stupid; wake up before we're all subjugated!"  I am sad to admit that among the latter critics was my father, a product of the 1960s who, in his worse moments, blamed my supposed brainwashing by this supposed fascist corporate media for everything from my insistence that eating an apple would not sate my appetite for chocolate, to my association of organ music with the horror genre of literature.

This ongoing cynical idea of popular culture and its media being somehow "fascist" is probably the key reason that the few remaining arch-conservative satanism alarmists, via their presumptuous "Illuminati" theories, managed to recruit a disturbing amount of anti-authority/anti-war youth as an audience last decade, in probably the most shameful trend of counter-culture I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing.  Hopefully, most of these young rebels eventually realized that ironically, religious Rightists on the fringes of society had co-opted their anger at a religious rightist in the White House, but I still see things that make me think many haven't.

I got this forum response because I like Cars 2.

While progressive and conservative social critics naturally have their differences in how they process culture to fit their own biases, both in essence can and do arrive at warcries that boil down to "stop enjoying these things I dislike", and insist upon creating a higher culture that fosters higher ideals; however they define "higher".  Yet even as the twin viper heads of the authoritarian horseshoe snap at it from the right and the left, popular culture continues on its merry, liberal way.  While mass-media, like any institution wielding great power, comes naturally under skepticism, including plenty from liberals, in fact it, in a way perhaps unsurpassed by any other byproduct of capitalism, has had a positive association with those ideas widely seen as liberal, and in fact, progressive, for quite a while.

Consider, for example, popular music in egalitarian terms.  Almost since the dawn of recording technology, via such historical music genres as jazz, blues, rock, soul, funk, disco and rap, it has conveyed and glorified the talents of African Americans to American society as a whole; often well ahead of the time government and other mossy well-established institutions were willing to accept black people as having perfectly functional brains.  Naysayers may point to to the constant influx of white artists into these once-black genres as evidence of some top-down takeover, and yet onward through the present day, black innovators always come back to music, and many are rich.  Black power also broke into movies en-masse in the 1970s, which also saw the rise of feminism in cinema; sometimes, as in Pam Grier's case, within a single film.  Rather counter-intuitive policies for a media supposedly interested in propping up the established power-brokers!

For many, the 1980s were the loudest decade yet for popular culture; in essence facilitated by the pro-capitalist policies of Reagan's New Right Coalition.  Going by rabid anti-capitalist cynicism, this should have mean their collective values dug themselves in to establish an intellectually-strangling conformity, and yet even then, myriad pop songs critical of the era's prevailing right-wing culture were allowed in; The Message, Money For Nothing, Material Girl, and The Future's So Bright; to name a few.

In the 1990s, even as the Reagan era's D.A.R.E. garbage continued to be taught in state-funded schools, Sublime was conquering the radio waves with marijuana-friendly messages, and this has just snow-balled from there.  By the 2000s, another very conservative era insofar as official politics, the vocally pro-marijuana Jack Black was considered a fine casting choice for children's movies.  Now, as more and more states move towards legalizing marijuana, it is little accident that a news show has emerged noting its lucrative potential.

Finally, this decade gave us Mackelmore, whose 2011 gay rights anthem "Same Love" took the charts by storm.  At the time, gay marriage was still banned in California.  Shortly after, it was lifted here, as in some other states.  Then, yesterday, gay marriage was legalized nationwide.

Make no mistake; it's not my intention to ride capitalism enthusiastically.  I think it has its problems, and I'm happy to talk about them another time.  Yet while one of its less pleasant elements is its embrace of amoral values in the name of personal gain, as even proponents like Adam Smith and Ayn Rand allowed, the upside of amorality is that businesses realize "holier than thou" attitudes don't appeal to the masses.  On the contrary, as no person can spend as much money as every person, businesses keep their fingers on the pulse of the nation, and reflect people's desires with what they sell.  The inconvenient truth for liberals who are also leftists, and have a knee-jerk reaction against anything related to the free market, is that in the area of culture, that free market made its peace with the beat generation, complete with all of its sexual deviation, hazing, loud music, mock-satanism, raunchy attitudes, and even egalitarianism, a long time ago.  Far from the allegations that mass-media is just a tool for the political and economic elites to hand down authoritarianism from on-high, it has served oftentimes to amplify people's desires for liberty and justice far faster than they reach legally elected representatives and the writing of bills.

Yet still, radical leftists, many who also consider themselves liberals, continue to attack consumer-driven pop culture, banning pop songs the masses voted into prominence with their money, digging up old right-wing talking-points about violent video games, and other tiresome dreck, and finally, perhaps because the old moral authoritarians on the Right no longer scare anyone, people on the same political side are turning against them.  Once again, I don't believe that this means the Leftist/Liberal alliance is about to collapse.  I am not convinced the political Right has become devoid of its old gallery of moral authoritarians since it fell out of favor, and should they let these old scoundrels out of their sleeves come 2016, I still see the alliance between social liberalism and economic leftism enduring.  Still, it has never been more obvious that this alliance is not the only one imaginable.  If the Left still hasn't resolved its internal turmoil within the next four years, I may be saying something very different, and resolving this turmoil means in essence moving away from the obsession with "punching up" at the products of popular culture.  Ultimately, this culture is a liberal invention, so while those shenanigans go on, the Left is essentially punching itself.

Yes; I Find Rachel Dolezal Offensive--and Here's Why

This is the second time I used this strip for a blog post, and it's still relevant.

If you don't know who Rachel Dolezal is by now, I don't even know what link to point to for your education; she's such a big news story these days that you can just look her up and get this basic bit: Rachel Dolezal is a black woman who has led the Spokane branch of the NAACP, except not exactly, because as her parents recently revealed, Rachel is actually white.  She put in a lot of effort to look black (with questionable success), but she was born white, and in her cover came to a position of authority.

Now despite our culture's longstanding obsession with making fun of "wiggers", as evidenced by such things as the comic above, that Offspring song, and my personal favorite example, Malibu's Most Wanted, I'd be willing to consign Dolezal to the "mostly harmless" pile.  It's embarrassing, but it's also, like many audacious acts, somewhat funny in its bizarreness and almost impressive when viewed solely through the lens of individualism.  As a gamer, I have stepped into the shoes of two black men, having made a 1970s-ish, Shaft-like black action characters in two different RPGs (among others, like a blonde valley girl, a Japanese schoolgirl, and a lizardman), because I find such characters cool.  That's likely a manifestation of our refusal, as a species, to accept the hand Mother Nature has dealt us; we use whatever means possible to master our own fates, and therefor someone willing to take the next step and actually turn into a (rather light) black person in reality probably has some value in our culture of self-made men and women (and some things in between), as it pushes that envelope to new lengths.  Again, I can give props to brash, upwardly mobile individualism, if nothing else.  Unfortunately, that's not the area of accomplishment Rachel Dolezal chose to stay in; she used her transformation to gain power in the collective black lobby, and that is where I draw the line.

See, with that natural human drive for the improving one's own lot comes the inevitability of those who are willing to climb over others to achieve it; leaving those others' less in control of their own upward mobility, and sometimes whole races climb over each other, as is the context that exists in recent history between whites and blacks.  No; I'm not guilting Rachel's family for what their ancestors might have inflicted on black people, but the fact is, some white people did; they brought most ancestral black Americans to the country as slaves, and blacks are still being born into the aftermath of that dark history, to black families that tend not to have as much money or political influence as white ones.  It would be lovely if that weren't the case, and dark skin vs light skin had no more implications than green shirts vs brown shirts, and I think we are moving in that direction, but the NAACP exists to confront the ills of that hopefully-departing situation wherein someone's mere bloodline can screw them over for life.

This biological inevitability was a running theme throughout almost every traditional ideal of tolerance and egalitarianism that I, and probably many others, have been taught for my whole life.  The idea is that if someone is born a certain color, or with certain eye shapes, or in some unfortunate cases, with deformities like hunchbacks, it's wrong to punish them for that which they had no control over; if their appearance bothers you, at least be kind and not voice that, and do not assume they can't do a job as well as those who look more "normal" to you, etc.  It was taught with regard to race even at my conservative redneck school district, and since then, the gay community has adopted similar arguments about biological inevitability, as in Lady Gaga's gay anthem, "Born This Way".  Of course, this idea that seems traditional to us was, at one time, a radical notion; prior to its rise in popularity decades of bigotry propped up the very situation of inequality that the NAACP has always fought against.  As its name suggests, it aims to empower those people who, because of their lineage, have been dis-empowered elsewhere.

Rachel Dolezal, in how she has approached this, flies in the face of all that.  Her racial fluidity goes against the conventional (in the modern era) "born this way" philosophy so often cited when preaching non-discrimination, but beyond that, it speaks to the same old regrettable situation of power vs weakness.  Rachel has had the opportunity to alter her appearance through various thorough methods; darkening her skin (somewhat) and frizzing her hair, a self-transforming opportunity not shared by many of the people the NAACP represents, who are struggling enough with ordinary situations.  In certain other situations, I might be willing at least to give Rachel more credit than, say, non-whites who try to make themselves look white for advancement in a white culture; as it's easier to imagine someone is unselfish when "becoming" a race they know might lessen their ease of life in some scenarios.  Unfortunately, Rachel chose to enter one of those scenarios where darker skin helps one's credibility, and because, as stated above, the NAACP exists to give blacks a sort of positive discrimination in order to compensate for the negative discrimination that has marginalized them elsewhere, and in doing so, has potentially undermined the NAACP's positive discrimination.  Now, "potentially" doesn't mean definitely, but it's not worth the risk when her position could've been put to better use empowering a poorer, naturally black person.

Now, in case you weren't sure, I'm white, so why am I here vouching for black advancement against possible white usurpers?  It certainly isn't because I'm interested in being politically-correct; I care nothing for that upward battle of checking my privilege and flagellating my peachy flesh to maybe gain a slightly greater standing in the minds of idealogues obsessed with the oppressed and hateful towards those WASPs who have only in relatively recent history stood to be the default "oppressors". 

However, I allow that part of the reason for this is that I'm not very privileged, because instead of just a white man, I'm an autistic white man.  I've known hardship resulting from discrimination and intolerance my whole life, and despite all those "resources for parents" groups all-but creating the illusion that only children are autistic, that life is now pushing three decades.  At this point in it, at least some segments of our society have become fixated upon autism, but the most disturbing trend, as noted in an article I'm citing for the second time here on The Nonpartisan, is the lack of actual autistic people getting a say in how we're approached and "helped" in society.  It's not just the outrageously misnamed "Autism Speaks"; I constantly run up against organizations that talk down to me and don't have any of my sort in their actual staff.  There is not yet anything resembling a National Association for the Advancement of Autistic People (an "N Triple-A CP" if you will); at least not in terms of broad societal clout.

So naturally, I take strong personal stance on the necessity of marginalized groups to be their own advocates; as opposed to outsiders claiming to speak for them, but even though it's partially personal, I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.  Race is not bling; it's not just something you put on like a fine suit when you want to look more legitimate for a position of power, and doing so is especially vile when you're depriving someone who needs it much more.  There may come a day (presumably a day Rachel Dolezal would like) when things are different; a day when we've all committed the idea that it doesn't matter what others look like so thoroughly to second-nature that it will stop mattering what we look like as well, and with the help of some as-yet unknown super science, we waltz from appearance to appearance in a manner today befitting of RPG characters and forum avatars.  Yet that would be the day (or even past the day) groups like the NAACP cease being necessary, and not only do I see such groups as still being very-much necessary, I assert that we could use some more like them.  That leaves open plenty of things that Rachel Dolezal can do to help--but deceiving people isn't one them.

The GamerGate in Bay Area Story You DIDN'T Hear

I'm the guy in the low center-left with a teal shirt and green pants.

 A full week ago now, members of the infamous politicized consumerist group, #GamerGate (I practically think of the pound sign as essential, considering how much it does on Twitter), myself included, congregated in the Original Gravity Pub in San Jose, California, to talk about issues in press ethics and about the schism in liberal thought, drink beer, and of course, play some games, like Pokemon and some adult-themed card game whose name escapes me.

It seems to be about building an anime woman harem.

It was overall a successful meetup, if a bit too chaotic to facilitate many close friendships in itself, but unfortunately, it has become notorious to many, because at some point in the event,  the prominent and controversial GamerGate member, Slade Vilena, tweeted a mocking threat to Randi Harper.  Since creating a module for the Blockbot, used to target, smear and potentially blacklist people associated with GamerGate, Randi Harper has become one of GamerGate's most hated foes, but most of us would rather ignore her.

The tweet was a mocking reference to a recent bogus report of GamerGate performing a drive-by shooting in Oakland, which quickly became a running joke for being reported by a man(?) of questionable credibility, at an intersection that didn't exist, and so many involved, probably including Harper, understood there wasn't any real danger.  Unfortunately, because of the months-long narrative by biased media, of GamerGate being a terrorist group, and the potential of such tweets to play GamerGate right into said media's hands, the Bay Area event has been deemed by some as a setback for GamerGate, and much has been said about the mini-scandal.  Rather than adding another redundant voice, I want to relay an uplifting story to offset all the negativity.

Leading up to the event, I was asking around for rides.  This is partially because I don't know my way around San Jose, partially because my phone no longer has room for transport apps, and partially because I don't usually carry cash, so getting bus fair is a bit of a chore for me.  Also, I was hoping to take a trip with other "Gators" to San Francisco.  This became more dire because somehow, I forgot to pack my phone charger.  At the airport, and then, at a little transport hub reached via a free shuttle service to the airport, my phone was nearly dying, and all my hopes hung on a guy I was communicating with on Twitter.  It took an hour of frantic tweet correspondence, but the guy kept to his offer and he and his wife eventually pulled up in their old but well-kept 1990s Toyota sedan.  Then, they were generous enough to drive me to a CVS to get a charger, and even patient when I took too long to find a suitable substitute for Nausene, a medicine I tend to stay stocked on; just in case trouble strikes with upsetting restaurant food.

Charging at last! (Note the colors.)

This man who picked me up was also in communication with another GGINBayArea attendant (really, with all of the attendants, but only a few responded) to go out for pizza.  We were set to search for a good place, but as he took me to my hotel; the second car ride he provided me, his wife in the car got a text.  Her sister had checked into the hospital for some reason, and he resolved that he had to cancel the night's engagement.  If need be, he said he might not come to the official event the next day, either.  So we went our separate ways, and I ate alone that night.

As it turns out, he did show up the next day.  But the amount of his own time and desires this man was willing to sacrifice, both for myself, and then for his wife and sister-in-law, inspired me, and I felt I just had to share it; especially in light of the more negative side of the event that got so much publicity. (In fact, I wish I had gotten around to it sooner.)  It flies in the face of the narrative that GamerGate (or, even worse, just the video gamer community in general) is comprised of selfish men with a disdain towards women and their interests, and we owe a salute to this Gator who demonstrated one of the best faces yet for the group.  It has been said that people get accused of murder on the front page, and acquitted of murder on the backpage.  I hope to tilt that balance.