Like a younger, gayer Winston Churchill, Milo Yiannopoulis (known as “Nero” on Twitter) has made a (long, hard-to-spell) name for himself charging his way ever further into the many present-day crises regarding the frailty and endurance of liberal culture; a culture by whose standards his politics are already far backwards, and nevertheless become a celebrated figure, his witticisms, perkiness and near impenetrable refinement charming even opponents.
However, there is more to the cult of Milo than simply
charisma. These days, your rank-and-file
political pundits—right or left—do
their best to be amusing, but usually cater only to those whose views they
share. Why, after all, should people pay
attention to a political opponent who can turn a phrase when there are
political allies to care about who can do it too? The answer, in the simplest terms, is that
Milo is happy to return the favor, and in the process, he has become more than
your rank-and-file political pundit.
Despite having become one of the most infamous public
faces of the GamerGate movement, the irony is that Yiannopoulis is,
by
his own admission, an outsider to it. As a conservative journalist, he’s not
obligated to take a side in what he sees as a civil war among liberals, as a
man without a history of playing video games, he wouldn’t seem to have a stake
in arguing how they ought to be made, as a Catholic, he’s hardly mandated to
stand against the constant charge that the pursuit of pleasure is making modern
people sinful, and as a rather flamboyant, immaculate and cushy-living gay
Englishman, he’s an odd candidate to defend hot-blooded hyper-masculinity. Yet in a world of political
activism whose big consistency is becoming disgusted at any perceived slights
or opponents, characterized by people who are all too willing to assume the
worst of those that offend their personal sensibilities and throw up walls
against them, Milo has opted instead to build bridges,
to jet all over the political landscape in search of conversation, and this breath
of fresh air has paid off.
These days, demonization of political opponents has
gone so far that it’s even led to scaremongering character-attacks on people
like Bill Maher for having slightly different opinions than their technical
political allies, and “disinvitation” is halting discourse, but Milo has no
such crippling fear and flight.
As
reported by the Los Angeles Times’ David Ng, he was so eager
to debate GamerGate with opponent Anita Sarkeesian that he even offered to pay
her or donate to a charity of her choice. (Although according
to Milo, he actually offered twice the amount Ng declared;
maybe there’s an error in conversion rates somewhere?) Sarkeesian didn’t accept the offer, but some
others one would expect to be bitter foes to Milo haven’t just talked to him,
but become friends.
One of these is Carl Benjamin,
better
known by his screenname, Sargon of Akkad. Sargon’s webseries features “This week in
stupid” videos, Jon Stewart-esque comedic jabs at absurdities on both the Left
and the Right (along with more serious philosophical videos), but also like
Stewart, there’s little doubt that he’s a liberal leftist, having taken a survey declaring
himself such, railed against the
Conservative Party’s misdeeds and proclaimed a desire for
cottage industry to return and seize the economy back from large corporations. One would expect the worst if someone with
such views ever chatted with an outspoken conservative, but he and Milo have gotten
on fine.
More recently, Milo reached out to feminist filmmaker
Cassie Jaye, whose views on gay marriage and undoubtedly other things are
against his. Jaye had been working on The Red Pill, a documentary investigating
the Men’s Rights Movement, her former benefactors had abandoned her once the
subject matter was getting too controversial and potentially offensive, and the
film was at risk for cancellation. It is
said that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but Milo had learned the ropes from
his experiences with GamerGate, and
signal-boosted
Cassie Jaye’s fall out of the good-graces of fellow feminists, as well as the
last resort crowdfunding she’d begun for the movie. Within a few days, the
film’s minimum was funded, reaching stretch goals soon after,
mainstream feminism lost a battle, and Milo and his allies admitted another
member to their textbook case of the axiom that politics make for strange
bedfellows.
The specific political bed that unites these uncommon
allies is their common opposition to censorship and no-platforming. For certain blowhards, of questionable number
but undeniable volume, ensuring the success of their contemporary political
goals trumps reverence to the broader liberal democratic traditions of free
speech and impartial debate, but Milo’s rise to prominence has led many back to
that exciting political climate of the early enlightenment, where political
ideas were not yet social axioms, not yet laws, often not even discussed by
actual politicians yet, but the source of many interesting philosophical discussions
by hobbyists in salons, coffee shops, and fraternal lodges, and as Breitbart
Tech launched,
he
took to YouTube and hosted a conversational stream lasting over seven hours, to
which people from all over the political spectrum were invited. There were disagreements to be had, and Milo
even argued with fellow conservatives over the merits of Donald Trump, but
throughout it all, the participants maintained an atmosphere of civility, the
likes of which some on college campuses these days might think impossible.
Meanwhile, even as Milo has gone out of his way to
find common ground with people who would once be assumed his enemies, he has
also upheld his anti-censorship principles by calling to task his nominal
allies. When GamerGate fell into Milo’s
lap and gave him a rare opportunity to be a conservative inductee into the
ultra-modernist world of electronic entertainment, he could have used the
fervor of the moment just to slam left-wing activists who’d run afoul of many
people; after all, a huge part of political campaigning is playing up the
misdeeds of one’s opponents, while sweeping one’s own side’s dirt under the
rug. Instead, though, he’s acknowledged
the Right has a history of anti-pleasure moral crusaders, such as in an
article
where he pointed out the similarities in rhetoric and tactics between feminist
Anita Sarkeesian and Christian-Rightist Jack Thompson. Later, as he
reflected on more time with the movement, he explained, “The Right hates gamers because it blames games for
real-world violence. The Left now hates them because progressives have come to
accuse video games, bizarrely, of somehow being able to make people sexist.”
What this bipartisan criticism
represents is, once again, a commitment to freedom of expression—which protects
both speech, and the creation of media, like video games--and standing up to
all who oppose it, whatever their justification. This is a value many liberals share, even
while some prominent members of the left have gone the other way. While the press has been willing to
characterize GamerGate’s attitudes as right-wing because the people GamerGate
harshly criticizes are
left-wing, it should be
remembered that they’re left-wing journalists, and it’s
questionable how much they represent the overall soul of the left when no less
a figure than President
Barrack Obama himself has also come out against the alarming trend of
no-platforming one’s political opponents. Does that mean he’ll agree with Milo
Yiannopoulis and even the more liberal wings of GamerGate on everything? Of course not, but agreeing on everything
isn’t the point. The point is to preserve a
western culture built on diverse ideas, fight back against presumptuous claims
that some of those ideas are not just distressing, but dangerous to some
people, and assert that the best policies arise out of dialectic between ideas. E pluribus unum is a canonized
statement in America for a reason.
With all of this overwhelming promotion of Milo Yiannopoulis and his adventures in culture warfare, one may
be tempted to believe I am a gung-ho supporter who hangs on and repeats his every
word. This is not the case; in fact, I
am a social liberal, economically left-of-center and I share none of his
religious ideals. I cannot co-sign on
his regressive tax proposals, and I found it embarrassing to watch him on
The Rubin Report trying to rationalize his Catholic opposition to gay marriage as being
in the best interests of the gay community.
Yes; I will share Milo’s articles and retweet his tweets when I think he
has a point, but the experience is, rather like a rollercoaster, a twisted mix
of empowering and scary. I’d be lying if
I said that at times, I didn’t resent having a man with a fair amount of openly
reactionary attitudes fighting on my behalf for what I and many other see as a
liberal value, and there are no-doubt people on the Left (or even on the Right)
who suspect that Milo is simply trying to carpetbag nerds into becoming more
right-wing.
However, those who allege Milo’s
carrying out some diabolical, terrifyingly effective conspiracy hatched in
secret are, in fact, giving him far too much credit. Milo’s “recruit the ronin” policy really
depends on the existence of ronin, and in many cases, that existence is due to
their being disowned by former left-wing allies on the basis of far lesser
disagreements than Milo has with them.
The most disturbing thing about the runaway success of Milo Yiannopoulis
is that there’s nothing about his successful modus operandi that liberals
couldn’t do themselves, and given their far greater alignment with modern
culture, it’s very arguable they could be even more effective at gaining
support—and yet, many have opted not to do it.
Speaking as a liberal leftist (though admittedly becoming more
uncomfortable with the latter designation), who does, in fact, have a vested
interest in promoting my politics, I openly declare that the Left could use a
lot more people like Milo Yiannopoulis.
By this, I do not mean people opposed to gay marriage, abortion,
feminism, and progressive taxes, but simply people who don’t treat their own
political bias as so high and mighty that it warrants a dehumanizing and
silencing embargo against anyone who disagrees, even when they disagree only a
little bit. To be sure, there are plenty
on the Left who agree with that, but not enough of them in high places. A few have stepped up, such as David Pakman
and Jonathan Chait, but we need more; including, preferably, people who up
until now have engaged in counter-productive othering.
The following is a challenge to
all the high and mighty on the liberal left alarmed by the rise of Milo
Yiannopoulis: Open the gates. If your
positions are so obviously correct, intelligent and broadly-supported as you
maintain, then surely you wouldn’t have anything to lose from meeting with
those people you’re currently ostracizing and starting to discuss things. Your zero-tolerance tactics have backfired
and more and more people are sick of them.
If you keep your ideals on this self-destructive course, don’t say I
didn’t warn you.
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