The passage about an imagined 23-year old is bogus. Speaking as someone who was actually growing up as a white man in the early 2000s, I remember the times well. The idea that we were constantly being told we were racist, sexist, and homophobic by teachers flies in the face of most people's school experience. Let's not forget who was President during this time (and that his party controlled congress for most of his presidency).
If you're going to try to fabricate the experience of a younger person, at least do your research first.
It’s important to me that you understand that the hypothetical you propose about young men in 2016 is so dumb that it invalidates any inkling of a good point you may present through the rest of this essay. I’m about that same age. It is pure fantasy. I will never understand why conservatives feel so compelled to invent nonsense hypotheticals to be scared about.
Also: Do not trust right-wing faux scholarly discourse. This fever dream is just as false 10 minutes, days, weeks, or months ago as it was 10 years ago. Where do they come up with all these fake ideas to be upset about, anyway?
"Imagine the plight of, let us say, a 23-year-old young man in the year 2016. Imagine that he’s been told every single day from kindergarten through the end of college that he’s racist, sexist, and homophobic by virtue of being white, male, and heterosexual. Further imagine that he was falsely diagnosed by his teachers in grade school with ADD/ADHD and put on Ritalin because, well, he’s an active boy. And then his teachers tell him when he’s 12 that he might not actually be a boy, but rather that he might be a girl trapped in boy’s body. And let us also not forget that he’s also been told by his teachers and professors that the country his parents taught him to love was actually founded in sin and is therefore evil. To top it all off: he didn’t get into the college and then the law school of his choice despite having test scores well above those who did."
I am a white male in this age cohort. This telling is so remarkably divorced from reality that it can only be described as lunacy. I don't know what corners of the internet you have to spend all your time on to convince yourself that this is the case for even a small minority of American boys. It is extremely alarming to say the least.
5-4-3-2-1--Here comes Team Soros, as predicted. Within a ten-minute period 10+ commenters come on board all saying the same thing. Weird that. Coordinated? Surely not!?!?!
Soros. HAHAHAHA. Jesus Christ, man, get some new material. Literally no one on "the left" gives a shit about Soros. Is it possible, in some reality, that you just have absolutely shit takes and zero ability to grow from criticism? Hmm...........
You’re both kidding, right? That whole deranged fantasy about the 23 year old is completely bonkers. Is this what passes for serious discourse on the right now?
Hey, congrats on being able to write a completely deranged and fictitious piece of prose like this and still have the audacity to have "intellectual" in your title. Just absolute kudos on the bravado!
The "intellectual" part I don't dispute. I dispute the "redneck" part. You see fundamentally the "redneck" works in "red ocean" industries...these control him in large part by a bureaucratic focus on "safety" either thru OSHA or the DOT. But Elon Musk is "blue ocean" and almost "John Gault". Now Elon Musk has gone and bred with a lot of women, and he is very interested in simultaneously allowing the mind to thrive while at the same time retaining "control". Also Elon Musk is in a fight with his daughter Vivian. But I think it is impossible to do "blue ocean" type business without freeing up a lot of expression. Elon is in search for a post modern version of the philosopher king...or the space marine...a marine who is red ocean in terms of safety...but also philosophically creative. It is extremely difficult to get an engineer /artist...So for Elon going to Mars and sort of trying to channel the direction of transhumanism(progressivism)...that is a radical task. So a lot of politicians are basically ignoring you because they are focused on wooing Elon Musk. So to woo Elon Musk they attack "trans" people. But the redneck doesn't necessarily care about Elon or Vivian. But this is sort of a boring Ohio answer...there just aren't many trans people and trans people are living "blue ocean" lives which is in a sense good for them. I can see why Budlight celebrates the "redocean" or traditional redneck drinker...and why it celebrates the "blue ocean" trans person. That said I don't think the trans community as a branch of the transhumanist community drinks that much beer or bud light. Budlight just wants to be edgy to increase margins so people will somehow forget that it is essentially an old commodity. That is if you work at the budlight plant you might be a redneck. Now if you launched the trans ad campaign at Budlight you might be a redneck intellectual.
I spend a lot of time on that and I can't get there from here with the US as currently constituted. We would have to ditch the Empire and probably divide the country.
Ideas have consequences, and ideas come principally from the universities. Didn't Ayn Rand make this exact point numerous times? I am sure she would have agreed with anyone who made this claim, Marxist or otherwise. It seems Rufo's fundamental problem is that he wants to seize the means of idea-transmission but doesn't have a coherent assemblage of ideas to transmit. Will the universities be the idea-transmitters of the future? "Bad Cattitude" has a good letter today: He says the elite universities are "over" but don't realize it. The best and brightest students are disintermediating the Ivy League, and this trend will accelerate. Call it "just walk away" at the university level. I remain open to this and other possible solutions. Worth a read, and you'll get a laugh:
None of this may matter. Trump's madhouse is invalidating MAGA by the hour, demonstrating far more effectively than the opposition could the incompetence and wrecking ball lunacy of the Establishment's opposition. Populism is being strangled in the cradle, and the Alt Right, the Far Right, the Almost Never Right will perish along with it. Gramsci Shmanci--young Rufo can say and do what he wants, but with human capital like this to work with, the Left has little to worry about.
The passage about an imagined 23-year old is bogus. Speaking as someone who was actually growing up as a white man in the early 2000s, I remember the times well. The idea that we were constantly being told we were racist, sexist, and homophobic by teachers flies in the face of most people's school experience. Let's not forget who was President during this time (and that his party controlled congress for most of his presidency).
If you're going to try to fabricate the experience of a younger person, at least do your research first.
“And then his teachers tell him when he’s 12 that he might not actually be a boy, but rather that he might be a girl trapped in boy’s body.”
This has the strongest ‘and then everybody clapped’ energy ever
Not a single teacher has ever done *anything* like this.
It all just randomly happened for no reason.
It’s important to me that you understand that the hypothetical you propose about young men in 2016 is so dumb that it invalidates any inkling of a good point you may present through the rest of this essay. I’m about that same age. It is pure fantasy. I will never understand why conservatives feel so compelled to invent nonsense hypotheticals to be scared about.
Right? They always give away the fatal flaw, snapping defeat from the jaws of victory.
Imagine the plight of imagining things that have never happened.
"Imagine the plight of, let us say, a 23-year-old young man in the year 2016."
Yeah, we have to imagine it, because it's all fucking deranged manufactured bullshit.
Great post with a good lesson: do not trust 70 year olds about what 20-somethings were up to 10 years ago.
Also: Do not trust right-wing faux scholarly discourse. This fever dream is just as false 10 minutes, days, weeks, or months ago as it was 10 years ago. Where do they come up with all these fake ideas to be upset about, anyway?
I was 28 in 2016 and this is actually complete bullshit
"Imagine the plight of, let us say, a 23-year-old young man in the year 2016. Imagine that he’s been told every single day from kindergarten through the end of college that he’s racist, sexist, and homophobic by virtue of being white, male, and heterosexual. Further imagine that he was falsely diagnosed by his teachers in grade school with ADD/ADHD and put on Ritalin because, well, he’s an active boy. And then his teachers tell him when he’s 12 that he might not actually be a boy, but rather that he might be a girl trapped in boy’s body. And let us also not forget that he’s also been told by his teachers and professors that the country his parents taught him to love was actually founded in sin and is therefore evil. To top it all off: he didn’t get into the college and then the law school of his choice despite having test scores well above those who did."
I am a white male in this age cohort. This telling is so remarkably divorced from reality that it can only be described as lunacy. I don't know what corners of the internet you have to spend all your time on to convince yourself that this is the case for even a small minority of American boys. It is extremely alarming to say the least.
5-4-3-2-1--Here comes Team Soros, as predicted. Within a ten-minute period 10+ commenters come on board all saying the same thing. Weird that. Coordinated? Surely not!?!?!
Bullseye. Target hit.
Thanks for visiting.
I'm not Team Soros . I'm a teacher and a Republican voter. And your paragraph about what boys experience in school is flatly false.
Soros. HAHAHAHA. Jesus Christ, man, get some new material. Literally no one on "the left" gives a shit about Soros. Is it possible, in some reality, that you just have absolutely shit takes and zero ability to grow from criticism? Hmm...........
C. Bradley Throwatempertantrum
What a colossal waste of time reading you. Sigh.
Once again, an excellent essay, Brad!
It would be interesting to hear a discussion between you and Mr. Rufo (among others of similar ilk), as it relates to these issues.
Keep up the great work!! 👍👍
Thanks, DJ.
You’re both kidding, right? That whole deranged fantasy about the 23 year old is completely bonkers. Is this what passes for serious discourse on the right now?
You have a great imagination, Bradley.
Love this article. It is similar to how I reflect in my series, Letters to the Forgetful Republic.
https://jaysthoughtcriminal.substack.com/p/letter-ii-on-fidelity-to-the-forgotten
Thanks!
Hey, congrats on being able to write a completely deranged and fictitious piece of prose like this and still have the audacity to have "intellectual" in your title. Just absolute kudos on the bravado!
Thanks! Much appreciated for your kind words.
The "intellectual" part I don't dispute. I dispute the "redneck" part. You see fundamentally the "redneck" works in "red ocean" industries...these control him in large part by a bureaucratic focus on "safety" either thru OSHA or the DOT. But Elon Musk is "blue ocean" and almost "John Gault". Now Elon Musk has gone and bred with a lot of women, and he is very interested in simultaneously allowing the mind to thrive while at the same time retaining "control". Also Elon Musk is in a fight with his daughter Vivian. But I think it is impossible to do "blue ocean" type business without freeing up a lot of expression. Elon is in search for a post modern version of the philosopher king...or the space marine...a marine who is red ocean in terms of safety...but also philosophically creative. It is extremely difficult to get an engineer /artist...So for Elon going to Mars and sort of trying to channel the direction of transhumanism(progressivism)...that is a radical task. So a lot of politicians are basically ignoring you because they are focused on wooing Elon Musk. So to woo Elon Musk they attack "trans" people. But the redneck doesn't necessarily care about Elon or Vivian. But this is sort of a boring Ohio answer...there just aren't many trans people and trans people are living "blue ocean" lives which is in a sense good for them. I can see why Budlight celebrates the "redocean" or traditional redneck drinker...and why it celebrates the "blue ocean" trans person. That said I don't think the trans community as a branch of the transhumanist community drinks that much beer or bud light. Budlight just wants to be edgy to increase margins so people will somehow forget that it is essentially an old commodity. That is if you work at the budlight plant you might be a redneck. Now if you launched the trans ad campaign at Budlight you might be a redneck intellectual.
You more correctly identify the villains but Rufo has the tactics. As to the strategy, time will tell
Like you I have an affinity for the Founders but I fear that ship has sailed.
Then let us think more seriously about how we can restore the founders' liberalism for the 21st century!
I spend a lot of time on that and I can't get there from here with the US as currently constituted. We would have to ditch the Empire and probably divide the country.
Ideas have consequences, and ideas come principally from the universities. Didn't Ayn Rand make this exact point numerous times? I am sure she would have agreed with anyone who made this claim, Marxist or otherwise. It seems Rufo's fundamental problem is that he wants to seize the means of idea-transmission but doesn't have a coherent assemblage of ideas to transmit. Will the universities be the idea-transmitters of the future? "Bad Cattitude" has a good letter today: He says the elite universities are "over" but don't realize it. The best and brightest students are disintermediating the Ivy League, and this trend will accelerate. Call it "just walk away" at the university level. I remain open to this and other possible solutions. Worth a read, and you'll get a laugh:
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-universities-are-over?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=323914&post_id=161310209&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=bfni4&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
None of this may matter. Trump's madhouse is invalidating MAGA by the hour, demonstrating far more effectively than the opposition could the incompetence and wrecking ball lunacy of the Establishment's opposition. Populism is being strangled in the cradle, and the Alt Right, the Far Right, the Almost Never Right will perish along with it. Gramsci Shmanci--young Rufo can say and do what he wants, but with human capital like this to work with, the Left has little to worry about.