Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Political Courage

There is one thing that modern political movements, such a #MeToo, Antifa, and #MarchforOurlives have that previous, more substantive historical movements, e.g. abolition, civil rights, fair labor laws, etc. lacked: fashion. Likewise there is something that the historical movements had that their contemporary counterparts lack: courage.

Marches on Washington in which a speaker addresses a gathering of hundreds of thousands of like-minded and approving activists, with the support of mass media and pop culture figures takes little courage. The payoff is not in achieving the stated goals of the underlying movement but in garnering the accolades of fellow travelers, all withing the safety of popular emotional trends. The courage of the mob really isn't courage, it is pandering.

If someone asserts that they are courageous for standing up to the "patriarchy," or "fascists," or the "gun lobby," ask them if they would continue to do so if it meant being labelled a racist, by one's peers. would they still be courageous? The neighbors of the San Bernadino killers weren't. The Broward county school district wasn't. the police in Rotherham weren't either. Emotional trendiness is not courage. If someone asserts that there is nothing more important than school safety, ask them if they support doing research into all of the factors that might bear upon teenage violence including race, single parent families, psychological history and drug use. Would they advocate this even though it means being accused of "shifting the focus" or injecting race, or doing something that must be similar to something the Nazis did not did not do?

Hashtag advocacy, guerrilla theater on sympathetic campuses and social media celebrity are reflections of transient emotional appeal. They lack the essential spine necessary for long lasting and just change.

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