The Effect Of Coronavirus On The Pantywads
Emotional safety has been conflated with physical safety by the "woke" for quite some time now.
It's a convenient gambit for shutting other people up. Andrew Doyle writes at Spiked:
To complain to one's employer about feeling 'unsafe' has become a standard manoeuvre among those who have little tolerance for the opinions of others.Many are now asking whether in the midst of a global pandemic - in which the notion of 'safety' has been temporarily restored to its original definition - such tactics can still be effective. The problem has never been with the cry-bullies of the social-justice movement who disingenuously claim that their safety is compromised by alternative viewpoints, but rather with those in authority who capitulate to their demands. When activists called for the removal of the statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, part of their strategy was to insist that it was a form of 'violence' to expect black students to walk in its vicinity. The statue remains in place because the university authorities had the courage not to defer to this kind of entitlement. The same cannot be said for the plaques commemorating the visit of King Leopold II of Belgium to Queen Mary University in London, which were removed because of his tyrannical reign in the Congo after a student outcry about 130 years too late.
We used to tell people who made ridiculous demands to stuff it.
We still should be.
It should go without saying that nobody's safety is being threatened by atrocities committed by long-dead historical figures. The language of physical harm is a rhetorical device intended to strengthen the case for ideological submission. More generally, the lexicon of social justice has a tendency to reduce individuals to their corporeal substance; we hear this in phrases such as 'female bodies', 'black bodies' or 'queer bodies', a strangely dehumanising choice of words. Similarly, those who challenge the content of LGBT sex education at schools are accused of 'erasing gay people' and somehow denying their very existence. Even the phrase 'brothers and sisters' can be reframed as genocidal. As one activist put it, 'When you say "brothers and sisters", you're erasing non-binary, two-spirit, and gender-expansive trans folks who live beyond the binary. Constantly being erased is exhausting.'
There is no one who cannot be deemed guilty under these terms.
This is the authoritarian left, seizing power and "canceling" people right and left in the name of doing good.
Doyle's take:
Might it be the case that intersectional identity politics will be fatally undermined by the spread of Covid-19?Much as I would like to believe that the pandemic will put matters into perspective, I am also aware that the agents of the culture war are already well inoculated against the concerns of material reality. Even as governments around the world are imposing draconian restrictions to citizens' liberty in order to curtail the spread of the virus, social-justice activists are busy claiming the impact will be most keenly felt by disenfranchised groups. An article in Salon declares that the pandemic has been accelerated by 'white male privilege' and the 'racist white voters' responsible for the Trump administration. A writer for Vice bewails the postponement of trans surgery in favour of coronavirus victims.
...Although institutionally powerful, the agents of social justice have always been in the minority, and have been indulged largely because of their intimidatory tactics. I would like to think that in the wake of an actual crisis their more hysterical grievances will be treated with the insouciance they deserve, and that this seemingly interminable culture war will draw to a close. But in this respect I am probably as guilty as everyone else of assuming that the effects of the pandemic will confirm the views I have long advocated. Certainly in the short term, the clout of these culture warriors will be diminished. But I fear that it is wishful thinking to suppose that they won't find a way to turn this crisis to their advantage, and emerge more determined and vitriolic and authoritarian than ever before.
He hopes he's wrong. I suspect he isn't.
There is already a cultural backlash, but we cannot hope to defeat these snowflakes culturally until we get all of their ridiculous demands removed from employment law -- and that means the notion of sexual harassment needs to go away. At least as an offense subject to enforcement by courts of law. So long as it is in the law, it gives the crybullies a weapon which works against anybody, and which effectively nobody can stop or fight back against in any way at all.
jdgalt at April 8, 2020 10:47 PM
I don't know that the concept of reducing sexual harassment in the workplace needs to go away. I would agree that the way it is enforced today needs serious reform. The enforcement is entirely too subjective.
Conan the Grammarian at April 9, 2020 7:10 AM
Amy, regarding this-
"When activists called for the removal of the statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, part of their strategy was to insist that it was a form of 'violence' to expect black students to walk in its vicinity. The statue remains in place because the university authorities had the courage not to defer to this kind of entitlement. The same cannot be said for the plaques commemorating the visit of King Leopold II of Belgium to Queen Mary University in London, which were removed because of his tyrannical reign in the Congo after a student outcry about 130 years too late."
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"We used to tell people who made ridiculous demands to stuff it."
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-is my memory slipping?
I thought that here in the US, you were in favor of taking down the Confederate statues and putting them in, say, museums, in part so that only the people who WANTED to see them, would. What's the difference - at least with regard to the plaques?
Yes, the use of the word "violence" was ridiculous. That does not mean that they didn't have valid reasons to complain.
And as for the "130 years too late," well, I'm guessing that a century ago - or maybe even not that long ago - there were no black students at Queen Mary University, and even if the white students HAD been decent enough to complain back then, THEY would also have been told to "stuff it" on the grounds that they were outvoted - and/or that they must be crazy to care about Leopold's black victims, who weren't "real people."
Not to mention that the Civil War was over 150 years ago. What's the difference?
Lenona at April 9, 2020 6:56 PM
And thanks, Conan.
As Miss Manners has pointed out, if people would start taking common courtesy as seriously as most people (usually) take basic communication seriously (e.g., if you want to work in the restaurant business, you'd better darn well learn Spanish), we wouldn't need so many laws.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-07-28-9507280006-story.html
Lenona at April 9, 2020 7:13 PM
My messages keep getting wiped out before I can post them, so I had to make an extra post.
Form that article:
Gentle Reader: That rules of etiquette should have to be turned into law because people are not willing to obey them out of simple decency, but must be forced by fear of punishment, is something that distresses Miss Manners even more than it does you, she promises you.
What an embarrassing failure it is for etiquette that it cannot mandate respect at the workplace, without having to get etiquette's big brother, The Law, to threaten to beat everyone up.
Also, Miss Manners always sympathizes with people whom the justice system fails. The law is supposed to clear innocent people and offer them recourse against those who bring spurious charges.
But it is not Miss Manners' job to try your case, of which she knows nothing. It is your proposed etiquette that interests her. So she went fastidiously past your wounded tone and examined the rules you so bitterly offered.
And you know what?
Some of them constitute discrimination against women, which could land you right back in that legal tangle you did not seem to relish. You cannot refuse to conduct ordinary business with the otherwise appropriate people because of their gender.
But other rules that you offer as draconian are very sensible rules, indeed.
Of course you don't want to be overheard around the office making tasteless remarks. Of course you should keep your personal problems to yourself during work hours. Of course you should keep your hands to yourself. Of course you shouldn't air opinions anyone at the office might find offensive. And right again--you shouldn't be writing on the men's room walls...
(snip)
Lenona at April 9, 2020 7:19 PM
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