SJWs always lie. Why? Because they have decided to denounce the differences in civilized capacities (and their fruits) produced by differential discipline as unjust expropriations. It’s not immediately obvious why this is necessary in order to attack “privilege”—after all, there is far from a one-to-one correlation between self-discipline and “success,” by any measure—plenty of hardworking, talented, intelligent people fail through no fault of their own; even more obviously and egregiously, plenty of people seem to get rich, famous and powerful despite not being particularly brilliant or determined or worthy in any discernable way. If we wanted to, we might all have some interesting discussions on how to make the match between discipline and wealth and power tighter. But that discussion wouldn’t satisfy the SJWs because it would still leave the central point untouched: self-discipline is better than indiscipline, in any field of endeavor, and discipline must be inculcated, accepted and internalized. And if that’s the case, the first advice you would still want to give to anyone, no matter how unfair their circumstances, is to study and master your impulses, appetites and resentments; which further means you would judge their actions by how fully they display that mastery. And the insistence on demanding open-ended reparations would always, self-evidently, be understood to be subversive of such study and mastery. Victimary thinking is, most fundamentally, resentment towards civilization—a resentment only possible for the civilized, or those in close proximity to them. Rejecting the primacy of discipline and deferral (which, as originary thinkers know, is not just the source of personal success, or even of civilization, but of meaning itself) requires systematic lying. Every story, statistic or benefit demonstrating the link between discipline and world appropriation must be denied. All success must be at the expense of others, all failure must be due to injustice. Now, there are some strict rules regarding the application of this principle, and plenty of exceptions. There are big Others and little others, generating a hierarchy of oppression radiating out from the center of Western male whiteness (the description of civilization stripped of everything that makes it civilization), which allows, say, for mistreatment of black women by black men to be blamed on the Big Other of White Patriarchal Racism. And billionaires who benefit the cause are not really exceptions—rather, they are granted exemptions, putting their ill-acquired wealth to a good purpose. White male American soldiers can become victims of the American war machine. Etc. What matters is reducing civilization to a kind of negative image of your own identity politics, and you must say whatever you have to preserve that image.
An important corollary of this need to lie systematically is the imperative to attack avatars of the truth. Or anyone inclined to sympathize with bearers of the truth. Or anyone considering taking those truthful claims seriously. Or anyone insufficiently ferocious in denouncing those who tell or bear witness to the forbidden truth or “hate facts.” George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson have been confined to a kind of social limbo precisely because their accounts of the events that covered them in infamy turned out to be true. Only on the very margins of the nationalist right do I see anyone daring to say a good word about either of them. Talk of impeaching Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia started up when he mentioned in the midst of oral arguments the “mismatch theory,” that claims that Affirmative Action policies can hurt their intended beneficiaries by placing them in academic settings they are unprepared for—even though the “mismatch theory” is only basic common sense, unless one wants to argue that admission standards for universities fail to measure academic potential, i.e., are meaningless—in which case, why have them? Ayaan Hirsi Ali, meanwhile, who simply explains what Islam has to say about infidels, women and violence, is persona non grata at universities, and no doubt most other public arenas in the US. European journalists are losing their jobs for asking whether importing millions of Middle Eastern Muslims is a good idea. Democratic politicians are looking into suing oil companies and others for disagreeing with the ruling doctrine on the “climate change” formerly know as global warming. The list goes on. These truths—or, even, reasonable claims that might be proven more or less true—must be denounced as a priori thought crimes, and anyone referring to them other than to anathematize them must be vilified and, in general turned into what Giorgio Agamben calls the “Homo Sacer,” who can be killed by anybody but not sacrificed (Agamben, I assume, would apply the concept rather differently.). So, if SJWs always lie, they also always attack those who tell the truth or those who, even implicitly or indirectly, bear witness to the truth. But, also, then, those who don’t distance themselves sufficiently from those who are tinged by the truth. Those who would be kind to the cruel end up being cruel to the kind because if the kind are allowed to draw too much attention to their the treatment at the hands of the cruel kindness to the cruel would appear as indecent and untenable as it actually is.
Here, then, is where the apocalyptic politics I proposed in my previous post has its site of emergence—in being told, in sensing, that one “can’t say that,” in seeing others being censored, intimidated and punished for saying something that has at least some truth to it. Because in experiencing that violent concealment, in internalizing that imperative, one feels one’s own powers of expression and articulation being snuffed out. It’s a matter of simple intellectual and moral self-defense (or hygiene) that leads you to speak your mind (and the SJW’s customary virulence results from the violence one must first do to oneself to eliminate the temptation to listen to the truth). The analyses, inquiries, and rhetorical and political strategies follow: what, exactly, is that truth, or even that stray observation or remark that might lead one there? For whom would it be devastating to have it heard, and why? What does someone (who?) want to say that would be crowded out by that truth? If you are doing it right, you simply disclose, meticulously, what the discourse of the other has concealed, reading the obverse, so to speak—moral beliefs and political actions will follow and you will exemplify them. I believe that at the end of this line of inquiry you will always find someone who wants to defend or protect evil because punishing or fighting evil conceals the fraudulence of those who claim to be good. In other words, a defense of someone who has given in to indiscipline because those struggling with the limitations and paradoxes of deferral are really just as undisciplined themselves underneath it all, and they’re even worse for pretending otherwise. The founding imaginary of the victimary would then be a collective exposure of indiscipline, which would mean peace because only those who insist on discipline out of shame for their real feelings would interfere with this idyllic scene. A peace maintained by unanimous and feral antagonism towards those with pretensions of discipline. The endorsement of discipline is the highest hypocrisy. But, I must conclude by insisting that this theology derives from a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the doctrine of universal human equality, because if we are not equal to the extent that we have all recognized the demands of deferral, we can only be equal before we have done anything, before we have been tempted or tested—which is to say, we are equal in indiscipline, in our desires, fears, resentments, and sheer vulnerability to violence. The primacy of the victim (whose discipline or indiscipline can be “bracketed”) in doctrines of human equality is posited in order to conceal this blind spot. A fanatic of human equality (one who demands moves towards its instantiation immediately and denounces its every qualification) must in the end become an SJW.
