How CNN Created Faux Rage When I Said Boobs
On Friday afternoon I went on CNN and said the only two things that had never let me down were the first amendment and boobs. It’s a statement I’ve made hundreds of times, either in written or spoken form. Including on CNN’s Headline News, also to a female host, on the day before and on this exact same website on the very day I went on the show.
In the resulting kerfuffle a woman and another guest took offense and before you knew it I was the number one trending topic in America, on my way to adding 40,000 Twitter followers in a little over 24 hours.
In the past decade, everything has been turned upside-down. Instead of social deviance vs. religion, it’s now free speech vs. ‘safe spaces’. [3] Free speech advocates have become the new conservatives (but as an aside, is was Tipper Gore who was cofounder of the Parents Music Resource Center, so the left’s flirtation with censorship predates the SJW-left by decades, or even further back if you include Marxism). In agreement with the ‘Puritan hypothesis’ [1], far-left liberals are the real sexual-repressive prudes, not conservatives. For the far-left, sexuality has become another emotionless commodity for both economic and social gain. SJW-orthodoxy, much like Calvinist or Wahhabi orthodoxy, has a very strict, delineated set of rules, but at the same time it’s also capricious because new rules are being added, much like how new genders and pronouns are constantly being devised. In the Middle East, sexuality is suppressed; for America’s SJW-left, it’s withheld and strictly contractual (satisfying an ‘ends’, not because of any sort of bond). Sexuality, in all its forms of depravity, is condoned by the left, provided, of course, it does not in any way produce children; rather it’s purely an economic/transactional and hedonistic exchange, all the beauty and romance stripped out, much like the austere, plain churches of early-American Puritanical Protestantism. Something as harmless as catcalling is seen as an imposition by the patriarchy, because it’s non-transactional, yet something as vile as Instagram ‘porta potty culture’ is compatible with 4rd-wave contemporary [2] feminism because it’s transactional. But also the brooding, stern-faced pastor that is the antecedent of the zealous feminist (or as Rush says, feminazis) ..it’s almost the same thing in terms of the rigidity of left-wing orthodoxy and Calvinist orthodoxy.
[1] I don’t mean as in closeted Protestants taking over the world (similar to the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), but rather it’s the pharisaical, censorious, holier-than-thou aspects of Protestantism (particularly Puritanism) that are adopted by the SJW-left. Rather than posting quotes about God and the Bible on Instagram, they post quotes about feminism and patriarchy and how evil Trump is. It’s like a ritual to these leftists to affirm their belief in social justice, to signal their holiness to their peers. Chris Bechtloff and others have likened it to a sort of secular ‘religion’ for otherwise atheist young people. It gives them something to believe in, a cause to support, a form of community. Like the Salem Witch trials…these people are under the grips of a collective insanity, with anyone who doesn’t sufficiency signal virtue (or signal virtue in the correct way) a heretic.
Thus post on Reddit illustrates how for the social-justice left, ‘-isms” (such as racism or sexism) are elevated to level higher than just simple moral failings, to something that is irredeemable on a more transcendental level, the violation of a “sacral law”. It’s not like “this person holds view we disagree with” ..it’s more like “let’s make his (but sometimes it’s a her) life as miserable as possible for this transgression.”
[2] Fourth-wave feminism is much more individualistic than earlier waves of feminism, and instead of marches and rallies, much of its activism is online through posting pictures and slogans and virtue signaling on social media. It also has a strong capitalistic and individualistic element to it–in that women are staying single and posting pictures and videos online for money. At the same time, despite the pretense of capitalism, it is far-left feminism in that it incorporates intersectionality, ‘solidarity’, misandry, and other SJW-fare. It’s like Ayn Rand meets Valerie Solanas.
Fourth-wave feminism is often associated with online feminism, especially using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and other forms of social media to discuss, uplift, and activate gender equality and social justice.[9] According to NOW Toronto, the internet has created a “call-out” culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be called out and challenged immediately with relative ease.[10] This culture is indicative of the continuing influence of the third wave, with its focus on micro-politics and challenging sexism and misogyny insofar as they appear in everyday rhetoric, advertising, film, television and literature, the media, and so on.[11] This online feminism aspect of the fourth wave has impacted how companies market to women so that they are not “called out” for sexism in their marketing strategies.[12]
Besides online feminism, the fourth wave has been associated with the increased focus on intersectionality, including the repudiation of trans-exclusionary radical feminism and a focus on solidarity with other social justice movements.[9]
[3] But also, social conservatism has been dying a slow death for years. It’s just not a sellable issue anymore as much as it was decades ago, and many on the ‘right’ have caved on issued such as drug legalization and gay marriage. Although he’s not saint, the overwhelming majority of evangelicals support Trump. Many on the right are tired of moralizing, both from the left but also the right, too.