I don’t mean learning that someone votes Democrat. That’s sadly all too common — the flyover state where I live is full of good churchgoing folks who know which bathroom to use, yet nonetheless vote Democrat in every election, because in their minds it’s somehow still 1935 and only that nice Mr. Roosevelt is keeping the bank from foreclosing on Pappy’s farm. I mean something along the lines of, you’re in a bar watching the big game with a group of Regular Joes, when all of a sudden one of them blurts out “Oh, I can’t stand all the toxic masculinity!” Or starts raving about their “transitioning” kid or how great it is that there are no national borders anymore or something like that.
It never happens, right? Like vegans and Harvard alums, you never have to wonder if someone is an SJW — they’ll tell you, right off the bat. Usually they don’t even have to tell you; the hair and the tats and the fishing tackle in the face do that. Like putting the “Bernie 2024” sticker on the bumper of the Prius or the Subaru Outback, actually declaring yourself an SJW is overkill. So much so that it’s a cliché — of all the budding shitlords I mentored in my years in academia, none of them “came out” to me because of anything I said or did. It was all the stuff I didn’t say or do — I didn’t spend half of each class period ranting and raving about The Current Thing, which was so unusual that they figured I must be on the other side.
The Left, I think it’s fair to say, enjoys total freedom here in AINO. Total liberty, too, and that’s a distinction we should probably make at some point, but for right now let’s hold fire on that. Whichever one you want to use, though, it’s obvious that the Left have it, with pretty much zero restraint. Nothing is too weird or gross or obnoxious that the Left won’t champion it.
But even more than that, all the traditional restraints on behavior — what we should probably call decorum — have been systematically destroyed, and that’s the heart of what I want to talk about. Since we’re discussing the Left here, let’s use one of their favorite terms: Privilege. I think we can take it as read that there has never been a more privileged person, in any sense of the word “privilege,” in all of human history, than Karen (or her JV version, the Basic College Girl). And what battleaxes they are! Constantly lecturing everyone else about their privilege while plowing through every social situation like a tsunami. Like the Clintons, Karen triumphs because you just can’t believe anyone has the sheer brass-balled audacity to pull the antisocial shit they do.
Have you no shame, madam? At last, have you no shame?
Severian, “On Liberty”, Founding Questions, 2022-10-12.