The logic of discrimination theory never quits. If there’s a group of people with problems, then the problems are caused by irrational and unjust social discrimination, and comprehensive forcible action is called for to root out and compensate for the discrimination. No other view of the situation is conceivable. A recent example: the British government’s social exclusion unit has just “exposed” how millions of lives are being destroyed, not by mental illness—that would be blaming something about the victim, and therefore the victim himself—but by the stigma attached to mental illness. A couple of examples of how lives are being ruined:
- Only 21% of people with long-term mental illness are employed.
- Adults with a psychotic disorder are three times more likely to be separated or divorced.
It’s obvious from such facts, at least to the British government, that the problems are caused by discrimination, and something has to be done to give mentally ill people ordinary mainstream opportunities. That is to be the explicit social policy, and there’s no reason they can’t carry it out. Job problems can be solved by forcing employers to hire the psychotic, marital issues can be dealt with by continuing to abolish marriage, and issues of community exclusion can be handled by enforcing a contrary policy of inclusion—for example, by doing away with barriers to jury service, as the government intends. It’s true the effect will be to degrade yet further the functioning of the institutions though which ordinary people carry on their lives and participate in running society, but why should ordinary people be allowed to carry on their lives and run things as they please? If they’re not closely supervised and tied up in a thousand ways they act in irrational and unjust ways, so if their ways of doing things are disordered and made nonfunctional that’s all to the good. Or such is the implicit logic of our current system.
Exactly the same thing’s happening on this side of the Atlantic
From the log entry:
“The logic of discrimination theory never quits. If there’s a group of people with problems, the problems are caused by irrational and unjust social discrimination, and comprehensive forcible action is called for to root out and compensate for the discrimination. No other view of the situation is conceivable.”
Lawrence Auster posted a log entry yesterday at VFR exactly relevant to this topic:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002354.html .
Auster’s entry shows where (Neo-Marxist) Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg wrote,
“Our jurisprudence ranks race a ‘suspect’ category, ‘not because [race] is inevitably an impermissible classification, but because it is one which usually … has been drawn for the purpose of maintaining racial inequality.’ But where race is considered ‘for the purpose of achieving equality,’ no automatic proscription is in order. For … ‘[t]he Constitution is both color blind and color conscious. … A classification that denies a benefit, causes harm, or imposes a burden must not be based on race. … But the Constitution is color conscious to prevent discrimination being perpetuated and to undo the effects of past discrimination.’ ”
Notice that this pure Neo-Marxist reasoning translates into begging the question on all issues of jurisprudence involving race, since it permits no distinction between a situation where racial inequality arose spontaneously from one in which it was deliberately wrought through political or other avoidable means. That the races are not equal in ability is now the majority scientific opinion, though holders of that opinion are effectively cowed into public reticence by the extreme radical left — cowed into public reticence by none other than the side of … you guessed it … by the side of Justice Ginsburg.
So, it turns out Ginsburg is merely tooting her own side’s extremely partisan horn — while masquerading as a “Supreme Court Justice.”
It would be LAUGHABLE if it weren’t so … if it weren’t so wrong, so immoral, so dangerous, so harmful, and so evil.
By their deeds
Fred,
There is a certain, diabolical balance to be struck between marxist-egalitarian activism and the wakening of the activists’ class (ie hegemonic) enemy.
I write as an Englishman, and in the UK the culture war has, since its inception, been hidden from public gaze under a patina of bien pensant liberalism. The simple reason is that bien pensant liberalism came first – indeed came early with the Permissive Society pamphlet written in the 1950’s by Labour politician, Roy Jenkins. Labour regained power after thirteen years in the wilderness in 1964. As Home Secretary from 1965 and 1967 Jenkins delivered his social revolution. Convinced of his own decency and progressive modernity he legalised abortion and homosexuality and simplified divorce.
Ever since that time, progressivism has been clothed in the same faux-decency and modernity. So difficult is it to oppose these and so automatic the assumption of their rightness, nearly all politicians wind up attesting to some kind of progressive belief in fairness and social justice. It is the holy writ of the age. Meanwhile, the reality of social policy is multiculturalism, anti-racism, feminism and gay rights – pure hegemonic politics
The thinking left – the Long-Marching left – understands the importance of presentation as disguise. It talks about social inclusion and does not reveal itself as an organ of marxist-egalitarianism. Indeed, the left as a whole – now so idealogically marxian it is properly described as Gramsci’s “Captured Intellects” – no doubt sincerely believes itself to be the heirs of Roy Jenkins. That, too, reinforces the presentation and passes into the public consciousness.
The problem for the right, then, is how to crack this situation open. In the UK for example, how can one encourage native white, male heterosexuals – and whites in general, for that matter – to detach from presentation and comprehend reality? Well, obviously the liberal-left owns the institutions and the mindset of the mass media. The internet, while useful for its freedoms, is inadequate to the scale of the task. To my unsophisticated mind there is one definitely promising means of subverting the cultural warriors, and that’s to develop a counter-culture.
I won’t attempt to flesh out this idea now, except to say that the net is, to some extent, already helping along these lines. But so are the deeds of the culture warriors themselves. The more onerous and downright abusive their demands the more the hegemonic majority senses that oppression flows not out of itself but towards it. In this sense, we need the outrageous illiberality of those who cloak themselves in liberalism. It is grist to the mill, exactly as Jim is using it here, in fact.
If ever I’m accused of something I’ll want a jury of psychos!
From the article:
“The government’s action plan will include … removing unnecessary barriers to jury service …” for the mentally ill.
I can’t WAIT to have someone who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, debilitating anxiety-panic neurosis, severe depression with psychotic features, sado-masochism, pedophilia, erotomania, poor-impulse-control-with-outbursts-of-directed-rage-and-violence, severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, adult hyperactivity/attention-deficit disorder, severe personality disorder, and so on, serving on the jury in a trial where I’m to be the plaintiff or defendant. Hey, how soon can they get that up and running?