The sleep of reason: leftist Furies turning on their own, who don’t know what hit them
In September of 2018 I wrote a post that began like this:
It’s no accident that the Furies were women:
“According to Hesiod’s Theogony, when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, Uranus, and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes [Furies] (along with the Giants and the Meliae) emerged from the drops of blood which fell on the earth (Gaia), while Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam. According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx (‘Night’), or from a union between air and mother earth.”
And then there were the Maenads:
“In Greek mythology, maenads…were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god’s retinue. Their name literally translates as ‘raving ones’…
“In Euripides’ play The Bacchae, maenads of Thebes murder King Pentheus after he bans the worship of Dionysus. Dionysus, Pentheus’ cousin, himself lures Pentheus to the woods, where the maenads tear him apart. His corpse is mutilated by his own mother, Agave, who tears off his head, believing it to be that of a lion. A group of maenads also kill Orpheus.”
I am reminded of the Furies on reading this piece by Jonathan Chait, who seems to have recently swallowed just a few tiny molecules of a red pill. Chait’s piece is entitled “An Elite Progressive LISTSERV Melts Down Over a Bogus Racism Charge,” and it’s worth reading because it offers a window into how our current Furies and maenads of the left set out to destroy anyone who doesn’t meet their standards of extreme wokism.
Here’s the setup:
On May 28, progressive election data analyst David Shor tweeted about a new paper by Princeton professor Omar Wasow, showing that peaceful civil-rights protests moved public opinion toward protesters while violent protests had the opposite effect. The tweet violated a taboo in some left-wing quarters against criticizing violent protest and led within days to his firing.
What happened after that was even more bizarre. On June 11, I wrote an article briefly describing Shor’s tweet and firing. Four days later, “Progressphiles,” a LISTSERV for left-of-center data analysts, kicked Shor off. In a message to the group, the moderators described his tweet as “racist” and further accused him of having “encouraged harassment” of another member of the list…
Got that? There is a taboo against criticizing violent protest. That taboo extends to research – just as Larry Summers, for example, got booted for even suggesting research on the forbidden topic of why women aren’t more often in the ranks of the most elite scientists.
The rest of Chait’s article consists mostly of the messages in this listserv around the issue, full of typical jargon and black/white memes and unreason. In fact, “reason” is a dirty, dirty word – and remember, these are supposedly data analysts. One can assume that “left-of-center” manages to trump (pardon the expression) “data analyst” every time.
An example:
For those of you who don’t realize what makes the tweet problematic, try not to overanalyze the statistical validity of the research paper and think about the broader impact it will have if people perceive it to be true. Democrats will wave this tweet urging people to protest their oppression peacefully, which will conveniently ignore how the majority of the most visible of these actions have occurred in areas where we have Democrats running the city council. Shor had initially defended his tweet by saying “Helping Trump get re-elected is not going to lead to better behavior by cops,” and I’m certain many people here would be inclined to agree. But it is this sort of binary thinking that we have that can be so oppressive as well. Helping Trump get un-elected (in itself) is not going to lead to better behavior by cops, when the goal of abolitionist work isn’t to have better-trained/nicer/POC cops but to systematically dismantle the very institution of policing to begin with.
Or take this one:
…[I]n our spaces, racism isn’t always loud. It isn’t always brash or demanding, spewing racial slurs with a foaming tongue. Sometimes it’s quiet; steeped in seemingly innocuous data and facts. Racism can wrap itself in the trappings of credible logic and I swear it can make sense. But when you see how data can and has been used to oppress, undermine and devalue movements, it’s impossible not to offer a critical eye. The context to anything is everything. Just because it was written by a “type of person,” or has a decimal point means nothing.
Here’s the initial statement by the moderators, which is more general (my comments are in brackets):
David Shor, a member of this community, knowingly harassed and bullied another member of this space. In response to a well-deserved call in over a racist tweet [the racist tweet being the link to research that shows that riots depress Democratic votes, research that apparently was done by a black person), he encouraged harassment that led to death threats instead of choosing to learn and grow from his mistake [like Winston Smith did]. We as the Progressphiles Moderators, professionals in this industry, and as people, absolutely condemn this behavior. It is unacceptable to make people on this list and in this community feel unsafe for calling out wrongdoings [Shor is responsible for the response to his tweet, and no one – except Shor, the accused, and his ilk – may ever be criticized, because criticism makes them feel “unsafe” and by gum, we cannot ever feel unsafe]. We cannot begin to decolonize our minds if we do not create safety for those fighting against white supremacy [that is a rather complex sentence, packed full of so much jargon that I’ll leave the task of deciphering it to you]. It is on all of us to do this work, but especially to show up [your support will be required] for those already doing it and make sure they are safe. By not acting, we are perpetuating the racism and sexism we know exists on this list [“will these hands ne’er be clean?”] and in our community at large. As such, we have removed David Shor from Progressphiles.
Chait adds:
The “racist tweet” was of course a straightforward summary of a respected professor’s work. The moderators have not publicly substantiated the accusation that Shor encouraged harassment, nor have they responded to my request for comment on the charge.
Why would he think the Furies would deign to answer him? They have other work to do, and he is a passe member of the Old Guard, although he’s only in his late 40s. That’s not old in my book, but I bet it’s ancient to the newer generation of Woke Furies.
Why am I even writing about this? It’s another warning of the extreme irrationality and vindictiveness of those who are now gaining more and more power. They feel very bold right now. The fury of this particular listserv is engaged in purging and purifying its own ranks, but they are also trying to move the Overton Window and they have been going out into the larger world and engaging in their mission of destroying western civilization and the values on which our country was founded.
Make no mistake about it; they mean business, and they are getting stronger than ever.
In a lighter vein, just to relieve a little tension, here’s one of my favorite clips on the subject:
One element of the joke in that clip is the tiny size of the groups. Well, they’re not so tiny anymore.
And look at what’s been happening to J.K. Rowling.
The insatiable madness has been unleashed and it requires victims…insatiably.
The Bacchae is my favorite Greek tragedy. Different translations of it can sometimes be better or worse, but the main action, the plot, is just so great. Oh, Pentheus! It’s his mother who ends up as the tragic one.
This seems to be a Pandora’s Box situation when the perceived intent was to improve things by taking it to the street it has unleashed the under-belly of insurrection. Giving these youths (utes) a mission and purpose in life along with excitement, recognition and perhaps glory makes for valiant young warriors no matter what the cause and don’t even dare confuse them with any facts.
This is more evidence that it is well past time to limit federal student loans to STEM majors. These leftist crazies have PhDs in African American Studies, and Gender Studies.
But … BUT … the AARP magazine article said the only ‘science deniers’ were on the RIGHT.
:-}
The Revolution always ends up eating it’s own.
And, just like that, the thugs take over.
Rowling might actually be winning. I saw an article the other day that talked about how feminists were beating the trans crowd in the UK. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the details. But the important part was the the trans crowd was apparently experiencing successful pushback.
I’ll note that unlike the members of that progressive listserv, the Furies were at least useful. They were employed by Zeus to go after particularly wicked individuals. The members of that listserv are on it primarily to gratify themselves.
What’s this i hear about furries? why are people afraid of furries?
running around in animal costumes…
oh… furies..
nevermind…
In remembrance of Roseanne Roseannadanna
RIP: May 20, 1989
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…
Left cannibalizing left… what fun! Bring it on leftards. You so deserve it.
Not unrelated:
https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1276291366688096256
But this is the natural process of revolution; There are no rules or guiding principles, just fervor and carnage. Yes, they eat their own. The list of potential victims gets shorter and shorter as victims are consumed. The politically-opposed are first, then attention turns to purity testing. And at the end, after the consumption of victims weeds out the competitive field, those who remain in authority are the new elite, the replacement aristocracy.
They’re winning. I can’t imagine I’m the only one out there that doesn’t want to live in utter despair and take constant humiliation any more in order to prove that I am a “good person” and a “smart person”.
Let them eat their own. The more extreme their radicalism, the more intense will be the whirlwind they reap. No sympathy here for anarchists and, as they’re willfully blind to reason and even attack the very right to disagree, they will suffer the consequences of their actions.
But not of course until they attempt to pillage outside of their ‘blue’ protected safe spaces. At which time they shall discover just how unsafe spaces can be.
Violence that cannot be criticized is a two sided coin.
Chait had an article that mentioned this in early in the month too as well as other such madness from the left calling out their own for not falling in line.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-york-times-james-bennet.html
One that really was odd was a guy name Lee Fang who interviewed a BLM protestor in Oakland who said he was troubled by black on black violence. So Lee tweeted the video interview and was upbraided by a colleague and called a racist for daring to quote MLK about remaining non violent and sharing a tweet of a black person talking about black on black violence. [If you want to know the mindset of some on the left try reading the comments underneath the interview tweet in the link].
“spewing racial slurs with a foaming tongue.”
Always they spew, but with a foaming tongue…that’s bad.
The path for a Thermidorean reaction became wider and easier with every new act of the woke insanity occuring. There is no point in arguing with crazy or expecting any reasonable response from them.
It’s been suggested that the reason we haven’t seen any travelers from other solar systems is that once they reach a certain stage of technology, they invent nuclear weapons and destroy themselves.
Don Sensing suggested an alternative theory: They invent video games, and become so involved in their game-playing that they lose interest in exploring the physical universe.
I now offer a new theory: They invent something like Twitter, their whole planet becomes the equivalent of a particularly nasty middle school on earth, and they melt down under waves of mutual accusations and denunciations.
And look at what’s been happening to J.K. Rowling
The irony is that feminists (i.e. female chauvinists) opened Pandora’s box to [unqualified] progressive ideologies. Abortion… cancel culture. #WickedSolution
[aliens] melt down under waves of mutual accusations and denunciations.
A dysfunctional convergence a.k.a. clusterfuck.
Left cannibalizing left
Planned Progressives. #Karma
@David Foster – My opinion is that they invent collectivism, eventually it catches on everywhere, and they devolve… fighting wars an suffer an inability to climb the tower of babel again..
Personally, I suspect that the most probable explanation for why we haven’t seen any travelers from other solar systems is because humanity itself is under a form of quarantine.
Too many UFO sightings for it to be simply imaginary. While also preparing humanity for first contact in a “little steps” approach.
Anonymously posted, “They’re winning. I can’t imagine I’m the only one out there that doesn’t want to live in utter despair and take constant humiliation any more in order to prove that I am a “good person” and a “smart person”.
You are not alone, but…
They are winning. You are correct.
Major oppression is coming if Dems capture the White House and Senate, as seems likely. The USA will be shot to hell in killing blows. It will become a South Africa equivalent; South Africa, where whites under the constitution now do not have any property rights, targeting the white farmers. Zimbabwe awaits.
Great countries are not defeated by external forces. They die from within, like a human with a rapidly spreading incurable cancer.
Cicero: Comparison with South Africa is invalid. Whites in South Africa were a minority, a rather small one. After they lost power, they lost everything. In USA whites are still a majority and are well armed. Even total collapse of the state will not make them defenseless, the opposite is true. The blacks should pray for preservation of the rule of law, otherways they would be ruled by white lynching mobs.
Sergey:
Minor correction IMO, the “Marxist” blacks should pray for the preservation of the rule of law and that they don’t get what they and non-black Marxists deserve.
I have to agree with Sergey. The elephant in the room is that if a time comes when there is no rule of law, the rabble on the left might not like what happens when the law-abiding majority is no longer hampered by having to obey the law.
There is a perverse logic to the SJW Furies efforts. The above quote in regards to Shor is quite telling:
“Racism can wrap itself in the trappings of credible logic and I swear it can make sense. But when you see how data can and has been used to oppress, undermine and devalue movements, it’s impossible not to offer a critical eye. The context to anything is everything.”
Context is extremely important, I agree. What is the context here? A Listserv of progressive data analysts. It seems like this would be the ideal context for Shor’s post. Anyone who thinks Shor is wrong, the research is ill-founded, misinterpreted, irrelevant, etc. could then offer their critiques, grounded in empirical evidence, or reasonable argument, or even an impassioned anecdotal narrative. Shor and any supporters of his position could then respond in kind. The give and take of civil debate would, ideally, lead to more informed opinions on both sides of the issue.
But of course, that is not what the SJW Furies want, as the whole Shor imbroglio amply demonstrates. Civil debate is anathema to any fanatic, any dogmatic movement, because it encourages reflection, reconsideration and *gasp* even doubt of the ideology. SJWs are uninterested and hostile to any sort of discourse because they are convinced of the absolute truth and utter righteousness of everything the believe and every action they take. If anyone critiques either, no matter how politely or tepidly, they are part of the problem and should be treated as such.
That is what the above quote means by ‘context’. Any argument, any evidence, any comment, passing thought, mild joke, ANYTHING which contradicts the narrative, is a tool of oppression and the individual promulgating this tool is an oppressor. That Shor is a white male adds to the oppressive nature of his post and comments (even if the original research was done by a black person). He must be unpersoned. Perhaps he can (partially) redeem himself with sufficient penance and groveling (like Lee Fang), but it won’t come easily.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, he will be red pilled. One can hope.
The Blue Helmets will not save BLM or Antifa.
They are NOT winning! They wouldn’t be doing what they are doing if they were winning. They are thrashing around like a Mastodon in a tar pit. They are in scorched-earth-retreat-to-Moscow mode.
I have a feeling that something is coming down from Orange-Man-Bad because he did use the word evil and the demons know it.
Was in a gun shop yesterday. A guy came in looking for 22LR. Cabela’s was out.
A big problem is that people who are upset and depressed by all that is going on, but for the WRONG reasons, cannot get mental health help. My work has all these “wellness” avenues for employees that we are encouraged to seek out if we are feeling depressed by everything going on, but what benefit would those provide me? The majority of healthcare professionals, especially in the psychiatry community, are fully on board with the Leftist agenda. And you’re supposed to tell one of these people about how you’re frustrated by the impositions on your speech and thought because you support Trump or the right of law or the inherent differences between people of different sexes or races? At best, they would laugh at you to themselves (or your face) and try to convince you that what you believe is evil and wrong. At worst, they would report you to your employer as a “threat to public safety” and have you fired and jailed. After all, psychiatrists see themselves as the “good people” that have to correct bad ways of thinking by the sick, and in their minds, anything going against their worldview, especially support for Trump, is pathology that must be eliminated by any means possible.
All one could hope for in our shoes is to talk about our despair with a professional in vague terms without any “suspicious” details, which sort of defeats the purpose of it all. In other words, it would be yet another forum where we must carefully keep our thoughts and beliefs to ourselves. The only acceptable reasons to go to a psychiatrist these days are to lament over systemic racism, to discuss your fear and hatred of Trump and Trump supporters, to alleviate your worries that Trump might get reelected, or to talk through how to go about atoning for your white privilege.
Imagine what it will be like when websites like neo’s where you can conceivably post anonymously are shut down in short order after the Democrats reclaim the White House and Senate in November. When you have no outlet to vent about the blatant mail-in voter fraud that you know took place that will meanwhile be touted as the “fairest election in history” to our faces? Will to turn to the legions of mental health professionals in the country, who will be eagerly awaiting to identify and cull you “fascists” from the herd?
miklos000rosza on June 25, 2020 at 6:27 pm said:
The Bacchae is my favorite Greek tragedy. Different translations of it can sometimes be better or worse, but the main action, the plot, is just so great. Oh, Pentheus! It’s his mother who ends up as the tragic one.
* * *
Agreed.
I had the opportunity to produced and directed that play in college, with an excellent cast. I also produced Lysistrata, ditto. The setting for both was an outdoor plaza next to the art building, which was as close as we could get to emulating a Greek amphitheater.
We had to tap into the electric circuits of the next-door building, the administration hall, for lights and sound. A security guy questioned us one night about the cables running across the lawn, so I gave him the name of the lead techie, who had presumably gotten permission.
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” he said, and sauntered on about his rounds.
It’s not what you know, but who you know!
As far as I know a psychopath is evil because he/she is unavoidably mentally ill. But can the psychopath’s evil be channeled (by brainwashing) to attack victims chosen by the brainwasher (university professor) and are some blacks who hate whites and whites who hate their parents particularly vulnerable to the influence of the sociopaths (university professors) that they hold in such high esteem?
If this is the case then the blacks and whites who loot and burn and kill must be forgiven and awarded dodgy university degrees to facilitate their employment as Walmart shelf stackers.
Hey, ArtfldgrUselessNothing, you’re thinking of the late Gilda Radner’s SNL character Emily Litella. Ms. Radner’s Roseanne Rosannadanna character was the consumer affairs reporter on SNL’s Weekend Update segments.
Trivia: In her Roseanna Roseannadanna character, Ms. Radner was the commencement speaker for one of the graduating classes of the Columbia University’s School of Journalism. IIRC, part of her speech included, “When I graduated from Columbia (pause) School of Broadcasting*….” This was followed by uproarious laughter from her audience.
* old timers will remember the school’s omnipresent come-on ads on Top 40 pop radio during the 1960s and ’70s, they may also have advertised on the back of matchbooks; the school claimed to prepare people for jobs in radio
Geoffrey Britain on June 25, 2020 at 9:44 pm said:
“Violence that cannot be criticized is a two sided coin.”
Mark Steyn said:
“If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.”
Sergey on June 26, 2020 at 12:45 pm said:
“The blacks should pray for preservation of the rule of law, otherwise they would be ruled by white lynching mobs.” (typo fixed)
KyndyllG on June 26, 2020 at 2:38 pm said:
“… if a time comes when there is no rule of law, the rabble on the left might not like what happens when the law-abiding majority is no longer hampered by having to obey the law.”
Sir Thomas More, via Robert Bolt said:
“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws, not God’s–and if you cut them down…d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
* * *
There have been several threads where I was tempted to quote from MFAS, but at this point I would have to copy the entire play.
How about repeating a quote from Judge McHaney that could be stretched, by only a tiny bit, to apply:
https://www.steynonline.com/10317/the-supreme-ayatollahs-of-expertistan
Steyn opened with this observation, which contains an appellation superior to Karenwaffe, which is itself a choice meme:
Why, yes; yes, it does.
https://www.redstate.com/slee/2020/06/25/op-ed-liberal-philosophy-apparently-means-full-throated-support-of-bad-policy-until-it-becomes-a-personal-inconvenience-then-whining-about-it/
Geoffrey Britain on June 26, 2020 at 11:07 am said:
Personally, I suspect that the most probable explanation for why we haven’t seen any travelers from other solar systems is because humanity itself is under a form of quarantine.
Too many UFO sightings for it to be simply imaginary. While also preparing humanity for first contact in a “little steps” approach.
OMG GB, didn’t they tell you not to go full Ymar here?
Heh