A commenter at Mangan’s linked to a recent 60 Minutes segment which discussed study findings that babies are born with a moral compass and innate biases against people (or things) not like themselves. In short, it would appear that in-groupism, and hostility to the Other, is inborn in all of us.
Favoritism for one’s own kind and racism are, not to put too fine a point on it, a property of human nature and not something “taught” or constructed out of whole cloth by mean parents, the KKK, or afrocentric studies professors. This property can certainly be amplified or dampened by cultural intervention, but it cannot be eradicated or wished away.
In-groupism has evolved for a reason, and that reason likely led to an increase in reproductive fitness for those humans who had the gene(s) for in-groupism. In-groupism is, from the gene’s point of view, a GOOD THING. Now whether in-groupism is still as fitness maximizing today as it necessarily has been throughout human history is another question, but no one can seriously argue that it’s a pointless emotional reflex only designated “bad people” (read: working class white men) possess. If you need the dots connected, tribal favoritism is as natural as love.
As I am a person who generally prefers to not make life miserable for the mediocre masses who are just trundling by trying to eke out a slice of joy without stepping on my toes, I instinctively recoil at those self-righteous social engineers who would attempt to reprogram certain classes of people (read: working class white men) to betray their essence as human beings in order to more properly mouth the hypocritical bleatings of the gated-community pompous elite. So, inevitably, when some malevolent leftists seize on these studies and deliberately misconstrue the message they should be taking from them to further their anti-human status whoring agenda, I draw my sword and level it at their throats.
Since beheading of one’s ideological enemies is not yet (again) in fashion, we must settle for the weapon of our words, and no verbal artillery is more powerful in today’s snark-soaked society than the insouciant reframe. A successful reframe will win friends and influence people, and, best of all, it will drive your foes insane with impotent rage.
To wit: the commenter at Mangan’s worried that our leftist overlords would misuse this study for their nefarious ends, instead of taking the proper lesson from it that their unpracticed worldview is a mile high pile of horseshit.
Babies are born to be biased against the other. And to listen to these PC Marxist Professors going ‘Oh no, we have to train these people out of this’. Instead of saying wait a minute–maybe I’m wrong about political correctness.
How would your typical ankle-grabbing rightie like, oh, say, Rich Lowry, reply to a ruling class leftist who asserted that any proof of hard-wired racism meant that emotionally torturous reeducation must continue until morale improves? Likely, he would comply that steps must be taken to reduce the chance that inborn racism would lead to immigration restrictions, but that we must also be careful not to place any blame on [white men] for their regressive views because, after all, they were born with this original sin, blah fucking blah.
No doubt the mass of mainstream “””conservatives””” would fall right in step with their leftie tormentors’ frames, presenting their chafed rumps for yet another humiliating ramming.
Now how would this conversation go if the ruling class leftie had to confront an aloof asshole like yours truly who didn’t give a shit about clinking glasses with rancid anti-white leftoids at stiffly polite cocktail parties?
Leftoid: “Oh no, we have to train [white men] out of this.”
Demon’s Herald: “Sure, and while we’re at it, what do you think of training gays out of their homosexuality? It’ll cut down on the AIDS if the studies are to be believed.”
The masterful reframe uses the momentum of your enemy’s thrusting knife against him. Your goal with any reframe should be to either divert the withering mockery of the audience toward your opponent, or to ensnare your opponent in a logic trap which forces him to defend whatever blithe inanity he intones to lubricate his limbic folds.
It is similar in function to seductive reframes with women: you either redirect a woman’s alpha probing into self-conscious insecurity where she will revert to defending her attitude and become psychologically conditioned to perceive you as higher value than herself, or you make her feel the burn of mockery that is the undercurrent of teasing foreplay leading to sexual relinquishment to your obvious dominating presence.
Here’s another example. A commenter at Larry Auster’s accurately imagines what a typical anti-white leftoid (in this case, John Podhoretz) would say to a realist schooled in the facts of intransigent human nature and the evolved preference for tribalism:
You [Auster] wrote:
“But humanity does not consist of universal individuals. It consists of various cultures, ethnicities, and races all of which have particular identities, characteristics, ability levels, values, and agendas which are different from those of the host society. As a result, the mass presence of those different groups in the host society, far from advancing right-liberal equal freedom, empowers their unassimilable identities, characteristics, ability levels, values, and agendas, and thus changes the host country from a right-liberal society into a multicultural, left-liberal, racial-socialist society whose ruling principle is equality of outcome for all groups.”
To which Podhoretz pere et fils would surely reply, “Why do you hate freedom?”
How does a weak-willed, supplicating, betaboy “””conservative””” like, oh, say, Jim Geraghty, respond to this all-too-realistic, imagined Podhoretz coercive frame? Probably something like this: “I don’t hate freedom! Really, I don’t! Look, some of my best friends are freedom lovers. And I promise never again to use the word slut, no matter how applicable it is. Be kind to me?”
Lame. Podhoretz owns the frame, and Geraghty is just playing within its bounds.
Now how would this imagined yet highly probable conversation go if Podhoretz were trying to box in a mischief maker like yours sincerely?
Pod: “Why do you hate freedom?”
Demon’s Padawan: “Why do you fellate goats?”
Leftoid’s frame destroyed, razed by brutal and vicious ridicule, and, should the demonic horde so choose, seamlessly replaced with a frame of their comfortable choosing.
Some GOP operatives who shall remain unnamed have written here asking for ideas about reframing against the media-dominated leftism that rules the airwaves and the shit channels. Well, here are some ideas. I could give more, but I don’t feel much like it, mostly because I have my suspicions that the lot of the mainstream right isn’t really interested in LISTENING and WAKING THE FUCK UP, but instead would prefer the glass-clinking route until either the whole thing goes down in flames or they can grab the coattails of a truly brave leader and say “See, I was right there with you all along!”
Fucking puling waterboys. Ass-lapping company men.
Anyhow, I leave you with this final thought: Mockery.
Mockery.
And more mockery.
This is the age of superficiality, of winning through intimidation, and the only way the right is ever going to defeat the left in any meaningful manner is to mock them relentlessly, mercilessly, sadistically. You cannot defeat snark — the leftoid’s debate tactic of choice — with logical exposition or appeals to civility. You only kill it by turning it on itself. If you think this is a sorry turn of events… well, it is, but it’s the world we live in. Abide reality, or abort. The reality is that three huge branches of mind massaging — the media, academia, and government — are in control of the discourse, and it is blatantly against your interests as a realist thinker and lover of truth and beauty.
Appeasement is a luxury of winners.
Even then, even if the right took all my advice and gamed the shit out of their media cockblocks and the LJBF electorate, there may be no saving this sinking ship. Even the tightest game is no match for a demographic tsunami that is constitutionally wedded to the idea of Big Daddy State and Bad, Beta White Man.
As always,
yours in poolside.
[crypto-donation-box]
