Do We Boomers Owe Sarah Jeong an Apology?

 

I am not angry or offended by the anti-white people nonsense spewed by new NYT editorial staff member Sarah Jeong. It must be unpleasant to see the world through such a narrow, ugly prism and it is clearly hard to discover, appreciate or generate new perspectives from within such a rigid ideological bubble. As a Baby Boomer, I feel partially responsible for what must have been her stultifying educational formation.

I will explain.

We Boomers thought we had invented narcissism. Truth be told, there was nothing we came up with that had not already done in the Roaring ’20s or Weimar decadence but it certainly felt new. We rejected the notion that history, culture, tradition, country, and religion (i.e., our parents) had any standing to impose moral obligations on us. Patriotism was just a sneaky way of making us go to Vietnam, religious morality just meant that we weren’t supposed to get laid in an era of expanded sexual opportunity. We sought freedom from such moral constraints. We embarked on a path to the Nirvana of Narcissism.

We rejected historical icons and reverence for American values. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were just slaveholders. Columbus raped a continent and the entire nation was an immoral enterprise based on genocide and slavery. These kinds of statements were exciting in much the same way a child feels empowered learning cuss words but their larger purpose was to crush out any standing on the part of our heritage to impose any duties on us. Nothing that tainted has any moral standing to demand loyalty or reverence. We would be the first culturally autonomous beings.

If we did adopt any religious beliefs, it was only as a satisfying adjunct to a lifestyle, not an adherence driven by obligations to truths greater than ourselves. While we steadfastly resisted any sneaky attempt to impose traditional moral obligations on us by traditional institutions, we created new obligations to impose on others. Protection of the environment, for example, was never just another dry public policy issue but rather a set of exciting new ways to assign blame and virtue, to impose obligations on others.

From abortion to homosexual marriage to plastic straws, it is all about the heirs of the Nirvana of  Narcissism imposing their/our will on the remnants of the culture that once tried to impose its morality and legacy. Only the enlightened (i.e., deeply, bathetically narcissistic) would have standing to impose moral duties.

Some of the worst of us got tenure, naturally. Even though the legacy of Marxism in practice is hundreds of millions of corpses, unimaginable oppression, injustice and horror, Marxism, in theory, remains a preferred mode of mental masturbation for the worst of us. Global growth of middle-class lifestyles and the free market’s relentless assault on class barriers made the “workers of the world unite” shtick from the early 20th century so patently silly that the worst of us decided to apply Marx to race and sex where it is even more patently stupid, yet seemingly new and clever.

Like the dog that actually caught up to the fire engine, Boomer academics destroyed so much of the institutions they rebelled against that they have nothing left to do but devolve into caricature.  If one’s whole life was about resenting parental disapproval of one’s politics and sexual mores, what does one do when they’re gone — or worse they change their minds, “grow,” and agree with you? The ever-shifting array of leftist tropes, causes du jour, and passions are all driven by the same non serviam based on the fear that some comprehensive traditional moral order will return and swallow up the illusory freedoms we narcissists carved out.

Back in the day when the face of the traditional moral order was that of the innocuous ordinary people who comprised family, friends, and neighbors, it was not really all that threatening. But when you succeed in divorcing your life from all that was once normal, when distance and ignorance create caricature in the place of everyday experience, the fear increases even as the threat from the forces of tradition recedes. Spectacularly stupid fiction like The Handmaid’s Tale is accepted as accurate metaphor, Jim Acosta’s horror at the deeply alien, non-leftist regions of America is considered sane, and Sarah Jeong’s utterly sophomoric tweets about her weird caricatures of white people is mainstream.

When we Boomers embarked on the solipsistic, selfish, arrogant stylings that characterized our youth, we did lasting damage to nurturing institutions and to the following generations who needed and deserved the values, wisdom, and experience we squandered. Sorry, Sarah, we owe you an apology but you may not have been educated well enough to know why and that’s our fault as well.

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  1. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    No, “we” don’t.

    • #1
  2. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    In case anyone is wondering what this is about, the New York Times just hired an incredibly hateful racist to their editorial board.

    The new rules imposed by leftists require that such a person not only be fired but never hold a job for the rest of her life.

    Fortunately for Jeong, her ugly, hateful rhetoric (and it is very, very ugly) is directed toward white people, so the New York Times is A-Ok with that.

    Also, fortunately for Jeong, racism is okay when it’s directed at white people, and sexism is okay when it’s directed at men. Even the very, very ugliest.

    • #2
  3. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Here’s a piece at the Federalist which chronicles some of her hate-filled rhetoric.

    Here’s a piece at the Federalist, focusing on the New York Times‘ weak response.

    • #3
  4. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Maybe her parents do, but not the collective “we”. Coach Lou Holtz explains …

     

    • #4
  5. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Bathos, if you feel you caused all that, go right ahead and step up to the confessional. It’s all on you. Own it, if that’s what pleases you. 

    But leave the rest of us out of it. We singlehandedly caused plastic straw bans and gay marriage out of “narcissism?” Give me a break. 

    • #5
  6. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Old Bathos:

    I am not angry or offended by the anti-white people nonsense spewed by new NYT editorial staff member Sarah Jeong.

    I am.

    Specifically, I’m offended by her maliciously racist and misanderist tweets, and I am incensed about the double standard.  

     

     

    • #6
  7. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    I see a fairly heavy dose of irony in the main post.  Perhaps it can be read as painting with too broad a brush, but there is no doubt that the predominant Boomer culture has gotten us in significant measure to where we are today.  And that would seem to include Ms. Jeong.

    • #7
  8. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    I read a little of the Times’ reported explanation that seemed to say she recognized errors in her earlier comments regarding white people. I’m not sure how far this goes, but if she apologizes for her misstatements and ceases to express those views in the future, she’s probably ok for the Times. I don’t read the publication.

    • #8
  9. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    I read a little of the Times’ reported explanation that seemed to say she recognized errors in her earlier comments regarding white people. I’m not sure how far this goes, but if she apologizes for her misstatements and ceases to express those views in the future, she’s probably ok for the Times. I don’t read the publication.

    Well, what’s she gonna say when her job’s on the line? “I don’t apologize for being an ugly racist”? No, she’ll say what is required of her (or the Times will attribute an apology to her whether she gave it or not) and she will continue on.

    Look, I wish that we weren’t the sort of culture that approved of policing thought like this, but the left (of which the Times is one of the chief mouthpieces) created these rules, and we need to force them to obey their rules until they cry like babies and beg us to stop.

    We can’t go on being nice to them in the hopes that they’ll return the favor. Because they won’t. Instead they’ll see that we’re suckers and keep behaving like totalitarian thought police.

    • #9
  10. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    In case anyone is wondering what this is about, the New York Times just hired an incredibly hateful racist to their editorial board.

    The new rules imposed by leftists require that such a person not only be fired but never hold a job for the rest of her life.

    Fortunately for Jeong, her ugly, hateful rhetoric (and it is very, very ugly) is directed toward white people, so the New York Times is A-Ok with that.

    Also, fortunately for Jeong, racism is okay when it’s direct at white people, and sexism is okay when it’s directed at men. Even the very, very ugliest.

    It’s a good think she didn’t mention gay or transgender whites.

    • #10
  11. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    She claims she was just responding in kind to people who were being mean to her.

    We report, you decide.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm5MXAW4AcXu_z.jpg:large

    • #11
  12. Jim Lakely Inactive
    Jim Lakely
    @JimLakely

    This morning when I read about Ms. Jeong I tried to convince myself to feel just a little sorry for her. She’s 30, right in the middle of the Millennial generation that has been indoctrinated rather than educated. But, the more I thought about it, the more it was clear that she never took an opportunity to question that indoctrination and think for herself. And today she had her unthinking racism rewarded by the highest order of journalism in America. So she will never grow up, and will never gain empathy, and never shake her sickness.

    None of that, though, is society’s fault. Plenty of 30-year-olds who went to college (and even law school) deprogram themselves in the process. I think, though, I feel just a little sorry for someone who will never know life without unhinged anger toward the “other.” It’s a pitiable state to be in.

    • #12
  13. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    Well, if she’d replace “people” and “men” with “college admissions officers” in some of those tweets, I’d be sympathetic.

    I guess it’s progress when The Times can replace self-hating bigots with hating bigots.

    • #13
  14. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    PHCheese (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    In case anyone is wondering what this is about, the New York Times just hired an incredibly hateful racist to their editorial board.

    The new rules imposed by leftists require that such a person not only be fired but never hold a job for the rest of her life.

    Fortunately for Jeong, her ugly, hateful rhetoric (and it is very, very ugly) is directed toward white people, so the New York Times is A-Ok with that.

    Also, fortunately for Jeong, racism is okay when it’s direct at white people, and sexism is okay when it’s directed at men. Even the very, very ugliest.

    It’s a good think she didn’t mention gay or transgender whites.

    She was just one space away.

    • #14
  15. LC Member
    LC
    @LidensCheng

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    She claims she was just responding in kind to people who were being mean to her.

    We report, you decide.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm5MXAW4AcXu_z.jpg:large

    Wow that’s one disgusting human being.

    • #15
  16. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    In case anyone is wondering what this is about, the New York Times just hired an incredibly hateful racist to their editorial board.

    The new rules imposed by leftists require that such a person not only be fired but never hold a job for the rest of her life.

    Fortunately for Jeong, her ugly, hateful rhetoric (and it is very, very ugly) is directed toward white people, so the New York Times is A-Ok with that.

    Also, fortunately for Jeong, racism is okay when it’s directed at white people, and sexism is okay when it’s directed at men. Even the very, very ugliest.

    The rule that racism is bad and that people should be discouraged from racism is a very good rule. Regular white America gets that and by large they can follow that rule. 

    When rules are used in a ‘for thee but not for me’ way, they lose that respect. The white identarian movement is what naturally happens when you don’t follow the correct rules. 

    Racism against whites is bad in and of itself (it perhaps causes the most suffering in the souls of non-white people) but I am very worried about white people picking up identity politics. 

    • #16
  17. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    In fairness, when you consider the great historical sins that America has perpetrated against the Korean people …

    I mean it took most Korean families nearly five years before they entered the property owning upper-middle classes in Queens.  

    • #17
  18. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    She claims she was just responding in kind to people who were being mean to her.

    We report, you decide.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm5MXAW4AcXu_z.jpg:large

    Well, in that case her response should be to individuals and I bet if what she is describing is even real it’s not limited to white men. There may be a few white men with whom she has had negative experience but that’s no reason to extend to all.

    • #18
  19. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Racism against whites is bad in and of itself (it perhaps causes the most suffering in the souls of non-white people) but I am very worried about white people picking up identity politics.

    Yep. White people never really thought of themselves as an identity group. Then the left came along and treated them like one. (One to be hated.) And . . . well, . . . it was probably a really stupid move on the part of leftists.

    • #19
  20. She Member
    She
    @She

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    Here’s a piece at the Federalist which chronicles some of her hate-filled rhetoric.

    Here’s a piece at the Federalist, focusing on the New York Times‘ weak response.

    What a disgusting display. 

    Perhaps my irony filter is on the fritz, but I’m afraid I think that no-one is responsible for this woman’s behavior but herself.  

    Nice to see that the NYT responds by turning her into the victim:

    Her journalism and the fact that she is a young Asian woman have made her a subject of frequent online harassment.  For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers.  She sees now that this approach only served to feed the vitriol that we too often see on social media.  She regrets it . . . (emphasis added)

    What a surprise.  Of course she does.  Job’s on the line.  Or maybe–not.

    I’ll apologize to her for screwing up her world and turning her into such a nasty person, right about the time the Greatest Generation apologizes to me for screwing up mine and turning me into such a basket case, if that’s how it’s to work from now on.

    Sorry, you lost me at “We Boomers . . . . “

    • #20
  21. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    You all don’t know white until you have  Vitiligo.

     

     

     

     

    • #21
  22. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    I guess I should have been more literal. 

    Sarah Jeong’s racial tweets are neither the product of, nor likely susceptible to discursive reason. Addressing them as if they were is a waste of time.

    She is without doubt the product of a dysfunctional education system.

    To treat the left as if they were an alien entity dropped from the sky is simply the reverse of MSM treatment of normal Americans. The origins of this ideological rot is in a cultural and collective behavioral history we all share. Modern leftist personal malformation is directly linked to behaviors and decisions and preferences cultivated by people of my generation. To quote Pogo: “ We have met the enemy and he is us.”

    The young purveyors of the victim culture are themselves victims of an ideology fostered largely as a means to forestall adult membership in Western civilization, an ideology that could never have become prevalent if character, virtue integrity and humility mattered as much as they should have.

    I myself had a rather meager record as a hedonist in the 60s and 70s. I did not protest the war—I entered the US Army as a volunteer. My parents were Reagan Democrats, my father a DOJ Attorney in the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s mostly bringing cases and doing investigations in Mississippi and Tennessee [Note: I loathe SJW posers who think they bravely battling the alt-right at great personal risk—I grew up knowing of real heroes, real risks and real injustice.] I never found Marxism appealing. I studied Aquinas and the Greeks and later loved public choice and law & economics studies. So in all, my personal accountability for modern Marxist twaddle is arguably quite limited. That was never the point of the post.

    So my “apology” is more the nature of an expression of disappointment that my generation as a whole did not provide stewardship of the rich cultural legacy that was given to us. We should have worked harder, including better ways to frame issues, to persuade. Scoring debate points against people trained to think in bumper stickers is not likely to change minds.

    I also think that patiently explaining why we think these kids are victims is likely more humanly productive than pointing out obvious defects in content.

    • #22
  23. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    She claims she was just responding in kind to people who were being mean to her.

    We report, you decide.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm5MXAW4AcXu_z.jpg:large

    This is weird.  I can’t highlight your link, and, as you can see, when I quote the whole post, the link isn’t copied.

    • #23
  24. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    She claims she was just responding in kind to people who were being mean to her.

    We report, you decide.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm5MXAW4AcXu_z.jpg:large

    This is weird. I can’t highlight your link, and, as you can see, when I quote the whole post, the link isn’t copied.

    It was a cut-and-paste image, but it’s the same set of hateful tweets you’ve seen elsewhere. I question the assertion that she was responding to anyone with these. They all seem to have ushered forth from her keyboard unbidden, without prompting.

    • #24
  25. Simon Templar Member
    Simon Templar
    @

    99.999% chance that she would tell you that she is not a racist because blacks cannot be racists.  In her world view only the Western-Civ Patriarchy (that may be redundant) is racist.  I know because Afro-Americans have told me so.  You really cannot argue with people who think that way.

    I suspect that they believe that heaven on Earth cannot begin until Caucasians are extinct.  Not joking.  

    • #25
  26. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Wow, Bathos.  That’s pretty high faulutin’ stuff.  And yet, somehow, I am left with the nagging feeling that racism, envy, and victim mentality were not invented by baby boomers, but rather have existed since one tribe of cavemen first attacked the tribe over the next hill.  I think Ms. Jeong would have felt quite comfortable, issuing her bloodthirsty screams during that battle.

    • #26
  27. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Old Bathos: When we Boomers embarked on the solipsistic, selfish, arrogant stylings that characterized our youth, we did lasting damage to nurturing institutions and to the following generations who needed and deserved the values, wisdom and experience we squandered.

    Speak for yourself, big guy.

    • #27
  28. Simon Templar Member
    Simon Templar
    @

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Old Bathos: When we Boomers embarked on the solipsistic, selfish, arrogant stylings that characterized our youth, we did lasting damage to nurturing institutions and to the following generations who needed and deserved the values, wisdom and experience we squandered.

    Speak for yourself, big guy.

    Hear, hear!

    • #28
  29. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    When I was in grad school, many of the professors were unabashed about admitting they hated us for who we were and what we betrayed: the Marxist dream. As leftist as we were pictured, we weren’t willing to do the job demanded from the 1840s right up through the 1940s: make revolution, cut throats, kill the priests. We were an immense disappointment to men and women born 20-40 years before we were, the class of people who ran colleges and government.  When we were cynical about America, it was along the lines of The Godfather, not Das Kapital

    We were the generation of Spielberg, Lucas, Gates and Jobs. Saturday Night Live and Saturday Night Fever. We were the despair of 1980s commentators who couldn’t understand why Reagan wasn’t hated by the (then still relatively) young voters. 

    We started families and built the richest economy the world has ever seen. 

    So if a bunch of 40 year old editors hire a 35 year old hater, no, I don’t feel especially responsible. 

    • #29
  30. Nanda Pajama-Tantrum Member
    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum
    @

    The  “corporate singular” – we conservatives, we Boomers – seems to be getting quite the workout today. It’s easy and catchy, but rather short-sighted. One frame of thought/mode of behavior does not fit all. 1948-1964 is quite a large cohort: It varies in income, housing, employment, education, experiences, family composition, parenting styles…

    I know my folks and teachers didn’t tolerate that kind of self-aggrandizing, reflexive twaddle from me. 

    • #30
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