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When Did the Left Turn into Rick Santorum?
Seemingly everyone on Earth watched in astonishment as humanity landed a research probe on a small comet speeding 84,000 miles per hour towards the sun. Well, everyone on Earth except Ms. Rose Eveleth of Brooklyn, N.Y.
The acting technology editor for The Atlantic couldn’t pay attention to the history being made right in front of her eyes. She was too busy screen-capping and zooming-in on a scientist’s shirt to see if it offended her. And, boy, did it ever.
No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt. https://t.co/r88QRzsqAm pic.twitter.com/XmhHKrNaq5
— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014
“The dude” is Rosetta Project astrophysicist Matt Taylor, who wore an intentionally kitschy bowling shirt covered with cartoons of ’80s-era pin-up girls holding sci-fi guns. It’s basically a parody of the tacky artwork that adorned everything from Duran Duran cassette covers to Trans Am hoods. Taylor is also covered shoulder-to-ankle in garish tattoos, has the requisite ironic hipster beard and holds international press conferences in surf shorts, purple socks and skater shoes.
Granted, I prefer my rocket scientists with crewcuts, skinny black ties and thick-rimmed glasses, but culture has devolved in the decades since the Mercury missions. That being said, what kind of a buzzkill would deny a brilliant physicist a silly, celebratory wardrobe on the greatest day of his professional life?
Oh I’m going to be on camera talking about the comet? I’ll to wear a shirt half naked women on it! http://t.co/4X1E4oz39F h/t @edyong209
— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014
Several miserable harpies joined Ms. Eveleth on the public shaming, turning a staggering scientific achievement into a colloquy on restoring Victorian dress codes. For the record, the shirt was made by a woman named Elly Prizeman as a fun gift for her physicist friend. No doubt, she shall be placed in the village stockade for her grievous sin of consorting with a male and having her cartoon ladies show too much ankle. Her repentance will only be accepted when she covers them up in burkas.
Mr. Taylor then made the bad situation worse. Instead of telling these progressive puritans to go pound silicon dioxide, he issued a sobbing public confession straight out of a Maoist show trial. This guy just dropped a dishwasher on an ice cube 300 million miles from home and he’s groveling to a coven of D-list bloggers?
For years the left has characterized conservatives as joyless scolds forcing their morality on a resentful public. But they’ve upended this paradigm by becoming far more judgmental and censorious than so-called social conservatives like Rick Santorum ever conceived of being. The left is demanding so many recantations, the ghost of Torquemada is rolling his eyes and muttering awk-wrrrd.
Following the successful inquisition of the heretical scientist, the shirt’s creator shared a final thought on Facebook:
As long as people keep caving to the progressive puritans, the cruelty will only get worse.
Published in General
My point is that he’s aiming at the liberal journalists not SoCons. My evidence is his history of posts, comments, tweets, and edits.
Again, if Jon was routinely using Santorum, or SoCons generally as punching bags, I would assess this post differently.
Let’s not miss the forest for the trees; context matters.
Dr. Taylor runs with the crowd that turned on him, and he seeks their approval.
Him not having told them where they can get off earlier led to this day.
I feel bad for him, but not that bad.
Santini!
That was pitch perfect.
If that dude was Obama’s dad… well Obama probably wouldn’t be President, but he’d write better memoirs!
And thus nobody should object to a bit of “friendly fire” that is flatly false and incidentally uncalled for; makes perfect sense. Right.
The headline, and the article, was written for the left, not the right. Please note that every criticism I level is something that progressives claim to hate: Puritans, prudes, Victorians, etc. But the reality is that liberals are the scolds, not Santorum, et al. Did Santorum complain about scantily dressed women? No. Did social conservatives make the astrophysicist break down in tears? No.
The left is precisely what they claim to hate and we need to rub their noses in it.
I didn’t get the memo. Is there something wrong with half naked women?
If god didn’t want us to like scantily clad women he wouldn’t have made them hot.
Stop insulting victorian’s by comparing them to these people. Victorian christian art had nudity, girl-on-girl action, and mild BDSM.
Is this site chock-a-block with leftists to annoy?
This incident (not the headline) is just ridiculous. First, this guy is so smart, it’s safe to say he’s probably socially awkward. Second, this was his moment, and little Miss Sassy Pants completely denigrated him and the science and the achievement by being so offended by his shirt. Third, despite her leftist credentials, she violated every stupid bullying curriculum in an elementary school.
I was horrified by his apology and it only made me feel sorry for him–that his stellar achievement has been marred by someone who had to be right and better than him. I grew up in really legalistic churches and I am always stunned at how well the left takes their tactics while decrying religion.
I may have to go put bourbon in my morning cup of coffee…sigh
I don’t have to be of the Left to know that context matters.
That shirt at a Biker Bar: Tasteless and appropriate.
That shirt at a Bachelor Party: Tasteless and appropriate.
That shirt at a Convention of 80’s Art Enthusiasts: Tasteful and appropriate.
That shirt at a Euro Space Agency Press Conference: Tasteless and inappropriate.
That shirt in a typical office or government facility: Tasteless and inappropriate.
The Left condemn this guy’s shirt for objectifying women. And so it does. As does a picture of Brad Pitt in a bathing suit objectify him. Brad Pitt is more than his good looks; does that mean it’s wrong to also showcase his physical features? Even an uncharitable person must admit that the annual Miss America contest showcases women with both physical attractiveness and artistic skills and talents. I think most people can synthesize the idea that physical appearance neither demands nor prohibits human abilities, let alone human dignity and self-worth. That doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate physical beauty, does it? No. Nor does it mean pictures from a Victoria’s Secrets catalog is appropriate to hang in a government office. It would be tasteless and inappropriate to do so.
What chaps my backside is the ludicrous hypocrisy of the Left. Imagine a Euro Space Agency physicist being interviewed in a burka. Then try to get the Left on record describing that burka. The burka doesn’t merely objectify women; it nullifies them. Its message is a women must be encased in cloth to prevent her features from disgracing the ground men walk upon. This denies a women her human dignity and erases her self-worth. That’s an abomination the Left ignores as thoroughly as it does Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
Great post. I thought about this because I read comics and play videogames– I noticed that these social justice warriors, at least when talking about comics and videogames, would be totally at home in a more conservative church: “these women need to cover up! Why are they exposing themselves like that? You’re corrupting the youth of society!” It’s The Seduction of the Innocent all over again. A new form of Puritanism about sexuality.
That’s one way to look at it. But I’m not sure that’s right.
What’s going on with a lot of the SJWs isn’t concern for women, women’s rights, or morality. Rather, its a power grab plane and simple. You’ve got a bunch of people running around hijacking everything to serve the agenda of bending the conversations and media to their will. Its a vanity project. Run around, find an issue, inject yourself into it at an emotional level: “I feel offended, my feelings are hurt,” and then reap the rewards of seeing people bend and squeal to avoid “offending people.” After all, in modern America, “no one should have to feel offended.”
I’d be far more willing to cut these people some slack if I felt they were making some great moral point. But when videogame reviewers play some violent game or a game filled with violence and profanity, and their one complaint (aside from controls or something) is that a woman’s chest was too large or too exposed, you know something’s wrong. That’s how I realized this was a way for a few elites to beat up the rest of us “rubes” out there.
Bingo.
I do believe this calls for the Liberal Bovine Excrement thread.
Just for balance, I enjoyed the gratuitous shot at Santorum.
The answer Jon, is the left has always been this way; it was just not as noticeable. In life there are authoritarians and anarchists. For a while, one set of authoritarians makes common cause with anarchists, in tearing down the rules enacted by other authoritarians. But that doesn’t mean they were ever really authoritarians. They were just in drag until the rules they didn’t like were swept out of the way, allowing them to forge us all a new set of chains.
I think it was PJ O’Rourke who said ‘The right will say that shouldn’t say something, but the left will say that you can’t say something.’
To the Progressives, leftist politics is their religion. They are engaged in a religious war with us.
It irks me when conservatives decry modern liberals for not understanding the threat from Islamicists, but then disparage openly religious politicians on the right.
That wasn’t a shot at Rick Santorum.
More like, “When did the left turn into their caricature of Rick Santorum?”
This whole episode is a perfect example of WHY institutional cultures used to require conformity of dress and hairstyle, just like the “rape culture” hype has illustrated WHY institutional cultures used to require a minimum level of civility and gender segregation.
The shirt itself depicts beautiful women wielding firearms.
How is that sexist? How does that malign the gender?
Based on social media/Internet traffic, it is today. This article is upsetting them.
Because it’s on a geek who, at the time, was happy and highly successful– definitely happier and more popular than the idiot reporter that went wandering around for non-talking-heads to interview, then getting mad that they weren’t polished spokespersons. Zomga, too much reality in my behind the scenes!
So they had to change the subject from the really awesome success to tearing him down, threatening to destroy his life, and generally performing bodily functions on the last decade of hard work.
Heaven forbid someone run into a real image of what geeks, nerds, etc are like– nope, gotta conform to press photos from half a century back.
They want “cuddly,” safe nerds that fit into movies like “Revenge of the Nerds,” and if that doesn’t work they write a nasty caricature, merrily ignoring little things like reality.
Just #gamergate, take two, with a target much more vulnerable to pressure.
Incidentally? Probably not a hipster. He’s what the hipsters are mimicking. He probably wore the shirt because it was a beloved, fun gift from a friend. That kind of joy appears to be oddly difficult for ‘danes to understand.
Good.
Jon,
Thanks for posting this and reminding us how pervasive the real Culture War is and how humor is the best way to handle it.
I, too, thought the notion of the Left becoming Rick Santorum was in bad taste. The Left doesn’t deserve to become Rick Santorum. Zombies don’t deserve to become Rick Santorm. Even telemarketers don’t deserve to become Rick Santorum. No one deserves to become Rick Santorum.
Nah, she should give speeches on behalf of the poor unfortunates.
And I have a poster of this* because it was a beloved, fun gift from a friend. And I’m of the XX persuasion.
(Or rather, had a poster of this. In a since-regretted moment of generosity, I gave it away to a fellow nerd of the XY persuasion who seemed to appreciate it even more than I did. My only hope is he still considers it a beloved, fun gift from a friend.)
______________________________________________
* Image is mildly NSFW, but full of nerdly goodness.
Also might help illuminate the difference between “bathing suits” and “half naked” for those who seem to be confused about what “half naked women” actually are.
EDITED to add link to the fabric on ebay; technically, it’s bathing suits and Emma Peel. With guns.
Rose is only upset because she is not anywhere close to being a candidate to be on the shirt. It jealousy plain and simple.
First, let’s all agree the second in from right needs help . . . talk about starving grad student! Plus there’s black stuff all over her back. Let’s get that cleaned up.
Second, forgive my revealing how unhip I am . . . NSFW . . . Not Suitable For W . . . ? Work, no doubt.
How about a nerdy sub-thread . . . W could be . . . Worshipping, Wisdom, Wishing (nope, plenty suitable for that), Wistfulness (nope, suitable for that), Wearing (like the infamous shirt in question?), Wannabes, Whatever?
Finally, what’s the suitable punishment for female nerds self-objectifying? Oh, never mind; that’s like asking why the N-word is OK in Pulp Fiction just not anywhere else.
This was the golden day when a ten+ year project reached fruition. If I were on the science/engineering team that day, I would have been so damn happy I wouldn’t have cared if half the team were dressed like they just came from a gay leather bar. At a moment like this, can we not cut people a little slack for being exuberant and “unprofessional”?
This is like criticizing Albert Einstein because he didn’t always keep his hair neatly combed. And it’s a way for people who’ve never launched a rocket to stick themselves into the story.