Beauty and Success Are Bourgeois Values and Must Be Crushed

 

Exhibit 1. The Miss America pageant is eliminating beauty as a standard for deciding who will win its contests. In other words, the entire competition comes down to who gives the best “I will work for world peace and uphold the values of the Miss America pageant” speech.

The competition would focus more on the contestants’ talents, intelligence and ideas. “We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance,” [Chairwoman Gretchen] Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “We are moving it forward and evolving it in this cultural revolution.”

Interesting choice of words, “Cultural Revolution.” The last “Cultural Revolution,” the Maoist one, was also purging individuals who didn’t fit it with a leftist’s ideal society. And the death toll was in the millions. But as the left says, “If you make an omelet, you need to break some eggs.” (The eggs are human lives, the omelet is socialist utopia, in case that wasn’t obvious.)

Exhibit 2. The German Government, or at least, it’s left-wing, is considering using taxpayer funding to create pornography for feminists. The key part of their plan is that porn should feature ugly people and lectures about gender role. I am not making this up.

A group of German legislators who are aligned with the majority government, are pushing a law that would require the German people to fund the creation of anti-sexist pornography that features “fat, skinny, young and old people.”

Germany’s state run television networks ARD and ZDF would then broadcast the adult films to fight sexism on the ground.

Germany’s younger legislators believe that “mainstream porn generally shows sexist and racial stereotypes in which consent is not a theme and certain ‘optimal’ body types are made as standard.” Mainstream porn also fails to show responsible use of contraception, they argue, and fails to model adequate communications strategies between the two (or, really, several) partners.

So, just like sports in America have become a conduit to deliver social justice lectures, German pornography must now also service the cause of social indoctrination. And the indoctrinated message must be “

Beyond those two examples, the idea that no one should be special is pervading the entertainment media. Star Wars: The Last Jedi made this clear with its whole “Anybody can be a Jedi” theme.

There are shades of Harrison Bergeron … the classic Vonnegut short story in which the “Handicapper General” hobbles the able-bodied, masks the beautiful, and blares loud radios at the intelligent to keep them from thinking…. so that no one can be stronger, better-looking, or more intelligent than anyone else. That is how they achieve the ideal Utopian “fairness” that the cultural left claim as their Holy Grail. In the real world, they don’t need to use weights or masks, just constant attacks on achievement and celebrations of mediocrity.

The social left is obsessed idea that nobody should feel bad about themselves for being less attractive or less capable than anyone else. Funny thing, that idea is pretty central to the Judeo-Christian ethic that the social left professes to despise. And Judeo-Christianity was doing a pretty good job of teaching it without taxpayer funding or Government imposing mediocrity by Bureaucratic Fiat.

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  1. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    I’ve always taught my daughter that the Left is made up of the dorks who didn’t sit at the popular lunch table in high school.

    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school.  I wasn’t a dork, I was the class dork and I’ve been a conservative since I was a teenager.  One time I did sit down next to a couple of the popular girls at lunch.  Without a word, they got up and moved to another table.

    • #31
  2. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    One time I did sit down next to a couple of the popular girls at lunch. Without a word, they got up and moved to another table.

    Harsh.

    • #32
  3. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo: A group of German legislators who are aligned with the majority government, are pushing a law that would require the German people to fund the creation of anti-sexist pornography that features “fat, skinny, young and old people.”

    Clearly these Stazi idiots have never heard of rule 34

     

    Kozak, I followed Rule 34, and then I followed the link that said there was bird porn there. But I found no bird porn. Bummer.

    Kent

    Quitter….

    • #33
  4. KentForrester Inactive
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    One time I did sit down next to a couple of the popular girls at lunch. Without a word, they got up and moved to another table.

    Well, you probably did have cooties, and no one wants to be infected by those things.  The girls did the right thing.

    Kent

    • #34
  5. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    As the press will surely hype the “beauty no longer a factor” angle for the next year or two, what woman is going to want to win, knowing that she will be seen as, essentially, affirmative action for non-beautiful women? Every headline, and every caption of every picture of her, is going to note that she’s not necessarily pretty. Will anyone even apply for that position?

    • #35
  6. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Dorrk (View Comment):

    As the press will surely hype the “beauty no longer a factor” angle for the next year or two, what woman is going to want to win, knowing that she will be seen as, essentially, affirmative action for non-beautiful women? Every headline, and every caption of every picture of her, is going to note that she’s not necessarily pretty. Will anyone even apply for that position?

    Are you kidding?  People will humiliate themselves on Youtube so they can feel famous.  They won’t have a problem getting multiple women from each state who want a chance at a little bit of fame.

    • #36
  7. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo:

    Exhibit 1. The Miss America pageant is eliminating beauty as a standard for deciding who will win its contests, In other words, the entire competition comes down to who gives the best “I will work for world peace and uphold the values of the Miss America pageant” speech.

    Or maybe because they are SJW converged but realize that there would be new contestants such as a woman with a penis; seeing that in a swimsuit might really hurt advertising revenue.

    Hat tip wirecutter. Linked site not CoC compliant; he didn’t phrase it quite the way I did.

    That’s one of the two funny lines I heard about the Miss America pageant, they had to get rid of swimsuits so we wouldn’t see the bulges. The other line was that Miss America should just turn the pageant into a [penis] measuring contest.

    I’m waiting for them to allow trans women, which would be so unfair because men don’t get cellulite or big thighs.

    • #37
  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    I’ve always taught my daughter that the Left is made up of the dorks who didn’t sit at the popular lunch table in high school.

    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school. I wasn’t a dork, I was the class dork and I’ve been a conservative since I was a teenager. One time I did sit down next to a couple of the popular girls at lunch. Without a word, they got up and moved to another table.

    Awww! But look at ya now! Fancy cars. I don’t say that all dorks went on to become resentful leftists, but really a lot of resentful leftists were the outcasts in high school and never got over it. They seem to be on a mission to knock everyone down as if equality means spreading the misery around equally. The high school that now allows everyone to make the cheerleading squad? That had to have been engineered by former high school outcasts. If everyone gets to be a cheerleader, then it’s no longer special and has no cachet to it.

    • #38
  9. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Bob W (View Comment):
    they’ll be accused of lookism or some similar bias.

    Haha. Made me laugh. Lookism. 

    😂

    • #39
  10. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):
    It’s porn! The language spoken by the performers is utterly irrelevant!

    Ja! Ja! Ja!

    Oui! Oui! Oui!

    Yes! Yes! Yes!

    • #40
  11. Misthiocracy, Joke Pending Member
    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending
    @Misthiocracy

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):
    It’s porn! The language spoken by the performers is utterly irrelevant!

    Ja! Ja! Ja!

    Oui! Oui! Oui!

    Yes! Yes! Yes!

    What’s the German for, “unghrggghhhrrgh!”

    • #41
  12. Misthiocracy, Joke Pending Member
    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending
    @Misthiocracy

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    Image result for andrea dworkin quotes

    Therefore, if you see a feminine-looking thing going down a dark alley, it’s clearly a trap.

    I mean, who the heck goes down dark alleys at the best of times?  Have we learned nothing from what happened to Thomas and Martha Wayne?

    • #42
  13. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):
    It’s porn! The language spoken by the performers is utterly irrelevant!

    Ja! Ja! Ja!

    Oui! Oui! Oui!

    Yes! Yes! Yes!

    What’s the German for, “unghrggghhhrrgh!”

    Most German words sound like that.

    • #43
  14. Michael Brehm Lincoln
    Michael Brehm
    @MichaelBrehm

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Related image

    Wow. So apparently, a bog is missing its hag, and a neighboring village is missing its livestock judging from the size of her.

     

    • #44
  15. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Victor Tango Kilo: [Chairwoman Gretchen] Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “We are moving it forward and evolving it in this cultural revolution.”

    VTK,

    They are evolving to about 1/4 of their audience and the loss of most major advertisers. Bye, Bye, Miss America.

    Regards,

    Jim 

    • #45
  16. barbara lydick Inactive
    barbara lydick
    @barbaralydick

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school.

    Yeah – and look how successful they became.

    • #46
  17. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    barbara lydick (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school.

    Yeah – and look how successful they became.

    I don’t really know anyone more than  about 10 years out of school who claims they were “popular” in High School.

    • #47
  18. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Michael Brehm (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Related image

    Wow. So apparently, a bog is missing its hag, and a neighboring village is missing its livestock judging from the size of her.

    Hey, that might be next year’s Miss America you’re talking about, Michael.

    • #48
  19. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    barbara lydick (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school.

    Yeah – and look how successful they became.

    I don’t really know anyone more than about 10 years out of school who claims they were “popular” in High School.

    I went to the 51-year reunion of my high school class last year – the first reunion I had gone to. Some of the “popular” kids were there, though I don’t imagine they ever said such a thing about themselves. 

    • #49
  20. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    I’m waiting for them to allow trans women, which would be so unfair because men don’t get cellulite or big thighs.

    Well we do get beer bellies and some have chicken legs…

    • #50
  21. Chris Member
    Chris
    @Chris

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo: Exhibit 2. The German Government, or at least, its left-wing, is considering using taxpayer funding to create pornography for feminists. The key part of their plan is that porn should feature ugly people and lectures about gender role.

    The German government should learn the rules of the Internet. They’re clearly neglecting Rule 34 here.

    There’s already plenty of porn out there that features ugly people subverting gender roles. There is zero need for government to subsidize such things.

    Maybe this sort of stuff isn’t being produced in Germany, and that’s why the German government thinks it needs to subsidize it?

    It’s porn! The language spoken by the performers is utterly irrelevant!

    Mis, when is the last time you were at a rest stop/ highway oasis in Germany?  It is practically impossible to get some schnitzel for the kids without risking trauma by magazine rack.  I doubt anything isn’t being produced in Germany.

    • #51
  22. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending (View Comment):
    What’s the German for, “unghrggghhhrrgh!”

    Das unghrggghhhrrgh

    • #52
  23. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    RightAngles (View Comment): They seem to be on a mission to knock everyone down as if equality means spreading the misery around equally.

    Meh. This only applies to resentful dorks — those who wanted to claw their way, lacrosse stick in hand, to the top of the social pyramid. But only a fraction of the ex-high-school-dork population truly cared about “being popular.” Most of us didn’t give a darn; we were oblivious, or else we shrugged our shoulders. We found better uses of our time than preening or descending, locust-like, upon the city’s tanning salons.

    I have a theory that much of the “bullying epidemic” would die away if only people realized that public-school social life doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It’s a fiction. A chimera. A sad, bland, banal approximation of an actual community. But it colors people’s perceptions of the world, and, too often, it ruins them.

    • #53
  24. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    Victor Tango Kilo: The German Government, or at least, it’s left-wing, is considering using taxpayer funding to create pornography for feminists. The key part of their plan is that porn should feature ugly people and lectures about gender role. I am not making this up.

    This is what happens when we start conceptualizing sex as a natural right.

    Thanks, Freud.

    • #54
  25. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment): They seem to be on a mission to knock everyone down as if equality means spreading the misery around equally.

    Meh. This only applies to resentful dorks — those who wanted to claw their way, lacrosse stick in hand, to the top of the social pyramid. But only a fraction of the ex-high-school-dork population truly cared about “being popular.” Most of us didn’t give a darn; we were oblivious, or else we shrugged our shoulders. We found better uses of our time than preening or descending, locust-like, upon the city’s tanning salons.

    I have a theory that much of the “bullying epidemic” would die away if only people realized that public-school social life doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It’s a fiction. A chimera. A sad, bland, banal approximation of an actual community. But it colors people’s perceptions of the world, and, too often, it ruins them.

    Yes, and ex-dorks are the people who made bullying into such an issue.

    • #55
  26. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    KentForrester (View Comment):
    Kozak, I followed Rule 34, and then I followed the link that said there was bird porn there. But I found no bird porn. Bummer.

    That time in Denver when Dave Barry and I went looking for Bird Porn and ran into Darryl Hannah. Don’t worry, the video’s safe for all.

    • #56
  27. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Kozak (View Comment):
    LOL. Without her looks she would be working at McDonalds. Based on brains Gretchen would never have won the pageant or worked for Fox.

    She’s a Stanford grad who spent a year at Oxford and is an accomplished classical violinist, so I don’t think she’d be toiling under the Arches. 

    • #57
  28. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Kephalithos (View Comment):
    But only a fraction of the ex-high-school-dork population truly cared about “being popular.” Most of us didn’t give a darn; we were oblivious, or else we shrugged our shoulders. We found better uses of our time than preening or descending, locust-like, upon the city’s tanning salons.

    Mostly true in my case.  I made no effort to conform.  I liked wearing cowboy boots and western-style shirts, even though no one else in my school did.  I listened to country music, not a lot of rock.  I wasn’t going to pretend to like sports or horror movies to fit in.  Probably the only kid in my class who looked forward to turning 18 so I could vote for Ronald Reagan’s re-election.  I don’t think I really cared that I was one of the unpopular kids, but it really sucked never being able to go on a date.

    • #58
  29. barbara lydick Inactive
    barbara lydick
    @barbaralydick

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    barbara lydick (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t know if there’s really a correlation there. It seems like a lot of the Ricochetti have talked about being unpopular in high school.

    Yeah – and look how successful they became.

    I don’t really know anyone more than about 10 years out of school who claims they were “popular” in High School.

    I went to the 51-year reunion of my high school class last year – the first reunion I had gone to. Some of the “popular” kids were there, though I don’t imagine they ever said such a thing about themselves.

    My point was that many people who were picked on, or weren’t popular, didn’t react like  precious snowflakes.  Rather, they dug in, worked hard and are now leading very successful lives.  I wonder if that will be possible with many kids these days who are under the influence of the current education establishment.

    • #59
  30. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    I’ve always taught my daughter that the Left is made up of the dorks who didn’t sit at the popular lunch table in high school.

    The policy gnomes at AEI and the egg-heady intellectual types on the right probably weren’t at the popular table either. 

    • #60
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