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Achieving Absolute Power Through Selfish Selflessness
While all of us admire selfless acts of sacrifice, the left takes it a step further: They use the combination of innocence, weakness, and perceived selflessness to achieve absolute power. I suspect that some of those that are used in this manner don’t fully understand the overall game plan of the left at the time. I offer you David Hogg.
Mr. Hogg is a teenager who is famous for his extremely public and strident calls for gun control after a school shooting at his school, Stone Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He struggled academically due to his dyslexia (he learned to read at nine years old) and was known as a quiet kid. Then after all this happens, and he becomes another child celebrity to the left a la Greta Thunberg, he magically is accepted not to Central Florida, but to Harvard! That is amazing. What is more amazing is that he declined their offer. He rejected their offer of a spot in the most prestigious college in the world because, as he put it, “I don’t feel comfortable going to college until we have at least $50 million to fund gun violence research annually.” I’m guessing that’s the first time that Harvard has heard that reasoning in a rejection letter.
Remember, Mr. Hogg was 17-years-old when he said that. And not a straight-A child prodigy. But he figured out – quickly – that the only way for him to keep earning the big bucks (he’d reportedly been offered six and seven-figure salaries by media outlets and non-profit organizations) was to:
- Take advantage of his 15 minutes of fame, and stay in front of the cameras as long as possible.
- Maintain appearances of a self-sacrificing spiritual leader of sorts.
- Stay a high school kid in most people’s eyes for as long as possible.
So due to the random chance of a shooting happening at his school, this kid is granted what would be the opportunity of a lifetime for most of us – acceptance into Harvard University. But he refuses it, because he figures (correctly) that he can earn more money by not going to Harvard.
Bill Gates made that same decision, but for different reasons. Mr. Gates had a stratospheric IQ, extraordinary work habits, good business sense, and well-connected parents. He was also really good at computers, which as it turns out, were vitally important to the economy of the last 30 years. Mr. Gates had obvious reasons to leave Harvard. Mr. Hogg has, umm, a teen-idol face and a gift for sanctimony.
But Mr. Hogg is right. That’s enough.
At least, that’s enough for today’s left. And that says more about the left than it does Mr. Hogg.
I think I understand Mr. Hogg, to a degree. When I was a teenager, I was not crippled by self-doubt. I knew everything. Old people (like those over, say, 30 years old) just didn’t understand. I was right, about everything, and I was absolutely sure.
That’s just being a teenager. I thank God that my behavior as a teenager was not publicized on the nightly news. Good heavens. I’m not sure how I would have handled Mr. Hogg’s situation when I was 17 years old, but I can tell you this: I would have handled it worse than Mr. Hogg. Without question. Thank goodness I was just an arrogant jock in a small town somewhere.
But in Mr. Hogg’s case, his teenage passions have made him a public figure. For various reasons: The left needs to protect its horrifying policies behind the innocence of children. Our current media outlets value bombastic certainty over nuance or discussion. Mr. Hogg’s pet issue – gun control – just happens to be as important to today’s left as computers were to the economy of the last 3o years. He’s perfect. It’s not his fault. But he’s perfect for what the left needs right now.
Or he was, at least. For a moment. After walking away from Harvard, Mr. Hogg reportedly changed his mind and started school at Harvard the following year. Perhaps Mr. Hogg later determined that our research on gun violence is, in fact, adequately funded. Or perhaps he determined, upon further reflection, that he could more effectively advocate for gun violence research funding if he had a Harvard degree.
Or perhaps those lucrative job offers dried up for some reason.
That which the leftist media granteth, the leftist media also can taketh away.
I haven’t seen much of Mr. Hogg recently. He seemed to disappear as quickly as Christine Blasey Ford. Once he was no longer useful, he was removed from the media outlets. So maybe he wasn’t that important after all, right?
But he was. He dominated public discourse for a period of time. He was a very powerful young man, and had a significant impact on public discourse. He helped the left a great deal. Until he didn’t.
It’s easy to just roll your eyes at David Hogg and Greta Thurnberg. Even AOC and Christine Blasey Ford and other ridiculous heroes of the left, as they come and go. But to dismiss them is a mistake.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a commonly misunderstood quote from Lord Acton. He didn’t mean that those with absolute power were absolutely powerful. He meant that when one had absolute power he became untouchable. And even unchallengeable. And at that point, not only is the one in power corrupted but so is everyone else. Everyone overlooks the mistakes and flaws of the powerful because they are unchallengeable. Everybody just agrees. With whatever. Which means that everyone is corrupted. Everyone. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
How does the left create these absolutely powerful figures?
With the innocence of youth. The street cred of being present during a school shooting. The harmlessness of appearing weak, like Ms. Thurnberg (oversize clothes) or Mr. Hogg (waif-like appearance). The purity of their message – the Christ-like effort to save us all from ourselves.
And most of all, the obvious self-sacrifice. Remember when Greta Thunberg had pictures taken of her sitting on the floor of the train when she had been given first-class seats? She only sat there for a few minutes, to get the pictures taken. The rest of her trip, she was treated like the celebrity that she is, in first class. That seems silly. But it’s not. It’s vitally important. Ms. Thunberg understands this, instinctively.
Even a child can understand. At least, a child of the left. To them, it’s as natural as breathing.
They know that their selfish desires for more money and power can be achieved only through the appearance of selfless sacrifice. Power can be achieved only by appearing weak. Everyone roots for the underdog. Christian culture is an odd thing.
The appearance of selfless sacrifice leads to absolute power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now it’s not just them – we’re all in on it. So around and around we go.
And it can’t be stopped. Until we acknowledge the selfish motivations behind leftist selflessness. And we obviously can’t do that. I mean come on – are you going to publicly criticize a selfless, innocent child? Are you evil? No, of course not.
So around and around we go…
Published in General
He wasn’t even there? Until just now, I had read he was in a different building, or in a different part of the school far removed from the threat (never in danger). This is news to me.
I could be wrong. I thought it was well known he wasn’t there. I got the impression he wasn’t there from his words, watching his interviews. So, if he was there, he biked home as soon as the lockdown lifted, grabbed his camera, and hauled back to school. The linked article states that he was interviewing students about gun control when the active shooting was still unspooling. Not sure that paints him in a better light.
He was interviewing students while they were still in lockdown. Quite different than “unspooling”.
No, you’re too kind in assessing the Left’s motivation for starting “youth movements.” These kids are human shields, just like any terrorists would use, except without the bombs and bullets. They employ these children to protect their inane and incoherent positions from criticism. Simple as that.
They were still in lockdown because why, then? Oh, because the building complex was still being searched, events confirmed/denied, and until the complex is declared secure the evolution is incomplete. The event isn’t done ’til it’s done. Just because LEA doesn’t hear any “pop-pop-pop” going on, doesn’t mean that the site is secure, doesn’t mean the killing is over, and doesn’t mean that the students are safe.
So, yeah: unspooling.
Lockdowns last for some time, to give law enforcement time to make sure there were no other shooters. You use the work “unspooling” to insinuate some motive for the student about which you can not know. But that the young man was sincerely engaged in an activity in which he believed, and for the good of all, seems fairly clear. Doesn’t men he was correct, just means he was not being disingenuous.
The desire to trash this young person is mean spirited, at best.
Actually, I meant that the situation was still ongoing. As I explained in my previous response. Imputing ill-will toward him comes later in my comment. And I’m not insinuating, I’m making declarative statements.
The article I linked to, apparently willing to debunk myself, states that the school was in lockdown for just over an hour after the shootings. Hogg was interviewing students, according to the article in a quote directly from Hogg, about gun control. Not about their fears for other students. Not about the emotional impact that losing friends or family would have on them. Gun control. The bodies of his fellow students weren’t even cold yet. I’ll impute whatever motives I think appropriate.
Mean-spirited? I have no issues being straight up mean to the little self-impressed weasel. He contends that his ancillary, peripheral exposure to a traumatic event involving a firearm gives him the Absolute Moral Authority to tell us blinkered fools that we have to give up rights endowed by our Creator. No. When he stops acting like trash, I’ll stop trashing him.
And, I’ve never heard him offer a single opinion about the Broward Sheriff’s department, which did the opposite of cover itself in glory. Nope. Kid had a pretty prominent microphone for his 15 minutes, never said a word about that.
Richly deserved.
Harvard has a long tradition of accepting some applicants with unusual achievements in lieu of the otherwise expected 4.0 and high SATs. Maybe a kid who wrote a publish a Croatian or Nigerian cookbook, or wrote songs that were performed by music stars, or provided an essay about month spent teaching reading in a third world third world village. They can take a few of those kids without worrying about lowering overall academic averages of incoming freshmen.
I wonder if that traditional search for diverse excellence has been replaced by victim stories and publicized PC activities.
Neat. Don’t know how you got that job, but I hope you can do it remotely.
I wish I wouldn’t have to do it remotely. Put me in a room with the little self-impressed weasel for a debate on gun control. I’d have the little feller stacked, racked and skinned up. ‘Course, that’s why the mainstream media will never let child crusaders of his ilk actually face a reasoned debate.