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Why the Hatred? (Oikophobia in Modern Times)
It is of course a standard conservative cliché to mention that Black Lives Matter isn’t about Black Lives but that it’s about Marxism. That it is an unoriginal cliché doesn’t make it any less true.
What the tearing down of statues is about is a hatred of one’s own society. BLM only focuses on blacks who die at the hands of either policemen or whites. Blacks killed by other blacks or blacks who die from heart disease or blacks who die from drug abuse don’t matter to them because their deaths can’t be used to condemn American society, conventional bourgeois values, and capitalism.
We all know this. But why? Why do so many hate American society and history so much? America, according to surveys, is among the least racist nations on Earth. Americans in poverty are considered middle class by the standards of China. (I lived in China.) American society is a bit more violent than I would like but the most violent parts of our society are inner cities filled with young black men and Wokists never talk about that. So why do BLM and Antifa and the college that I went to so deeply hate what is by empirical standards, among the best societies that have ever existed? (If you think I exaggerate the goodness of America because of the recent July 4th, please listen to what Ayan Hirsi Ali has to say about the matter.)
They don’t hate America and the West because America is a bad country. They hate America because they are oikophobic. Roger Scruton defined Oikophobia as the “the repudiation of inheritance and home” and that it is, “a stage though which the adolescent mind normally passes.”
I must admit that I myself went through such adolescence. Christians were all hypocrites who went around harassing homosexuals* I thought. Everyone and everything were corrupt and I hated the society I was in. I studied Buddhism and Sufi Islam because it seemed more spiritual than the odd dogmas and stultifying conformity that surrounded me. (I’m still a fan of Buddhism and Sufism but I have renewed appreciation for Christian civilization and the teaching of Christ in particular.)
However, I was never into white guilt. This was because I read books about Asian, Middle Eastern and Native-American cultures. Turns out that war and bigotry were a universal constant in human history. Far from being exceptional, America was all too like other civilizations in its failures to respect human dignity. The American triumph over the rule of Kings and its love of individual freedom were the exceptional parts. (link to Calvin Coolidge)
This leads me to five theories about the Wokist movement. These five theories are not mutually exclusive and they all probably contribute to our current unpleasant predicament.
- They are deeply unlearned in history and the bigotry and slavery that has existed in every society ever. They are also unaware that terrible treatment of minorities, women, and homosexuals is usually worse in Communist countries.
- Colleges have fostered this nihilism for decades and now we are reaping a poisoned harvest.
- They are going through what I would like to call the “Screw you Dad,” phase of their lives and can’t accept that the world is unfair and that people are flawed.
- Humanity is incurably religious and without G-d people are turning to politics and identity politics as a source of meaning in their lives. (The Douglass Murray theory) Additionally, because families are so fractured now and the relationship between the sexes are so fraught, people are turning to the government and identity as a source of group belonging.
- There is something just dumb and evil in humanity that wants to tear things down rather than make things better.
I must admit that I am not addressing the best arguments of the left. I think this is fair because the left is… not into good arguments at the moment.
Also, people tend to believe in things because of emotional and superstitious impulses rather than logical argument anyway.
I cannot view what is happening in America right now as anything less than a nihilistic religious movement that is based on hatred of what came before them. Why is this movement suddenly so powerful so quickly when it is obviously bad for everybody?
P.S. If you think that I am being unfair to the Woke left, feel free to disagree with me and explain why.
Published in General
A minor niggle, but the U.S./13 colonies got most of their slaves from markets in the West Indies, instead of directly from Africa. The people bringing slaves from Africa were very often based in Europe, rather than the New World colonies.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade
Why the hatred? Setting the stage for the Left’s new messiah:
Wasn’t that Rousseau’s schtick? Civilization was what corrupted the noble savage, so burn it all down and bingo! Instant utopia! Marx sneered at such utopian thought, but he wasn’t much better. He refused to explain in detail how socialism would work because it would evolve. At the same time, however, he believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat must be brought about by violent revolution. But revolution precludes evolution.