The Identity Movement’s Battered Wife

 

Anyone familiar with the behavior of abusive husbands recognizes the signature characteristic of the breed, which is an ability to make the victim feel that she, and not her husband, is the one in the wrong — that the abuse is her fault, that she deserves it.

The nation is taking a beating today. Property, public and private, is being destroyed by a self-righteous mob that assures us that this beat-down is the fault of America — of everyone who isn’t as woke as the smashing, looting mob. People are being fired, their careers ruined, for decades-old and trivial “offenses,” fired by employers who are terrified that the mob will turn on their companies next if they don’t instantly vouchsafe their obeisance.

You wore blackface to a party back in 1987? You gave money to Prop 8 in California? You invited a conservative speaker to campus? You refuse to endorse Black Lives Matter? You said a woman and a man-who-thinks-he’s-a-woman are somehow different? You let us run out of beer? Okay, get over here. You know you asked for this….

Eventually, the victims start believing it. They feel ashamed, guilty, inadequate. They lose touch with reality, increasingly unable to recognize ever more unreasonable mistreatment and abuse.

The twisted genius of the abusive personality is its gift for turning normal people into self-loathing victims.

That’s the identity movement in America. Specifically, that’s the aspect of the identity movement that casts itself as the victim and America as the oppressor. And that, after all, is the whole point of identity movements: to create a thousand crucibles of burning resentment in which the culture can be melted and transformed.

I’m neither an oppressor nor a victim, and I have no respect for the rioting ersatz victims of this, the most tolerant and humane culture in history. So Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other leftists thugs of all stripes, if you want to sit down and talk, I’ll talk. But I’m not going to let you knock me around, and I’ll laugh in your face if you tell me I deserve it.

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There are 23 comments.

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  1. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Thanks, HR.  Superb analogy and a timely, articulate piece that distills the spirit of the left down to a limpid dram.

    • #1
  2. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    So who is our Lorena Bobbitt?

    • #2
  3. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    So who is our Lorena Bobbitt?

    The Alt-Right (not the Richard Spencer branch).

    They aren’t really going by that label anymore. I don’t really know beyond “dissident” what they go by. But that’s the vengeful wife.

    • #3
  4. Joshua Bissey Inactive
    Joshua Bissey
    @TheSockMonkey

    Great post.

    Except for agreeing to talk with the thug mob. What would be the point of that?

    • #4
  5. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Joshua Bissey (View Comment):

    Great post.

    Except for agreeing to talk with the thug mob. What would be the point of that?

    Talk is good. It should never occur in response to violence, of course: we don’t negotiate with terrorists. But I’m a firm believer in rational discussion and debate, as long as people behave themselves in a civilized manner.

    There’s a reason Antifa and BLM don’t want to talk, and it isn’t — contrary to what some might claim — that we’ve already tried talk and it didn’t work. We haven’t had an honest national discussion about race, or the so-called “trans” movement, or same-sex marriage, or socialism. We haven’t had it because proponents of these things don’t have the confidence to articulate their positions, largely because their positions don’t make sense. Violence, as someone once said, is the last resort of the incompetent. I don’t entirely believe that, but it’s true in this instance.

    • #5
  6. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Henry Racette: Eventually the victims start believing it. They feel ashamed, guilty, inadequate.

    It is a race between people that are being forced into conformity and those being red-pilled. 

    • #6
  7. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else. 

    Abuse is based on an unequal power relationship, and that’s what I think the OP is really driving at, and accurately so. Abusers take advantage of their victim’s need for a particular job or other source of income, which the victim’s dependents need. 

    That’s what I admire about Donald Trump. He understands this basic human equation, and he lives by his advice to be prepared to walk away. That’s the only way the bully can be stopped.  

    • #7
  8. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else. 

    Yes, abusers use whatever leverage they have to manipulate their victims. But I’ll stand by my characterization, which I think is accurate.

    • #8
  9. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    MarciN (View Comment):
    Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else. 

    That’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not really all that true.  People put up with abuse for a lot of reasons, but one of the most important is that they are groomed for it.  They are taught from an early age or at an early point in the relationship that if they “behave” they don’t get punished.  This will then transfer into other relationships.

    It happens in work relationships, it happens in romantic relationships and it happens in familial relationships.  As much as I don’t like to agree with @henryracette, I think he’s got it right here.  The situation closely resembles an abusive or addict’s family.  There’s the quiet one who takes the abuse quietly and hopes that compliance will lessen the abuse.  There’s the child that acts out as a counterpoint to the abuse or to protect others from the abuse.  

    Even worse, people put up with abuse out of love.  They know it’s wrong.  They know he/she needs help.  But they think that with enough positive behavior, they might be able to show them something.  There’s a smidgen of hope.  This time things will be different.  There’s the hope that maybe, just maybe, if they compromise enough or surrender enough, it’ll be enough and they’ll get the love/recognition/whatever they so desire.

    So it is in America.  We have the people who are remaining silent, hoping that their acquiescence will save them.  There are those acting out, hoping that their militias will make a counterpoint and keep the wolves at bay.  There are those that are pandering to the abuse, willing to say or do or compromise anything in the name of keeping up appearances, avoiding abuse and avoiding the loss of their livelihoods or reputations.

    But none of this changes the fact that the person in question is very, very sick.  Mentally more than anything else.  These identity politics and these drives toward segregation and erasing history in the name of the Perfect Heroes crushes the good.  Yes, we should have monuments to Frederick Douglass.  Yes, we should have a monument to more women heroes.  But at the same time, we need to understand that our heroes are not gods.  They are not perfect.  MLK, though admirable, was not perfect.  We need to protect our country and ideals.  They aspire to the perfect.  Our country was built on aspiring toward these noble traits.  But we need to understand that it is a progression ever forward to a more perfect union.  We ever strive toward a better union in which we embody our ideals.

    That does not mean to burn it to the ground and start over.

    • #9
  10. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else.

    Yes, abusers use whatever leverage they have to manipulate their victims. But I’ll stand by my characterization, which I think is accurate.

    Both are right.

    Assuming guilt is the manner in which the battered copes with staying in a bad situation. It’s the means by which they reconcile the cognitive dissonance when they see no way out.

    It’s still a dead on analogy.

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

    MarciN (View Comment):
    Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else. 

    Being abused is a threat, often a daily threat. Victims who don’t have choices put up with the abuse until it becomes a foundational crisis of survival, where the choice to escape provides more security than the choice to stay. So, when a victim escapes, you know it is bad. 

    This dynamic can change early in the abuse pattern if the victim has external support that makes an escape possible immediately or early.

    The left are definitely abusers. 

    I am not sad for them, but the left is about to find out where the breaking point of this country is, and I think we are approaching it. 

    I’m praying for Red Pills and Open Eyes. 

    • #11
  12. John Park Member
    John Park
    @jpark

    Only some people have to worry about having worn blackface years ago. Just not Governor Ralphie Northam.

    • #12
  13. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    TheRightNurse (View Comment):
    As much as I don’t like to agree with @henryracette, I think he’s got it right here.

    And that, folks, is what’s called an admission against interest. ;)

    • #13
  14. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

     

    Henry Racette:

    The twisted genius of the abusive personality is its gift for turning normal people into self-loathing victims. That’s the identity movement in America. Specifically, that’s the aspect of the identity movement that casts itself as the victim and America as the oppressor.

    The way the some factions of the Identity Movement go so far as to target battered women’s shelters for subversion makes this comparison even more poignant.

    • #14
  15. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else. 

    Many (most?) folk are putting up with identity politics abuse because of the threat of losing their job if they resist, and if they have children to feed that means that their children are also being threatened. Therefore, I don’t think the analogy falls apart on that count.

    • #15
  16. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else.

    Many (most?) folk are putting up with identity politics abuse because of the threat of losing their job if they resist, and if they have children to feed that means that their children are also being threatened. Therefore, I don’t think the analogy falls apart on that count.

    I said exactly that in my second paragraph. :-)

    • #16
  17. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    MarciN (View Comment):

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else.

    Many (most?) folk are putting up with identity politics abuse because of the threat of losing their job if they resist, and if they have children to feed that means that their children are also being threatened. Therefore, I don’t think the analogy falls apart on that count.

    I said exactly that in my second paragraph. :-)

    • #17
  18. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Maybe the Founders were more aware of a lot more than I give them credit for.  Speaking of the relationship between spousal abuse and tyranny, these are some words from the Declaration of Independence:

    “…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    • #18
  19. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Maybe the Founders were more aware of a lot more than I give them credit for. Speaking of the relationship between spousal abuse and tyranny, these are some words from the Declaration of Independence:

    “…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    There is nothing new under the sun.

    (I read that somewhere.)

     

    • #19
  20. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Maybe the Founders were more aware of a lot more than I give them credit for. Speaking of the relationship between spousal abuse and tyranny, these are some words from the Declaration of Independence:

    “…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    There is nothing new under the sun.

    (I read that somewhere.)

    But we’re so advanced and evolved today!  This insight was just eighteenth-century luck. :)

    • #20
  21. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Flicker (View Comment):

    There is nothing new under the sun.

    (I read that somewhere.)

    But we’re so advanced and evolved today! This insight was just eighteenth-century luck. :)

    We’re progressing. Not. 

    • #21
  22. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Hoyacon: So who is our Lorena Bobbitt?

    I was going to say Rick Wilson but then realized it doesn’t count if you cut your own manhood off.

    • #22
  23. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I understand the point in OP, but it’s based on an unfortunate stereotype. Usually women and men put up with abuse because the abuser has threatened the children or someone else.

    Many (most?) folk are putting up with identity politics abuse because of the threat of losing their job if they resist, and if they have children to feed that means that their children are also being threatened. Therefore, I don’t think the analogy falls apart on that count.

    It’s a very strong analogy. It’s not perfect. The only perfect analogy for something is that actual something. But its is usually not very illuminating. 

    • #23
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