“Were the future leaders of the United States who had won coveted tickets to the highest echelons of the neoliberal meritocracy — the ones who were supposed to take over the newspapers, high political offices, and corporations — really demonstrating in the quads not about the military-industrial complex, wealth inequality, or America's endless foreign wars, but cosplay?”
Source: It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office
“In politics, the near future is likely to be closer to George Orwell’s 1984 than to Brave New World.”
Source: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience
“A particular lethal combo is when culture of victimization -we were wronged last week, last decade, last millennium- is coupled with a culture of honor's ethos of retribution.”
Source: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
“Collective guilt, the damaging impact of cultural appropriation, our servility to amorphous power structures, the primacy of identity politics; all of these concepts and more are now uncritically accepted by many of those in positions of authority. When politicians use phrases such as 'white privilege' and 'systemic racism', for instance, they are deploying the language of Critical Race Theory without necessarily understanding the full implications of the ideas behind the buzzwords. They are the unsuspecting agents of applied postmodernism.”
Source: The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World
“That racism still exists is taken as evidence of the failure of the liberal project, but of course nobody has made the case that it has been eradicated. If a disease is cured but a few symptoms linger, one does not claim that the treatment was ineffective. Social liberalism is an ongoing process because it recognizes the imperfectability of human nature.”
Source: The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World
“Everyone has the right to identify as they wish, use whatever names and pronouns they prefer to describe themselves, and ask others to do the same. They do not, however, have the right to foist such decisions onto anyone else.”
Source: The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World
“Victimhood culture makes it hard to avoid wrongdoing. If you have any kind of privilege, the social world is full of peril; you always risk giving offense. Engage in small talk and you might be guilty of a microaggression. Cook a new dish or adopt a new hairstyle and you might be guilty of cultural appropiation. Teach about something unpleasant and you might be guilty of triggering someone. Express your religions or political beliefs and you might be guilty of violence. Whatever you do, you must do it in a way that is supportive of victims and reproachful of their oppressors.”
Source: The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars
“The music echoes in the emptiness. It reminds us where we came from and where we’re bound.”
Source: Professor Brown Shoes Teaches the Blues
“The logic of victimhood culture means no speech is clearly protected.”
Source: The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars
“It is only when faced with deep differences, with cultural miscommunication and moral conflict, that we become aware that our way of seeing the world is not universally shared.”
Source: The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars