October 11, 2012
As promised last week, here is Part II of random ruminations on my fifteen minutes of worldwide fame six months ago. But first a housekeeping note.
Some commenters and emailers have wondered if there is a transcript of Bob Weissberg’s speech to the American Renaissance conference in March. I don”t believe there is, but in the full-service spirit of Taki’s Magazine, I have posted the next best thing here. You’re welcome!
OK, where were we? Ah yes, the race business. I’ll begin with a brief tip of the hat to that unknown reader whose sigh about how boring multiracial societies are (“People waste so much time talking about race…”) still seems to me a good keynote for anything on this topic. Then another hat tip to the friend who, when I mentioned that point to him, said: “Only denialists and hypocrites say ‘race talk is boring.’” Take your pick.
Reactions. Defenestration issues aside, the reactions to my April column were disappointing. I say that without irony; there just wasn’t much meat there.
Reaction from the left was just shrieking and clutching of skirts. What girls they are! So far as there was any content, it amounted to: “Racist racist racist racist…!” Since I long ago owned up to being “a mild and tolerant” homophobe and “an even more mild and tolerant” racist, it’s hard to see what their point is.
I suspect it’s the mildness and tolerance that drives them nuts. Look at this goon, for example. He cites the above remark in quotes but leaves out the adjectives. That is of course dishonest, but it offers a startlingly clear illustration of the totalitarian mindset.
On key points of dogma, there can be no middle path between complete swooning acceptance and utter angry rejection. You have to love Big Brother. If you merely tolerate him, you are just as bad a thought criminal as someone who wants to assassinate him. The idea that a well-socialized person puts up with a lot of things he doesn’t much like is too subtle for these blinkered commissars.
Remember the Ingsoc slogans from Nineteen Eighty-Four?
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
For the totalitarianism of our own age, AKA white-Western liberalism, you can add a fourth:
TOLERANCE IS HATE
Reaction from the right was naturally more intelligent but still of low quality.
There was a lot of moral preening. This centered on racial insouciance“that is, on cultivating an attitude of complete indifference to race, either individual or collective. Several commentators prided themselves on having attained this state of grace, though none of them followed my suggestion that they take the Implicit Association Test and post their results online, as I have done. (My Gawker interviewer, to her great credit, did take the IAT at my suggestion.)
