The Year Reheated

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

The year began with a male Guardian columnist, Mr Phineas Harper, announcing his plan to heroically advance “gender equality” via the medium of self-absorption and by wearing a pleated skirt. Guardian readers were invited to believe that the sight of Mr Harper “dancing in skirts” and feeling “buoyed up” by compliments regarding his ensemble would, in ways never quite pinned down, liberate British women from their grim, downtrodden existence.

We also paid a visit to the pages of Scientific American, where assistant professor Juan P Madrid indulged his urges to police other people’s speech, while wasting the time and energy of those more obviously productive. “The language of astronomy,” we were told, “is needlessly violent,” with the word collision being singled out as particularly brutal and masculine. An astronomer carelessly referring to a planet being stripped of its ozone layer by a gamma-ray burst, would, according to Dr Madrid, be using “misogynistic language” and should therefore be subject to the sternest of hands-on-hips chiding and an official reprimand.

And we concluded a trilogy of posts on the subject of crime and punishment – and the status-chasing contortions of progressives, for whom, pretentious leniency is a kind of social jewellery with which to impress one’s peers. And according to whom, the wellbeing of habitual burglars is much more important than the wellbeing of their numerous victims, whose homes have just been violated, especially if the burglar is a “young black person.”

In February, we learned, via a Canadian socialist podcaster named Nora Loreto, that habitual car theft is a “victimless” crime, a trivial thing. Even a third conviction for thieving someone else’s car should not result in incarceration or any physical impediment, because the victims of car theft – who do not exist, apparently – “get new cars though.” “I write books and I know things,” announced Nora, who lives in Quebec, where, in the last year, the rate of car theft has practically doubled.

Other topics included an educational effort in San Francisco, in which elementary school children were expected to “disrupt whiteness,” and to have – or at least regurgitate – strong opinions on the Israeli military. Needless to say, this focus on political indoctrination and imagining “a world without police, money, or landlords,” came at the expense of more mundane subjects, with English and maths scores hitting record lows, and with less than 4% of students considered numerate. All in the name of “removing barriers to learning.”

And we pondered the weirdly woke marketing of retailer John Lewis, whose customers were doubtless inspired to shop harder and more often thanks to photographs of store employees accompanied by details of their mental health problems and niche sexual leanings. Among them, Mr Marc Geoffrey Albert Whitcombe, now known as Ruby, who was thrilled by “the chance to express my true inner self,” and who was photographed in an enormous rose-adorned wig and while clutching a cat o’ nine tails. Customers intrigued by this in-store display soon discovered Mr Whitcombe’s social media presence, which consists of hundreds of selfies in which he attempts erotic poses, complete with ladies’ lingerie and while gripping sex toys in his mouth.

The world of art enriched us in March, thanks to the Guardian’s gushing coverage of an exhibition – curated “in partnership with local LGBTQ+ groups” – of mass-produced My Little Pony dolls. Faced with piles of items both ubiquitous and banal, visitors to the exhibition were assured that the plastic objects on display, which could be found in any toy shop in any city, are tools of resistance for the marginalised and unseen, and are “a modern symbol of the LGBTQI+ community.” Yes, a full-on face-blast of culture.

We also stared in disappointment at the creations of Ms Caitlin Blunnie, whose modish but unremarkable illustrations are adorned with slogans of supposedly staggering profundity. Among the penetrating insights to be found were “Craft is resistance in a late-stage capitalist society,” “Smash the state and masturbate,” and, entirely without irony, “Abortion builds new futures.”

Further artistic rumblings were detected at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, where patrons were warned that, by liking landscape paintings, they risk moral corruption. Via new and scrupulously progressive signage, visitors were informed that the sight of a Constable landscape may trigger TERRIFYING BLOOD AND SOIL TENDENCIES. Or at least inspire thoughts of historical attachment, continuity, and belonging – thoughts deemed disconcerting, racist, and very much frowned upon, if only by the – wait for it – keepers of our heritage.

The thrills of public transport came to our attention in April – specifically, San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system, where female commuters were issued with “bystander intervention cards” with which to repel the network’s growing number of junkies, muggers and public masturbators. The cards, we were assured, albeit unconvincingly, are “a concrete way to deal with an unsafe situation.” More obvious methods of restoring some semblance of civilisation – say, by arresting the aforementioned junkies, muggers and masturbators – were left seemingly unexplored.

We also marvelled at an attempt to problematise the much-loved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, via the joyless prattle of Lukas Shayo. Mr Shayo, a graduate of CUNY and denizen of Brooklyn, attempted to establish his credentials by telling us how “violent” and “sexist” the strip is, and by complaining about the absence of smartphones, the inaccurate depiction of imaginary dinosaurs, and the strip’s protagonist spending “too much time by himself,” thereby allowing his imagination to entertain the reader. Those familiar with the strip may wonder whether complaining in print about Calvin’s mom being, well, a mom, and about the “sexism” of a cartoon six-year-old, should result in some reflection on one’s chosen career, and one’s life choices more generally.

And via the Reddit forum r/mypartneristrans, we pondered romantic complications of a very modern kind – namely, the woes of a woman who wants to pretend that she’s a gay man, but who was thwarted by her male partner now wanting to pretend he’s a woman, resulting in something not unlike straightness, albeit with extra steps. And so, we had a woman who expects to be taken seriously as a man, but who can’t bring herself to take seriously as a woman her own male partner. The woman in question struggled with her partner’s claims of sudden-onset transgenderism and fabulist pronouns, while expecting observance of her own. Which did rather cast some doubt on the broader enterprise.

May brought to our attention a cornerstone of many a progressive worldview – specifically, allegations of randomness regarding everyone’s birth. As if you – the person reading this – could somehow have been born to entirely unrelated people, with entirely different ancestors who are entirely unconnected to the ancestors one does actually have – and still be the same person. Because, it seems, it was mere “luck and random chance” that your parents’ child was you. Needless to say, the people making these claims were not themselves parents. And I doubt that many parents see the birth of their child as some arbitrary or pointless occurrence, unmoored from any context or preceding events.

Days later, scenes from a bus stop in Ruislip, Greater London, took on symbolic qualities and offered us a snapshot of a culture being downgraded, rapidly and perhaps irretrievably, thanks to its its supposed enrichment by newcomers for whom queueing is a seemingly alien concept. We then explored the gleeful and not infrequent punishment for those careless enough to notice such things.

We also looked on as the Vancouver Police Department, the Vancouver Sun and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation insisted on referring to a deranged man as somehow being a woman, thereby setting fire to whatever credibility they could still be said to have. The man in question, Nathaniel Francis Beekmeyer, had recorded social-media videos in which he describes himself as “super cute” and “a beautiful person,” and hence his enthusiasm for assaulting random women and their four-month-old babies. The passers-by who intervened and overpowered Mr Beekmeyer faced further strange behaviour on seeing news reports in which this shirtless man was referred to by the police and media as a woman. As if their own, first-hand perceptions, from mere inches away, were somehow wildly and implausibly inaccurate.

In June, we encountered the deep, woke wisdom of Hannah McElhinney, who wanted us to know about her “queer temporality,” and the fact that “LGBTQ+ people experience time differently to straight and/or cisgender people.” Which, entirely coincidentally, makes her much more special than you. Paying attention to one’s queerness is, we learned, a favoured activity, along with mentioning at length the crushing burdens of being so complicated and fascinating. As opposed to those ordinary mortals who experience time in a humdrum, heteronormative way.

Another cognitive colossus raised our eyebrows days later, in the form of the World Economic Forum’s Ida Auken. Ms Auken wishes to correct our primitive, territorial lifestyles – say, by making us surrender our cars to random strangers, at seemingly random intervals, and for purposes unknown. Having people you don’t know take away your car would, we were assured, be terribly progressive and super-convenient, and “fun,” and “not annoying.” This vision of an unpropertied tomorrow, in which everything belongs to the state, and nothing belongs to you, prompted many replies, among which, “Anybody ever wash a rented car? No?” And, “Sorry about your wife going into labour, I needed some cigarettes. By the way, you need some new tyres.”

And we beheld the dazzling thoughts of Atlantic columnist Xochitl Gonzalez, a supposedly downtrodden Person Of Pigmentation, whose article was highlighted by the editors as a “must-read,” a measure of the magazine’s importance to the progressive lifestyle. Ms Gonzalez wanted us to believe that she is oppressed by expectations of reciprocal courtesy and basic consideration. Say, the assumption that you won’t wander into a library, where people are studying for exams, and start blasting out loud music. When not denouncing the “gentrification” of white library patrons, whose appreciation of Brooklyn hip hop combos is insufficiently fulsome, Ms Gonzalez spends her time mentioning how “minority” and “of colour” she is, as if waiting for applause. Or at least deference.

July introduced us to the world of politically radical tableware. By which, I mean unattractive, poorly made objects intended to propagate pretentious racial guilt. Our guide to this phenomenon, Victoria Burgher, a PhD student at the University of Westminster, insisted that creating unattractive plates is “crucial to any antiracist social justice work.” When not making unsightly tat, Ms Burgher spends her time telling the credulous that “whiteness is oppression,” a basis for eternal shame, and that white people should “not behave white.” You see, we will purge the world of bigotry by embracing wholesale the mental habits of the bigot.

No less radical was Kate Auletta, the editor-in-chief of Scary Mommy, a publication for ladies of a progressive leaning. Ms Auletta’s contribution to human advancement entails showing her bare arse to her small boys, then applauding herself in print. Having listed her numerous physical imperfections, including a big, sagging bosom and a fat upper pubic area, Ms Auletta went on to detail the ways in which her two small boys are being politically improved by the sight of her incongruous crack and badger. This feat of not wearing knickers.

And we encountered Argentina’s first transgender pilot, a burly chap now named Traniela Campolieto, and who bangs on about the super-girly tightness of his uniform while using the cockpit to take endless, pouting selfies. Before becoming a shimmering vision of womanliness, Mr Campolieto was a professional bodybuilder, a proverbial brick shithouse. Which may explain his enthusiasm for bad wigs, the transformative powers of which may have been overestimated. And so, the pilot in charge of 250 tonnes of Airbus A330, and on whom the lives of 400 or so passengers depend, is a man whose perceptions are somewhat unreliable, not least regarding himself.

August brought us scenes of rioting in several British cities, prompted by mass immigration and failures to assimilate, juxtaposed with claims, by progressives, that progressives have “ten times” the social trust of mere conservatives. As if social trust were something one could simply assert, regardless of whether the local pharmacy now keeps pretty much everything under lock and key. Among those asserting their superior levels of social trust was BBC broadcaster Dan Snow, who denounced as “stunningly racist” even the idea that unprecedented levels of third-world immigration might result in social friction. Readers were unsurprised to learn that Mr Snow – married to Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor, daughter of the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of the country’s richest landowners – does not live in, or anywhere near, the kinds of “diverse” neighbourhoods being trashed by incompatible tribes.

The theme of social cohesion and cultural common ground cropped up again when we revisited the rumblings of progressive educator Adam Kotsko, who told us, with great confidence, “The only reason to be upset about demographic change is if you’re a racist.” As is the custom among his peers, Dr Kotsko does not live in a neighbourhood rapidly being enlivened with Congolese and Somali borra gangs, whose social skills, and vigorous use of machetes, are so much in the news here. These, then, are phenomena that Dr Kotsko is unlikely to experience personally, but which he is happy to see inflicted on others in the name of progressive compassion.

In September, we dipped a toe in the world of niche pornography. Specifically, opportunist female porn models who pretended to be men pretending to be women, to thereby rake in lots of cash, but who annoyed actual men who pretend to be women, including men who pretend to be women while making pornography. One bewigged gentleman denounced the ladies’ feigned transgenderism as “disgusting,” while his trans comrades issued accusations of deception and fraud, the inevitable “transphobia,” and demands that the ladies in question “don’t get in our space.” These identitarian complications prompted much mischief, with commenters quipping, “Trans trans women are trans women.”

We also noted the not entirely tragic demise of three prolific burglars, who between them had accumulated over 200 convictions. The gentlemen in question – whose other activities included assaulting and mugging elderly couples and bedridden cancer patients – met their maker after colliding head-on with a lorry, while driving down the motorway, at more than twice the speed limit, in the wrong direction. Their car, a stolen BMW 3 series, burst into flames, making identification of their remains a time-consuming endeavour. However, on the upside, the local burglary rate did fall dramatically. Also heartening, if unfashionable, were statistics showing that a very large fraction of crime could be prevented by dealing decisively with a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders.

And we explored the instructive and comedic possibilities of a hypothetical reality-TV show, in which the Guardian’s Zoe Williams discovers that her new neighbours are one of the “problem families” that she so merrily champions in print. It was difficult not to be intrigued by how Ms Williams might react to the arrival next door of the delightful Stuart Murgatroyd, a father of twelve who has never worked and boasts an extensive criminal record, not least for robbing the elderly in graveyards. Mr Murgatroyd’s attempt to challenge an Anti-Social Behaviour Order was cut short at the very last minute due to him being arrested for assaulting the mother of his children, herself a convicted getaway driver, on the steps of the courthouse.

October began with some energetic “queering” of motherhood, thanks to a conference at Kutztown University, during which maternity was conjured into being by assorted drag queens and a convulsing bald man in a bodystocking. These assembled “agents of self-knowledge production” announced their plans to “expand traditional narratives about mothering as an action, an embodied experience.” To be achieved via “virtual LGBTQ-affirming yoga,” and an opportunity to mingle with “protest organisers, musicians, poets, and drag performers.” And obviously, when anyone thinks of motherhood, the first thing that comes to mind is the term drag performers.

We also considered the touchiness that can ensue when a person’s worldview and piety, and social standing, are based on a series of fairly obvious lies. A dynamic that can be extrapolated to describe an institution, many institutions, an entire elite culture. This phenomenon was illustrated by the reactions of students and faculty to the continued existence of Professor Amy Wax, whose references to reality and unflattering statistics left a law school Dean, Theodore Ruger, claiming to have experienced “lasting trauma.” Several students complained about the “physical and emotional harm” of being reminded that in order to win a classroom debate one generally has to make a compelling argument.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget the fawning New York Times article about black women who bravely go for walks in the British countryside, despite the alarming “whiteness” of the locals. Women whose noteworthy achievements included… well, being black, and remembering to take a coat.

Chief among the events of November was Donald Trump’s decisive election victory, which resulted in much chest-clutching and rending of garments. Among those traumatised was the novelist and Guardian contributor Francine Prose, whose mental health seemed to have taken a catastrophic turn, complete with hair loss and sudden-onset eye-twitching. These symptoms were accompanied by agitated ramblings about Hitler, Stalin, dictatorship, people thrown from helicopters, and “the imprisonment and execution of those who disagree.” Ms Prose was far from alone in her weird theatre of distress, and social media was ablaze with performative convulsion. Among the featured bedlamites was Leonard Serrato, Assistant Director for Fraternity and Sorority Life at the University of Oregon, who proudly shared video of himself wishing death on “all Trump supporters,” including his family and friends, and by implication any students who might be watching.

We were also treated to a fashionable worldview in snapshot form, when a distraught progressive activist attempted to negotiate the return of her iPhone from the thieves who stole it. Tearfully, she explained to them that they’re only supposed to steal from “rich scum,” a crime she encourages. Not “nice” progressive people, people like herself, who are entirely in favour of the robbing of others.

And our attention was drawn to a news item from Germany involving a cross-dressing man who flashed his penis at girls and repeatedly assaulted women before stealing their shoes. When apprehended by police, investigators found an enormous collection of stolen handbags and women’s footwear, used for, shall we say, sexual purposes. As if bent on heightening the surrealism of this erotic shoe-thieving spree, the German media repeatedly referred to the fifty-six-year-old man as a woman, a she-person, despite him being identified via the very male genetic material left at the scenes of his crimes.

The year drew to a close with the prospect of the workplace as a site of radical and empowering menstruation, thanks to Meaghan Furlano, “a scholar of feminist media,” whose list of demands was extensive and somewhat bewildering. Ms Furlano’s vision of gender equality entailed a belief that menstruating women may in fact be men – and the implication that men can also become women and can therefore barge into previously female-only spaces. Our scholar of feminist media went on to denounce the “hetero-sexist beliefs” of those who aren’t overly interested in the “menstrual status” of employees and co-workers, i.e., their expulsion of waste product, much as they wouldn’t care to hear announcements regarding every bowel movement.

We also revisited the world of learning and problematic competence – specifically, at Vanderbilt University, where an honours programme intended to accommodate academic giftedness was denounced as “inherently exclusionary,” an affront to “equity,” and promptly shut down. Students and parents were expected to believe that by phasing out the most challenging courses, the result would somehow be “inclusive excellence,” despite the obvious disregard for students who excel, and whose ability is deemed troublesome, racist, and a basis for corrective measures. More “inclusive excellence” was found in San Diego, where teachers must “confront practices” deemed inegalitarian and which result in “racial imbalance” – say, norms of classroom behaviour, a disapproval of tardiness and cheating, and oppressive expectations of “turning work in on time.”

And we met the progressive fare-dodgers of San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC, where the moochers of means and distinction included a doctor earning $170,000 a year, for whom stiffing others with the bill is somehow altruistic, and a research associate for a Google-owned subsidiary, who happily boasted, “99% of the time, I just walk on,” before adding, “It’s like a San Francisco thing, I guess.” A climate activist, employed by a nonprofit, excused his habitual lawbreaking by insisting that public transport “should be free, to make it accessible.” You see, his activist lifestyle should be subsidised by others – the less important, presumably. We also marvelled at the lecturers, lawyers and screenwriters who aired their “exhausted rage,” not at the growing number of freeloaders eroding social trust and bankrupting the transport network, but at those careless enough to notice such things. It turns out that, among the morally elevated, noticing routine and shameless thievery is much worse than indulging in it. And certainly, more likely to result in opprobrium.

These, then, were some of the examples set by our betters. Heights to which we lesser beings can only aspire.

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