Regarding the obstruction by activists of the Golden Gate Bridge, a not unfair observation:

My toddler’s new thing when I tell him to stop doing something is to respond, “I’m just <literally the thing I’m telling him to stop doing>, so I’ll be like, “get down off that chair” and he’ll say, “I just wanted to be on the chair.” These people are literally toddlers. https://t.co/JrJMgoQ1ZI

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 15, 2024

And,

Reminder: these people arrive at thought-terminating cliches because their views are extraordinarily stupid and cannot be defended on their own terms. “I should get to shut down the economy any time I’m mad enough about something” sounds so retarded that they have no choice but…

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 15, 2024

Note the lofty defence offered by our pronoun-stipulating champion of the obstruction – that “protests are meant to be disruptive. It’s the whole point.”

A protest, then, is not meant to persuade the general public, or to get them on-side, or to make others sympathetic with whatever this week’s cause may be. But simply to be disruptive. To gratuitously frustrate, and aggravate, large numbers of law-abiding people. To exert power. By doing random harm. That’s “the whole point.” A vision doubtless attractive to those with antisocial inclinations.

And those inclinations aren’t being indulged and given rein reluctantly or under duress. The screwing-over of others is sought out and chosen, over and over again. This is recreational sociopathy.

We’ve been here before, of course:

And what kind of person would have urges like that?

Hence the need to consider other, less edifying motives.

Update, via the comments, where other illustrations come to mind:

They are, as it were, pleasuring themselves.

Update 2:

In the comments, pst314 adds,

Alas, being incorrigible narcissists, I suspect that reciprocation isn’t a restraining factor, or a common feature of their thinking. See, for instance, this rather glorious illustration:

And from which, this bears repeating:

One more time. This is who they are.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading of course:

In the piece linked above, Ben Sixsmith responds to an attempt, by Lukas Shayo, to problematise a much-loved comic strip, one that must now, it seems, be fretted over as both “violent” and “sexist.” Readers familiar with the strip in question 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.

As Ben replies,

I’ve said before, regarding the pop-culture site io9, the more insufferably woke the site has become, the more generic and unwritten its content feels. By which I mean, it was once possible to stumble across lengthy articles on niche pop-culture subjects, often written with an affectionate expertise. Now, however, it’s difficult to differentiate one contributor from another. The content doesn’t read as if anyone in particular wrote it. It’s flavourless, uniform in its politics and ideological assumptions, both pointedly announced, and uniform in its tone. It might as well be generated by an algorithm.

Regarding Ben’s piece, Aelfheld adds,

It’s practically a genre – and a tool for the forging of progressive credentials. Basically, take something that’s very good and that a lot of people like, or have liked as children, and then problematise it, sour it, generally in a narrow, glib, and self-satisfied way. While getting details hopelessly wrong and missing all kinds of subtlety.

Or as Ben puts it, “joyless Buzzfeed-esque finger-wagging.”

See also, certain popular songs of the 1940s.

The author of the joyless prattle, Lukas Shayo – CUNY and Brooklyn, naturally – does rather struggle to find his “10 ways” in which Calvin and Hobbes should elicit regret or disapproval. We’re told, for instance, that,

And we’re informed that the absence of smartphones and GPS tracking devices – the strip concluded in 1995 – may be “baffling for young readers.”

Mr Shayo also bemoans Calvin spending “too much time by himself,” thereby allowing his imagination to entertain the reader.

We’re told, with improbable earnestness:

Also troubling to Mr Shayo is the thought of our comic-strip protagonist being “unsupervised in an enormous forest.” Or, unregistered by the author, what Calvin perceives as an enormous forest. This, remember, is a six-year-old boy who regularly ventures into outer space and who perceives his stuffed toy as an eloquent, talking tiger. This one reminded me of being six or so myself and, with my cousin in tow, fearlessly exploring a small strip of woodland behind my grandmother’s house, and which six-year-old me chose to see as enormous and therefore a basis for adventure.

Given that the charm of Calvin and Hobbes so often hinges on the mismatch between what Calvin imagines and rather more mundane reality, you’d think that Mr Shayo might entertain such possibilities. But no. Wokeness must be announced, a posture assumed, and things found problematic. Because contrived disappointment, a souring of all the things, is the latest must-have. For a certain kind of person. And everything, especially things that many people have enjoyed, must be judged – and found wanting – by the narrow standards of one’s own self-admiring in-group at this precise point in time.

Update, via the comments:

Aitch adds,

While Dean reveals,

I suppose that’s what makes it grimly funny, in a disappointing modernity kind of way. If you poke through Mr Shayo’s other, numerous contributions, the tone, such as it is, is much the same. There’s no obvious personality – no sense of any particular person having written it – no sense of mischief, and no discernible wit. Mr Shayo is, however, capable of making entirely contradictory claims, on the very same subject, mere days apart.

For instance, in the “10 Ways” article quoted above, Mr Shayo worries that the absence of smartphones and GPS tracking devices may be “baffling for young readers,” and he bemoans how the strip “doesn’t have any modern technology.” And yet we’re told – days later – that, “the lack of technological influence makes the strip read as a timeless work.” “It always feels that it’s something that could still happen today… the absence of technology is hardly notable.”

Likewise, Mr Shayo insists that “ending Calvin and Hobbes is exactly what saved it,” and praises the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, for refusing to license spin-offs, adaptations, and potentially lucrative merchandise, thereby “living up to the ideals that the strip… championed.” “Ending the strip,” we’re told, “was a good decision” and “there is no reason to tarnish that legacy by adding more to an already concluded work.”

While, one week earlier, “Calvin and Hobbes needs to be an animated show.” Because “an adaptation or continuation is essential.”

These, shall we say, inconsistencies, among many others, aren’t a result of some cunning AI spoof, some infinitely deep intelligence. This is just the standard of writing, and thinking, now deemed good enough.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Vortex rings, Mount Etna. || Invisible drum kit. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || A brief history of defenestration. || No good deed. || How to deal with insufferable, self-inflated wankers. || Heist movie. || Hygienic button-pushing. || Booty booty booty. || She has jam jars and takeaway boxes containing human brains. || A game of falling balls. A guide of sorts. || “The most unique gift for any man.” || Dragon chicken. || Ladies in a certain line of work. || “The sand is the weight of the artist.” || To send a message to the others, obviously. || Mongolian heavy metal. || Please don’t defecate in my grocery store. I paraphrase, but that’s the gist. || At least the poncho helped a little. || Petrol station scenes. || 1950s Super Panavision 70 Star Wars. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || First impressions, they say.

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And in other this-never-happens news:

He just wants to molest little girls, you see, while pretending to be a woman.

Mr Katie Cruz, quoted above, is, he says, a role model for “trans kids,” and has been “working behind the scenes” to “reduce stigma.” That would be the stigma of being bent on child molestation – specifically, molesting girls between the ages of 9 and 13. Just so we’re clear.

It’s a “trans age” thing, apparently. Which seems to mean that our grown man, a man who pretends to be a woman, also likes to imagine himself as a teenager, aged between “13 and 17ish.” So there’s nothing to worry about, you “far-right” bigots. It’s all totally legit and above-board.

Mr Cruz, also known as Cali Miller, goes on to denounce the “harmful rhetoric comparing the LGBTQ community to paedophiles” – and he does this while using the fig leaf of “queer” activism to advance his own predatory, paedophilic ambitions, and the predatory ambitions of others like him. Which, if not exactly coherent, is certainly bold.

“While I’m empathetic toward children and want the best for them,” says Mr Cruz, “I also hold the view that no one should tell others what they can and can’t do with their own bodies.” Or, it seems, the bodies of others. Say, sweet little Sally two doors down.

And so, those of you not yet fully enthused by the prospect of Mr Cruz’s liberation and empowerment will have to “move toward a more progressive and empathetic worldview.” While Mr Cruz himself, despite his claims of empathy, remains utterly selfish regarding the children whose lives would be monstrously degraded by the imposition of his desires. Given the chance.

And because things aren’t quite twisted enough, the paedophilic groups of which Mr Cruz is a member, and whose goals include “reform” of the sex-offender registry and to “achieve protected class status,” frequently deploy the term “social justice.” And how dare you far-right bigots deny such noble beings their child-molestation rights.

Update, via the comments:

Readers will doubtless have registered just how easily the rhetoric of victimhood and “social justice” is appropriated. A phenomenon we’ve noted here many times. As when we were told, in the pages of the Independent, that when paedophiles claim to remain celibate but still search out employment that puts them in regular and intimate contact with children, their potential prey, this is somehow a “social good” and a basis for congratulation. Because every parent wants their child to have a teacher who harbours fantasies of molesting them.

Regarding Mr Cruz, Nikw211 notes this passage from the original article:

Adding, not unreasonably,

Well, quite. One more time:

That’s the kind of loving and caring that just happens to be abusive and generally traumatising, and which can have serious lifelong consequences for the victim. If another real-world illustration is required, see also this. Though I should point out that it’s not for the faint-hearted.

At which point, I’m going to quote this, on the unconvincing contortions of Dr Ole Martin Moen, and which I recommend reading in full:

Hence the stigma, of course. The stigma that Dr Moen and Mr Cruz find so terribly problematic.

Some items from the archives:

Crotch Funk As Art.

Come, fellow aesthetes. Let us visit the Vienna International Dance Festival.

You’ll Notice They All Wear Shoes.

Militant nudists wave things. Or, “Mommy, what’s a cock ring?”

Flatter, Mythologize, Rinse, Repeat.

Because, admit it, you miss Laurie Penny.

Vibeslayer.

A song is pondered.

Just Surrender To The Will Of Clever People.

Attention, parents. Reading to your children causes “unfair disadvantage.”

Artists For Gaia.

Our betters sail north at taxpayer expense. Gas is released courageously.

Consider this an open thread.