Ace ruminates on leftist piety as a kind of status signalling: 

I’ve heard it called “Luxurious Concerns.” That is, your concerns mark your social status. If your concerns are about keeping your job, paying your rent, or whether your kids’ school is any damn good, you’re worried about Big Things, and therefore you are marked as a Struggling Person. Only those who have really made it — who are at the top of the economic and social order — have the luxury of worrying about the Small Things. And if you worry about the Very Small Things, or indeed the Microscopic Things, then, well and truly, you have arrived… If you can’t afford a Luxury Car, or a Luxury Apartment, you can at least adorn yourself with Luxury Worries. It’s very cheap. Easy, too… Our modern class of intellectually-insecure social climbers are posing as connoisseurs of offensiveness. 

See also Kristian Niemietz and Daniel Hannan on the same. 

The attempt to cultivate pretentious guilt and pretentious indignation, and to balance grief and umbrage on a very tiny thing, the tinier the better, is of course a Guardian staple. It gives the left’s national organ its distinctive tone – that tinny, unconvincing high-pitched whine. Affecting woe, especially improbable woe, is how many leftwing columnists signal their position in their own moral hierarchy, relative to you, the heathen rabble. As I said some time ago, 

It’s important to understand these are not just lapses in logic or random fits of insincerity; these outpourings are displays – of class and moral elevation. Which is why they persist, despite getting knottier and ever more absurd. Crudely summarised, it goes something like this: “I am better than you because I pretend to feel worse.” 

And this is why, for instance, a tearful Theo Hobson tells us, “There is no excuse for failing to feel liberal guilt about race and class.” Because until “this problematic world” has been purged of all vice and inequity, however unrelated to your own behaviour, a heavy, heavy heart must be worn on the sleeve. How else will people know how superior you are? According to Mr Hobson, if you aren’t ostentatiously fretting about the eating of meat and “affluent lifestyles endangering the planet,” and if you aren’t “anxious about your status as a comfy bourgeoisie” and ashamed of earning more than some other random person, then there must be something wrong with you. And so you should feel guilty for not feeling guilty about things you shouldn’t feel guilty about. It’s the Guardian way.

And so, breathless with anticipation, we return to the pages of Everyday Feminism, where questions of cosmic import are chewed over, and where Celia Edell, a self-described “24-year-old feminist philosopher interested in social justice,” shares the many things learned by her over many, many years. The great and pressing issues that weigh upon her mind:  

Does feminism require vegetarianism? This is something I am asked about often.

Often. Because, 

Vegetarians and vegans sometimes go around telling meat-eaters whether their eating habits are consistent with their feminist beliefs.

Imagine the parties. The time must fly.

The main argument you will likely hear in favour of feminist vegetarianism is that of linked oppression. Basically the idea is that women are consistently objectified in a morally problematic way that is very similar to the way animals are objectified.

You see, great feminist thinkers have insisted that “female animals are particularly oppressed” because “we consume animal products which must come from female bodies (i.e., milk and eggs)” and “this can be understood as a type of male domination of female bodies.” And so, obviously,

Many feminist theorists have therefore recommended that refraining from consuming animals and their products is a necessary step toward undercutting patriarchal power. It will not only benefit non-human animals, but also work to undermine the entire system [that] disadvantages women.

The mechanism here is, unsurprisingly, somewhat unclear. Possibly because enthusiasts of truck stop bacon butties rarely give much weight to the ponderings of “feminist theorists.” Even theorists who imagine that a liking for bacon or steak, or even the humble cheese sandwich, reinforces “the same system… which positions women as lesser than men.” However, Ms Edell is more temperate in her views, because,  

Animals and women are exploited quite differently in the patriarchy.

At which point, readers may wish to imagine a world in which feminist theorists are ascendant, patriarchy has been smashed and rendered unto dust, and womenfolk, being wise and inherently benign, shun the exploitation of animals altogether, living instead on a diet of compassion and self-righteousness. However, it turns out that on a practical level, building a meat-free, dairy-free utopia is fraught with agonising, due to the “many intersecting issues which complicate these decisions”:

Some people cannot eat a vegan or vegetarian diet as it is triggering for their eating disorder.

Lifted from the comments following this and somewhat pertinent, from the pages of the student newspaper of Brown University: 

“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus. His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health… David spent numerous hours organising demonstrations with fellow activists. Meanwhile, he struggled to balance his classes and social life with the activism to which he feels so dedicated. Stressors and triggers flooded his life constantly, he said.

Poor lamb. All those triggers. Perhaps someone should take our stressed-out little warrior to one side and explain to him, quite firmly, that neither his parents nor the taxpayer are forking out $60,000 a year for a narcissistic clown to piss about playing activist by railing against phantom “oppression” and non-existent “violence” in one of the most cosseting environments in human history.

Update:

Speaking of students who’d rather be acting out fantasies of oppression than preparing for exams, let’s not forget the Oberlin student activist Della Kurzer-Zlotnick, who was emotionally devastated by a two-letter word that was apparently unknown to her, and which she later described as “violent and triggering language.”

The word, by the way, was no.

“Surrender yourself to a poignant experience of body odour.” // Interactive wave simulator. (h/t, Things) // Your virtual reality girlfriend is a swimsuit model. // 3D-printed tissue transplants. // The thrill of wallpaper, 1968. // The thrill of clock-making. // Watchmen comic panels sorted by brightness. // The herbivorous butcher. 100% vegan. // A beginner’s guide to landing a Boeing 737 in an emergency. // A brief history of Roland electronic instruments. // Tread carefully on the island of feral rabbits. // Vibrundies. // How couples meet. // The chemistry of Camembert. // Because you’ve always wanted to watch someone eating old military survival rations. // 85,000 historical films, 1896-1976. // Herding sheep. // And I think that means he likes it. That, or he’s trying to fly. 

No doubt inspired by this defining moment in intellectual discourse, Milo Yiannopoulos is continuing his tour of US campuses. Last night the venue was the University of Minnesota, where Milo was joined by Christina Hoff Sommers, whose work has been mentioned here previously, to have a debate optimistically titled Calm Down: Restoring Common Sense to Feminism. Needless to say, the event was lively, with several short-lived attempts at disruption, including chants of “You’re an asshole,” raised middle fingers, and repeated brandishing of air horns, including one, clutched by a male feminist, that failed to launch and instead emitted a feeble whine, much to the amusement of both speakers and the audience. 

I’d imagine full video of the event will materialise later today. Meanwhile, it’s perhaps worth pointing out that while the “social justice” protestors favoured the standard ritual of drowning out dissent with klaxons and repetitive shouted slogans that bordered on incomprehensible, those being protested against articulated a case, invited questions and had a discussion. 

Photo of the three wise men by Leila Navidi.

Update: Full video of the event is available here. The Q&A starts around 45:35. 

Oh, and filmed outside afterwards, Air Horn Warrior #2 (pictured above) shares his feelings with passers-by.