Pride comes before the fall
Our world is sick, to heal we must do two opposing things at once: tread lightly and also stand strong.
Last Monday, I had a conversation with the women of The Radical Center, a YouTube channel that highlights ideological bias in the counselling and mental health world. Side note: I will be joining their Monday livestream from now on at 10am US Pacific time, if any of you want to participate. Just go to the YouTube channel and you can watch live and comment.
We talked about a deranged woke man in a wig screaming at a woman on the street in New York City, we talked about the occult-pagan overtones of the Olympic opening ceremony, we talked about white, liberal, American women for Kamala, and woke social justice. We were all in agreement, that each one of these things is bad.
When I watched the recording a few days later, I was struck by how the three of us (Leslie Elliott Boyce, Deborah Knox and myself) were trying to thread the needle between criticism of ideologies that harm society in profound ways, and showing some level of empathy and understanding toward those individuals who espouse the harmful ideologies. This is a personal challenge for me because I am very impatient, I can be very cutting with my words and I am deeply hostile to BS — but I also am generally empathetic so I find it easy to see others’ perspectives. This means I can whipsaw between righteous indignation and its opposite.
It is confusing to be simultaneously angry and horrified at the constant stream of craziness coming from the progressive left in all of its permutations, and also see the suffering, humanity, and pain that characterises so many of its foot soldiers. There is an added layer of discomfort because most of my loved ones don’t see the world the way I do and in fact, would consider themselves closer in alignment with the people I consider crazy and harmful, than they would with me. This is is something I know many of you reading this also experience.
Navigating social media-influenced personal interactions feels like picking your way through a minefield, and you never know which landmine you might step on. Will it be Israel? Will it be ‘book banning’? Will it be Donald Trump or Ukraine or trans kids? How far will you get, unscathed and in agreement, until you blow everything up by setting foot on the issue that tears apart the fragile accord you might have made?
From the comments and reactions to the video, I know that — just as an example — my words about the Wig Man distressed women who saw him solely as an aggressor. This despite the fact that I agree with those women, he was an aggressor — an unhinged, delusional, frightening, aggressor. I also saw in him a small, tremendously hurt person who was torn apart by his own pain. When I watch drag queens twerking at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I find them creepy and gross. But I believe them when they say they were simply trying to create a thing of beauty. The problem is, they are so consumed with pride, they do not know what beauty is.
When it comes to drag queens, my feelings are site-specific. Just two weeks ago, I was invited by friends to a drag show at a gay bar, and I went, and did not feel angered or disgusted in the slightest. Because it was a late-night, adults-only, den of iniquity and those have their place in this world. That place is not the Olympics — the celebration of all that is virtuous in human endeavour — or schools, or libraries. But a gay bar at 11pm on a Saturday? Sure. Incidentally, my friend and I had a brief chat with the most popular of the drag queens, and after my friend expressed how big a fan she was of his act, he said something that I thought was quite moving: “I’m just a man in a dress!”
I appreciated his modesty and common sense. But social media and the news only present the most flattened out versions of people — turning everyone into either a villain or a saint.
The men in dresses, even the aggressive ones, they long to be something they will never, ever, be — and at the end of the day all the adulation they are currently receiving from society will not change that. Once they’ve peeled off their fake eyelashes and stepped out of their extra large stripper heels, they still go to bed at night knowing that they are going to wake up big, hairy, men. They can offend and upset us with their attempted appropriation of femininity, but they can never succeed in achieving it. In the dark bars, late at night, they are poignant, and sometimes funny. Out in the public glare, they are ridiculous. They are mere simulacra. As someone who lives at ease with myself and values authenticity above most things, that makes me feel bad for them too.
As a general rule, I can’t stand fence-sitters. But is it possible that at times, I am one? Do I hate fence-sitters because my judgement of them is correct? Or am I wrong, and it’s just my negative traits of impatience and harshness that are coming to the fore?
My frequent criticism of the Liberal White Woman is even more charged, in this context. As Leslie said in our conversation on Monday, I know so many smart, interesting, accomplished, liberal women — and I applaud Leslie’s refusal to demonise them. But how to reconcile that fact, with the fact that so many of them embrace an ideology that is racist, authoritarian, and, well…batshit crazy? I honestly have no idea.
People of good faith struggle to carry this load: people like you, my subscribers. And as we do, we are all being used by larger forces that are vying for cold, hard, power. Our emotional discord is fertile ground for them. It gives them cover.
Their tactics are redolent of Maoism, though I don’t know for certain if they actively consider themselves Maoist. The secretive steering committee that seems to be running things now is injecting ideology into everything as a means to gain total control over society. The recent debacle over Kamala Harris’s race is the perfect example of this. Trump — correctly and with a real display of cojones — pointed out that Kamala used to trumpet her Indian heritage. Now, because it is politically expedient, she has switched to black and implies very strongly that she is African-American, when she is actually Jamaican-Indian-American. If the rules applied fairly, these would not be interchangeable identities. If a hapless white woman tries to adopt an African-American identity, she is hounded out of polite society. Fundamentally, woke is just a tool to be used primarily against the un-savvy and well-meaning, to emotionally abuse them in such a way that they come to think they deserve it.
The liberal white women are letting themselves be used in this regard, shepherdesses herding us toward political calamity, because they feel their actions are justified for the greater good. I love to make fun of the more egregious examples of white lady cringe, like I did this week for Spiked. And while that is cathartic and has its place in challenging the discourse, sometimes deeper reflection is needed.
Our world is sick, and those who still hang on to sanity must do two opposing things at once: tread lightly and also stand strong. You can call it sin or you can call it delusion, mental illness or demonic possession. Pride or ego. Pick your narrative framing. But either way, if a person’s life is built around proudly parading a lie, it will rebound on that person in terrible, heartbreaking ways. For the secular-minded among you, rephrase ‘pride comes before the fall’ in a way that gets you to the same place. Because that’s where the truth is.
Post script: I wrote this essay on Thursday. The next day, (Friday) I saw this on X. Thought I’d share as it’s so similar to my own thoughts on the matter.
Post-post script:
On Saturday morning, looking through my bookmarks on X, I found this and realised that in my essay above I’m essentially channelling St. Augustine. Who wudda thunk it?
Post-post-post script:
I share this hilarious video from Dominic Frisby, it will cheer you up, I guarantee it!
And don’t forget, upgrade to a paid sub to listen to the audio version of this essay.
