Vancouver Zeitgeist
Reflections on Vancouver, British Columbia and other topics, related or not

 

One revolution,
many fronts

George Floyd demos show the West’s mass hysteria
changing focus with increasing speed and intensity

Greg Klein | June 15, 2020

Could just as well be a George Floyd demonstration

Three characteristics of the social revolution include increasingly weird
causes, sudden changes of focus and thorough society-wide conformity.
But these demonstrations are no more protests against authority than
were the Nuremberg rallies.

 

Great to see things are back to normal and all that pandemic stuff was like so yesterday. Yes, it’s normal in the sense that another wave of fanaticism has overcome Western society. But it’s different for the amazing speed in which the mainstream switched causes—that, and the exceptionally thorough conformity that resulted.

Sudden as the change of focus was, it didn’t entail a new cause. This brings blacks, good old-fashioned blacks, back to the forefront after a lengthy period of relative exile. The first of the officially designated victim groups, blacks had been displaced in recent years by natives, Mexicans, Syrians, junkies, autistic Swedes, fluid genders and other contenders for top place in the hierarchy of injustice.

But what a sudden change of focus. Prior to the pandemic it was something about pipelines and natives, shortly before that it was the autistic Swede. The social revolution has so many fronts, so many changes of focus that we might need up-to-the-nanosecond updates on the cause du moment to correctly channel our emotions.

An outlet for emotions helps explain this growing fervour. The dangerous weirdness that overtook the West a few generations ago now approaches the zealotry of radical Islam and Nazi Germany. The difference is that this is self-destructive, reflecting a society on a suicide mission. Previously, many adherents had been inadequates who demonstrated their grudge against normality through increasingly bizarre grievances. Others were simply opportunists. Now everyone seems under pressure to express support, often on bent knee, with repeated denunciations of all-pervasive “systemic racism.”

The rhetoric, mainstream rhetoric at that, features so much PC idiocy, double standards and emotional bullshit that it constitutes a full-on headfuck. But any appeal for a sense of proportion or any kind of rationality would be about as welcome as a positive word for Jews on Kristallnacht.

Was this planned? Over recent years the social revolution has gained greater sophistication and power in its ability to push destructive causes and punish its opponents. Quite possibly an alliance of well-financed groups had a plan ready to take advantage of the next wave of fanaticism. The latest outbreak of black rioting would have provided that opportunity. Instead of just another wave of racist violence, looting and arson that would eventually burn itself out, this outbreak was quickly taken over by others, mostly whites, and labelled by the media as “largely peaceful.”

Very quickly too came the obligation of everybody, absolutely everybody, to express approval lest (a very effective tactic, if it was deliberate) they be denounced as part of the problem. Not just politicians, celebs and institutionalized flakery, but people from endeavours that hadn’t previously been overly politicized find it necessary to take part. It’s been very sudden and very thorough.

On the other hand the madness may well have been spontaneous, an inevitable development in the death of the West. The question might be a matter for inquiry by future historians—if there are any.

That there might not be, other than state propagandists, suggests an especially scary scenario. Even if this hysteria isn’t choreographed, it’s a totalitarian force that could lead to complete repression, either directly or following a period of chaotic breakdown. And it’s happening in an era that, even before the pandemic, was already poised for a convergence of catastrophes.

What form the repression might take is anybody’s guess. But one hint could come from the uniform irrationality of public discourse. An example has been the routine description of these events as “protests.” Hardly protests at all, the outbursts ranged from festivals of smug sanctimoniousness to prolonged expressions of Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate. As such, they constitute a mass affirmation of our society’s official ideology.

They’re no more protests than were the Nuremberg rallies.

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