If you haven't heard the story about #BLMKidnapping, I'm going to leave those links for you right here so you don't feel lost as to what I'm going to spend time talking about here.
NSFW:
Fair warning, this is really disturbing. I had to walk away from this story several times when it broke last night on Twitter.
Full Live Stream of alleged attack/kidnapping of a young white man while his four captives scream "F*** White People" "F*** Donald Trump."
You can read about it more here.
or here on CNN
We legitimately have an issue with identity politics in the west. Whether it's race, color, gender, or ideology. The way we choose to identify, creating artificial tribal ‘movements,’ is detracting from the legitimate issues that individuals within these movements have. With the Alt Right, it doesn't matter if it started out as meme-trolling and shit-posting - the label #AltRight is toxic now due to actual racists in the movement feeling legitimized after hiding out in the meme wars. The same way #BlackLivesMatter as a movement became toxic after the Dallas shootings.
This has happened repeatedly with political ideology as well, the Tea Party for example before Twitter was a huge platform, but it happens with Democrats and Republicans too.
There is strength in numbers and that is why we are so drawn to these activist groups because we feel like our voice can actually be heard in the mob’s call.
Here's the reality though: it can't.
Only individuals have messages and only individuals can express an idea with the nuance it deserves: no matter how memetic it may seem.
The Hashtag activism has driven the news cycle and we saw its effect in the Presidential Election. We saw it last night with the #BLMkidnapping. The story broke on Twitter hours before any main stream network began to cover it. It happened in the #AltRight. We saw it with #GamerGate. It's meme-marketing. How catchy and decisive a hashtag can I come up with and use my legion of followers to get it trending? Whenever this happens it's like winding up a nuclear bomb and then walking away! It obliterates the rational thinking of human beings and replaces it with mob-mentality.
My point here is that there is always something heinous happening in the world and we want to be able to do something about those things. The rise in hashtag activism and identity politics is largely due to a complete distrust of, not only the media, but each other. What was the purpose of #BLMKidnapping? Initially it was to spread it around so people could see what was happening but soon it became clear that, because of the political/racial nature of the video, that people were out for blood themselves.
The issue here is that the Mainstream Media is no longer controlling the narrative to the extent that they have in the past.
Now the mob is.
Listening to Sargon of Akkad's live stream today, one of the members brought up a story in relation to the #BLMKidnapping in that something similar happened to a black student in Ohio which was reported on December 20th that received almost no media attention. You can read about it here:
Dietrich High athletes raped black, mentally disabled teammate, lawsuit claims
Are we more informed now than we where with a centrally controlled narrative? No, we're just differently informed.
Evil exists in the world - I know this is an unpopular idea in 2017. Evil is real and it knows no race or intellect or ideology. Let me hit you with another one. Evil doesn't happen in thought, it happens in action. We can push the narrative this way and that and cry foul at every instance of evil we see in the world but it will not stop evil from existing.
This is a metaphysical concept. Thoughts are not provable but actions are. One may argue that thoughts and words can influence action but it is indeed only the action that has any sort of tangible reality. Actions, you see, also have personal agency - the people who commit actions are themselves responsible for them.
So when we blame #BlackLivesMatter, the #AltRight, #GamerGate or any other Hashtag activists we take away the personal agency from the people responsible. Would you take that away from someone who committed these atrocities against you personally? or would you blame an entire group?
Now Black Lives Matter Chicago have publicly denounced this crime which is good and appropriate - even given that there was nothing evident linking the alleged criminals with the activist group. They are covering their ass and disavowing violence. Many on the other side of the mob, however, argue that this could only happen in the culture that was created under the movement of Black Lives Matter.
I heard a lot of people say the same thing about the culture that would be created under Trump.
Let me say it again, only individuals are capable of good or evil - collectives are metaphysical concepts and therefore have no moral authority. They are merely a collection of individuals.
This is the Libertarian political reality - that only individuals exist. There is no collective because that's just a concept. Now a bunch of people in a collective do evil, of course the concept takes a beating, it is the aggregate of the individuals.
Now let's be clear: the reason there is so much backlash in the media about this being called a hate crime is to highlight the hypocritical, double standard. Were the races reversed in this case it would, without a doubt, be called a hate crime. With the race-bating climate of the news media, violence against minorities always is spun as being race related whereas it is impossible to be racist against whites. The whole #BLMKidnapping hashtag is a call to action to the media, If race bating are the rules of the game - you'd better be damn sure you play by your own rules.
So what's the solution?
Media is the real X factor here. I just showed two instances of evil in the world, one that wasn't on my radar and another that was in my face. Media consumption creates our narrative construction. While these two stories happened there are likely many more out there that go uncovered in the Mainstream Media because they don't align with the narrative being pushed. It is important to point out hypocrisy in so much as it breaks the cycle of insanity, not to up the stakes for each side. What we're seeing today, however, is a continued lack of self reflection in the media as they are doubling down on the "White racist" narrative - that some how the hashtag is a supremacist movement. It certainly is a reaction to race being the primary motivation as reported by media.
The definition of insanity is repeating a decision expecting a different result. In this case we're winding up that nuclear activist bomb and it's about ready to blow up in everyone's faces.
Be accountable to the people around you and make sure they are accountable to you. This is what community is. It is possible to vet your community - not your hashtag movement. Movements are looking for warm bodies, not individuals.
Love your neighbor.
