The Other in Literature, Life, and Politics
This makes us The Other because in many fields from entertainment to education, from art to government, people have never been exposed to anyone like us. Or rather, they have but they don’t know it, as no one is willing to commit career suicide by uncloaking and revealing beliefs that aren’t exactly like the group’s.
So in blog after blog, we would get trolls coming in who would yell at us for being homophobic (even when the main blogger is GAY,) for being racist, and, more importantly for having all this … I’d like to say “outdated fifties morality” but it’s not even that, it’s outdated fifties morality as seen by Saturday Night Live.
As any culture which has frozen and ossified and become incapable of seeing the contradictions in themselves, Liberals view Republicans part as they might have been sometime, maybe, in the twenties, and part as a chimera – something that never was.
We’re supposed to be robber barons twirling our mustaches (I’m going to wax tomorrow, swear to G-d) while we kick widows and orphans out into the cold, AND incredibly pious and “moral” hypocrites, who talk about what is natural and unnatural and wax mealy-mouthed about white superiority. Oh, we’re also supposed to work overtime to keep minorities down, even when we are minorities, because… I don’t know. It’s inherent in us, evil people that we are.
Guys, I have a lot of socially conservative, evangelical friends and even they never expressed any disgust at women using tampons. In fact, the most social conservative thing I ever saw relating to tampons was the note in some of the bigger models in Portugal that this might pierce your hymen. And even then (in the ’70s) in a culture more socially conservative than the US, we laughed at it.
But that’s all the liberals HAVE. All they have to defend themselves against the horrible vision of a government that doesn’t control all of society (well, it must be horrible in their eyes, right?) and every individual from birth to death, is this boogeyman creature, this “Other” waved like a threat, like the barbarians at the gates.
Thus did the ancient Romans speak of the people beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Thus did medieval Europe imagine the inhabitants of the interior of Africa. Thus did the Chinese speak of everyone outside their sphere.
The liberals have made us The Other because if they found out we were human their entire vision of the world would shatter.
Meanwhile, while doing so, they strut and pose, and talk about how their ancestors were ignorant and fearful and phobic of The Other.
If civilization survives this, future students of literature and history will laugh themselves sick over the irony.
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Shutterstock image courtesy OLJ Studio
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They all saw Inherit the Wind and want to play the heroic free thinker standing up to the narrow minded bigot. But we won’t play our part and it drives them nuts. This is why they love Stephen Colbert. He’s what a conservative is supposed to be.
That meme of the “other” pre-dates it’s conspicuous use in America by quite a few years. Today it’s common in America. It gives weight to the idea that Brazilian Paolo Friere’s Marxist inspired Critical Pedagogy is the American liberal’s Bible without them being the least aware of it, having made a rather roundabout Lusophone journey.
One quibble: actually, it’s outdated fifties TV sitcom morality as seen by Saturday Night Live. It is as accurate a representation of fifties morality as Two and A Half Men, The New Girl or any other current sit-com is of contemporary morality.
Consider the number of recent scandals that have developed from “journalists” such as Stephen Glass offering absurd depictions of conservatives, pandering to Progressive’s obsession for perceiving conservatives as exotic aliens.
BTW, Thanks for this. I was considering, earlier today, the fact that much of the effort to suppress conservative views is a form of bullying, of making conservatives into The Other. Something that The Left is always demanding we not do. Does that make them hypocrites?
Many years ago, I attended a brief talk by John Fund, back before he became very well known, in which he discussed (among other things) the attitude of the Mainstream Media toward the liberty movement, including the Libertarian Party. He related a story about an exchange that took place after a national LP convention, when he was attached to Walter Cronkinte’s group, and someone asked Cronkite whether libertarians and libertarian ideas should receive coverage.
Cronkite said no, emphatically: “These are the most dangerous people in America. Their message has the illusion of truth about it. Far too many people will believe it – and the only way we can keep that from happening is by denying them the use of our outlet for their views.”
Libertarians were indeed The Other, to Cronkite, at least. I have no doubt that Cronkite would take the same attitude toward contemporary American conservatives – especially seeing how much closer to libertarian principles conservatives have moved these past thirty years.
As a conservative and Christian who has often moved in circles with liberals, I see this satire/drama mistake all the time. During our time in London if one more person had cited Michael Moore to me as well researched documentarian, I might have lost it. (It is very good practice at staying calm under pressure.) Abortion, gay marriage, healthcare—the things people are willing to believe about conservative Christians was mind boggling. I remember one discussion, after the Norway massacre no less, when a friend had read something about the how abortion docs had to wear bullet proof vests because they were constantly under threat from Christian gun toters. I don’t remember the specifics but do remember the resulting discussion about our dangerous abortion debate. She thought that we would just do it like the Danes with their relaxed approach to abortion. In the first trimester one could just get an abortion, then during the 2nd, a special medical board would hear evidence and decide when if the woman could get a late abortion. Easy. No fuss. While swallowing laughter about what American feminists would think of that medical board permission, I asked about the third trimester, and she looked at me like I was nuts. She was horrified by the thought. I have loads of such stories. The most recent satire mistake was just the other day when a blogger friend was tweeting, in a grave head shaking way, some satirical piece about Michele Bachmann wanting to ban falafel because it was an anchor food for jihad or some such.
If anyone doesn’t get it; the courts have struck down any limits on abortion including those in the third trimester….
This (once again) brings to mind the adage, “choose your enemies well. for they are the ones you’ll become most like.” Liberals consistently create a bogeyman they hang on conservatives, presuming that the bogeyman is dishonest, unscrupulous, misogynistic, etc. The more liberals do so, the more they expose themselves as having the same qualities they purport to oppose.
See my post on Carlie Martin.
Sorry, Charlie. Starkist doesn’t want tuna with good taste. Starkist wants tuna that tastes good. And if you are looking there for tuna you ain’t gonna find it.
“why murder probably shouldn’t be a crime”
I was jarred out of the article and had to stop reading at this point. Are you suggesting there shouldn’t a law against murder??
I’d be interested to hear the argument for why murder shouldn’t be a crime. As a follow up, if murder is not illegal, why should anything be illegal?
As someone who has been described as a Left-Leaning Libertarian…
“All they have to defend themselves against the horrible vision of a government that doesn’t control all of society…and every individual from birth to death”
As you said about Conservatives and their supposed views on the evils of tampons, I say now:
I have never met anybody who used the term ‘Liberal’ to describe themselves, including myself, who EVER espoused such a viewpoint. I find it incredibly entertaining to see such blatant stereotyping IN AN ARTICLE ABOUT STEREOTYPES.
It is a bit amusing that the leftist culture, which has such pride in its supposed “diversity and openness”, is in fact so totally closed to any points of view outside itself. As this author states, libertarians can understand both conservatives and leftists, and can suport either depending on the issue. And conservatives can understand leftists (even while disagreeing with them) and can understand and often agree with libertarians. Only leftists seem completely incapable of any understanding of viewpoints other than their own.
Lots of folks believed that Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” described an actual Martian invasion, too.