Category Archives: Political Correctness

Gaming is bigger than ever. With die-hard fans forking out up to $70 a pop for games with budgets in excess of $200million, the videogame industry is now bigger than the movie and music industries combined. Videogames were given an especially large boost by lockdown, with gamers escaping the confines of their homes into immersive fantasy worlds in ever greater numbers.

But as with much of our cultural life, the videogames industry is now coming under increasing ideological pressure. Both industry high-ups and journalists see gamers less as fun-loving hobbyists than as an intransigent army of reactionary white men in need of moral correction.

One title that epitomises this trend is Naughty Dogs The Last of Us. This action-adventure game was widely acclaimed upon its release in 2013 for its beautiful, immersive graphics and gripping story. After his own daughter is killed in a zombie apocalypse, the player-character Joel must go to great lengths to protect Ellie, a girl who is immune to the disease that causes people to turn into zombies. Joel and Ellie journey across the US, in the hope of using her immunity to find a cure. The story was praised at the time for being crushingly and beautifully real and for presenting masculinity in a positive light. Flawed but stoic, Joel immediately became a fan favourite.

Fast-forward seven years to the long-awaited The Last of Us Part II, and Joel is killed off early in the game by a new character, Abby. You stupid old man, she says, as she beats him to death with a golf club a metaphor for the culture wars if ever there was one.

Fans were understandably unhappy with this callous treatment of a much-loved hero. The games press, however, simply dismissed fans criticism as ignorant hatred. It accused them of disliking the emphasis on LGBTQ characters and storylines we later learn that Ellie is gay and a new character, Lev, is trans. Even the president of Sony Entertainment, which produces Playstation consoles and published The Last of Us, was quick to call out fan toxicity.

Woke ideology is even finding its way into first-person-shooter action titles, which are noted for their realistic violence and strict age ratings. Electronic Arts 2018 game, Battlefield V, a first-person shooter set in the Second World War, caused a backlash among fans after it prominently featured a female soldier in the marketing, including on the games cover. The move was particularly puzzling given that the overwhelming majority of those who fought and died in the Second World War were male. As usual, the industry was quick to accuse fans of misogyny. One reviewer could scarcely hide her contempt for fans, labelling them young, angry white men.

It seems that any and every area of culture even videogames about war must promote a woke worldview.

You can see this shift in the marketing for Activisions Call of Duty series. Back in 2010, the advertising campaign for Black Ops went with the line, Theres a soldier in all of us. Today, as one rap and sportscar-filled trailer for the much-anticipated Modern Warfare 2 shows, the military content of the game is being deliberately downplayed.

The influence of political correctness on the gaming industry extends all the way down to the code. Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, released the latest version of its free game-development software, Unreal Engine 5, earlier this year, alongside its new official coding standards. Among the many pages of technical coding rules are numerous commandments on what language developers can use when coding on the engine. While Epic presents these edicts as guidance and suggestions to help coders be more respectful and appropriate, elsewhere it is made clear that they are top-down rules that are mandatory for using the service.

For instance, coders are told they must not use words that refer to historical trauma or lived experience of discrimination, such as slave, master and nuke. Other forbidden terms include abort, execute or native, and even blacklist and whitelist all commonly used terms in the huge technical task of game development.

This is inclusive authoritarianism in a nutshell. In other words, be kind or else. Many developers face little choice but to comply. Epic Games engine is relied upon globally by thousands of smaller studios. They simply cant afford to develop the same cutting-edge tech in-house.

Gamers themselves also have little choice but to accept this preachy turn in videogames. Few studios can currently make high-budget, story-driven games of the quality of The Last of Us, or action spectacles on the level of Call of Duty.

Videogames are supposed to be an escape from real life. They are a showcase of the developers creativity and imagination. What a shame it is to see all this being sacrificed to wokeness and to see games being reduced to yet another tool of indoctrination.

Laurie Wastell is an intern at spiked.

Correction: An earlier version of this article named Abby as the trans character from The Last of Us Part II, rather than Lev.

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Videogames: the latest weapon in the culture wars - Spiked

Turning down Krystalgade, the security barrier sticks out like a sore thumb. It resembles a military checkpoint, out of place in a cobblestoned neighborhood ofCopenhagen. Surely the machine guns, the bollards, and the security cameras must indicate the residence of a senior politician or royal family member.

It is actually something far less noteworthy: the simple presence of Danish Jews. The Great Synagogue of Copenhagen had twice been the target of terrorist attacks. Palestinian militants bombed the shul in the 1980s, and thirty years later an Islamic fundamentalist shot and killed a community member. Copenhagens renowned synagogue is now a militarized place of worship.

There is nothing exceptional about Copenhagen.As I learnt during my recent travels across a dozen European countries, the securitization of Jewish life across the continent is the norm, not the exception. Every Shabbat service I attended, whether it was in Prague or London or Majorca, required submitting passport photos, documentation of my connection to the Jewish community, and sometimes even a rabbinical reference. Today, European Jews can effectively only practice their religion behind a defensive fortress. I call it Stockade Judaism.

And for good reason. Virtually every one of the countries I visited has experienced violent outbursts against local Jewish communities. Swedish synagogues have been firebombed. A 16-year-old Syrian migrant and three accomplices planned to attack the Jewish community in Hagen, Germany, on Yom Kippur. Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Frenchwoman, was thrown from her Paris flat to her death to shouts of Allahu Akbar. The courts ruled that the assailant was not responsible for his actions because his consumption of marijuana had induced a psychotic episode. British authorities dropped charges against men driving through London screaming Fuck the Jews, Kill the Jews, and Rape their daughters. To be a Jew in Europe these days looks rather grim.

That is, apart from Hungary.

Viktor Orbns Hungary has become a polarizing issue across the American political spectrum. For many, he represents nothing more than an articulate and calculating fascist. However, among a growing and influential cohort of American conservatives, Orbn has come to represent a valuable counterpoint, a muscular and unapologetic alternative to an ossified Republican Party stuck on corporate tax rates.

It is here amidst debates over immigration, identity, religion, and sexual politics that many have turned to the Jewish Question as a key barometer of Orbns success. Despite what even his most vociferous critics might say, Orbn has seemingly stumbled upon the secret sauce for keeping his countrys Jews safe during a time when virtually every other European country is inundated with skyrocketing levels of antisemitism.

Rod Dreher was among the first commentators to draw attention to the unique absence of antisemitism in Hungary, pointing to the now-famous 2018 European Union report on antisemitic experiences and attitudes. Hungarian Jews reported the lowest levels of fear when it came to verbal abuse or physical violence amongst the dozen European countries polled. Compared to the enlightened Western European countries of France, Germany, and Belgium, Hungarian Jews seemed to living in a completely different universe. Nearly 60 percent of French Jewish respondents worried about being the victim of antisemitic abuse themselves, and 70 percent worried that a family member would be. Germany was marginally better with rates hovering between the high 40s to low 60s. Hungary boasted numbers in the low teens to high 20s.

Reality bears out these concerns. Hungarian Holocaust researcher Lszl Bernt Veszprmy argued in Newsweek recently that while many European nations were shattering their antisemitic records, Hungary was generally placid. Different organizations measure different numbers, but they all agree that in 2020 no more than 70 such events happened, of which only one was physical, Veszprmy wrote.

For perspective, in 2021, the UK experienced 2,255 antisemitic attacks. Germany eclipsed its 2020 antisemitic incident rate only ten months into 2021, totaling 1,850. Neighboring Austria went from 257 antisemitic episodes in 2020 to 562 in the first half of 2021 alonethis with a Jewish community numbering between 8,000 and 15,000 people. Hungary, by comparison, has a Jewish community estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000.

When I visited Budapest this summer amid a sweltering European heatwave, I was pleasantly surprised not to be greeted by the over-militarized presence I had come to know when walking through other European Jewish communities. Such a phenomenon, in and of itself, would be unthinkable for the Jews of France, Germany, or the UK. Tourists can usually spot when theyve unwittingly stumbled upon a citys Jewish Quarter by the visible military presence in the neighborhood, but not in Budapest.

Budapests Jewish Quarter is anchored by three synagogues corresponding to different factions of Hungarian Jewish life that emerged following a theological schism in 1869. Today it forms what is popularly called synagogue triangle. The most famous is the Dohny Street Synagogue of the Neolog movement, positioned theologically between Masorti and Orthodoxy, built in the mid-nineteenth century. It is the largest synagogue in all of Europe (and second largest in the world) renowned for its Moorish architectural inspiration.

I spoke with the synagogues Chief Rabbi, Rbert Frlich, at Solinfo Caf in the heart of the Jewish Quarter on a sunny August Tuesday morning. The rabbi had beat me to our meeting and was gracious despite my running behind. Before I could get out a single question, Frlich insisted, First, what do you want? Do you want a coffee or drink or something? Choose something! I ordered a cappuccino and we kibbitzed about my trip until our drinks arrived. Frlich is big and gregarious, comfortable professing his unabashed love for Las Vegas (a first among rabbis I know) in one breath and joking about Hungarian politics in the next.

I asked the rabbi what he made of American conservatives recent fascination with his beautiful little country. Was there really such little antisemitism? Is Viktor Orbn as scary truly as many make him out to be? They [Jews] are afraid, Frlich asserted, saying it was a misconception to see Hungarian Jews safely nestled in Budapest. Theres no violent antisemitism here. That means there are no physical attacks against Jews or synagogues. But the verbal antisemitism is growing. When the economic system is down, hatred grows. And they always have somebody to blame. The main enemy is the Jewish banker, the Jewish tradesman.

When I asked Frlich to explain why, when much of Western Europe was experiencing record-shattering levels of antisemitism, Hungary was rather tranquil, he wasnt sure what explained its unique success. I cannot find any reasons for that. Maybe we just got lucky. Maybe the zero tolerance [policy] the [Orbn] government says it has against antisemitism is at least useful in preventing physical attacks.

I found out that the stereotypical joke about the Jewish penchant for disagreementyou ask two Jews and get three opinionswas an understatement in Hungary. It was more like ten opinions. One man with whom Frlich has had an on-again, off-again relationship is Andras Heisler, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress and president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz), the representative body of the local community. They have butted heads on various occasions, recently over Hungarian legislation concerning gay marriage.

To my question of whether there was any relationship between Muslim immigration and violent antisemitism, Heisler felt the premise limiting. I do not consider the situation of countries with large Muslim community (comprising several million people sometimes), with significant national minorities from their former colonies comparable to Hungary, he wrote to me over email.

Heisler sees Jewish life in Budapest in more comfortable terms than Frlich. In Budapest, where 90 percent of the countrys Jewish population lives, we can walk freely, wear our yarmulkes and celebrate, observe our holidays. However, Heisler echoed Frlichs ambivalence about Orbns efforts to combat antisemitism. Prejudiced views are strongly present in Hungarian society, and often politicians use ambiguous language that helps the growing far right to gain further ground. Much remains to be done by the society and our politicians as well in order to achieve the zero tolerance proclaimed by Viktor Orbn.

The coarsening of public discourse remained a point of concern for both men. The prime ministers long-running public feud with Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros has led many to accuse Orbn of dabbling in antisemitic tropes. In one notable speech leading up to the 2018 parliamentary elections, Orbn described Soros efforts encouraging multiculturalism and Muslim immigration along such lines. We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world. Others, however, have challenged what James Kirchick calls the sanctification of Soros whereby any criticism of the man is labelled antisemitic.

Orbns ongoing tiff with Soros wasnt the first time he had waded into territory that frightened Hungarian Jews. Two weeks before my arrival in Budapest, Orbn gave a speech in which he decried the bastardization of cultures. We do not want to become a mixed race, Orbn stated during a stump speech in neighboring Romania. Debates over the context of Orbns statement as well as its translation remain contested. Hungarian Jews were not pleased. Nonetheless, such rhetoric is in line with earlier statements Orbn has made describing Muslim migrants as invaders despoiling the countrys cultural roots.

Consequently, many remain skeptical of the governments latest efforts to restore old synagogues and cemeteries as mere window dressing obscuring deeper intolerance. During my conversations with members of the Jewish community, many pointed to the tough economic moment having brought displays of swastikas and other anti-Jewish graffiti out into the open. Heisler feared that although violent antisemitism may have abated, Hungarian authorities were drawing a not-so-subtle distinction between good Jews and bad Jews.

The part of the good Jews is played by the Orthodox Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH) led by Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Slom Kves. Community statements condemning Orbns mixed race speech are telling. Frlich denounced the speech as a violation of human dignity and morals, while his Orthodox counterpart Kves walked a more delicate line, calling his choice of words unfortunate. These small nuances bely a more foundational rift pitting the communitys historic Mazsihisz leadership against the newer and increasingly dynamic upstart EMIH. In recent years, the movements have found themselves at cross-purposes over their support for the Orbn government, Holocaust commemoration, and Muslim migration.

At many turns where Frlich and Mazsihisz go one way, EMIH often goes the other, inflaming communal tensions. In 2019, joint Israeli-Hungarian plans to retrieve remains of Holocaust victims in the Danube River left the two communities on opposite sides of the debate. The Orthodox supported the initiative, backing the repatriation of victims bodies to Israel, while Mazsihisz believed such rescue attempts were unproductive.

Two years later, the groups came to blows over the citys $30 million new Holocaust museum. Known as the House of Fates, construction was completed back in 2015 but it still has yet to open its doors to the public because of infighting between Mazsihisz and EMIH over Hungarys complicity in the Holocaust and its portrayal within the museum. Boycotted by the former, Orbns government handed over control of the project to the latter in 2018.

Compounding theological differences are yawning political ones. When I spoke virtually with Kves before the Jewish High Holidays this September, his prognostication of the situation sounded completely different than Frlich or Heislers. For Kves, the improvement of Jewish life in Hungary directly flows from Orbns policies. Everyday opinions have changed thanks to Orbns embrace of Israel, making Hungary one of the Jewish states staunchest defenders in the EU.

Unlike his co-religionists, Kves felt strongly that the absence of Muslim immigrants in Hungary had a huge impact, which you cannot underestimate. Kves pointed to the German governments antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein warning Jews in 2019 to avoid wearing kippot everywhere all the time in Germany. Kves felt the causation was clear. Why is it? Clearly because there were over a million Muslims that came into Germany. By comparison, The fact that the Orbn government made it very clear [not allowing the migrants], I think definitely had a huge impact. We have to admit this. Political correctness, Rabbi Kves felt, was obstructing many peoples ability to acknowledge this basic reality. In conversations hed had with liberal Hungarian friends, they had said as much to him.

The 2018 EU survey gave a resoundingly clear answer to the question of who is committing antisemitic attacks in Europe. When asked by researchers to identify perpetrators, the average across the dozen sampled countries for Muslim extremist was 30 percent, followed by left-wing political at 21 percent. Right-wing political was in the bottom four answers at 13 percent.

This shouldnt have come as a surprise to many politically reasonable people. But progressive shibboleths have tarred basic observations about reality as xenophobic and racist.

What would a fair accounting of the spike in antisemitism in Europe really look like?

For starters, we might look at polling data on widely held Islamic beliefs about Jews. Gnther Jikeli, a leading scholar of antisemitism, combed through data from a 2014 Fondapol survey compiled in France and the results are shocking. Of the sampled French Muslims, a majority believe that Jews exploit the Holocaust for political gain, Jews wield too much financial power, too much media power, and too much political power. Slightly less than half believe there is a Zionist conspiracy on a global scale.

Even French extremists on the left and right dont hold such views to the same extent. Across these basic questions, French Muslim usually are two to three times more likely to agree with an antisemitic statement than the general population.

These views appear to be a significant characteristic of European Muslim communities in general, and recent immigrants from the Middle East in particular. Over half of 800 migrants surveyed in Bayern, Germany, in 2018 expressed similar support for conspiracies of Jewish global power. A 2017 research study from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research found that a quarter of British Muslims believed the Jews exploit the Holocaust for selfish reasons, 14 percent feel the Holocaust is exaggerated, and eight percent believe it is an outright myth. These are multiples higher than the general population and skew heavily by religious observance. Lszl Bernt Veszprmy compiled many such polling figures in an article on this subject for The European Conservative.

Hungary represents the mirror image of what is unfolding across Western Europe. The notable finding of the 2018 EU survey (which few still truly appreciate) is that Hungarian Jews are actually the most likely to identify someone with a right-wing political view as the assailant in antisemitic attacks. Thats due to the largescale absence of Muslim communities in Hungary. Fittingly, the countries with the highest shares of rapidly growing Muslim communitiesFrance, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UKhave become incubators of the most violent displays of antisemitic attacks since the end of the Holocaust.

The cyclical nature of European antisemitism, clustering around times of conflict, explains why Hungary has been largely immune to the worst aspects of European antisemitism in 2021. When Rod Dreher interviewed a French journalist whod been in Hungary during the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, the man noted that life in Budapests Jewish Quarter was business as usual. When the violence started, I expected to see police guarding the synagogues and Jewish businesses. None showed up. I saw men wearing kippahs walking down the street looking unworried. Then it hit me: it doesnt happen here.

Thats not always the case.

Getting to the bottom of my cappuccino, I asked Rabbi Frlich whether Hungarian Jewish life had become more precarious in recent years. Now they [Jews] take their kippahs off. Theyre more afraid. They put on a hat and not just because of the sun, Frlich joked. They dont speak so loud when they talk about their Jewishness. I heard similar sentiments when I spoke with another member of the Mazsihisz community who wished to remain anonymous. If you see someone wearing a kippah, its an American, Israeli, or Chabadnik, the man noted: in other words, the uninitiated new arrivals. Its not because there are so many violent attacks but because I am a third generation Holocaust survivor. When a Jew tells a fellow Jew such things its difficult not to take those fears seriously.

I left Budapest ambivalently. The brutal heat wave had begun to flag, and the thermal baths were still calling my name. As I boarded my BB train at the Keleti train station bound for Graz, Austria, and five hours of rolling Hungarian countryside, I didnt know what to make of Hungary, its Jewish community, or Orbn. On one hand, many Hungarian Jews were clearly worried about the eroding political discourse in Hungary that is causing the community, overwhelmingly left-leaning, to remain skeptical of Orbns entreaties.

Any yet I couldnt help but consider the other half of the coin. Perhaps Rabbi Kves and the Orthodox community werent simply political opportunists and court jesters as their enemies claim. Setting aside the broader socioeconomic policies of the Orbn government, and looking specifically at the matter of antisemitism, it seems statistically indisputable that Orbns policies have enabled Hungarian Jews to avoid the horrendous terrorism of Western Europe. Returning to the 2018 EU Study, Hungary ranked number one of a dozen member states in terms of Jews not avoiding wearing, carrying, or displaying in public things that could identify a person as Jewish. France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark were among the worst. This is more than happenstance: it is the largescale absence of Muslim communities in Hungary.

Such findings are deeply unpalatable for many Hungarian Jews to contemplate. Especially for a community emerging from the embers of the Holocaust, there is a tragic irony: Yes, we were once strangers in a strange land and so should reciprocate and be kind to newcomers and refugees. But what if those newcomers dont take such a shine to you? What if they come with religious and cultural baggage that directly endangers your community?

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The answer, as one Jewish acquaintance I interviewed in Budapest noted, depends on which Chief Rabbi you ask. The only problem, he joked, is that almost all rabbis in Budapest call themselves Chief Rabbis.

I confess, after my travels, on this specific question I fall in the Kves camp. That doesnt translate into a wholesale endorsement of Orbns policies. Hungary isnt a utopia that we should look to uncritically. But, as a growing number of American intellectuals have argued, perhaps there are some merits to learning from a proudly Christian and explicitly conservative country.

Rather than listening to the predictable headlines of hard-right and fascist, more commentators should visit this landlocked country with an open mind. That might lead them to see an imperfect country navigating the defining questions of our age, one worthy of a fair shake before its thrown in the basket of deplorables alongside Belarus, Iran, and North Korea.

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Why Hungarys Jews Are the Safest in Europe - The American Conservative

Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out? Who better to turn to for under-the-radar comedy recommendations than comedians? In our recurring seriesUnderrated,we chat with writers and performers from the comedy world about an unsung comedy moment of their choosing that they think deserves more praise.

A decade before BoJack Horseman gave us anthropomorphic animals who were both funny and full of existential dread, there was Chris Onstads webcomic, Achewood. Set in the titular fictional town, the comic centered mostly on two protagonist cats: Ray Smuckles, a wealthy hedonist full of optimism and confidence, and his best friend, Roast Beef, who is often introverted and depressed. They were surrounded by characters like the young otter Philippe, elder statesman Cornelius Bear, sensible Molly Sanders, and Pat, who aimed to feel superior to the other characters and had Crohns disease. The comics distinctness came not only from the depth of the characters but the stylistic choices made by Onstad, who used minimalistic black-and-white drawings, played with font and punctuation, and invented new words and phrases (like sass gut) to bring his creations to life.

After it debuted in 2001, Achewood earned a cult fan base that appreciated Onstads ability to create a comic full of comedy and pathos. As the years went on, Onstad began taking sporadic breaks from the webcomic until seemingly retiring the series in 2016; the last strip was posted to the Achewood website on Christmas that year. But the comics fan base still lives on through Reddit posts, Onstads Twitter, nearly every list of the best webcomics ever, and the occasional online tributes.

Comedian Jes Tom has been an Achewood fan since they were a teenager, and their upcoming New York Comedy Festival solo show, Less Lonely, tackles themes that overlap with Onstads work: sex, death, gender transition, and being alone during the apocalypse. Tom says the webcomic influenced them not only in how the characters saw one another but how they moved. Their small gestures like the tiniest cock of any eyebrow had a big impact on Tom and their comedic sensibility. Tom recently discussed their love for Achewood, queer representation in the media, and which character from the comic they relate to most.

I had never heard of Achewood before but quickly found it has a passionate fan base. How did you discover it?I must have discovered Achewood in high school or college during a time that I was reading a lot of webcomics. Webcomics kind of had a moment in the mid-aughts, and I was really in that. As a comedian, Im much more influenced by things like webcomics than by people doing stand-up.

It seems to match your persona onstage: dry and direct. Thats me: very dry. I always read comics in the newspaper as a kid. I think that theres really something about comedic timing that you learn from comics. Comics are so cinematic. It varies moment by moment. It shows you how to draw out the delivery of something to make it as funny as possible.

There was one review I read comparing Achewood to Shakespeare in that Chris Onstad was inventing words.I think thats what I really love about Achewood how writerly it is. Theyre all these very specific characters, and they all have a specific way of talking and relating to each other. Its a lot of things that I like. I like anthropomorphic animals. (I like animals more than people.) So I like that they are all cats, bears, and otters. I love the weird way that they talk. Im a person who has a very specific way of speaking, and Im influenced by things like this.

Theres a character called Roast Beef. We dont talk about why his name is Roast Beef. His full name is Roast Beef Kazenzakis. Hes Greek, and we dont know why. Its totally absurd, but it has its own logic in its own world. It is a training exercise both as a reader, being able to hear characters voices when you read them, and as a writer to be able to create characters who have such distinctive voices. Its kind of a scary comic sometimes. It gets scary, it gets sad, it gets serious, and Im really into that.

One of the Achewood comics you recommended was from 2006, prominently featuring a piece of toast. Why did you choose this one? I just love this one as an example of what this series is doing. Its so small. The whole joke of it is that Roast Beef is having these really, really small reactions. His eyebrows go up a little bit. He squints his eyes closed a little bit more. If you look in the last two panels, to me the joke is that you can see his drool starting to drip off of the toast, because he has been holding it in his mouth so long because hes so depressed. Its so funny and so sad. Its a real manifestation of a depression that is relatable to a lot of us. Its really sweet, because youre watching this person at the lowest of lows, and he has this person who loves him so much that shes going to pull the toast out of his mouth.

Its a great example of how the comic leans toward more subtle punch lines.I think the punch line is buried in this one. The punch line is that hes basically doing nothing, and shes like, Good! Youre doing great! Hes doing nothing, and thats awesome.

Ray getting stoned from 2005 is more all over the place.Ray getting stoned is awesome, because I am a stoner. Its just him going around having high thoughts, and thats it. That it ranges from things that are stupid like Nutmeg! THATS the secret flavor in Coke! to What is it like to see someone die? I wonder if my mom knows. I just think that ones classic stoner content.

Rays thoughts completely go everywhere. I dont know why it made me laugh so hard, but his one line (Those are some pans that I have) when hes gazing at his pans in the kitchen got me.Its about the little profundities of being stoned things that are total nonsense to things that are, like, I wish in the past I had tried more things, cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea. In my life currently, Ive been contending with my own anxiety about getting in trouble, then I saw this and was like, Oh yeah, being in trouble is a fake idea.

Do you see overlap between Achewood and your own comedy?I think so. I feel very influenced by the way Achewood is this very minimalist comic. The art style is extremely minimalist, and a lot of the movements are extremely minimalist, but the writing is lush, full, and particular, and I think that is how my stand-up is or has classically been. I identify with the small font of Achewood. The way they express things in a small way I think thats how I express myself.

The gossamer bloatee was one of my favorites.I love that one. Obviously, now through our current eyes, Im like, Okay, at its core, its a fatphobic joke. And now it takes on this additional meaning to me, because in the comic, theyre talking about the idea that an overweight guy grows a goatee to change the shape of his face. But I really identify with it as a transmasculine person. What were doing a lot of the time is growing this gossamer facial hair that we have to keep because were like, This is my precious facial hair. Its so important to the way that I get perceived that I have to keep this facial hair. So a lot of us have really goofy, stupid-looking facial hair, because we refuse to shave it and because its so important to our identities and the way we see ourselves. I have this ridiculous pervert mustache, a little soul patch that Im not going to get rid of. I look like fucking V for Vendetta. And Im not going to get rid of it. I think that its basically the same as this argument theyre having in the comic about the goatee.

Theres so much to mine from each panel. Its all the little things in this comic. Roast Beef speaks in a smaller font, and it does so much to build the character.

And theres no punctuation for Roast Beef.It just gives them such a specific voice. It gives the two of them a kind of dynamism that I think wouldnt be there otherwise. It shows how a little choice gives the character a distinctive voice. I love this one, because at its core, its an argument about men feeling insecure, which is a universal experience. But theyre talking about it with such specificity.

Theres no backing down from Ray to the end.Thats Rays declaration of his masculinity. Hes slapping his ass. Ray is a cat who wears glasses and a thong and a big chain. Hes slapping his ass and saying his ass is tight as a drum. Thats him declaring his manhood.

Ray and Pat have an interesting back-and-forth in this comic from 2006. Rays checking to see if Pat thinks hes homophobic. I think this one is so interesting, because its 2006 when this comic was posted. Its just a whole other landscape for queer representation in the media. Not to give a cookie for something really small, but I think its a big deal that Pat is gay. He comes out as gay in the series. I dont think he starts out as gay. Hes just sort of the sourpuss character, then eventually, he comes out as gay, and that contextualizes and textures why he is the way he is. Which is, like, Hes a fucking asshole. Hes a bitch. Hes always critiquing and tearing everybody else down. And now youre like, Oh, hes a bitchy old queen thats why hes like that.

Its a 2006 comic about a straight man trying to support his gay friend, and hes being so crass and offensive, but thats the way he supports him. Its really sweet and funny. In the second to last panel Dang, I never thought it would be like this! A guy is rocking my can! thats Ray demonstrating a deep open-mindedness, actually, and an attempt at empathy that is so funny. Its so funny how hes pissing Pat off this entire time while hes trying to be supportive.

The intentions are good, but what comes out is crass. Its so up front.Right its very of its time. Its very mid-aughts. Weve come all the way around on political correctness now. They dont talk like this on TV now. There are all these TV shows with queer characters, but theyre not having this kind of candid conversation. I would love for there to be more of this in media with queer characters being more real and not afraid of being offensive. The offensiveness is the joke. Thats that characters point of view. Hes trying to be helpful. Its funny.

On the subject of queer conversations, do you feel like TV shows now are portraying what they want it to look like rather than what it actually looks like?Theres a real trend right now of trying to make this kind of feel-good representation media thats like, Were queer people, were all happy, we have friends, and Im having this meaningful conversation with my mother where she tells me shell always love me the way I am. I find it very saccharine. Its not for me. I like things that are abrasive, that have conflict, that are sweet at the heart. At the heart of Achewood, this is a wholesome, heartwarming comic about a straight man, a cat man, who is just trying to relate to his childhood friend who he now knows is gay and is pissing him off.

Which character from Achewood do you relate to the most?I was thinking about that. What I really like about Achewood I dont know if this is exactly what Chris Onstad is doing, but to me, it seems like its all of the extremes. Each character is an extreme that the same guy could have. Ray hes braggadocious, hedonist. Roast Beef has deep depression. Pat is gay and judgmental. Lyle has rage. Philippe, the little-boy otter, is nave and positive. That is whats appealing about the comic: You can relate to all of them. Theyre all just different parts of you at their most extreme. I think Im probably a Ray and a Roast Beef though, insofar as theyre foils to each other. Ray is this hedonist pervert to Roast Beefs deep depression. Its pure self-confidence with a horrible self-worth at the same time.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Doug Mastriano is a politician who, if elected governor of Pennsylvania, would represent a massive victory for the extreme fringe of the Republican party. Not only would the office give him the power to end abortion access in Pennsylvania and to tip future elections in favor of Republicans, but his victory would signal to other equally radical individuals that their ideas are a viable campaign platform. To put it bluntly, I believe Mastriano is a fascist.

Fascism is a loaded term used by both sides of the aisle to malign their opponent. Like "tyranny," it can be construed into anything you dislike, but fascism has a very specific definition. As briefly as possible: fascism is a political movement that reacts to liberalism and leftism by using xenophobia and machismo to prop up a cult of personality around a single (invariably male) leader who forms an alliance with establishment conservatives to defeat left-wing ideologies; it is syncretic, meaning it blends with existing cultural beliefs and imagery; it progresses in stages, and succeeds depending on how complicit the population is with their rhetoric. Robert Paxton, a political scientist who specializes in fascism, describes it as a "dictatorship against the left amidst popular enthusiasm. With this in mind, let's look back at Mastriano.

He is personally and feverishly devoted to Donald Trump. He does not believe in the separation of church and state. He stokes fear of transgender acceptance, explicitly opposes gay marriage and the right of same-sex couples to adopt children, and is obsessed with the moral backsliding of American society. His campaign website promises to "restore Pennsylvania to the shining beacon of hope and freedom it once was.

Let's explore some of his other positions. Mastriano emphasizes the need to prevent illegal immigration, but that's pretty on par with other Republicans. I want to talk about one particular thing he said regarding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a policy which protects children brought to the U.S. without documentation. When asked if he would protect "Dreamers" the name for those who benefit from this policy he replied, "What about the American dreamers? What about our own people?" For those who aren't aware, a common dog whistle among white supremacists is the term "Us" and "Our People" (generally capitalized). These come from a slogan known as The Fourteen Words, which states: "We must secure an existence for our people and a future for white children. I'm not necessarily saying that Mastriano was intentionally using this dog whistle, I'm just saying that he sure seems to be thinking in line with those who do.

Furthermore, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see his campaign as just the next step in this crusade to alter our electoral system. As governor, he claimed that he would utilize the power to "decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen. Keep in mind that the state flipped in Biden's favor by a mere 80,555 votes. Given Pennsylvania's place as the political fulcrum of the nation, the party in charge of the state has tremendous power to dictate how elections are run in this state.

If you really want to go off the deep end, you can read up on Julie Green, a woman who spoke at a Mastriano rally and who believes in the QAnon conspiracy as deeply as any human possibly could. She claims I am truly not exaggerating that Nancy Pelosi is a literal witch who consumes the blood of children as part of a satanic ritual. "She loves to drink the little childrens blood. By drinking this blood, they believe they will receive a longer life. Yes, a true witch she really is. She was part of sacrificing the children to Baal. She loved murdering for him." Mastriano decided to appear beside a person who sincerely believes this. One of Josh Shapiro's attack ads really did say it best: "The more we learn, the crazier it gets.

Just when I thought I was done writing about Doug Mastriano, I learned something truly incredible. In April of 2001, he conducted a "research project" while enrolled in the Air Command and Staff College. He speculated that anti-military sentiment will "set the stage for a Hitlerian Putsch, which leaves the military on the sidelines unwilling to save the republic. Mastrianos thesis paper centers around a piece of science fiction he wrote from the perspective of a fictional U.S. Army colonel transcribing the events of this Putsch "by flickering candle light in a damp Virginian cave" in the year 2018. (The name of this character is Nathan Greene, which just happens to also be the name of an artist who paints scenes from The Bible and American history, and I refuse to believe that's a coincidence.) I read all 65 pages of this utterly deranged screed so you don't have to. Here are the SparkNotes: in 2012, a group of shadowy political elites faked a military coup to justify enacting policies that curbed military power and weakened military culture. Then in 2018, the U.S. government is overthrown by a demagogue named I wish I was kidding Benedict Aurelius, who "abolished the Constitution, dismissed Congress, and compelled the President to resign. To consolidate his power, Dictator Aurelius then instituted martial law, purged millions, and sent people to reeducation camps to impose "his form of political correctness" on the populace. According to the story, the military was powerless to intervene thanks to decades of political correctness, moral relativism, "aberrant sexual behavior in the ranks," and the dilution of the "macho warrior spirit," all of which had transformed the military into a "neo pagandocile service institution." The newly formed E.U. and U.N. militaries had replaced the U.S. as the ascendant world power, and gladly funneled funds and troops into the "dismemberment of the U.S." He has a bizarre fixation on moral decay and sexual hedonism, claiming that "the assault started with the insertion of homosexuality into the military," and that "like Rome, domestic moral decay and slothfulness proved to be a more formidable adversary than foreign armies. It is a rambling, poorly-written mess that confuses ideology with storytelling. He goes on a strange tangent to rant about how a specific, real-life military official is a hypocrite. He makes absolutely insane predictions about how political correctness, sexual anarchy, and alternate religions will turn America into a "morally vacant" society. Recall Robert Paxton, the scholar I quoted earlier. He also describes fascism as "a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation of community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity." This thesis by Mastriano really amounts to a fascist manifesto.

I'll leave you with my absolute favorite part. According to Mastriano, the 2000 election swung in favor of Bush due to military absentee ballots in Florida. In his fiction, the liberals, enraged by this, make it harder for active duty soldiers to vote by mail, successfully depriving them of their right to vote. This is absolutely hysterical to me. The anti mail-voting policies he once feared would be used to prevent soldiers from voting are the same policies he wants to enact in Pennsylvania. Any justification he gives about the integrity of elections is hypocritical nonsense; Doug knows exactly what he's doing.

Unless your home state swings at least as hard as Pennsylvania, I implore you to please change your registration to the Keystone State. Pennsylvania has once again found itself at the center of American politics, and it is imperative that Doug Mastriano does not win.

If you found this article interesting, next week I'm going to write part 2, where I focus on Dr. Mehmet Oz and his extremely questionable history of hawking dangerous medical supplements on his show.

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Why you should change your voter registration to Pennsylvania, Part 1: the insanity of Doug Mastriano - CMU The Tartan Online

Maya and the Wave spends more time than youd expect on Maya Gabieras first attempt at conquering the tallest tides the Portuguese town of Nazar has to offer, lured by the potential of setting a world record when waves are known to crest at 100 feet high. Shes humbled, if not killed when pulled into the rip current, with those monitoring the situation with the expectation of capturing a feat for Guinness instead coming to believe they might be seeing a tragedy unfold before them as she bleeds from the ear, later discovered not to be the result of a head trauma but a reef she struck as she was submerged. Having the raw footage allows director Stephanie Johnes to not only capture the chaos of the moment and the improbable odds physically that Gabiera will have to overcome should she want to make a second attempt at the record, but the notion that the only thing less forgiving than the water are the people around her in a sport where the result is everything.

Mental toughness is intriguingly seen as both a virtue and a vulnerability in Maya and the Wave where Gabiera can be admired for working her way back from the devastating fall, but Johnes is able to diverge from a traditional comeback trail story when she isnt exactly welcome to return, with many seeing her record attempt as a folly in the first place when they believe she shouldnt have even tried it as a woman. No less than the legendary Laird Hamilton can be heard on CNN saying she shouldnt have been out there in the first place and even those that arent critical of her abilities are of the mindset that shes on her own to recover, with her partner at the time Carlos Burle wondering why people questioned his decision to ride the same wave after Gabiera was hauled away in an ambulance, believing there was no purpose he could serve by staying with her.

Theres no indication that Gabiera wouldnt have done exactly the same thing if the roles were reversed, but it becomes clear that her rehabilitation is about more than just herself when to leave things be would to reaffirm what others in the surfing community thought of her all along as a big wave surfer good for marketing materials when theres a clear charisma about her, but not to be taken seriously otherwise. Johnes and editors Shannon Kennedy and Jordan Berg shrewdly stray from a chronologically linear path to chart where Gabieras resolve comes from, watching her navigate the highs and lows of the world in front of her as if shes carrying around her surfboard all the time and gradually revealing the knowledge shes armed with as a tireless athlete whos long made up for what shes lacked in natural skill with training and the daughter of a political firebrand who survived his own brush with death.

Although Gabieras openness would separate the film from the pack, particularly as she goes through a grueling recovery from the herniated disc, equally so is the candor that comes from the male surfers that Johnes interviews who dispense with political correctness and reveal the sports entrenched misogyny that they might not even be aware of as they support her goals. Even when Gabiera can prove herself objectively, Maya and the Wave illuminates how the measuring stick remains in the hands of men as recognition with awards and even the Guinness Book of World Records involves some strangely subjective hurdles to clear, but by spending more time observing failures than success, both in Gabieras frustrating efforts to get back out in the water and the system itself that she has to operate in, the triumphs feel all that much sweeter.

Maya and the Wave does not yet have U.S. distribution.

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TIFF 2022 Review: Stephanie Johnes' "Maya and the Wave" Hits a High Watermark - The Moveable Fest

Bones and All, a romantic horror about two cannibalistic teenage lovers on a road trip across 1980s America, received a ten-minute standing ovation when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. It is the latest in a growing trend of non-fantastical films and series juxtaposing cannibalism alongside themes of self-discovery or coming of age, such as Cannibal (2013), Raw (2016), Yellowjackets (2021), and Fresh (2022). Cannibalism has a time and a place, The New York Times tweeted this summer. Some recent books, films and shows suggest that the time is now. Can you stomach it? With the body central to nearly every moral debate of our age, this trend merits our reflection.

Timothe Chalamet, who stars in Bones and All alongside Taylor Russell, told Rolling Stone, It was a relief to play characters that are wrestling with an internal dilemma absent the ability to go on Reddit, or Twitter, Instagram or TikTok and figure out where they fit in. There are now millions of people doing just this, from the so-called spoonies (young women, mostly, suffering from invisible and hard-to-diagnose illnesses) to incels (involuntary celibate young men raging against their perceived sexual ostracism).

I think societal collapse is in the airit smells like it, Chalamet said. And, without being pretentious, thats why hopefully movies matter, because thats the role of the artist . . . to shine a light on whats going on. Whether Bones and All speaks intelligently to our crises remains to be seen, but it wouldnt be the first time artists have successfully used the metaphor of grotesque eating disorders to illuminate cultural pathologies.

Franz Kafkas A Hunger Artist, written in 1922, follows a man who exhibits himself in public while undertaking spectacular fasts that leave him emaciated. At first, townspeople look upon him with horror and fascination, but other sights distract, and soon his feats of asceticism no longer generate allure, or income. He eventually joins a circus, where he runs into the same problemother animals in the show are more impressive. When asked, near death, why he fasted, he says, Because I couldnt find a food which I enjoyed. If I had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my hearts content, like you and everyone else. They are his last words. He dies and is buried in the straw on which he used to sit. He is replaced in his cage by a muscular and menacing black panther that devours red meat.

The social theorist Ren Girard highlights this story in his 2008 monograph, Anorexia and Mimetic Desire. He argues that our socially-mediated pathologies are really disorders of desire, which are exacerbated by secular modernitys denial of a teleology of desire. Human nature is treated as an unknowable X; the desires of another person are thus his own private domain, one of near-absolute authority.

Nobody has the courage to speak to or help Kafkas hunger artist until it is too late. Instead they look upon him as an object of amusement. Their only act of charity toward him is burying his corpse.

A society that lacks a teleology of desire also lacks normative, transcendent models of desire. Few people want to be saints nowadays, wrote Girard, but everybody is trying to lose weight.

Absent those models, people assign false transcendence to the worldly objects of desires that are mediated to them by other deficient people. Thus their competition for social media engagement and follower counts, their obsession with political correctness (or its obverse), and their strict dieting and fasting. Dietary pathologies like orthorexia (the unhealthy obsession with healthy eating) and anorexia nervosa result from subordinating the needs of the body to ones desire for what is physically impossible.

Girard observed that such desires are metaphysicalone desires to be someone or something different from what one is. In a world where the idea, let alone the hope, of becoming a son or daughter of God is alien to most people, metaphysical desires converge on the most literal changes in identity: to desire a much thinner body or different sexual organs or a different skin color is to desire a different mode of being. Cannibalism is perhaps best understood as the attempt to possess an others being by literally consuming it.

It is unsurprising that our decadent society has seen an increase in diet-related pathologies. What is surprising is that they are still called pathologies at all. To say that an anorexic persons desire to lose an extra five pounds is disordered is to recognize a teleology of bodily nature and to name as good those desires that contribute to the bodys health. When the Empire of Desire is fully constructed, this observation will be seen as wicked.

People are not their desires. By identifying a person wholly with their desires, we give those desires an unimpeachable status, as if their mere pronouncement were a divine edict. Any suggestion otherwise becomes blasphemy. Yet if we dont speak, and if we continue deifying our own pathologies, our gods will soon outnumber the stars in the sky.

Luke Burgis is the author ofWanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life.

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Longing After the Fleshpots | Luke Burgis - First Things

Cast: Jimmy Carr

Geners: Comedy

Director: Tristram Shapeero

Release Date: Nov 02, 2009

Jimmy Carr delivers more of his cynical take on life's little absurdities in his trademark deadpan style in this live stand-up release. Jimmy unleashes his rapid-fire joke-telling and razor-sharp wit on topics ranging from religion and sex, to bullying and political correctness. Those brave enough to heckle are quickly put in their place by an array of colourful if brutal put-downs.

Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available to watch on Netflix. If you're interested in other movies and shows, one can access the vast library of titles within Netflix under various subscription costs depending on the plan you choose: $9.99 per month for the basic plan, $15.99 monthly for the standard plan, and $19.99 a month for the premium plan.

At the time of writing, Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available to stream on Hulu through the traditional account which starts at $6.99.However, if you have the HBO Max extension on your Hulu account, you can watch additional movies and shoes on Hulu. This type of package costs $14.99 per month.

No, Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not streaming on Disney Plus. With Disney+, you can have a wide range of shows from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney+, Pixar, ESPN, and National Geographic to choose from in the streaming platform for the price of $7.99 monthly or $79.99 annually.

Sorry, Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available on HBO Max. There is a lot of content from HBO Max for $14.99 a month, such a subscription is ad-free and it allows you to access all the titles in the library of HBO Max. The streaming platform announced an ad-supported version that costs a lot less at the price of $9.99 per month.

Unfortunately, Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available to stream for free on Amazon Prime Video. However, you can choose other shows and movies to watch from there as it has a wide variety of shows and movies that you can choose from for $14.99 a month.

Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available to watch on Peacock at the time of writing. Peacock offers a subscription costing $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year for a premium account. As their namesake, the streaming platform is free with content out in the open, however, limited.

Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not on Paramount Plus also. Paramount Plus has two subscription options: the basic version ad-supported Paramount+ Essential service costs $4.99 per month, and an ad-free premium plan for $9.99 per month.

No dice. Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes isn't streaming on the Apple TV+ library at this time. You can watch plenty of other top-rated shows and movies like Mythic Quest, Tedd Lasso, and Wolfwalkers for a monthly cost of $4.99 from the Apple TV Plus library.

No, Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes isn't currently available to stream on Rakuten TV.

Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes is not available to stream now.

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There have been recurring incidents of violence in eastern Leicester since the 28th August match between India and Pakistan during Asia Cup, 2022. India won the match against Pakistan and there were clashes between the Hindu and Muslim community after that. Since then multiple conflicting accounts of riots have hit social media where both sides have accused each other of using violence against the other. Leicester has an equal number of Hindus and Muslims at around 7 percent each and cricket matches in the past have sparked community gatherings as well. However, violence at this scale is pretty unusual for a city that prides itself for its multiculturalism.

In 2011 census, Leicester was identified as the first city of the UK where majority of residents identified as non-white British. With around 70 spoken languages and 14 different faiths, it even became a part of UKs national history celebrations in 2021 at the Institute of Historical Research in London. Leicesters Narborough Road was named the most diverse street in the UK by a study in 2016 because it has shops run by people from 22 countries spread across four continents. There have been different waves of immigrants to Leicester with first wave around 2,000 years ago that welcomed Romans in to the city. Later during industrial revolution, there was a growing need for workforce that led to Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants flocking to the city by the end of the 19th century.

The two World Wars marked the third wave of immigrants with persecuted people from across Europe especially Belgians and Eastern Europeans finding a safe haven in the city. After World War II that coincided with Partition of India, people from the Caribbean and South Asia settled in Leicester looking for work. Leicester has continued to accept people since then with many people from Eastern Europeans countries migrating there after the disintegration of Soviet Union in the 90s. Leicester has tradition of a Mela since 1982 and a Caribbean festival since 1985. Multiple festivals are celebrated in the city including Diwali, Holi, Eid, Hanukah along with the traditional British festivals.

Its claim of being a model multicultural city is so strong that it has fuelled multiple academic inquiries and journalistic reports. Local authorities take pride in its multi-ethnic and multicultural society with tolerance and inclusivity to the extent that it has become a brand in itself. Newspaper reports often celebrate Leicesters multiculturalism by calling it a model city, UKs most diverse city, a city where everyone is a minority.

From a multicultural city, suddenly Leicester has become one fraught with clear markings, all thanks to the narrative peddled by Left-liberals. In the past few days, multiple journalists, academics and activists have accused the members of Hindu community for taking out march from the Muslim areas of Leicester. Now for a city that takes pride in co-existence of multiple ethnicities and cultures with values of tolerance and inclusivity, this is nothing short of a brutal exposure of the reality.

The demarcation of urban and cosmopolitan spaces as Muslim areas is not something new or unique to Leicester, such trends have become increasingly common across the world with similar usage of the term during Ram Navami processions in India as well. While a section of intelligentsia has argued against uses of this term because of its exclusionary tone and normalisation of democratic spaces into medieval-era ghettos, whats even more problematic is the fact that the same European countries, that act like a torch bearer of multiculturalism across the world, are now suffering from riots in the name of religion.

In 1975, Sweden officially adopted multiculturalism as a policy arguing that it will enrich the Swedish culture as well as ensure the well-being of the minority communities. In April 2022, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson confessed that the multiculturalism model has failed because a vast community of immigrants could not be integrated leading to violent gang crimes across Sweden. A series of riots had erupted in Sweden in early April when a politician burned a copy of the Quran and angry protesters swarmed Swedish streets. The UK itself has witnessed the ugliest side of multiculturalism and political correctness when British Police deliberately ignored the Rotherham child abuse syndicate due to what a British politician called as not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat.

The current incidents of violence in Leicester have received a similar response as the same Left-liberals who argue for multicultural societies and foster acceptance for immigrants in European societies are now making a case for exclusive Muslim areas. A truly multicultural society would ideally exist only when all communities follow law and order and believe in real integration and cohesion. However, that increasingly looks like a distant dream. Some truth-speaking need to be done to the migrants so that they understand and value the society which is welcoming them instead of creating their own areas and pushing for their own rules. However, political correctness is a virtue, which will win over any expectation of common sense in todays times.

The author is a PhD in International Relations from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. Her research focuses on the political economy of South Asia and regional integration. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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Opinion | Leicester Violence Has Exposed the Multicultural Claims of Left-Liberals - News18

The American medias largely uncritical treatment of the British monarchys legacy following the death of Queen Elizabeth II has been consistent with the fascination Americans have with royalty, and with British royalty in particular. This fascination, also evident in the popularity of television shows like Bridgerton and The Crown, generally registers as both a dance with our colonial origins and a curious site of contrast between our own constitutional republic and the lingering romance of a monarchy (even as Great Britain has long since abandoned monarchy as a system of governance). Thus, the royals are a repository for fantasy, but also mark the mother country as different from our self-proclaimed democracy.

On social media, the reaction to the fantasy and history of the monarchy has been much more complex and vexed than in our televisual media. From many sectors of the world once colonized by Great Britain, a bitteror, at best, bittersweetreaction to the Queens death has been apparent. Irish Twitter, as posts from the Republic of Ireland are colloquially termed, has been irreverent; Black Twitter has as well. On the latter, there is an especially strong message from Anglophone African and Caribbean people who have felt the political and cultural impact of the monarchy. There has been a great deal of banter about these various contingencies joining forces to decry the monarchy, including South Asian Twitter as well. (This common ground of colonized people is not, of course, universal. Writers like the Black British Booker Prize winner Bernadine Evaristo and the Jamaican Lorna Goodison have spoken sympathetically on social media and in writing about the symbolic power of the Queen, notwithstanding the royals central role in both the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism.)

What interests me, from an American perspective, is the collision at this moment between fantasy and reality. It isnt common for Americans to describe our country as an empire (we are more likely, Ive observed, to describe ourselves as the democratic offspring of an empire), but it certainly is one. At the turn to the 20th century there was a second age of empire, and the wealth produced by the United States due to the unfree labor of enslaved Black people, in the antebellum period, allowed it to achieve a global power comparable to the mother countrys. The colonial acquisition of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the interventions in Haiti, and the building of U.S. military bases around the world was the version of empire that the United States pursued, and it coincided with the establishment of Jim Crow domestically. Racism and imperialism have always been twinned.

In Europe, too, the second age of empire included colonialism away from the mother countries. Its worth recalling that Western Europes Scramble for Africa followed the 1884 Berlin Conference, in which Europe carved up a continent to be legally (and not just economically) dominated. The American accounting of our inheritance from the mother country conveniently leaves out just how much we learned from it.

We, as Americans, consume the romance of shows like Bridgerton without often considering how this royal wealthreimagined for our entertainment as multiracial, genteel, and innocentwas built, and how it had to do with an ideology of empire and racial hierarchy. Similarly, we adopt a posture of quaint naivete vis--vis the royals, as though imperial sensibilities are something far afield of who and what we are. It is a projection and a romance at the same time.

In that way, social medias disruption of the royal fascination has been meaningful, if jarring to some. We are socialized to be sensitive around death, even if the departed are people to whom we attribute great wrongdoing. Some of the naked honesty about the dealings of the British empire, in light of the Queens death, has been subject to both censure and censorship (see, for example, the furor over the Carnegie Mellon professor Uju Anyas comments about the Queens death). Speech, as it turns out, is not as free as we might think in our constitutional republic.

That said, even as the conversation has been robust, I also cant help but notice that social media is another place where fantasies abound. Just as one section of Twitter is decrying the royal romance and making history plain, another is decrying the casting of Halle Bailey, a Black woman, in Disneys forthcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. A Black woman being a mermaid is dismissed by legions of tweeters as inaccurate political correctness. These are people who would prefer that a white redhead who looked like the animated character be cast. Likewise, The Rings of Power, a television series based on Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, is being rejected by some for having Black actors play characters who were described by Tolkien as dark-skinned.

Mind you, these are all fictional and fantastical nonhuman (though humanoid) characters whose portrayals by nonwhite actors are being seen as inaccurate. And the outcry, as has been noted by a number of critics, is telling: There are people who dont want their fantasy worlds to be multiracial. And, in fact, it seems that some of these people like fantasy worlds precisely because they are places that have previously been all-white in our media history, as though the heroic imagination should be the province of white people alone.

And this, I think, is part of the trouble at the root of the romance with British royals. Queen Elizabeth was not singular. She was part of a large architecture of European modernity, an inheritor of a large pan-European imperial project that distributed suffering unequally and created hierarchies among human populations that are enduring. However, the fantasy that she represents is hard to disentangle from an ideology of white supremacy that many people continue to find appealing. This is the fantasy that marks some people superior to others as a result of the accidents of birth; that adheres to the fiction that one is born to a particular station in life. It is the fantasy that a person inherits value, as opposed to value being measured by principles, deeds, and integrity.

Whether one directs their attention toward the $400 million South African diamond that the Queen wore, which was looted from a land where the majority of todays inhabitants are poor, or on the United States dominance of global politics in recent generations, it is clear that across the globe we live with the legacies of the age of empire and colonialism. The lessons of the moment are about how fantasy reveals what we think matters. Perhaps we ought to concentrate our attention on how we might imagine worldspopulated both by fictional characters and by todays political actorsin which valuing the labor of everyday people, and meeting the basic needs of all in our midst, is the romantic ideal we find most intoxicating.

Some of my colleagues will be in conversation with several of todays biggest names in business, culture, politics, and health next week at The Atlantic Festival. For a limited time, use the code TAFFRIEND for 50% off in-person registration. Learn more here.

Link:

America's Misguided Fascination With Royalty - The Atlantic

As one of the great Chico Marxist quotes of all time asks: Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes? Every day it seems that more of our political leaders are asking maybe ordering Americans to ignore the wrongs they plainly see, in favor of narratives that are built on false and self-destructive ideology.

As Americans try to cope with exponentially diminishing security, supplies, affordable energy, savings accounts, job prospects, career-creating and career-relevant education, and even many of their liberties, those who are in charge insist, Nothing to see here; move along. Were supposed to trust the nanny-state.

Why would these politicians purposely ignore actual and fixable catastrophes that could negatively impact their own somewhat privileged lives and the welfare of their children if left unchecked? Biased minds are spot-welded to questionable ideology, anger, hate, hubris, and the inability to acknowledge that one is wrong.

Lets look at four examples of quality of life-destroying issues that some who worship at the altar of political correctness had a hand in either creating or denying, or both.

The first is the energy supply crisis spreading around the world as in, energy that makes human life sustainable.

While those pushing green and renewable energy solutions can deny it all they want, the truth is that fossil fuels remain the giver and protector of human life and civilization. Eliminating fossil fuels is tantamount to signing a death warrant for millions of people the world over.

Two voices, among many, have spoken out on this subject but, because of who they are, the green energy zealots and their media and celebrity enablers doubled down on their denial of any energy emergency that threatens others quality of life.

The first person who comes to mind was Donald Trump. Yes, alert the authorities: If Trump said it, no matter how accurate his warning as president may have been, many on the left will deny it, smear it and destroy it.

But, four years ago, during a speech at the United Nations, Trump warned that unreliable green and renewable energy sources would threaten the actual energy needs of Germany and Europe. The German delegation literally laughed in his face.

Theyre not laughing anymore. With natural gas supplies from Russia essentially cut off because of the war in Ukraine, Europe is facing energy shortages and a potential crisis this coming winter.

The next notable person I recall speaking out on the issue was Elon Musk, who recently said that civilization will crumble unless we continue using oil and gas in the short term. Earlier this week, he tweeted: Countries should be increasing nuclear power generation! It is insane from a national security standpoint & bad for the environment to shut them down.

The green energy-pushing leftists can hate on Trump and Musk all they want, but that doesnt make their warnings false. We can see for ourselves the energy crisis unfolding across Europe, which could reach our own shores. And then what?

Next, lets consider the war zones that some of our cities have become. Not familiar with that story? Im not surprised. Thousands of lives are being lost each year to urban violence. Why isnt this a national emergency? Well, political correctness dictates that we cant talk about those lost lives because many are the result of gang violence or turf wars between young men. Sometimes innocent children or women are caught in the crossfire.

Ironically and quite brazenly, since some at the newspaper favored earlier calls to defund the police, which voters opted not to do the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an editorial titled, Curbing violent crime is an all-hands job. An excerpt said: Crime, particularly violent crime, is at near-record highs in larger cities in Minnesota, with emboldened criminals feeling freer than ever to wield even the deadliest weapons without regard for the law or human life.

No kidding. Thats what happens when you demoralize the police, and some cities are experiencing difficulty replacing those who quit. Thats happening not just in Minneapolis but in cities elsewhere in the United States, and some cities have prosecutors who dont want to prosecute certain crimes.

From the epidemic of violence, lets switch to the epidemic of obesity in America. Oh, wait we cant talk about that, either. Political correctness dictates that to address such an issue would be fat shaming. And yet, obesity is an epidemic that is contributing to the loss of tens of thousands of lives each year.

We see it, we know the grief it causes, but were told not to believe our lying eyes. It is much more politically expedient for some to normalize obesity and allow people to suffer from chronic illnesses or even die instead of addressing a health crisis that continues to get worse.

And the topic of health brings us to the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of deaths worldwide were attributed to the virus, but we still dont know definitively how SARS-CoV-2 originated in Wuhan, China. Shouldnt our political leaders try to get to the bottom of this? And if they dont care to find conclusive evidence, why not?

These four issues alone are harming people worldwide. And yet, many of those who control the government, media, academia, science, medicine and entertainment either refuse to acknowledge it, or worse, seek to punish anyone who dares to question their politically correct policies.

If we dont address the catastrophes we are witnessing with our own eyes, we risk the collapse of the infrastructure and rule of law that sustains society. The clock is ticking and the alarm signaling a point of no return is about to shriek.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.

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The pending collapse of the United States of Political Correctness - The Hill