Everyone Wants To Be A Hero

Yesterday, I discussed the way the Secular Left is trying to force us to believe things we know aren't true, like the claim that a 6' 8" man is actually a woman. I linked to two explanations for it.

1. The Left needs us to live in a fantasy world so it can achieve its totalitarian dreams.
2. This is part of a new Gnosticism - a complicated belief system described here. 

Neither of these hold any water for me. I think the issue is much simpler and less sinister.

We all want to be heroes, part of a large, noble enterprise, defeating evil and fighting for good. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, they're all tiny problems in real life, but if we magnify them wildly, we can fight them with no risk to ourselves. At the same time, we can make believe we're heroes.

This essay on the modern corruption of the education industry crystallized it for me. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's the key tidbit for today.

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, those were my first encounters with an alternate curriculum that was being promoted on many campuses, a curriculum whose guiding principles seemed to be: 1) anything that could be construed as bigotry and hatred should be construed as bigotry and hatred; and 2) any such instance of bigotry and hatred should be considered part of an epidemic. These principles were being advanced primarily, though not exclusively, by college administrators, whose ranks had grown so remarkably since the early 1990s.

In a country of 330,000,000 where it's harder and harder to get even 200 people together to put on white hoods and burn a cross, how in the world would you conclude that "hate" is at epidemic levels? Better yet, why?

The why is easy and it explains the how as well. You want to feel good about yourself. If you're fighting evil, that's pretty good, right? If you fight racism, you're part of a team of others who hate it just as much as you do and you all tell each other how awesome you are. Ooh, the emotional rewards of public, group virtue! How marvelous! Better yet, you don't have to actually fight. I mean, when was the last time you accused someone of racism and they turned on you and screamed about how blacks are inferior to whites? They all deny it, don't they?

This isn't a fight, this is a big cosplay game. You pretend people who disagree with you are racist and your friends do, too. You all agree how they are racists even when they deny it. They're not just racist, they're liars as well. We're fighting racist liars! What fun this is! And since there's zero chance anyone will shoot or stab you, it's all reward and no risk. Outstanding!

To maintain your fantasy world in which you're a hero, you look for racists under every rock and behind every tree. You and your friends discover new ways to reveal it. You're like detectives in a modern crime drama using the latest technologies to extract DNA samples from a hair found on a pillow. How exciting! Why, with the latest microaggression scanners, we can find racists wherever they hide. And there are so very, very many of them. That shows how brave we are, fighting such tremendous odds.

But it's all pretend in the end. As you and your pals put on your capes and masks, real people are suffering and dying for reasons totally unrelated to your fantasies. Oh well. To deal with those would require real courage and some of your buddies wouldn't go along with it. Better to keep up the illusion that you're a superhero and have fun with the gang.

Look, mommy (or my gender-fluid caregiver), I'm a superhero!

Note: This doesn't completely address why the Secular Left is trying to force us to believe that men can become women, but I'll finish these thoughts in future posts. I thought this was getting a bit long.