Is Maureen Dowd becoming conservative? Has she broken with social constructivist morality to pivot back toward
traditional rules?
For some it will be a horrifying turn. For others it will
restore their faith in humanity. The notion that you cannot make up your own
rules, even if you get all of your friends to sign on to them… seems not to
have penetrated the skulls of our millennial generation.
You see, millennials believe that right and wrong are social
constructions. If you do something that other people might have seen as wrong,
then you can make it right by persuading everyone to think that it was really
right. I admit, persuading is a bit bland here. If you want everyone to think
that there is nothing wrong or even risky with sending out naked pictures of
yourself, then you can solve the problem by blinding everyone—figuratively speaking.
Those unhappy few who resist the brainwashing or who refuse
to comply with the new social constructivist morality must be denounced and
voted off the island.
As for our moral world, it resembles nothing but the world
of Hans Christian Anderson’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” As you know well, the Emperor has been
persuaded by a couple of swindlers that anyone who does not agree that he,
wearing nothing, is decked out in imperial finery is morally degenerate, and
disloyal. Being a good subject means accepting that reality is what the
emperor thinks it is.
Evidently, the sham is exposed when a boy shouts out the
truth. He is not speaking truth to power as much as he is defying an commonly accepted
illusion. He is expressing an opinion that is unacceptable in proper social
circles. In the story, the emperor continues on his way. In reality, Rep. Katie
Hill was forced to resign from Congress.
In her column today Dowd offers a dialogue between
her boomer self and a millennial Times staff member. When faced with the notion
that all moral truth is relative, merely a function of what you can get people
to believe, Dowd demurs. Despite what the millennial generation has been
brainwashed into believing, we have not yet repealed human nature.
Exposing your nakedness to the public, risking having your
nakedness exposed to the public, is still shameful. Because shame is a
universal emotional sanction against exhibiting your private parts in public.
That is why they are called private.
Allow Dowd her say:
I get
that young people are digital natives, even cyborgs. But I had to offer a
riposte to Shawn that, while society can be reshaped, human nature is
immutable. What I learned from studying Shakespeare is that the primary colors
of emotions carry through the centuries.
There
will always be vengeful exes and envious allies and ruthless opponents and
double-crossing friends. Whether the messages are being carried by pigeons or
pixels, you have to protect yourself — and your data. Don’t let our shiny new
tools blind you to the fact that some horrible truths about humanity never
change.
And
don’t leave yourself vulnerable by giving people the ammunition — or the nudes
— to strip you of your dreams.
OK,
millennials?
The highly estimable Whoopi Goldberg made the same point and
received gales of derision. But, truth is truth. Anyone who sends such pictures
over the internet, or who memorializes his or her romps in photos, is running a
risk. The same applies to any woman who takes what has been called the walk of
shame. If she walking down the street or across the quad on Sunday morning
dressed for a party, her shame does not merely arise
from the fact that a lot of people will judge her ill, but from the fact that
she knows that she is showing the world that she does not respect herself.
One notes, and one underscores, that we do not care what she
was doing the night before. And we do not really care about what Katie Hill was
doing with her girlfriend, her boyfriend and her husband. We care when it is
flashed in our faces. We care about the indiscretion more than we care about
the parties.
As for the Katie Hill saga, here is Dowd’s take. The Shawn
in question is Shawn McCreesh:
Shawn
OK-Boomered me Friday on the topic of Katie Hill, the 32-year-old freshman
California congresswoman who is openly bisexual and ran what
Vice dubbed “the most millennial campaign ever.” Her promising career
flamed out in a scandal that was both age-old and very millennial, in that it
featured revenge porn, a throuple, sexual fluidity and dirty bong water.
Hill
was a blast of fresh air on the Hill. And it is amazing that, after two
centuries of men treating the political landscape here as a droit du seigneur
playground, that the one ensnared in an ethics investigation about the new rules enacted last year on sexual
harassment — barring lawmakers from having sexual relationships with staffers —
is a woman.
Hill
pointed the finger at her “abusive” loser husband, Kenny Heslep, who has been
unemployed for the past five years, implying that he leaked the pictures and
texts to Hill’s foes. Not since Linda Tripp has there been such a creepy
betrayal in politics.
Being as the moral default for the millennial generation is
to blame the double standard, it is worth noting the number of men whose
Congressional careers have been aborted by sexual improprieties. You can read
the list in The Daily Caller.
In the world of eternal socio-sexual verities, we also note
that Hill was betrayed by her husband. Apparently, he had no problem engaging
in threesomes with Hill and her comely female assistant, but he drew the line
against sharing her with a man. We can tamp down our outrage by seeing this in
more Darwinian terms. If a throuple contains two women and one man, there is
never any doubt about who the father is. If the throuple contains two men and one
woman, there is always doubt. As Dowd suggests, the millennial generation has not
yet managed to repeal human nature.
As for the other eternal verities, the one that no one seems
inclined to notice, Hill’s vengeful husband had been thoroughly emasculated—in the
social sense, not in the sexual sense—and had been reduced to a house husband,
a man who had no place in the world of work, that is, the world of men, but was
told by his wife to stay at home and do the laundry.
One understands that the woke millennial generation has
decided that gender roles are merely a social construction. Apparently, Hill’s husband
did not think so. Having other men see him as a wuss must have worn him down. He decided that revenge was sweet, and that he would destroy
the career that had been used to destroy his own career aspirations.
Of course, millennials do not approve. So what. And they
point out that they have all taken and distributed pornographic pictures of themselves. Dowd
quotes Shawn:
He pointed
to a viral text going around this past month as evidence that most young people
have at least one picture on their phones that they don’t want to get out. The
first line of the text refers to Instagram and pops up on the recipient’s phone
with the most horrifying words known to the millennial mind: “Why is there a
nude on your story??” Once the text is opened, it turns out to be a prank.
Nonetheless, Shawn said, it caused a lot of spilled coffees and near car
crashes among his friends.
He said
that iPhones and social media have so reshaped culture that older people would
have to accept the new and sometimes naked reality.
The notion that older people must accept these youthful aberrations must have a long history. It is like bluffing when your cards are
exposed.
One also notes that Dowd first-names her interlocutor…
perhaps because we usually first name women more often than we do men.
Anyway, McCreesh has offered an absurd thought, one that has
defined the moral character of the millennial generation. They are like the ostrich
who has stuck his head in the sand and who thinks that it makes him invisible.
They know that they are making moral errors. They know that their moral errors
might very well haunt them forever. And yet, they believe that they can obviate
the pain by taking over everyone’s minds, by making it more reprehensible to
say that the emperor is naked.
Why give up an illusion, especially an illusion
that will expose you as a shameless dupe when you can just shoot the boy who
declares that the emperor is naked. Not literally, of course. But, you
must shut him up and shut him down. Dissenting opinions are no longer welcome
because they might force millennials to face their moral derelictions.
Perhaps this tells us why the younger generations are so happy to shut up dissenting opinions and why they believe that mind control will save their honor. They are going to have a very rude awakening.
Millennials have been TAUGHT that everything is a social construct and there's no reason for them not to believe it. We live in a world of plenty and only when all that goes away that they are going to discover the truth. Hard to know what to wish for isn't it
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I have with Katie Hill is she’s not hot—at all. And neither are any of the supporting cast. If your going to a public scene, at least be worth erotic notice. Also, where did they get the goat? I am delighted her loser husband emulated all the techniques normally reserved for loser wives and girlfriends, but he should have claimed that Hill was abusive to him first so she would have to play that card second. Poor timing on his part. But a fitting end for a 6. Her consolation will be joining Sandra Fluke and Rose McGowan (if she’s still alive) at the head of the LA pride parade. Katie Hill will be spun into a folk victim of homophobia and patriarchy, but will that pay for her SD mortgage?
ReplyDeleteKanye West.
ReplyDeleteIf he is sincere in his conversion, the likes of Mrs. Hill are in for a rough ride.
More and more women are realizing that they have been fed a diet of deceit from their peers, regarding how to live life.
Many surveys/polls show that the generation right behind the Mills, are very conservative.
God works in mysterious ways.
Why is this only about the photos? Is it now too uncool to think that introducing a 22-year old female staffer into a kinky (and as she herself calls it --see link-- "toxic" "abusive" and implicitly masochistic) situation is just plain selfishly and morally wrong?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7607251/California-Congresswoman-Katie-Hill-admits-inappropriate-throuple-affair-campaign-staffer.html
Normally, I would disagree with anything MoDo writes. This one...ain't "normal".
ReplyDelete"not hot" Ubu you crack me up.
ReplyDeleteTrump is my favorite wrestler, although Captain Insano was mean when on the phone.
ReplyDeleteBobo Brazil and Trump would have been impossible to defeat. Trump would have led them into the trap, and Bobo would have finished them with the Coco Butt. MAGA and KAG
ReplyDeleteOMG, what a great name for a wrestling tag team: MAGA & KAG. MAGA and KAG vs the Swamp Creatures! Golden! The booger eaters would go wild.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the Taki Mag website article quoting about the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale showing that the average score among millennials is 15 pts higher than the historic result? Wow.
ReplyDeleteAll those years of schools insisting that discipline hurts the poor dears and that disruptive kids DON"T have high-self-esteem already, but need more...
coming to roost.