As the New York Times gives us stories tracking the progress of Obama's administration, vaguely disappointed with the slowness of American politics (after a year of relentless coverage of every word of the campaign), it also gives us headline news - a top story on their site - about how nice it is for owners of old dogs to see Stump win the dog show. "It's absolutely a victory for older dogs," says Garrett Russo. Meanwhile, in the real world, modernity is ending in the strangulation of a new and horrible pharisaism.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders - an elected official - is being banned from entry to the UK for expressing his opinion that Islam could be, and I don't want to sound biased here, as there is really no evidence for this claim that I'm aware of, as a reader of the New York Times, a violent religion. He is being charged with "hate speech," the most absurd, truth-defying, abuse-inviting legal concept yet produced by the modern world. According to the Guardan, the Home Office said that it would "stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred, and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country." Now, I don't know what century the Home Office is living in, but last time I checked, this was the information age, and the best way to stop ideas is not preventing someone's bodily presence in the country. Assuming that they are aware of this, one can only think that this is an intimidation tactic, and that they are not merely stopping hatemongers from entering the country, but stopping the spread of ideas by promising repercussions. That makes it very important what constitutes political "hatred", what is normal - so that we may define what is "extremism" - and what constitutes a "violent message," as this appears to be more of an indictment of Islam for violence than a message itself, unless you count the definition of violence that Zizek has recently ridiculed in his perspicuous writings.
Fox News gives us another story on Prince Harry, who is being sent to a class about how mean racist remarks are. Or rather, he must attend an "equality and diversity course" for saying racist things. I really don't understand how this helps anything. Racist remarks are bad, granted, but racism is not simply the result of ignorance - nor is it something you can control as simply as sending someone to a course on it! Is equality and diversity taught? Is it just a concept that you can learn, like algebra? One does not make those comments because one does not know that they are offensive, but because one does know that they are offensive, and one wishes to be so. You might do it because you want to fit in with a crowd defined in part by its exclusions, or because you've been personally harassed, or because you belong to a group whose racial boundaries coincide with class boundaries and feel injustice from other races, or because you've never met someone of another race and find them strange. The level of ignorance here is staggering - unless, and here my thesis comes again, the re-educators are aware of this, and are just making a big show of condemning racism.
In another episode here in the good old U. S. of A., where the people solve their own problems, an organization for the protection of Asian Pacific Islander is suing Miley Cyrus for taking a photo using her fingers to pull her eyes into a slant. It is not a photoshoot - it's her and some friends making a racist gesture together in front of a camera. It's not very nice. Someone should tell that young lady - Cyrus is 16 years old - that she's grounded and teach her that some people might be offended by such behavior coming from a figure as famous as she. Or you could just sue her for 4 billion dollars, because you don't care about Asian Pacific Islanders, the constitution, Miley Cyrus, or anything but your own self-righteousness, and perhaps your bank account. They're calling it a civil rights violation. It is bad to do that sort of thing - it's a form of discrimination, and wrong in a similar manner to Cyrus' objectification of the female body, which is dehumanizing to girls in general and especially hurtful to those who will find themselves not looking like this decade's version of perfection. But I don't see how a $4 billion lawsuit fixes anything, or even sends the right message.
Modernity has begun to end, and it's not ending because we're coming to any real conclusions about truth, morality, justice, beauty, or power. We are, in essence, boiling everything down to power politics. The rampant agnosticism and the strange immanence of people's personal digital-pet gods (more akin to Pullman's demons than any actual understanding of an actual God) along with ubiquitous communication technology are the symptoms of a rank individualism that is not so much creating a harmonious world as a predictably splintered world - shattered to monadic monarchs of their own little realms. And the smaller the pieces become, the smaller the minds that go with them. This will end, or the west will end, because the political consequences of such a mindset are starting to show. The fact that one can, without at least superficial inconsistency, condemn the idea of another person on completely normative grounds - like an inquisition - and consider oneself a fair-minded, liberal thinker, defending freedom and making the world a better place for all is a terrifying thought indeed. At least it is to someone who still reads.
