I Just Want Everyone to Obey the Same Rules

On Friday, I discussed one problem with the social justice left's so-called "consequence culture": that its "consequences" are wildly out-of-bounds and threaten to destroy our ability to maintain our liberal order. Today, I want to focus on another: favoritism.

In the social justice bully's "consequence culture," only some people have to suffer the "consequences." If you are white, straight, cisgender, and/or male and/or are of the out-group, you live under a microscope; everything you say and do is obsessively monitored, and any deviation from the left's stringent-yet-ever-changing standard is attacked in precisely the harsh manner I described in the last post. If, on the other hand, you fall on the opposite end of the intersectional axis and/or are of the in-group, you can - for the most part - do whatever you want with absolute impunity.

Consider: why did it take so long for anyone to notice that certain people were abusing their power in Hollywood and in the publishing scene to get tail or to diddle kids? In many cases, the delay comes down to this: these people were of the in-group. Said abusers bleated all the correct leftist bromides, so no one felt obligated to check their behavior until it became impossible to ignore. This is certainly what happened in the comic book industry, to take one recent example. All the folks who were "in" spent an inordinate amount of time chasing after small YouTubers and Indiegogo campaigners while the actual evildoers lurked among their own ranks. As I said a while back, comic book pros should've been examining themselves instead of hunting illusory "Nazi fans" to puff up their social justice street cred.

Meanwhile: have you noticed how often bigotry and hatred are permitted so long as they're expressed by the "right" people?  You can say "kill all men" without suffering many "consequences". You can argue that white people are demonic and/or genetically deficient and get feted by the press and showered with accolades. And left-wing antisemitism is greeted with a shrug -- especially when it's expressed by black activists. But because J.K. Rowling evinced mild, reasonable skepticism of trans-radicalism a while back, she's been endlessly hounded (though luckily, she has enough eff-you money and clout to withstand the sustained campaign against her). And if you dare suggest that looting and burning minority-owned businesses probably isn't the best way to ensure that #BlackLivesMatter, you may find yourself suddenly unemployed. This state of affairs is deeply, deeply unfair -- but as far as I can tell, no one on the social justice left actually cares. Indeed, as far as I can tell, they love that people in the out-group are being punished while their buddies are getting off scot-free. 

It is, of course, true that other human "tribes" sometimes circle the wagons and protect their members from legitimate censure. But I think followers of the social justice ideology are particularly prone to this nonsense because, since Marcuse at least, differential treatment has been a foundational plank in their program to right cosmic wrongs and humble the "powerful." To put it another way, their hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug.

As a classical liberal and a decent human being with a natural sense of justice, I think social justice bullies' embrace of open vengeance is incredibly toxic. And that's yet another reason why I resist the left's diabolical attempt to recast cancel culture as "consequence culture."

ETA: How Cancel Culture Works - A Thread