The Day the Left Went Crazy
I’ve told this story before quite a few times. It was somewhere between 2006 and 2008. I was on Facebook. The subject being discussed was gay marriage.
I was chatting online with friends, friends who I had discussed this topic with before.
I was a Liberal Libertarian back then, and I didn’t have much of an opinion on this topic. I had discussed it with my friends at length. We had long, comfortable discussions, looking at various sides of the issue, good and bad, right and wrong, side effects, compassion.
You name it; we discussed it.
But not this day.
On this day, the moment I began to bring up some possible objections—in the interest of discussing the subject from all sides—two different friends, who had never met and knew nothing of each other, independently attacked me.
They both said EXACTLY the same thing:
Keeping two men from marrying is like trying to stop a Black man from marrying a White woman. You aren’t against CIVIL RIGHTS, ARE YOU???
I was shocked. Of course, I was not against civil rights. I stood strongly and squarely for trying to understand others and how they thought. It was difficult, but I grew up thinking this was a virtuous thing, and I truly wanted to be a good person.
Not in favor of Civil Rights? How could my dear friends think such a thing of me?
I backed off.
But I remember one thing well. One of the two was willing to discuss the matter just a bit. I made a point that I thought was valid. He began to agree.
This was Facebook, back when you could not control who saw what. Even though he was talking to me, a friend of his saw his comments. This friend attacked him for not being the perfect Lefty soldier. My friend immediately backed off.
I never again saw him have an independent thought.
This was, of course, the birth of modern virtue-seeking. Everyone suddenly started saying the thing that would get them praised—or at least, keep them from getting attacked—by the ever-present mob of their friends. And since the farthest Left one would attack the quickest and the hardest, I watched my friend allow themselves to be driven farther and farther Left.
I have told this story, about the day that my friends fell into lock-step, started calling names, and virtu-signaling many times before. My thoughtful friends became Leftist bullies that day. Only recently, however, did I realize two other things:
The first was that this was not just the end of civility and the beginning of bullying; it was also the end of reason. Before that, if I came up with a thoughtful, nuanced argument, my friends would consider it. They might not agree. They might not change their mind, but they would listen to the points, and sometimes, they would change their minds.
After this day, they seemed to lose their ability to follow reason.
I see it nationally, too. Simple, straightforward arguments of logic—the kind that would have been accepted in court as evidence, or at least seriously considered, are just ignored now. This increases the gaslighting disphoria of the citizens dramatically.
The second I only realized yesterday.
I have told this story over and over, but I was always concentrating on the behavior of my friends. I never stopped to think about the other aspect of this story that was right there in front of me all the time, but I hadn’t seen it.
I will repeat the important part again: two different friends, who had never met and knew nothing of each other, independently attacked me.
They both said EXACTLY the same thing:
It was the very first time I encountered something we now speak about every day:
The Narrative.
The Day the Left Went Crazy was…the birthday of the Narrative.
Man I feel this. I have lost countless so called friends for the simple fact that I will never go along with whatever batshit crazy thing they come up with next. It got to the point that I felt like an alien or that they'd all been body snatched. All ability for free thought, compromise and debate evaporated. You couldn't go against the grain at all else be vilified for it. Nowadays I have found people that aren't like that but man, it was a long time feeling alone and thinking that the world had gone stark raving mad. I am optimistic that the tide is finally turning back towards logic and reason but the last decade has been very dark and lonely indeed. People are sheep at the end of the day. I have never been a sheep.
Some years ago, I was talking with a group of friends who were appalled at negative British attitudes toward Muslim immigrants. I told them about the Rotherham rape gangs. This led to some heated discussion! Finally, one of them said that it was too upsetting to her to talk about this, and she asked if we could drop the subject, and I agreed.
But a couple of days later, my girlfriend (now my wife) told me that this friend had e-mailed her to tell her that I shouldn't get my news from the Daily Mail. Now, there are two things to be said about this. One was that I hadn't even seen whatever the Daily Mail had on it; I learned of it from the libertarian site Samizdata, followed their link to the Guardian, and followed THEIR link to a government report by a child welfare researcher. She seemingly had just assumed that I was using a source that would discredit the information in her eyes. But the other is that she was doing a very traditional feminine maneuver of hinting to the female partner that she needs to yank on the male partner's chain when he's saying unacceptable things . . . which was really funny coming from a staunch feminist. At that point I lost my respect for her intellect, and I haven't tried to have a serious conversation with her since.