It can be amusing to observe how Leftists get “triggered” by a line of argumentation, a phrase, or merely a naughty word. All it takes is a brief utterance, and they come unglued. Granted, some of that is probably play-acting, and some is imperious bluster, but there are times when they really do flip and trip because their brains are unable to cope.
Such a phenomenon unfortunately exists on the Right as well. Mainstream conservatives are usually the ones who fall for it — feel free to send this to any Republican friends who need a hot tip — but even dissident Rightists who are unprepared or get caught off their game can fall in the trap, too. All it takes is a little name-calling, and they can be reduced to gasping like fish out of water. The following is a very brief study of magic words that stopped Western civilization in its tracks.
The power of language
There’s an old Polack joke about a war between Russia and Poland. Private Kowalski is dismayed to find that his badly-equipped platoon doesn’t have enough rifles to go around. His sergeant assures him that all he has to do is stand up, point his finger, and repeat the world “rifle.” Following his orders, when the first Russian appears over the hill, he stands up, points his finger, and calls out, “Rifle! Rifle! Rifle!” The Russian falls dead. He slays three more invaders this way as well. When the next arrives, however, saying “rifle” doesn’t work. Instead, Private Kowalski falls dead — a martyr for Poland. The Russian keeps marching forward, saying “Tank! Tank! Tank!”
That joke is pretty lame, right? Still, it’s a decent illustration of the absurdity of taking language too seriously. The political Left, which long ago decided to stop being social reformers and instead become the enemies of Western civilization, has armed itself with a large vocabulary of narratives. Many of these are about twisting our cultural virtues and using them against us. After their decades-long propaganda deluge, liberals in general as well as all too many CivNats got bamboozled into thinking that conforming to this weaponized ideology is a prerequisite for being good people. As paralyzing as spider venom, we collectively became the Sleeping Giant under its influence.
Some of these narratives can be shortened: a devil word. For instance, “Xphobia” is the abbreviated narrative which asserts that “[o]pposition to X, its manifestations, worldview, or sociopolitical agendas is never principled, but instead results from an irrational fear, and is therefore grotesquely unfair and unquestionably evil, QED.” One needn’t repeat all that, much less argue that these assertions are true; merely invoking the devil word it stands for works like magic. If a devil word is given sufficient power –meaning when it’s taken seriously — it can derail an argument, which of course is its intended purpose. Moreover, these have hypnotized Western civilization into being unable to defend itself.
Obviously, Nahtzee is a potent one. The public has eight decades of stale war propaganda to preload their impressions of what this means. (The war is long over, so the newer films serve as morality plays, less to do with entertainment than with drumming narratives into our heads.) Thus, the word conjures images among the public of Hollywood Nazis. Most are not so likely to think of the real thing — that is to say, members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party between 1920 and 1945 who were desperately fighting to save Germany from Communism amidst a very unfavorable geopolitical situation. Be that as it may, anyone who cares about the future of the white race is likely to get called a Nahtzee — whether or not he or she actually is a 100-year-old German or Austrian — so we might as well learn to shrug off the label.
Additionally, anyone can slap an ‑ism suffix onto a word, or make a “‑phobia” out of it, and it becomes a devil word. This lame trick is the very sort of thing that stopped a race of conquerors. Such name-calling is part of the moral huckstering that filled us with doubts and self-guilt. As that big meanie, troll extraordinaire, and self-declared Nahtzee George Lincoln Rockwell once put it, this is like an elephant terrified by a mouse.
“Hate” is also sometimes used as a politically-correct buzzword, such as in hate group, hate literature, hatemonger, and of course hate speech — one of the politically correct terms for “heresy.” I’m fairly certain that God or the forces of evolution (take your pick) had reasons to include hate — as in the real thing — in the standard spectrum of emotions. Still, it’s generally regarded as unpleasant, especially given the lovey-dovey smiley-face positivity currently in vogue. It was therefore quite clever to make up a new context for “hate” in order to smear White Nationalism specifically.
It’s a ridiculous mischaracterization of our positions, of course. We’re motivated by care and concern for our people. As for other races, I don’t hate them for being who they are; why would I? Although there are certain average shortcomings, including patterns of misbehavior, acknowledging this isn’t “prejudice” — another moldy buzzword — but rather, knowledge. Not all ethnicities are fundamentally compatible, but that doesn’t mean I’m out to get anyone. Moreover, the Leftist love-mongers aren’t always as sweet and cuddly as they make themselves out to be — but that’s another discussion for another day.
They’ve certainly gotten quite a bit of mileage out of the “hate” buzzword. Jared Taylor is thus a “hater,” according to good liberal opinion. This is despite the fact that he’s well known as the coolest cat we have. (Shucks, he’s nice to everybody — even the Space Lizards!) Meanwhile, the motormouth Mumia Abu-Jamal is merely an “activist,” despite being a convicted cop killer. It remains to be explained why non-white advocacy is “empowerment” and white advocacy is “hate,” but logic has nothing to do with it. The usual suspects have charged “hate” with a new meaning that can be deployed as easily as Ivan Pavlov jingling his doggie dinner bell.
The mother of all buzzwords
The number one buzzword, clearly, is raaaacism. Among all devil words, anti-concepts, thought-terminating clichés, and Leftist jargon meaning some kind of heresy, this one’s the big daddy — verily a kraken among calamari. It’s been getting long in the tooth lately, somewhat worn out from a century of overuse, but it still can pack a wallop. Again, the public has been conditioned like Pavlov’s pooch. This has been going on for a long time.
I recall a video, probably from the early 1970s, of a researcher on a TV program explaining findings regarding race and IQ. (If memory serves, this was Hans Eysenck in a BBC presentation.) Someone objected, “Well, isn’t that raaaacist?” or words to that effect. The researcher was very intelligent and accomplished, and certainly understood his findings, but he was completely flummoxed by the devil word. He could have replied that the truth doesn’t spare anyone’s feelings, explained that “racist” is a polemical term without any objective usage, taken a number of other approaches, or even answered, “So what?” But he could get scarcely a word out after that point. He’d been accused of heresy, and let it get to him. It’s possible that he came up with a better response after that, but if so, The Beeb didn’t televise it.
As a side note, it’s curious how the Leftist moral framework is generally treated as axiomatic by the religion of cultural Marxism. They’ve ideologically preloaded the narratives and devil words so much that they never have to go over the basics. It’s similar to how a minister doesn’t need to begin a sermon by explaining, “Today’s reading is from Chapter 4 of the Book of Matthew. To get everyone up to speed here, Jesus is the good guy and Satan is the bad guy. Got all that?” It’s assumed that the audience already knows it.
Specifically, none of the ethnomasochism manuals I’ve reviewed, despite their endless lecturing about raaaacism, actually tell us why it’s more dreadful than arson, mayhem, murder, treason, and public nose-picking. It’s assumed that the readers already believe it and strongly desire to avoid it. These books go on and on about how bad raaaacism is, but they never say why acting in the interests of your race is so terribly wrong — if and only if you’re white, of course.
In practice, only one race ever gets meaningfully accused of raaaacism. Certainly CivNats often say that “the Democrats are the real racists” and such, but it always falls flat. They observe Leftists denouncing “racism” endlessly, and conclude it’s really important to them. Then they bring up counterexamples, and . . . crickets. Perhaps they’re expecting it to be a conversational checkmate, but they might as well be talking to a brick wall. Leftists don’t really care, and neither should you! It’s better to avoid the anti-concept entirely. Trying to argue using your opponent’s terminology is a strategic mistake similar to letting an enemy choose the battlefield.
Leftists expect others to be stung by the devil word, but if someone throws it back at them, it rolls off like water on a duck’s back. They may act like “racism” is the most horrible thing ever, but that’s only because they can get lots of suckers to buy into it. To them, it’s all just a word game. When a mainstream conservative brings up equivalent behavior by non-whites, it has as much rhetorical punch as saying “You’re wearing socks.” If Leftists even feel the need to counter it, they might dodge it with whataboutism or the like. Another tactic is to bring up the “only whites can be raaaacist” line.
The Trotsky Tautology
Then there are those specious definitions which codify their one-sided nature. One of these is “racism is prejudice plus power.” This may be paraphrased or expanded, such as by the up-and-coming skintellectual Ijeoma Oluo, defining it as “a prejudice against someone based on race, when those prejudices are reinforced by systems of power.” This isn’t an original flash of inspiration; the basic concept has been around for quite a while. Specifically, Pat Bidol came up with it in 1970 and Judith H. Katz signal-boosted it in 1978 with White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training. Wasn’t that precious of them?
Even so, I’ll name this twisted bit of “logic” in honor of an older figure, Leon Trotsky. Although there’s some dispute over whether he or someone else (such as Magnus Hirschfeld, a Weimar-era culture distorter) coined the term “racism,” he did popularize it at some point before he died in Mexico of an extreme headache. Moreover, it was on a Trotskyist website that I first saw the “prejudice plus power” definition above. All told, this tired old line is nearly as moldy as the cadaver of General Buttnaked himself.
Like all such casuistry, the Trotsky Tautology is a dishonest argument tailored to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. The real purpose of this special definition of “racism” is obviously to stigmatize whites specifically, while exonerating non-whites. If a white crosses the street to avoid a crowd of rough-looking blacks, that’s raaaacism. If a black drives into a Christmas parade on a racially-motivated rampage, killing six whites and injuring 62 others, then it’s merely an accident. Indeed, this is exactly how some mainstream media presstitutes described the Waukesha massacre. (They should be nominated for the Walter Duranty Memorial Prize for Exceptional Deception in Journalism award.) For that matter, racially-motivated black-on-white atrocities are hardly ever classified as “hate crimes.”
I could explain how the Trotsky Tautology relies on a sneaky unstated premise. I could explain that defining whites as always guilty of raaaacism and non-whites as always exempt, which is made even more explicit with (((the “whiteness” narrative))), is therefore as absurd as criticizing lions for not being vegans. I could explain how, if an aspiring rap star incited by Leftist race agitation runs over grandmothers with an SUV, then the matter of who is the alleged beneficiary of amorphous “systems of power” doesn’t make a bunny fart’s worth of difference. Moreover, these “systems of power” aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be when even mainstream Republican politicians suck up to minorities, but won’t dare appeal directly to white voters. I could explain why the hypocrisy underlying the Trotsky Tautology is thoroughly rotten, but you understand this already.
Anyone who doesn’t get it is too dim-witted to be taken seriously. That’s so stupid that they shouldn’t be allowed to breed. More likely, it’s disingenuousness. People who play smelly word games such as the Trotsky Tautology obviously aren’t arguing in good faith. When you see it, call them out for it.
The practical takeaway
What’s the remedy for this? It’s simple. When others call us names, we shouldn’t care! Their words have no power over us, unless we give them that power. In an open debate, it’s a little trickier, but not too much so. The counter-strategy is to demonstrate that your opponent has no better argument and has to resort to name-calling.
Someone who uses politically-charged epithets is simply throwing labels around, and it means nothing. A minoritist agitator, Leftist professor, keyboard warrior, or purple-haired squidling who calls you a raaaacist should be taken no more seriously than a three-year-old who calls you a poopy-head. It’s an attempt to activate a Pavlovian reflex and put you on the defensive. Offering a serious rebuttal to that would be a waste of time. It wasn’t a serious attempt to engage you in debate, now was it? A suitable reply would be, “So what?”
It’s generally best to refuse to play the game when confronted with politically-loaded hysterics of any sort, whether by name-calling or in other contexts. A minor example is the recent brouhaha over Jason Aldean’s latest groundbreaking hit, “Try That in a Small Town.” Leftist critics were pretty displeased with that, to say the least. Some labeled it a pro-lynching song, no doubt expecting that their inflammatory rhetoric would Mau-Mau everyone else into silence. The claim is quite absurd, since the song has nothing to do with lynching. The problem is that disputing this point — as the musician himself did — is a waste of time. The best result that could be expected is to get into a “no it isn’t”/”yes it is” argument. But that will get quite slippery, since Leftist ideologues usually care little about the truth in the first place, think reality is all a “social construct,” or believe they’re living in an imaginary hologram or something.
The major problem — a better angle to bring up, actually — is that these detractors made their claim in bad faith. The real bone they have to pick with the song is that it disapproved of the kind of troublemaking that was commonplace during the Long Hot Summer of Floyd. To them, it’s objectionable to object to looting, burning, and chaos. Of the Leftists who made a flimsy claim that the song is about lynching, are they really all that bothered by black criminals who were summarily executed a century ago, or is it just another opportunity to push a white guilt narrative? When confronted with rhetoric which is so shrill, overblown, and disingenuous that it doesn’t dignify a serious response, perhaps resorting to name-calling is permissible. In this instance, there’s a fitting term for them: morons.
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8 comments
A good article with excellent links and examples to further read (one of the best things about CC in my opinion) and like you, I’m past caring. I do think the word ‘raaaaacism’ is so over used that it has lost its stigma, much like Nazi.
The foaming at the gums left are now trying over-arching far reaching terms to scoop up as many opponents or race realists. White supremacy being the greatest threat to US security (really?) they squeal. And they now lob together any thing that its anti Jewish as being, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobe (none of these words even existed that long ago) and fascist and so on. Morons they are and deranged ones at that.
I’ve been verbally abused once as kid, I was in the wrong pub at the wrong time and some one tried to spit on me whilst informing me I was a “Proddy dog”. Big deal, the guy was an utter prick and a bully – I wasn’t then and I’m not now and if they shout racist or any other label they see fit to arbitrarily shout at me so be it – it’s lost it’s toxicity by overuse. Much like what we see when allow this societal disease to spread and don’t answer back.
It’s good to go over this stuff from time to time.
But, the bottom line is that the Racial Right is completely hamstrung by its unwillingness to embrace the ‘social constructivist’ understanding of ‘social reality’ and run with it.
On the other hand, a Racial Left doesn’t have that problem. Everything is just rhetoric (until it proves itself to be otherwise).
So, the way to deal with anti-White leftist racial ‘sorcery’ is to do a little pro-White racial sorcery of your own.
The first step is not to take the bait.
Your interlocutor’s ‘moral code’ is anti-White. You know this. They know this. So directly come out and call their position anti-White and wait for them to respond. Then call that position out as anti-White (because it will be) and wait for their response. It doesn’t matter how absurd it gets because the goal is to sow doubt in the audience whether your interlocutor’s ‘morality’ is really all it seems. Make them do the work of defending their anti-White status quo. Rope-a-dope them until they make a mistake and then, if you’ve got the ability, go on attack.
The second step is to come up with your own definition of a ‘devil word’ and insist upon it in preference to their own. For example, when an anti-White insists upon defining ‘racism’ as ‘prejudice plus power’ just deny that’s what ‘racism’ is. I like to assert that ‘racism’ is being anti-White (because I don’t care about the feelings on people who aren’t pro-White). The entire weakness of the anti-White left lies in their pretense of being the advocates of ‘universal values’ all while – in practice – focusing all their venom on Whites only. The rhetorical key is to deny the value of ‘universal values’. Literally, deconstruct their liberal ‘universal values’ and insist on racially discrete values. I don’t adhere to a version of ‘racism’ that is anti-White. In fact, in the absence of a universally agreed-upon notion of ‘racism’ it’s just a bunch of letters strung together.
The Racial Right cannot play this game because the Racial Right is still stuck on the oh-so-very-obviously-discredited idea that ‘the truth will set you free’ and unable to give up on the idea of ‘universal values’.
If ‘universal values’ cannot get Whites their own homelands, the ‘universal values’ is not an asset.
To fight the anti-White left, you need to be more left than left and embrace racial logic to the exclusion of any other.
The very terms weaponise and demonise are part of the argot of the Left, deployed to bolster their thesis that language is an instrument of power and oppression. I suggest we don’t throw logic and evidence out of the window by casting such loaded terms back. We should always point out that their assumptions and modus are disputed, that we have not accepted that ‘privilege’ taints the actualities, or that ‘lived experience’ is sacrosanct. Ideological hypotheses such as ‘Capitalism’, ‘Patriarchy’ or ‘Institutional Racism’ can be used to mount a lazy ‘critique’ of any eventuality. That is where we should pin the buggers down and demand an account of what they are proposing to do about the matter at issue. It will likely turn out to involve a repressive and authoritarian programme that is repugnant to common sense, morality and economics — cf: Lenin, Mao, Chavez, Mugabe et al.
“A prejudice against someone based on race, when those prejudices are reinforced by systems of power.”
Careful relabelling of the term to prevent accusations of racism levelled against non-Whites and non-Europeans — who, after all, have been ceaselessly victimised for all of human history by “systems of power” and thus are incapable of any genuine expression of hostile sentiment on the basis of race.
This remarkably stupid interpretation has already been introduced to me on multiple occasions, usually by individuals of liberal political persuasion who genuinely believe that it is impossible to be racist against Whites.
Well, the Nazis were really really bad people. They killed six million innocent Jewish folks and millions of gay people, African-Americans and gypsies also. Plus they were trying to take over the whole world.
Sources?
The left uses language to ‘demonize’ their opponents, usually claiming any criticism from the right is ‘dehumanizing’.
But they also twist language to soften their own hot button stances:
‘Abortion’ became ‘Pro-choice’
‘Riot’ begat ‘Mostly Peaceful Protest’
giving hormones and surgeries to kids became ‘Gender Affirming Care’
Savages used to believe in magic words and voodoo. Some in the leftist mob still do, the others are playing the game for wealth and power. One of my favorites is to call them anti-Irish or anti-German or Scottish or whatever Caucasian ethnicity is convenient. They admit they hate Whitey, Whitey is the evilest creature to ravage his way across the planet, but calling them anti-Belgian, at least here in the US, confuses them. I don’t know if the completely brainwashed can be saved, but I have gotten laughs out of some of the normies.
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