There is a line that can be drawn, a lineage that can be traced, between a number of recent primal screams emanating originally from shadowy ranks of white male recidivism.
- The #gamergate movement, which is a reaction by openly misogynist males against what they see as attacks against the identity of white male gamers, started by a cadre of hardcore drongos on sites like Reddit, gaining momentum as it gathers up tenuously related non-sexist criticisms of game industry and media elites, gradually building into a mob where the majority are not sexist, but the masses give credence to the movement started by a vocal and unrepresentative minority.
- The #cuckservative movement, which is a reaction by openly white supremacist males against what they see as attacks against the identity of white male American conservatives, started by a cadre of hardcore drongos on sites like 8chan, gaining momentum as it gathers up tenuously related non-racist criticisms of conservative political and media elites, gradually building into a mob where the majority are not racist, but the masses give credence to the movement started by a vocal and unrepresentative minority.
- The mass booing of Adam Goodes, which is a reaction by openly racist males against what they see as attacks against the identity of white male Australians, started by a cadre of hardcore drongos at AFL games, gaining momentum as it gathers up tenuously related non-racist criticisms of sporting and media elites, gradually building into a mob where the majority are not racist, but the masses give credence to the movement started by a vocal and unrepresentative minority.
In all three cases, there is a core of horrible people who perform anti-social acts with stated justifications that any reasonable person would find abhorrent, but the majority of participants in this anti-social behaviour use the argument that they don't share the horrible beliefs of the fringe members of the group, thus they shouldn't be tarred with the same brush.
In any large political grouping, there are going to be fringe elements inside the "big tent". Nationalist skinheads vote Liberal, feral communists vote Labor, and these actions are perfectly acceptable and do not invalidate the party's platform as long as the minority doesn't dictate policy. In the case of these extra-institutional movements, however, the actions that the majority take are the same as the hardcore. How are we to tell the difference between those with criminally anti-social motivations and those who have "normal" reasons for acting like morons?
Unfortunately, this dilemma doesn't seem to worry many of those in the majority who are acting as useful idiots providing cover for the extremists. I have been involved in some very heated discussions trying to argue such people around in the case of the Goodes crisis, and I am sure the same kinds of conversations have been happening all over, both on and off the Internet, in the past week. It's a smorgasbord of bad arguments defending the indefensible, as Russell Jackson only skimmed the surface of the other day.
One of the many ways we are lucky to have been born in the Lucky Country is that despite all the talk of multiculturalism, we are largely still a very monoculturally Anglo-Celtic society, and aren't forced very often to confront our own prejudices like this. You only have to look at America where hatred towards Hispanic immigrants and black urban youth is dominating mainstream political discussion, or in England where UKIP only grows in popularity, or Europe where a member country like Hungary can fall under the grip of an openly fascist regime and barely an eyelid is blinked. In comparison, we lost our minds for weeks on end when a man asked a question on a TV program. Our privilege as Australians, let alone white Australians, is almost too massive to comprehend.
The glue binding all these movements together is identity politics. The extremists are white, male and western, and the people they are trying to recruit to their thinly veiled anti-social reactionary causes share much of their identity - this demographic has been labelled in various countries as "frat", "bro", "lad", "chav" and "bogan". While the majority may not profess to share the extremists' politics, the functional differences between them and the fringe are blurred if they take part of the same activities.
In this context, it is supremely difficult to educate a certain type of young white man about the nature of his privilege, because so much of his self image is bound up in believing he is right about everything, even those things he actually knows very little about. Hopefully it's not going to take a tragedy for these otherwise intelligent, empathetic and compassionate citizens to see the light.
Unfortunately, this dilemma doesn't seem to worry many of those in the majority who are acting as useful idiots providing cover for the extremists. I have been involved in some very heated discussions trying to argue such people around in the case of the Goodes crisis, and I am sure the same kinds of conversations have been happening all over, both on and off the Internet, in the past week. It's a smorgasbord of bad arguments defending the indefensible, as Russell Jackson only skimmed the surface of the other day.
One of the many ways we are lucky to have been born in the Lucky Country is that despite all the talk of multiculturalism, we are largely still a very monoculturally Anglo-Celtic society, and aren't forced very often to confront our own prejudices like this. You only have to look at America where hatred towards Hispanic immigrants and black urban youth is dominating mainstream political discussion, or in England where UKIP only grows in popularity, or Europe where a member country like Hungary can fall under the grip of an openly fascist regime and barely an eyelid is blinked. In comparison, we lost our minds for weeks on end when a man asked a question on a TV program. Our privilege as Australians, let alone white Australians, is almost too massive to comprehend.
The glue binding all these movements together is identity politics. The extremists are white, male and western, and the people they are trying to recruit to their thinly veiled anti-social reactionary causes share much of their identity - this demographic has been labelled in various countries as "frat", "bro", "lad", "chav" and "bogan". While the majority may not profess to share the extremists' politics, the functional differences between them and the fringe are blurred if they take part of the same activities.
