Anyone who believes that their ‘identity’ provides immunisation against criticism, is either a dangerous fool or a deliberate manipulator.
Whether they were born with it, brought up with it, or chose it for themselves; whether it’s a noun, an adjective or a pronoun, whatever…anyone who thinks their identity makes them ‘special’…is playing a game of deception.
There is nothing new about this. It’s a form of ‘emotional blackmail’, and it’s an old trick. You want to do what the hell you like, whenever you like, with no negative consequences to you? You want to put yourself above the law, above any ethical or moral standard that applies to the rest of society?
Make any criticism of your behaviour equate to a criticism of your identity…make attacking YOU a worse crime than anything you might have done.
On one hand, I can’t believe I’m still writing about this; it’s not rocket science. But writing about it is necessary because there’s an epidemic of it right now. Within the past two weeks there have been two prominent examples:
The first Somalian woman to be elected to the US Congress, Ilhan Omar, has been ‘persuaded’ to apologise…by her own party…for pointing out that AIPAC (the American-Israel Political Action Committee) uses its financial clout to buy political influence on Capitol Hill.
This is of course, absurd – the apology not the observation – for that is exactly what AIPAC does. Just as weapons lobbyists do on behalf of Lockheed et al, and bank lobbyists do on behalf of JP Morgan et al. The difference, however is this: according to AIPAC and its supporters, mentioning that AIPAC buys influence, EQUATES with saying something like: ‘wicked money-grubbing Jews are buying influence’. I.E. Criticism of AIPAC or Israel = anti-Semitism.
Clearly this is insidious nonsense, but like I said, it’s an old trick. And if you want to make sure that the US Congress portrays you with the sun shining out of your arse…it’s a bloody good trick.
Last week the inevitable happened: a collection of Labour MPs left the party and formed an ‘independent’ group. I say ‘inevitable’ because the realignment of UK politics has been underway for some time now, as has the undermining of Jeremy Corbyn by the Blairites. On 9th February I suggested that he should precipitate the next step of this realignment:
That ship has now sailed – the process is out in the open and will accelerate. In terms of the rationale and the timing, there are two main ‘reasons’ cited by the ‘splitters’. One is Corbyn’s refusal to back a second Brexit referendum. What is the other?
Jeremy Corbyn is no more anti-Semitic than he is an ardent body-builder, a paintball enthusiast or a rampant party-goer…Corbyn prefers pottering about in his allotment. Nope…Corbyn stands up for the rights of Palestinians. THIS. IS. NOT. THE. SAME. For those MPs in the pocket of the Israel lobby, notably Joan Ryan, Corbyn’s support for Palestinians is a BIG problem. For the rest of them, the problem is broader, but the smear works just as well for their agenda:
The person who is weaponizing their ‘identity’, upon hearing the criticism, makes the false equivalence and reacts as if they are the ‘victim’ of an unfair attack. If this emotional blackmail works on the critic, the ‘victim’ switches role to that of ‘persecutor’…the criticism is suppressed, the false equivalence is strengthened in the ‘group mind’, and the ‘victim/persecutor’ is now free to continue doing whatever it was that attracted the criticism. This is a universal dynamic in Schizophrenic families, and from my own observation quite common in boardrooms, and rather more common amongst politicians…you can make up your own mind about the similarities between those three.
Personally, I believe it is vitally important to challenge this stuff. It’s used for justification of political advantage at one end of the scale, for crimes against humanity at the other. It is insidious. My stance is this: I do not except the premise – the premise is bullshit.
I’ll leave you with this:
In this special edition of Renegade Inc., we met up with a key adviser to PM, Boris Johnson.
We look back over the year at some of our best interviews.
A dangerous new class of socioeconomically excluded people called the precariat is on the rise.
