MILLENNIAL SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES -- OR PC BULLIES?

Culture Priest/Missionary -- clean and irreproachable.

Sitting in the Seat of Scorn -- Psalms 1.1

The photo above has become all too familiar to me.  I kept it to look at.  It is so pure.  "He" (and he is as likely to be she, but "she's" are easier to ignore) has shown up in every context of my life so far.  In teaching "he" tried to force curriculum conformity, esp. when teaching English defined as proper grammar and usage.  In Western art "he" tried to force everyone into the three R's: Russell, Remington and Rungius so they would sell.  In animal control "he" wanted to prevent all forms of death, out of total denial of the FACT of animal overpopulation and its consequences.  On the reservation "he" wanted to eliminate the gutter-dwelling street Indians and sanctify Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian who fit the stereotype "he" preferred.  (A helpless, grieving old man.)  

In government "he" wanted total freedom for his own projects and suppression of any social action on behalf of "losers".  In Unitarian Universal circles "he" wanted us all to put on t-shirts claiming love without writing checks.  Shall I go on?  Often these are people who have no context, no experience in the world.  But for some, self-righteousness is a crypto-religion.  Some of think of this person as hard-line Republican, but now the Democrats have been developing the type.

I didn't know there was a formal name for this sort of person currently in play:  "Millennial Social Justice Advocates" -- some say "Warriors" to invoke the Crusades.  "He" likes the Crusades.  Then I read the essay linked below. 

Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice" by Aristotelis Orginos.  https://medium.com/@aristoNYC/social-justice-bullies-the-authoritarianism-of-millennial-social-justice-6bdb5ad3c9d3  It's been causing quite a stir.

A good example, Jon Krakauer, is visiting Missoula next week to defend his book about athlete rapists.  (Esp. the black ones from urban ghettoes which the university can pretend to be educating.)   He looks for stories that can be used to attack people, thus riding on their popularity.  Others are right behind him, ready to enjoy a pile-on once the stigmatization paves the way.

I'm tired of using Jack Nicholson as the guy who says, "You can't handle the truth,", so I'll go to the Irish wildlings in "Game of Thrones" to give my accusation context and illustrate what is likely to be the response in Missoula.

That is, Krakauer's "truth" will likely be met with challenge, obscenity and elitism -- thus confirming to a certain audience that he is a prophet and they should immediately buy torches for the witch hunt -- after they buy his book.  This sort of thing is great for business.  You don't have to read the book -- just buy it and carry it around.  

So far Indian athletes at Missoula have been spared from accusations on the grounds of the entitlement of the disadvantaged.  The assumption is that Indians are from the rez.  Urban ghettos are a disadvantage because they twist and destroy people.  But rural reservations, so wind-swept and sun-washed, are different.) The attitude towards Indians has always been an awkward mixture of religion and politics -- that is, there's a severe split (which exists in most religious/political contexts) between taking the missionary convert-or-die approach and attempting to be adopted into their tribe.  

Indians that the university has enrolled, the ones who can read and write and know their own history, are loved by the faculty.   These days some Indians actually ARE faculty, have written books, and all that good stuff.  But the ones who are dirty, drunk, disorderly, etc. etc. are only loved by frat boys who want to prove how macho they are by drinking with "Geronimo" or maybe sharing drugs.

Father DeSmet:  1801 to 1873.  Belgian.

He did go buffalo hunting on horseback with the Blackfeet once.

But listen to ME !!  I sound like a "Millennial Social Justice Warrior" myself, who wants everyone to realize Indians are no different from anyone else despite their imagined financial advantages, their blood quantum arguments, their rez woes.  I clearly want them to pull up their socks, put down their basketball (only temporarily -- one can't ask for total deprivation) and just do the work. Krakauer doesn't want to hang around Browning pointing out the lack of justice and the suffering of indigenous women.  Much more fun to accuse the power structure in a university town.  Anyway the rez book wouldn’t sell -- this one about black football players raping co-eds has already had lots of free publicity.

What Indians generally want from me (aside from money and praise) is whether I remember their grandmother.  Often I do.  Old age has made me a repository of first-hand acquaintance with real people.  The PC bullies privilege abstraction, which means they’re going by 19^th century stereotypes and worn out ethical principles.  They have a fit about who can claim to be “Indian” but they can only identify skin color and are still amazed by blonde Indians.  

Father Ed Kohler

Church of the Little Flower, Browning, MT

Part of this equation is economic, which is a social indicator of misery.  Certain writers, self-identifying as journalists, move in with the miserable for a few months, and come back with sensational tales about the comfort of sitting on a log by a campfire, eating beans out of a can.  They have “joined the tribe.”  Privilege stuff.  Self-imposed ordeals.

I study the photo at the top of this post.  This is the “stainless” man, who dresses well, has a Fifties haircut, but no face.  His ideal perfection is his license to kill anyone who doesn’t fit that standard.  Does that sound like the Nazi worship of the perfect man?  The secret gassing of anyone who doesn’t meet the standard?  It does to me.

But I think it comes from weakness, fear of vulnerability or contamination -- a displacement.  Should I worry about these types invading the Blackfeet?  Well, they might make points with the Salish-Kootenai who embraced the French Jesuits long ago, but I don't think many self-righteous professors will make an impact on this side of the Rockies.  Father Ed Kohler doesn't go in for that stuff -- he's too busy saying mass for dead teenagers.  Some of them went to college.

Tiny Man Heavy Runner

Trust me, he cleans up well.