Consistancy and Social Cues among the Herbivores
I have previously expressed doubt about the R/K theory of Anonymous Conservative that Conservatives exhibit typical carnivorous behavior of pack-hunting animals like wolves (including such things as having few young and lavishing resources on training each one) and Progressives exhibit herbivorous behavior (including such things as having many young and devoting little or no care to them). However, as time passes, I confess the explanatory power of the theory makes it more and more attractive.
Whether or not the theory is literally true, figuratively the point when a civilization grows successful, hence happy, fat, and lazy, can be likened to the abundant meadow of wealth where the herbivores hop like bunnies, careless and thoughtless, and as long as the predators prey only on the weak and old, the young bucks among the bunnies have no reason to be altruistic. Altruism is most needed, hence most often developed, and praised, and taught, in hard times, when neighbors are hungry, and the loss of even on member of the community wounds it.
So I find myself turning to the explanation of the Anonymous Conservative with less skepticism than previously.
For example, a reader writes and asks:
I’ve seen so many authors on social media rail against this consumer revolt, not even considering what it might be like if their ‘socially acceptable’ art suddenly becomes the target of some idealogue.
Look at Seth Rogen, who spoke against GamerGate early on, then had his own work censored by hackers, and that censorship celebrated by people on the left because The Interview was ‘in poor taste’ and ‘shouldn’t have been made anyway’.
How can other creators sit idly by and even cheer on the censorship and suppression of other people’s art?
My answer is no explanation other than that a student of the Anonymous Conservative might utter.
Keep in mind what we are discussion is not censorship technically speaking, which is control of the content of speech and press before the fact. This is after-the-fact and informal. It uses social cues (what is often called peer pressure) or criminal threats to discourage and free speech with a chilling effect after the fact.
A social cue is a sign or ritualized symbol used to tell the members of the group what the group consensus thinks about a given matter, and discourages or encourages behaviors that offend the consensus by small or large signs or rituals of shame or praise. The term social cues is less well known but slightly clearer than the term peer pressure, because, by and large, obedience to the thinking of the group is voluntary. Rather than being pressured or intimidated into following the wishes of the opinion-makers in a group (it is never, despite what the opinion makers claim, the wish of the majority), most members of a group are eager to discover the group consensus so that they might make a great show of public obedience to it, and being uttering the saccharine and false and fawning statements needed to flatter the opinion makers, hence maintain position in the social pecking order, or even to rise.
Why do authors and creators cheer on censorship, even informal, which cuts against their own profession and even their own liberty?
The fact is that I have never heard of any of the science fiction writers who support these so-called Social Justice Warriors except for John Scalzi, an obscure writer who writes mediocre Star Trek fanfic. He is hardly a paragon of creative genius, and he is the most creative of the lot.
So, first, they have nothing to lose, since censorship would only improve their works.
Second, they think like herbivores. Herbivores live in an environment where one does not struggle to chase down prey to eat. It takes no particular courage to sneak up on a blade of grass. The meadow is full of grass, and the herbivore is always welcoming to new grazing-mates because the larger the herd, the more targets exist for the predators to prey on, and the safer each individual.
The herbivore instinctively like the anonymity of the Internet, the conformity of the herd, and — here is the important part — the lack of cooperation and discipline needed by a pack-hunting animal to hunt in a pack. In humans, cooperation comes from a sense of honor, and discipline comes from obedience to the laws.
The herbivores need neither for their grazing, and so the rock bottom foundation of law, that is, the desire to avoid being a hypocrite, in them is absent.
So, no, they never think about what it would be like to have similar censorship imposed on them. The herbivores never once assume the laws will be applied in an evenhanded fashion.
If they were censored, the herbivores were scream to raise the roof. Indeed, they are like to scream about censorship even when they are not being censored.
Another, shorter, way of saying the same thing, if I may quote myself: Expect no consistency from any Progressive. Logic is not their strong suite.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
