How Trolls Become Men
Remember this?
Of course you do. When neo-Nazi and alt-right herald Richard Spencer was clocked by antifa protesters at an Inauguration celebration this past January, the Internet quickly divided itself on this one tantamount ethical quandary: Is it right to punch a Nazi?
The dubious moral nature of Nazi-punching is the question of the Trump era, made so by a renewed public life for white nationalists, white supremacists, extreme misogynists, Nazis, and other radical traditionalists. As Trump and his followers move from comment sections and Twitter threads to meatspace positions of influence and power, what actions can the multicultural left take to ward them and their ideals off without sacrificing our own loyalty to tolerance and freedom of speech?
This was the topic of the memo authored by a Google employee which, once made public, started a firestorm about sexism and discrimination in the tech industry. The memo, written by James Damore, is part sexist propaganda and part plea for freedom of ideas at the world’s largest search engine. According to Damore, Google has been overtaken by “a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies.”
Damore proceeds to inflict some serious rhetorical self-injury by pointing to diversity initiatives at Google as his chief example of “authoritarian policies,” dragging out anachronistic and tired ideas about “men’s higher drive for status” and the inherent meekness and “neuroticism” of women.
“Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from women in the following ways or that these differences are ‘just,’” the author justifies. “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”
Damore argues for the value of an open economy of ideas at Google, then proceeds to argue for a valueless idea. It’s exactly the kind of thinking he displays which necessitates the pro-diversity initiatives he decries. It’s as if he said All food has value — and to prove it, here’s a loaf of moldy stale bread.
Such posturing is a hallmark of the right and has been for decades. And while there might be something to be said for wariness of ideological rigidity in corporate, academic, or political cultures, it too often seems to be a cloak meant to disguise sideways attempts at enforcing the alienation of women and minorities from positions of power.
Take, for example, another memo circulated among elites that made its way into the press this week. Foreign Policy just published a seven-page document found at the heart of a crisis that saw the dismissal of several staff members ofthe National Security Council. FP’s entire write-up of the ordeal is worth reading as a slice of life inside the chaotic Trump White House and the ways warring egos and ideologies can funnel wrongheaded and dangerous ideas directly to the President (as if he needed more). The contents of the memo make the situation even more stark.
Entitled “POTUS & Political Warfare,” the document paints a President besotted by dangerous enemies in the intelligence community, the press, and various corporate entities.
“This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle.” The memo warns of a vast conspiracy targeting President Trump under the guise of diversity:
“The campaigns operate through narratives. Because the hard left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local (ANTIFA working with Muslim
Brotherhood doing business as MSA and CAIR), national (ACLU and BLM working with CAIR and MPAC) and international levels (OIC working with OSCE and the UN), recognition must given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate at the narrative level as well. In candidate Trump, the opposition saw a threat to the ‘politically correct’ enforcement narratives they've meticulously laid in over the past few decades. In President Trump, they see a latent threat to continue that effort to ruinous effect and their retaliatory response reflects that fear.”
Political correctness is “a weapon against reason and critical thinking. This weapon functions as the enforcement mechanism of diversity narratives that seek to implement cultural Marxism.”
I’ve discussed the concept of “cultural Marxism” and “cultural libertarianism” before. To the far right, initiatives to give women, people of color, and queer folk more representation in media and positions of influence are akin to meddling in what should be an open market. To the “cultural libertarian,” the xenophobia and fear that makes up much of the President and the far right’s rhetoric is merely a response to the “Marxists” who want to sacrifice liberty in the name of equality.
What the NSC memo and Damore’s memo miss, however, is the elevated ground they already stand on. To the “cultural libertarian” white, cishet society is the default setting and any infiltration by other groups is poisonous erasure that sacrifices quality — either of art or of leadership or of search engines or of presidencies. In order for this worldview to make any sense, you have to ignore both the active factors of discrimination which keep marginalized groups marginalized and the privilege which benefits people like James Damore or this memo’s author.
According to cultural libertarians like James Damore, we should be confronting all ideas and have strength enough in our convictions to fear no debate. But the path the NSC memo took to land in the Oval Office proves why that is such a dangerous notion.
The Internet, fantastic beast that it is, allows any user to find an articulate defense of any position no matter how ludicrous. I wrote last year about the need of misogynists and racial extremists to intellectualize the words of a candidate who refused to do so. Fringe beliefs like white nationalism are rightfully denied the eyes and ears of institutions and academia which can lend them seriousness and validity. In that absence, faux scholars must contrive validity with a combination of big words, circular logic, and shared egomania.
As much as we all are guilty of self-filtration and self-selection in our media diets, the extremist is no different. Overwrought justifications for hateful belief systems are the product of a media landscape which seeks to provide consumers gratification over information. Racism and misogyny are conspiracy theories only separated from Flat Earthers and 9/11 Truthers by their violence and danger — but they are no less irrational.
Debate of these ideas only deepens the downward spiral which leads people to them, and trying to fight them down with facts is futile. What does work is pressure — people abandon hateful and irrational beliefs when the social cost of holding or spreading them is too great. This is why the authors of each of these memos were fired or, at least, why their dismissal is not censorship. As I’m writing this, activists on Twitter are working on how to publicize the identities of participants in a white nationalist rally on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in hopes of stripping away the anonymity provided to them by their numbers. Social pressure works and only forces extremists to remove their masks.
Such “intolerance of intolerance” is a functional way to deny extremist ideas a platform and an audience. Fringe beliefs are not fringe by their nature — they are pushed to the edges by a society that has already debated them. The concepts sold by these memos have not only been mainstream but institutionalized long before their authors were born, yet an entire generation is stumbling upon them as if they are new, radical concepts. The far right would like to claim victimhood instead of facing what they really are — sore losers.
