POLITICS | SOCIETY | SOCIAL MEDIA
So You Have the Courage to Stand Up to the Elites
But do you have the courage to stand up to the crowd?
Right now, standing up to the elites and critiquing society’s institutions and “power structures” is the easy thing to do.
That’s why it seems as if everyone is doing it. And this is why it seems as if most of our cultural institutions (academia, and even corporate entities) are bending over backward to appease their critics.
But I’m much more afraid of crowds than I am of elites or any of these other “institutions” everyone is racing to “decolonize.”
No, crowds are what truly terrify me. And this is why elites always fight each other for control of the mob.
Why do you think the very institutions people claim are “oppressive” seem to be just dying to “do better?”
When was the last time the ruling class of any nation just couldn’t wait to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion training at nearly every level of society so as to pursue greater equality?
It’s called getting co-opted, and it’s happening to a social movement near you!
But I digress.
To return to the point, I’m afraid of crowds.
Crowds turn otherwise compassionate, reasonable people into hate-filled monsters who won’t think twice about beating someone to death in the streets, whether the punishment is fit for the crime or not.
Crowds take what could be an otherwise independent mind and straightjacket it down under ideological groupthink, killing any potential for creativity or genuine solidarity in the process.
Crowds convince people that centuries of moral, legal, and political progress can be dispensed with instantly so long as the cause is “just” and the target deserving.
As a growing writer, I’m not afraid of anyone high up in an institution. I’m not afraid that my government will nab me and send me off to Guantanamo if I bad-mouth the President or call out the security state’s past deeds.
What I am afraid of is saying one wrong thing —whether I know it’s “wrong” or not — and having a mob show up on my digital doorstep the next day to hurl its stones.
And this fear that I live with?
The mob wants me to live with it because this is what allows some people to feel like they have power over others — the ability to throw stones at whatever person they have deemed worthy of their denigration and ridicule.
Despite this, I still find myself unable — or perhaps unwilling — to self-censor so as to remain in the mob’s good graces.
I don’t much see the point in self-censoring, anyways.
It doesn’t matter how much I police my own speech.
Human beings are fallible, and none of us are truly capable of keeping up with the moral-language-arms-race that everyone seems to be playing.
Despite wanting to pursue the truth, to question my own beliefs, and indeed even to care about the dispossessed, there’s virtually no way I can “keep up” with whoever seems to be setting the moral trends.
Eventually, I’m going to say something out of line that will force me to confront a digital mob intent on shaming me the moment wind of my words reaches their ears.
At that point, I either choose to self-flagellate publicly, despite the fact that apologizing to the mob almost never works to restore your “reputation”, or I retain my dignity and boldly accept whatever further consequences I’ll be faced with for standing up to the mob and its self-appointed guardians of “justice.”
And so I’ve undergone a curious reversal in recent years.
I used to be inspired by people standing up to elites. That’s why I spent an ungodly amount of my energy during the 2016 democratic primaries lashing out at billionaires, Clinton, and her supporters in favor of my guy Bernie Sanders.
Bernie inspired me because he called out America’s billionaires in a way that no one in the mainstream media was, and indeed no one in Washington. He seemed a true rebel in that sense, and it awoke in me my own desire to rebel.
But these days, I’m more inspired by people who stand up to the crowd.
Because it’s easy to lob criticisms at elites you’ll never meet, running institutions you’ll never work for.
It’s harder to stand up for your individuality when it’s your own social circle that you’re up against, your own reputation that’s on the line.
It’s harder to claim your agency as a freethinker when all the social pressure seems to be trying to get you to move in the direction of conformity — or else.
Despite this, I still feel very strongly that I simply will not — cannot — muzzle myself to appease any elite or any crowd.
Life is too short, and the gift of true individuality and free-thinking too great to let it wither and die for fear of what a stone-hurling mob of anonymous people will think of me if I say something they deem cancel-worthy.
And at the end of it all, I’d rather die being stoned on my feet than survive by selling myself out or — god forbid — becoming a proud stone-thrower myself.