Could it be the success of Milo Yiannopoulos is a sign that identity politics has finally been checked? As a white, gay, ethnic Jew with a black husband he could have been a supremo of the intersectionality outrage industry. Instead, he is its nemesis, with his contempt for political correctness and his defence of Western civilisation.
“This is the most extraordinarily and profoundly anti-intellectual and ridiculous way to sort people,” said Yiannopoulos of identity politics during his address at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday.
“People are different, they’re not defined by their skin colour or sexuality.”
“His desperate attempts to seek attention through vile and hateful rhetoric has (sic) no place in the Australian Parliament,” tweeted Greens Leader Richard Di Natale, who successfully moved a motion for the Senate to condemn Yiannopoulos’s visit.
Good on the Senate for passing the Greens motion condemning Milo Yiannopolous. His desperate attempts to seek attention through vile and hateful rhetoric has no place in the Australian Parliament.
— Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) December 4, 2017
Fairfax columnist Jenny Noyes not only condemned it, but called for retribution, describing him as a “Nazi sympathiser, misogynist, fake news generator, inciter of violence, [and] international has-been.”
“The individuals and organisations in Australian politics and the media who have not only tolerated him but supported him and the spread of his evil views, refused to condemn his evil views, and invited him in to defecate on the floor of Parliament House with his evil views, should not be able to do that free of consequences,” wrote Noyes. Evil? Defecate on the floor? Fire-and-brimstone diatribes and potty-mouth metaphors are a sure indicator of paucity of argument, not to mention a lack of objectivity.
Yiannopoulos loathes what modern feminism has become. “Since it has run out of things to complain about [it] is a mean, vindictive, sociopathic, man-hating movement,” he said this week.
Conservative firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos speaks at Parliament House https://t.co/Uh2Kn8Bglz pic.twitter.com/v3pXXBW2ci
— The Australian (@australian) December 5, 2017
Not so, according to Guardian columnist and feminist Van Badham, who last week demanded men protest Yiannopoulos’s visit.
Feminism, she wrote, is “an agenda which has now liberated generations of men from destructive, cruel expectation that the performance of dominant masculinity depends on repressed human feelings, social isolation, vocational denial and high-risk competitions of often violent, dangerous physical activity.”
As to how many men responded positively to this patronising and condescending appeal we do not know. However, it is noteworthy that Badham’s euphemistic definition of “liberated” does not extend to her allowing men to decide for themselves the merits of Yiannopoulos’s views. “As long as Yiannopoulous (sic) enjoys his platforms without active male protest, it’s his own warped ideas of what it means to be a man that are entering the public arena unchecked,” she wrote.
No doubt the likes of Phil Barker, who writes on subjects such as men’s issues for Fairfax’s ExecutiveStyle website, would agree with Badham. “There’s a three-word lie whispered to every little boy, over and over again, that’s ruining society, trashing lives and can be blamed for everything from domestic violence, to rape culture, [and] casual sexism,” he wrote in July. What is this dreadful catalyst that transforms boys into monsters? The phrase “Be a man,” apparently.
Does Barker’s name sound familiar? Only this week he wrote of feeling “exultation and gloating” at the revelations of the #metoo movement. The “years of writing about men’s issues have left me way out on the far left, as I’ve educated myself and became more and more horrified at the effects of sexism,” he wrote. “So there’s no way around it. Some innocent men are going to get shot in the head. So be it. Because in the process hundreds more will be held to account for their actions.” The hypocrisy of these male feminist Jacobins dancing gleefully alongside the tumbrel while lecturing others on tolerance and social justice is nauseating.
Even to faintly approve of Yiannopoulos is a form of hate speech that justifies bullying. “i’m (sic) no fan of censorious no-platforming,” tweeted ABC presenter Jonathan Green last week.
just for the record, i'm no fan of censorious no-platforming. I think Milo is hilarious. A sharp and very self-aware showman. Some risky ideas, some bad ideas. but they are only made dangerous by being withheld and mythologised.
— Jonathan Green (@GreenJ) December 1, 2017
“I think Milo is hilarious. A sharp and very self-aware showman. Some risky ideas, some bad ideas. but (sic) they are only made dangerous by being withheld and mythologised.”
Do those sentiments sound unreasonable? Put it this way, his tweet received over 300 replies, many of which took issue with him. By the next day Green had recanted and issued a grovelling apology. “Sitting in a small puddle of foolishness and regret re things I said yesterday. Still feel that exposure is a better antidote than exclusion but see that this is a position reeking of unexamined privilege. Mine. Which is clearly abundant. I should match it with contrition.”
Sitting in a small puddle of foolishness and regret re things I said yesterday. Still feel that exposure is a better antidote than exclusion but see that this is a position reeking of unexamined privilege. Mine. Which is clearly abundant. I should match it with contrition.
— Jonathan Green (@GreenJ) December 1, 2017
It is tempting, given Green’s tendency to sneer at “the right”, to indulge in schadenfreude. But one cannot help feel disquiet at his supine acquiescence and his Maoist self-criticism, for that is increasingly the fate of those who publicly question the progressive narrative.
On one hand it is easy to label Yiannopoulos’s “Feminism is cancer” declaration as the act of a misogynist. But to conflate criticism of fourth wave feminism with opposition to female equality is both premature and simplistic. Is there any justification to the assertion that feminism has morphed into misandry?
A question of that nature cannot be canvassed in an article of this length. However, it is true that some feminist activists are Yiannopoulos’s equals in the obnoxiousness stakes, although they enjoy greater freedom to exercise that right. “I felt sick at the thought of something male growing inside me,” wrote teacher and Daily Life columnist Polly Dunning last year as she reflected on her pregnancy. “How will I raise a son who respects me the way a daughter would?” Well for starters, how about not detesting him because of his gender?
“Toxic masculinity makes it sound like there is some other kind,” wrote Fairfax columnist, journalism academic and co-founder of feminist movement ‘Destroy the Joint’ Jenna Price last year.
“When our first daughter was born my husband and I made a family rule: no man would ever babysit our children,” wrote Daily Life columnist Kasey Edwards in February. “No exceptions. This includes male relatives and friends.”
“I know it’s sexist,” wrote journalist and feminist activist Tracey Spicer in 2014. “But I don’t want my kids sitting next to a man on a plane.” According to her website, she is “renowned for the courage of her convictions, passion for social justice, and commitment to equality.”
And who could forget Daily Life and Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford, who has a habit of publicly disparaging fellow women who question her brand of feminism? On ABC television this year she brazenly labelled Daily-Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine a “c**t”. Her abuse also involves racist sneers. “No matter how hard she tries, she’ll never be a white man,” tweeted Ford in 2015 in reference to Herald-Sun columnist and Iranian immigrant Rita Panahi.
@RachaelHasIdeas @mandyrojas23 No matter how hard she tries, she'll never be a white man.
— Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford) August 19, 2015
Despite this, Fairfax continues to feature Ford. Yet only this week The Age criticised Yiannopoulos, “a self-proclaimed troll … who uses outrageous claims, racist slurs and vilification to provoke a response.” His supporters, proclaimed the editorial, are “merely gormless twits being used by a stupid narcissist. They themselves are being trolled, but fail to see the irony.” Oh the irony.
As Yiannopoulos cheerfully acknowledges, his provocative assertions are designed to expose the hypocrisy of the tolerance police. For those who make a living out of the outrage industry, he represents a real threat to their sustainability. And for those automatons who believe an individual’s philosophy is defined by their race, gender and sexuality, they are experiencing a ‘Does not compute’ meltdown, triggered by Yiannopoulos.
The only thing that could dissolve Milo is the milk of human kindness. But his most virulent critics wouldn’t know what that was, even if they were swimming in it.
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