Nothing never changes

I was thinking the other day about politics, but also about vampires; specifically, how, according to legend, vampires can be held at bay by presenting a symbol of faith. For Christians that would be a crucifix, but I imagine that a yin-yang symbol or the Star of David would work as well. Yet, as Peter Vincent learned, the symbol works only if you have faith; otherwise, you're just holding a piece of wood, or plaster, or tin. Vampires, who create nothing, believe in nothing, and exist only to consume and corrupt, are the ultimate nihilists. Faith, being the conviction that some things matter, is the antidote to nihilism; thus, vampires cannot abide it.

Much has been said about what's gone wrong with the American political system, and it's easy to blame our leaders--okay, really easy in the case of Marjorie Taylor-Greene--but they don't have magical powers that enabled their rise. They got to where they are because the voters put them there, and they remain in place because too many Americans think nothing matters. 

All politicans lie, but Donald Trump just got caught. 

Both parties are the same, so my vote is meaningless.

Nothing ever changes.

To this mindset, no belief is sincere, no effort is earnest, and no desire for reform is trustworthy. Everyone is on the take, or biased, or just out for themselves, and anyone who claims differently is either lying or stupid.  There's a comfort to thinking this way, because it means we no longer have to try. Instead, we can adopt a phony world-weariness that says it's wise to be jaded. That's a fool's belief, and it leads only to a fool's end.

When we view the world as a place of corruption, we corrupt ourselves. When we lose ourselves to cynicism, we lose our power. When we insist that nothing can change, we ensure nothing will change. We give ourselves to the vampires, who devour everything we have and leave us with nothing. This is the space in which the Donald Trumps, Matt Gaetzes, and Marjorie Taylor-Greenes thrive. If these people can make us think that everyone is phony and everything is rigged, then we will endure anyone and accept anything.

Faith is the conviction that some people are earnest, that some intentions are basically pure, and that it's possible to do the right thing. It's the confidence that we really can drive away the vampires if only we believe we can.

You are what you do

This image has been on my mind all morning, probably because it reminds me of something that's been on my mind all year.

Since the pandemic, I've spent a good amount of time wondering if I am a good person, and wondering what being a good person even means. So I did some reading on moral philosophy, figuring at the start I'd like deontology best. By the end, I was most in love with virtue ethics, with a dash of nihilism to give it a zing. The most important lesson I learned, however, was that being good is about doing good.

Back to that image. We assume that Our Heroic Adventurers are better people than Their Brutish Invaders largely because the Adventurers believe good things, and the Invaders believe bad things. But if they're both pillaging, looting, killing, etc., does what they believe matter? Do you care if the guy who burned down your house and murdered your family really believed he was doing the Lord's work?

It's incredibly easy to assume that as long as we have the correct opinions, we've done our moral duty. In fact, those correct opinions can even make us feel free to engage in terrible behavior, because, hey, the Lord's work. So if someone disagrees with me on Opinion 827, I am entitled to mock him online, make him trend on Twitter, get him fired, blah blah. The Lord's work, remember? After all, Opinion 827 is sooo obviously correct that anyone who disagrees is not just wrong, but bad. Evil. Problematic. Toxic. And thus they deserve whatever they get.

I don't know who "deserves" what. In this world, good things happen to bad people, bad things to good people, good things to good people--I doubt it all balances out in the end. Deserve is in some ways a magic word that makes it acceptable for us to manually balance those scales, dealing out rewards or punishment as we see fit. Thus, we become Heroic Adventurers, and those we hurt are the Brutish Invaders.

The fact is, I don't always know what's right, and neither do you. What I am more sure about, however, is when I am being arrogant, intolerant, petty or cruel, instead of humble, open-minded, sensible and charitable. (Virtue ethics!) And no matter what cause I claim to serve, if I am acting like a bad person I am one. And that's how I distinguish between Our Glorious Leader and Their Wicked Despot, or Our Noble Populace and Their Backward Savages. I look at what they do, not what opinions they claim to have. So if I want to be the Heroic Adventurer, I have to bloody well act like one.

Certainly uncertain

I'm listening to Shadi Hamid on the "Difficult Conversations" podcast. Hamid's written a book called The Problem of Democracy, and on the podcast he's making the case against consensus. He argues that, since some political questions touch upon fundamental notions of fairness and justice, polarization is acceptable and even desirable.

To some extent, I see his point. I'm not going to support repealing the 13th Amendment no matter how much I desire consensus, because I think slavery is a fundamentally unjust institution. Nor am I going to get behind even the most rational proposal to use The Handmaid's Tale as a roadmap for society, because that strikes at the very heart of the ideal of personal autonomy. I am unashamedly partisan on those issues, I think my opponents are morally deficient for their positions, and I'm willing to fight over it. So Hamid's on point there.

Where Hamid loses me is when the issues aren't quite as fundamental. For example, I think total bans on abortion are bonkers, but I'm not sure I feel the same about parental consent requirements. I think those are wrong, mind you, and I'd vote against them, but I don't think those who disagree are bonkers, or evil. They're just wrong, and that's an important distinction. Not because we should be kind to people--although we should try--but because a belief that other human beings are evil justifies almost anything you'd want to do to them. 

Tyrants always cast their opponents as evil, because that's one way to get the public on board with sending those opponents to the salt mines or the death camps. I think there's more to it than that, though. It's comforting to think that I know what's right, and that it is not only my right but my duty to bring the Good Word to others. If they hear me out and agree, great; if not, well, it's off to Siberia with them. I don't need to feel bad about that, either, because my opponents are evil and evil people deserve what they get. A very tidy approach to life, and one that requires only conviction.

In my fifty-three years on this planet, I have come to fear that kind of conviction. I have seen, time and time again, that more harm is done by those who are sure they are right, than by those who think they might be wrong. Moral certitude feels great, but it's addictive, and in spotlighting a single issue, it can make everything else harder to see. Life can often seem like a place shrouded in darkness, so I find it's best to carry more than one light.

This isn't some call for centrism--I don't even know what that means, other than a dig at liberals who are insufficiently zealous about one issue or another. It's a reminder that humility--about yourself and your certainties--burns cooler than self-righteousness, but it sheds much more light.

Megan Phelps Roper, of Westboro Baptist fame, has developed some questions you can ask yourself, to test if you've gone off the deep end over what you believe. Makes sense that she did so, as MPR herself once held some rock-solid views she was delighted to scream at people. If anyone knows the perils of being too sure of oneself, it's her, so I'm going to share those questions here:

1. Are you capable of entertaining real doubt about your beliefs, or are you operating from a position of pure certainty?
2. Can you describe the evidence you would need to see to change your position, or is your perspective unfalsifiable?
3. Can you articulate your opponents' position in a way they would recognize, or are you strawmanning?
4. Are you attacking ideas or attacking the people who hold them?
5. Are you willing to cut off close relationships with people who disagree with you, particularly over small points of contention?
6. Are you willing to use extraordinary means--forcing people from their jobs or homes, using violence or threats of violence, or celebrating misfortune or tragedy--against people who disagree with you?

A good righteous anger can be a wonderful thing, spurring people to demand change, or to prevent or repair harm, or to help others. However, like fire, certainty is so powerful that a little of it goes a long way. Humility is just as illuminating, and it doesn't burn the entire world.

Waking from Wokeness

I'm not religious by a long shot, but lately I've been thinking of something I read in college. I took a few religion courses as an undergraduate, and this from the Bible stood out: By their works, ye shall know them.* I didn't think very deeply about it then, but I do now. 

Over the years I'd become dissatisfied by some of the discourse in leftist spaces, but I couldn't put my finger on the cause. I hadn't changed many of my core beliefs; I was still pro-choice and pro-union, still believed in Medicare-for-All, and I still wanted to tax the hell out of the rich and on the right day I still thought maybe we should devour them and pick our teeth with their bones. And I wasn't becoming sympathetic to the likes of Andrew Sullivan, who can kiss my liberal gay ass. (Unless he'd enjoy that, in which case, he can't.) So I started reading and listening to people I disagree with, to test my beliefs. Most of those beliefs stood the test, and were the stronger for being questioned. I then realized that my dissatisfaction had nothing to do with specific beliefs, but with values. 

I've been a liberal as long as I can remember, and have always gravitated towards people who were misfits, and towards interests--music, literature, film--that existed on the margins. For me, being liberal meant questioning what cannot be questioned, and never accepting anything just because someone says so. Curiosity, empiricism, tolerance for disagreement, diversity, and fairness--these were the philosophical foundations upon which my specific beliefs were built. I started to perceive that a few on the left, a very few, just didn't share those values. They didn't care about fairness, curiosity, or empiricism. These folks and I shared many of the same sympathies, but our philosophies couldn't be further apart. I call these folks woke, and while I am sure there are better terms, I'll stick with this for now.

These wokeists reminded me of nothing so much as the religious right of the 80s and 90s. They were in touch with Ultimate Truth, and those who disagreed with their conclusions weren't just wrong; they were evil. Problematic is the sanitized term we now use, but growing up gay I knew the taste of condemnation no matter how it was sweetened. That's when I realized that wokeness is a religion, with highly defined doctrines, a specific language for discussing those doctrines, a way of punishing the faithful who stray, and no sense of humor about any of it.

There are certainly woke doctrines: identitarian deference, believing victims, and intersectionality. The language used to discuss woke philosophy is arcane and impenetrable:

We must be sure not to infringe on anyone's ability to utilize persuasively shared epistemic resources, lest we hinder any contribution to knowledge production. We should always remember our own positionality and contextual normativity.

Liberals who blaspheme are punished by Internet shunning and pile-ons, or are caricatured, in No-True-Scotsman fashion, as conservatives. As I have learned recently, poking fun at any of this is literally killing people.

The irony is that I often agree with the tenets of wokeism. I do think that the intersection of identities can produce unique experiences of discrimination. I agree that unexamined privilege can blind one to the experiences and oppression of others. And I am a strong proponent of trying to do better today than I did yesterday. The problem is when those ideas become dogma, which is never nuanced, and cannot be questioned or contextualized. Once you question this dogma, your specific opinions no longer merit consideration. 

Like me, wokeists stand on the left, but we don't find the same values there. Obviously, they can believe whatever they want, but when those beliefs come to resemble religion...well, if I wanted doctrines set in stone, I'd be a conservative.

I'm taking the left to task pretty hard here, but I don't apologize. It's true that I rarely criticize conservatives this way, because it's pointless. Troglodytes are gonna trog, but I expect better from progressives. I don't know just when wokeness took over so much of liberal discourse, but I think it's past time we woke up. Religion doesn't have to involve a god, or an afterlife; it just has to work like religion. Wokeness, by your works, I now know ye.

*I am probably getting this not quite right but I'm a gay, liberal atheist so what do you want?

Lighter

It’s easy to get into offices when you are me, even offices with swipe-card security. I just wait for the next employee to swipe, then grab the door and step in behind him. The receptionist with heavy bangs and too much makeup glances at him and not me, and I make my way to the throbbing heart of the office.

Last time I was here I went right, into the conference like something out of a movie, with deep leather chairs, a long, polished mahogany table, and portraits of old white men all over the walls. This time I turn left to a giant room filled with long tables, here and there divided into mini-lounges by strategically placed plants and shelving units, at which people half my age are tapping away at laptops. Everywhere is furnished with chairs in aquamarine and gold and white, all colors I hate.

They are all here: Zig Zag and Thin Man and Bright Eyes, Gray Suit and Athlete and Blond Highlights, scattered about this testament to open offices. I feel the thrill of the voyeur, except without the maybe-getting-caught part. Oh Natalie, what a birthday present!

I cruise over to see what Gray Suit is doing--she’s the one who had asked how are leaders made and had gone right back to pecking away on her laptop. I peek over her shoulder as she’s logging into Instagram, and I note the password for later misuse. Pics of her at the beach, showing off a decent body badly served by her current ill-fitting outfit. All of her followers seem to look like her. I think of the terrible images I can upload with that stolen password--people fucking each other, people killing dogs, people fucking dogs--and I vow to find those images, later. Meanwhile, my stomach thanks me for skipping lunch.

Next is Thin Man. Where do you see yourself in five years, he’d said, with barely concealed contempt. Still in this interview is the answer I'd wanted to give but didn’t. Contempt had been replaced by a slightly manic look--jonesing for a cigarette, or a drink? The latter, I decided; he had the faint smell of beer that no shower could dispel. Jeff had been an alcoholic, and around lunchtime he’d get jittery, if he were dry. One of many hard lessons I had from him. I dislike the reminder and move on. Thin Man wasn’t my real target, anyway.

***

I stationed myself in the food court to wait for Natalie, whom I knew would want the news. She is one of those people for whom everything works out. When her car breaks down, she always locates a Good Samaritan. When the ATM is out of twenties, she knows just where to break the fifty. When it rains, she finds an umbrella in her car.. I admire and occasionally resent Natalie.

She showed up just before twelve, not looking as if she just emerged from the steam-bath weather that left me smelling like the inside of a sneaker. “Girl, you eat early,” she told me as she plopped her bag on the table. “I had to skip dinner yesterday to even think about lunch before one.” She took a chair and pushed back her explosion of wavy brown hair. “How did it go?”

“I don’t want to even talk about it--that’s how it went,” I grumped, luxuriating in self-pity. Natalie raised an eyebrow to acknowledge my luxury, which was what I needed to break out of it. She knew me too well for bullshit--this last year particularly. The food court was getting more crowded, people spilling through the glass doors and streaming towards Chipotle or The Hoagie King or wherever. 

“From the way you look, honey, I'd say you’ve had quite the day already.” From anyone else I’d have taken that badly, but Natalie had seen me at my worst. 

“They looked at me like--” I bite off they know but I’ll bet Natalie hears anyway. “I can’t believe they even brought me in for an interview.” I gave Natalie the story in lurid detail. “I get that I’m older than any two of them put together, but I don’t see what I did to deserve that kind of treatment.”

“Nothing,” Natalie said briefly. She considered one chipped nail--red giving way to fingernail color. “Honey, they weren’t thinking of you at all.”

“Don’t they hate themselves?” I had that feeling, something hot and heavy and helpless, sloshing around in my stomach. 

“Not if they never consider what they’re doing.” She leaned forward. “We’ve talked about this before. Stop giving these people rent-free space in your head, darling, because right now that’s the only place they are living.” I must have looked like doom, because she eyed me speculatively. Then she rummaged in her bag and produced a plastic ball, flattened on the bottom, along with a small candle and a cigarette lighter. 

“Why are you still carrying a lighter?” The look I got was not the usual Natalie. For all we’ve been through, Natalie can occasionally be opaque to me. 

“I am always able to produce fire.” She lifted the top of the ball to reveal a cupcake within, frosted with chocolate and flecked with purple and yellow, my favorite colors. “Early birthday. You have my permission to celebrate now.”

“Natalie, you’ll set off the sprinklers!” I gestured vaguely upward, but I wanted to hug her. My last actual birthday we’d celebrated at my hospital bed.

“Won’t happen,” she replied, plugging the candle right into the wrinkled-satin surface of the cupcake. She brought in the lighter and flame sprang obligingly to life. “Make a wish, you old queen,” but Natalie fixed me with a stare at odds with the familiar joke. The flame seemed to dance right between her eyes, which reflected nothing. The rejoinder died in my throat, and I knew only the truth would do. But what truth? I consulted my hot, heavy stomach and I knew.

“I wish I could see what they’re hiding. All of it.” Natalie’s never cracked a smile, and she flicked her eyes towards the candle. I blew the flame out.

Natalie stood and picked up her bag. “I think you have something to do,” she said, and strode away into the growing lunchtime crowd.

***

I swing by Zig Zag’s section in time to catch her on the phone, speaking so quietly that I have to nearly climb on to her lap to hear. I hesitate, then remember So tell us about the you that exists outside of this interview?  I had wanted to answer I’m actually a tall Asian woman. Regarding her artfully crooked hair part, I am sure she knows how to fold a fitted sheet, and looks forward to the experience. She read that question in some HR book and that’s enough for me to hate her, so I lean in--she’s arguing with what must be an insurance company over an oncologist’s bill. I draw back and hurry away. If I hear that conversation I will stop hating her.

I approach Blond Highlights with relish, and up close I see how young he is, Barely old enough to beat up his first girlfriend. Or boyfriend? No, he’d never known discrimination, unless he had kickd out of the Society of People Who Know Other Human Beings exist. But aren’t you actually more of a trainer than an instructional designer, he had said in that tone particular to young men who’ve never been sick, injured, or unlucky. After that he’d slowly slid my resume away from him, not even bothering to look away. 

He’s got coffee in a recycled paper cup and is looking at a spreadsheet--over his shoulder I see bar graphs and pie charts. Laughter breaks out from the table behind him, and when he turns to look, I give the cup a swat. Coffee splatters all over his his keyboard. Hopefully ruining it. I step away, feeling that heaviness in my stomach. I must be nervous about Natalie’s little gift wearing off. More laughter rings up towards the ceiling, and Highlights turns back to the mess, the back of his neck red. I wonder how expensive that computer is.

My quarry is at the end of the office, looking as yummy as before. He had mostly slept through my interview, after exchanging pitying glances with Thin Man. I had hated him for that while still wanting to get into his pants, which made me hate him more. Before I can get close, Athlete rises from his chair and crosses the office, and I fall in behind. View’s just as good from back here. He turns towards the restroom and I smile tightly. Gay men learn fast how to not even appear to peek in the bathroom, but today I would shed that protective habit. Athlete was mine to ogle, just as I had been his to ignore. Let him ignore this.

I follow him in, and he heads towards the first stall. I make to take the second, to maybe stand on the toilet and peek over the divider, but he’s not done. He moves along the stalls, checking each one to ensure they are empty. He thinks he’s alone, and he takes the stall furthest from the door. I duck into the next and lift the seat so I can stand on the porcelain. I don’t want to miss him shooting up, or jacking off, or whatever he is going to do in there. Maybe I can take a video--he won’t see--and put it online. That’s what you get.

He doesn’t pull out a needle, or a vial, or his dick. He does not pull his pants down. He sits on the toilet and holds trembling hands in front of him. I grip the top of the divider as my stomach turns hot. He clasps his hands to stop the shaking, fails. I hold my breath, not that it matters, he couldn’t hear me if I sang the “Titanic” theme in falsetto. My stomach is molten lead.

He puts his head in his hands and starts to cry, softly, trying hard to make sure no one can hear him. My hands on the divider feel numb, and I might throw up. He cries and I watch. He never glances up at me. He doesn’t see me. He never has.

***

The food court has gone from noon-frantic to two-thirty amiable, and the person at my table is just gathering up her things. The candle, the cupcake, and the lighter are still there--why not? They’re no more visible than I am. 

I wait until she picks up her bag, her magazine, her trash, and then I sit in the seat I vacated hours ago and look at the cupcake Natalie had provided. As the song went, you had to be cruel to be kind, and this gift qualified on both counts. The candle is out but still in place, and I take up the lighter. As I click and touch flame to the wick my stomach tightens painfully. It wants me to hang on. Letting go is surrender. I’ll make them sorry. They have to learn.

The fire dances on the candle, and I don’t glance around to see who is watching. No one is watching what a stranger is doing, and I lean close. “I’m done now.” My stomach throbs once more, and then it is lighter. Weightless. I breathe in shakily and blow out the candle. 

The world looks the same, standard food court with standard food and standard diners, but when a pair of white-shirted young men pass I say, “Is this lighter yours?” They glance over and one of them shakes his head curtly, annoyed. I smile and leave the lighter on the table, as Natalie wanted. Like many other things, it’s not mine to carry.

© 2020 Neil McGarry

Dogged by Dogma

 I’ve never been the kind of person who likes to be told not to think. 

As a kid, I was sent to a Catholic school, and early on I spent a lot of time worrying about dying when I was not sinless and thus buying myself an eternity in hell. I told myself I should attend church because the nuns said skipping was a surefire way to land you in trouble, but I never quite worked up the resolve to go. Then, one day--and I must have been maybe eight or nine--I thought to myself, “What if I don’t believe in God?” So I tried it out, and, wow, did I feel a lot better! No more worries about hell or skipping church, and--bonus!--I got to tune out everything they told us in religion class, which is probably why most of what I know about Christianity comes from “Godspell” or “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Looking back, I can see that decision was the first of many; I spent a lot of my youth doubting and/or quietly rejecting what everyone else said was true. I did not care for Bruce Springsteen’s music, no matter how many copies "Born in the USA" sold; instead, I subscribed to Options magazine, where I learned about Lene Lovich and queercore bands like Pansy Division and Cunts With Attitude. “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” was a tedious cringe, but “Lust to Love” got me on my feet. I played Dungeons & Dragons when geek chic was still far in the future, and read Tolkien before Peter Jackson directed his first film. I remember thinking Frenchie looked great with pink hair--if that’s what dropping out of high school got you, not bad! If the mainstream opinion was to avoid a thing, I took a closer look. I liked that about me then, and I like it about me now.

This predilection carried into my politics and still does. I tend to sympathize not with the accustomed but with the unusual, so I support equality, diversity, empiricism, fairness, and intellectual curiosity. Down with dogma and up with inquiry, that’s me, so obviously I am a liberal, or a progressive, if you insist. If I wanted dogma, I’d be a conservative.

And dogma is what’s on my mind, but not that of conservatives, which I rejected long ago. Over the past ten or fifteen years, I’ve seen the rise of liberal dogma, which can often be as narrow-minded as the most right-wing doctrine, even if it seems kinder. Dogma arises from ideas...ideas like these:

Identitarian deference: Lived experience trumps empiricism.

Believe survivors: All reports of sexual assault are true.

Offense / apology: If my feelings are hurt, someone must apologize.

These are good ideas, but like all ideas, they need some contextualizing. Conversations about race should not be held without the participation of racial minorities, but what if Kamala Harris tells me one thing and Clarence Thomas another? 

Those who claim to have been sexually assaulted should not be summarily dismissed as liars, but there is a long history of white people, men and women, falsely accusing black men of rape, often simply to justify a lynching. Should those accusers have been believed?

We should try not to offend others, but does that mean that any conversation about the uncomfortable topic of institutional racism should be preceded by an apology?

These questions are one way to help put these ideas into context but when they turn into dogma...well, dogma is never contextualized. What is dogmatic is true in every situation for everyone, all of the time. 

How do you have a discussion that honors the ideas but avoids the dogma?

A tell of dogma is that it does not facilitate conversations; it shuts them down. The idea of intersectionality has us consider just how the experiences of minorities can differ; the dogma forces us to value speech in terms of the amount of oppression the speaker has suffered. The idea of class interest provides context for understanding what someone is saying; the dogma requires us to reject out of hand any idea that comes from outside the tribe. Whenever a concept becomes a commandment it has stepped over the line into dogma, and that’s not a place where any liberal should follow. So, the way you have a discussion is to remember that ideas open our minds; dogma, whether from the left or from the right, closes them.

If a closed mind is a necessary precursor for liberal purity, then I’ll stay dirty, thanks. Thinking is something I enjoy, and after all these years, something I do pretty well. Although I won’t claim I am the best thinker, I don’t care to stop. Then, or now.

Mapping left

As has been wisely said, the map is not the territory. I believed this the first time I heard it, and I believe it now. Myopic adherence to principle is, in my view, one of the most pernicious human failings; it's how religion manages to convince people to do terrible things for what seem like the best reasons.

That said, when you make a journey, it's best to bring along a map.

I'm going to jump sideways to what seems an unrelated issue: the recall of Judge Aaron Persky. This will eventually make sense.

As you will recall, Persky was the California Superior Court judge who in 2016 sentenced Brock Turner to three months in prison for sexual assault, and who was later recalled because the sentence he handed down was deemed too light. It's not my intention to revisit the sentence, and while I sympathize with the objections to the sentence, I also recognize that recalling judges who are deemed lenient is going to serve as an incentive to other judges to sentence more harshly. These are competing liberal priorities: the desire to protect victims of sexual assault on one hand, and the reluctance to make sentences over-punitive on the other.

I can totally understand if a liberal prioritizes the former over the latter, and vice versa, but what I cannot grok is a liberal dismissing either one as irrelevant. At the time Persky was recalled, the leftist response I heard to concerns about the effects of harsher sentencing on marginalized groups was: "Rapists get the book thrown at them—end of discussion."

Now, I'm not going to seriously entertain discussion on, say, repealing the 13^th Amendment, because the rights and wrongs are pretty easy to discern, and anyone who disagrees is probably just trolling. Most issues are more complex, however, and require an attitude of curiosity and a respect for nuance that "woke" culture often makes impossible. Instead of taking your time sorting through the complexities, you are expected to take a black-or-white position, and fast, lest you appear to lack empathy.

Furthermore, "Lock 'em up!" is a quintessentially conservative attitude—that the only real remedy to crime is handing out prison time like candy. A more liberal approach is to treat this situation as a balancing act between leftist priorities, because, in general, when sentences become harsher, it ain't the Brock Turners of the world who will receive them.

Sussing all this out requires an awareness of just what you value. I am a liberal because I value the principles of open inquiry, empiricism, diversity, and a respect for due process. That is the map I carry with me. I think some others are liberal primarily not due to their values, but because of where their sympathies happen to lie. I don't know what map, if any, they follow. Admittedly, those approaches can often take you to the same place, but I think it matters how you get there.

You can ask, with some justification, why I'm spending time taking liberals to task when conservatives do far, far more damage. Answer: Conservatives are usually troglodytes, and troglodytes are gonna trog. Liberals, however, are supposed to be the good guys, right, and, in my view, if you claim to be one of the good guys, you have to act like it. Drawing your map is a great way to start navigating that particular territory.