People prefer bigotry to infantilization

The central problem with a lot of social divides

America currently has two political parties: the Lord Voldemort party and the Dolores Umbridge party

I’ve used this analogy a couple of times, partly because it’s a neat little placeholder; anybody in the Harry Potter Universe knows that people hate Umbridge more than Voldemort. But I partly stuck with the analogy because I couldn’t fully articulate why this was the case.

Sure, I could give a long winded explanation about the different types of evil — the abstract evil that a straightforward villain presents (Voldemort), versus the more relatable form of evil that’s embedded within the confines of a given bureaucratic system (Umbridge) — the type of tyranny that never explicitly breaks any sort of rule.

But, to borrow from the movie Inception, this explanation didn’t constitute the simplest form of the idea.

With The Great Feminization™ discourse, however, the answer was so stupidly obvious that I can’t believe it took me all this time to put it together.

Many people prefer bigotry over infantilization

If you want to piss a woman off, you can tell her that she’s fat, or she doesn’t know how to do her hair, or something like that.

If you really want to piss her off, however, you can tell her that she looks better when she smiles.

You see, a lot of the people who say this (usually clueless men) think they’re doing the woman a service. They think they’re expressing an earnest desire to make the woman appear more attractive to other people.

Of course, as any woman will tell you, this sort of behavior from men is nothing less than infuriating, because it takes the complex emotional experiences that they’ve had — a lifetime of pain and trauma around their self-worth — and boils it down to a childish statement. In short, it’s a form of infantilization; you’re treating this woman the same way you’re treating a child.

What’s ironic, however, is that women are just as culpable for this behavior, if not more so

I previously wrote a post about the Gen Z boss video, and how it ended up going viral. I made a comparison to the Warhammer 40K, saying that the Gen Z boss video was the equivalent of the destruction of the Imperium of Mankind.

(If you look very closely you’ll notice that there was a little bit of hyperbole in that post.)

The main reason why people, especially men, hated that video is because it’s fundamentally childish. It’s exactly the sort of behavior you would expect when children pretend to go to the office and attempt to connect with one another.

All the endless language policing, tone policing, sensitivity training, struggle sessions, Instagram therapy speak, or the fact that everything is now trauma, abuse, or narcissism — all of it outwardly attempts to fight against bigotry, while imposing its own form of bigotry in the form of infantilization.

This is also the problem with left-wing politics

It’s no surprise that politics itself is increasingly diverging along gender lines. Yet, it’s ironic. In certain progressive circles, I hear about the “erasure of personhood,” or denying people agency. And yet, the way these people go about politics effectively denies the fact that people are adults, and have the reasoning faculties of an adult.

The perfect demonstration of this was this iconic video of the 2019 Democratic socialist convention:

It’s beautiful.

Like the Gen Z boss video, all those people at the convention are nothing more than children playing at politics. These people barely qualify as the same species when compared to the people who fought in World War II.

Viewed from this lens, it’s not exactly difficult to understand why many men have abandoned left-wing norms

Whether it’s a bug or a feature of our psychology, a lot of men would rather prefer an honorable enemy — a person who might hate you, but nevertheless takes you seriously — than someone who might ostensibly be on your side, but actually treats you like a child.

Not to overstate my case, but I really do think this is one of the central facets of a lot of divides — both in the political sphere, and the gender sphere. Take the No Kings rally, for example. Once more, it’s ironic; the protests were filled with geriatrics, and yet the whole atmosphere looks… childish.

This is one of the reasons why some young men are turning back to the church. Aside from the moral teachings, it’s one of the few places where it’s more or less mandatory to dress in your Sunday best, go into a place, and act like an adult for several hours.

Conversely — and this is admittedly anecdotal — a lot of the LGBT aesthetic seems quite childish. There’s a lot of glitter, a lot of emojis, pastels, bright colors, lots of cartoons, etc.

It’s also one of the reasons why a lot of leftist humor seems to suck. Humor requires some degree of transgression, and transgression requires flouting social norms — it’s hard to flout social norms when you have to cater to the norms and sensibilities of children.

Additionally, it’s one of the central features of male flight in certain domains. As the Overton window of acceptable discourse narrows, men feel increasingly stifled by the childishness of the atmosphere. As a result, they can either tell everyone else to grow up, or they can leave. Most men save themselves the headache, and choose the latter.

Now, I’m fully aware of that the right wing doesn’t exactly have the vibe of a Roman senate

Nevertheless, one of the reasons why this infantilization continues to be left coded is due to the fact that the left generally prioritizes safety-ism in the overall way they communicate.

As a corollary, this is one of the reasons why working out, having beauty standards, or otherwise taking personal accountability for the problems in your life is now right coded.

Jason Pargin puts it best in his most recent article:

There is no contradiction between improving the system and improving individuals, because it is literally impossible for dysfunctional individuals to run a functional system.

And, a little bit earlier on in the article he writes:

…any calls for dysfunctional individuals to get their shit together is now coded as right-wing, which is bad news for both the left and anyone with untogether shit.

So right now we have two parties

We have a Voldemort party and a Dolores Umbridge party.

Whether you like it or not, many people find Umbridge’s sensibilities more offensive than Voldemort.

For the last 12 years, the Umbridges have decided that their main campaign strategy is to call anyone who disagrees with them a racist sexist homophobe KKK nazi fascist patriarchal bigot. What they fail to realize is that many people prefer the bigotry over the endless infantilization.

Will things ever change? Will there ever be a Dumbledore party?

Maybe, but it’ll be tough — it’ll require pissing people off, such as the downwardly mobile professionals, a few minorities, and *gasp* even a few women.

Ladies, if that’s tough to hear, well, learn to smile through it. If nothing else, it’ll make you look prettier.