There’s a political debate going on on a friend of mine’s post (on Facebook), and there’s a right-winger who’s gamely arguing their position. He’s articulate, and detailed in his explanations of his ideology, which is interesting because most of the arguments I’ve seen from right wingers are unintelligible racist/misogynist/homophobic nonsense.
So this guy’s at least trying to make arguments couched in a kind of intellectualism, which is a nice change of pace. I can even follow his logic in many places, and it seems at least internally consistent.
The problem is that the internal consistency *constantly* just leads back to something along the lines of, “I’m a self-made success, and I deserve everything I have. Everyone who isn’t a success deserves not only failure, but nothing from me.” Basically, it’s an ideology completely codified around being a self-absorbed asshole.
I got mine, fuck everyone else. They failed because they’re unworthy, there’s no system that’s stacking anything against anyone, because *I* succeeded.
I guess it’s better than outright misogyny and racism, but it’s couched in a kind of “intellectual” distance, which is also in a way significantly worse. Like James Damore, there’s a pretense of rationality, but the arguments are hollow and unsubstantiated, they just *sound* better than “waaah black people.” But it’s all the same morally vacant shit.