Tea at Trianon: The Victimhood Manifesto

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 11, 2023

The Victimhood Manifesto

From Chronicles:

The New York Times and CNN carefully avoided “misgendering” Hale in their reporting—the former actually apologized for not initially using her preferred male pronouns, because that was apparently the most important part of covering the bloodbath. MSNBC also issued a correction after using “female” and “her” in reference to Hale. “A previous post about the Nashville Christian school shooting included initial information from police officials about the suspect’s gender,” the outlet reported. “Those officials have since noted that the shooter was transgender.” What a reckless grammatical error. Someone could have been killed.
This pronoun lunacy obfuscated what should have been the obvious takeaway from Hale’s story: that violence is endogenous to far-left movements, including the transgender movement. The self-conception of oneself as a victim of society, which lies at the heart of all left-wing ideology, enables the most unspeakable acts of cruelty toward perceived oppressors. Only in that framework could someone like Hale perceive small children as her enemies, villains in a narrative of oppression who are no longer even human.

There is no limit to the amount of pain and suffering that can be inflicted by individuals who see themselves as victims, because all their actions, no matter how barbarous, can be justified to themselves. That is why Hale wrote, “God let my wrath take over my anxiety,” before carrying out mass murder. In her mind, she was dispensing a kind of justice. That is also why fantasies of violence are common in this movement.

Indeed, before the killings, transgender activists announced plans to hold a “Day of Vengeance” protest. According to the Daily Mail, transgender supporters of the event posted a picture of a heavily armed individual with an assault rifle and threatening to “kill christcucks.” That wasn’t even the worst of it. Two other trans activists posted footage and photos of themselves with rifles, which appeared “to be in direct response to the Nashville shooting,” Daily Mail reported. One said that they “will use the weapon for ‘protection’ against ‘transphobes’ who target them.” But what constitutes “targeting” that could trigger violent reprisal? Misgendering? Supporting policies to prohibit the administration of drugs and surgeries to children experiencing confusion about their gender? Is someone pumped with cross-sex hormones in the right state of mind to discern between real and perceived threats? (Read more.)