Some of the more intractable knots from the loopy left.
The interwebs are an invaluable source of information about the pivotal figures in religious history. Just this morning I learned that Moses became president of the NRA and the Buddha was a Crossfit pioneer. And the Prophet Muhammad hosted the first production of The
Vagina Monologues.
Or he would have because, according to MuslimGirl.com, “Allah’s messenger, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was an early intersectional feminist himself.” You read that right: the patriarch’s patriarch was a feminist. And an “intersectional” one at that.
Intersectionality -- a hot concept in fast food joints, retail stores or anywhere else you find people with gender studies degrees -- is a way of smoothing over the many contradictions inherent in modern identity politics. Basically, it says that, since white guys are the oppressors, we gays/blacks/browns/women/etc will put aside our differences for the good of the struggle. As it does with so much else, Monty Python brings us an early and penetrating example of intersectionality:
“Intersectional feminism, says MuslimGirl is an “understanding of how women’s overlapping identities — like race, class, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity — all come together to affect the way they experience oppression and discrimination.” It basically means that a woman is no more or less than the sum of her grievances.
Back to Muhammad. MuslimGirl says “The Might of the Arabs” “wanted to generate as much inclusivity as possible,” and she gives us many examples of “the Straight One” getting his intersectionality on:
Prophet Muhammad revealed ideals of gender equality that were considered revolutionarily feminist in the historical context of his time, regardless of what others may have thought. He spent much of his life protesting against female infanticide that was commonplace in that society, telling other fathers that having daughters was a blessing and that if their daughters spoke well of them on the Day of Judgement, their word alone would be enough to get them into Paradise. He also argued that all dowry that was given to a girl’s family before her marriage should go straight to her, not to be used by the family. He also promoted the right for ALL women to vote, gain inheritance regardless of their class status, get an education, and have a political role in society.
He even “used interracial marriage as one way to eradicate ignorance and bigotry.” See, “The Messenger of Fierce Battles,” displayed no more toxic masculinity than your average Brooklyn beta hipster. And with 13 wives and concubines, “the Sword of Allah” had to juggle an awful lot of “overlapping identities.”
So how do we get from “The Illuminated One” as prototype NPR listener to stonings and burqas and men throwing acid in the face of schoolgirls? Don’t blame “The Admonisher,” MuslimGirl says:
It’s important for people to know that most of the negative things you hear about on the news that are associated with Islam are due to patriarchal legislation that stem from controversial cultural ties and not Islamic ideals.
This seems a little too neat. Islam has 1.3 billion adherents. Muhammed and his successors conquered the equivalent of some 50 countries, from Spain and Morocco to Indonesia. That’s a lot of diverse cultures all brought under one religious and social banner. Yet all over the Muslim World women are treated worse than men. In Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam, women are just now being allowed to drive cars.
But hey, who’s to say Muhammad’s Tent and Hookah Bar wasn’t hosting Black Feminist Poetry Tuesdays?
And now, more lefty lunacy.
Next up, Hardy Boys or Hardly Boys? Chicken and egg question: are there more deeply confused people walking around because entertainment and the therapeutic society tells them it’s cool to be deeply confused, or does entertainment and the therapeutic society simply reflect our bumper crop of deeply confused people.
How you answer that may inform how you react to the news that Little Women is becoming Little Womyn and Nancy Drew is becoming Drew Nancy. Well, not really, but according to Kaite Welsh in The Guardian:
later this month, the New Nancy Drew Mystery Stories will be published, updating the original cast of upper-middle-class, white heterosexuals to include an openly gay George – come on, we were all thinking it – who has a black girlfriend, and George’s cousin Bess, who is reimagined as a woman of colour. It comes soon after a similar reimagining of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel Little Women, with the March sisters now recast as multiracial and LGBTQ-inclusive to mark the novel’s 150th anniversary.
Welsh sort of acknowledges this is PC crap, but asks, “does anyone really want to consume media that ignore all the progress made in the past decades?” Progress. Certainly, a Guardian writer doesn’t, but we’re talking about kids’ books.
“Very few people only encounter straight, white, cisgender, able-bodied people every day,” Welsh writes, “and books that only show that world increasingly feel anachronistic at best, or exclusionary at worst.” Let’s see: Yep, I routinely encounter a lot of not-white people. Less so the non “able-bodied,” but it happens. I don’t go around asking about sexual orientation, but given the gay population is somewhere south of 4%, I’d say most of the folks I see are straight. I don’t live on a college campus, so the number of people I meet who’ve ever heard the term “cisgender” is vanishingly small.
But none of that really matters. It’s not about reflecting reality, it’s about activism.Welsh says Nancy Drew’s Scooby Gang is getting a makeover because “illustrator Jenn St-Onge is queer and grabbed the chance to update the tomboyish George to a masculine-of-centre lesbian with relish.” (Also, wide watch bands are easier to draw.) “It’s a natural impulse to take the things we love and make them better, fill them with people who look and love like us,” Welsh explains.
It’s a natural impulse for the identity left to demand to see themselves in everything, and to disregard that which doesn’t reflect their brittle self-image. That’s how statues get torn down. Welsh says, “Perhaps the only way the much-loved figures of our childhoods and our parents’ childhoods can survive is by adapting for a new generation.”
No, Kaite, that’s the only way you’ll let them survive.
When the Church of Satan lets you down … I almost missed this item because the headline read “The Fascist Creep Within the Church of Satan.” After all, it’s the Church of Satan. It’s got all kinds of creeps. But no -- creep referred to a drift or encroachment, not a lone Satanist loser. This is indeed news!
What’s become of this world when you can’t trust the Satanists to keep the Nazis out? Go ahead and laugh, but this is a big deal to some of the far-left anarchists at the website Its Going Down. These are the brave social justice warriors with the covered faces who take on fascist newspaper vending machines and Alt-right cafe windows, and they’re very serious about rooting out Nazis wherever they lurk. That includes the hitherto irreproachable Church of Satan.
Writing under the name Trident Antifa, some disaffected former Satanists are dishing on the supposedly apolitical Church:
The organization runs a news feed on its social media accounts and on its website. It can be seen by a quick search that in numerous cases it has endorsed and promoted, effectively platforming, posts that include podcasts with fascists, and one, in particular, featuring fascist political candidate Augustus Sol Invictus in a [now removed] Heathen Harvest episode … The host of the show is a Church of Satan Reverend named Raul Antony.
(BTW -- I saw Heathen Harvest open for Slayer in 87 -- monster show!) Trident Antifa isn’t done yet. They’re angry:
1. because of its clear, hypocritical, and dishonest ways of platforming fascist ideas, and 2. because of its lazy and repugnant tolerance of its membership being far-right, alt-right, and fascist. The organization has not made any statement or policy barring people who are fascists or fascist sympathizers, and when questioned on its complicity in allowing literal nazis in their ranks it either remains silent or wholeheartedly deflects the question and the church’s responsibility, which is hypocritical and ironic because the Church of Satan prides itself on championing responsibility to the responsible. Moreover, fascism itself is not in-congruent with Satanism. In fact, there is canonical evidence via The Satanic Scriptures in the essay The Fascism Question that supports this claim. We will be taking a look at this essay in the coming days.
Stay tuned kids!
So fascism isn’t “incongruous” to Satanism, but the Trident Antifa guys are upset the Church hasn’t rooted out the fascists and allowed “literal nazis in their ranks.” You know, the same thing happened with the Rotary Club of Jenkins, Ohio a few years back. The meetings were tense for a while, but there was no arguing with the efficiency.
“Additionally, the Church of Satan regularly (again, in an official capacity) promotes posts for The Accusation Party, a podcast that focuses on an anti-SJW, anti-feminist, anti-antifa, pro-free speech, Alt-Right narrative.” Trident Antifa thunders. “The Accusation Party frequently makes strawman arguments against its flawed and dishonest notions of social justice, safe spaces, and antifascism. It puts forth toxic ideas of intolerance and is dead-set against inclusion and equality.”
For all I know, The Accusation Party is broadcast from a jungle bunker in Brazil and begins with Deutschland Über Alles. But guys, there are a whole lot of not-Nazis out here who are “anti-SJW, anti-feminist, anti-antifa, pro-free speech.” You should probably get out more.
Look, Trident Antifa, I know you guys are disillusioned, feeling betrayed and rather hurt. You’d found a home in Satanism -- a fun, accepting atmosphere with ritual sex and terrific potluck suppers. It was something to do in between running speakers off college campuses and punching out totalitarian fire hydrants. Then those darn Nazis showed up with their and ruined your buzz.
But don’t give up! You’ll find your place. Some of the more boneless mainline Protestant churches are hurting for new members -- those Social Justice Rummage Sales aren’t gonna run themselves.
