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--- politics:philosophy:shadowpolitics [2025/03/23 16:25] – [“Antiwoke”, Transgenderism, and Pedophilia] Owen Mellema
+++ politics:philosophy:shadowpolitics [2025/05/06 02:08] (current) – [The Future: The Satanists] Owen Mellema
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 We can now also understand why political groups suffer when everyone agrees with them. They suffer from their members having an excess of Sameness. The political group will therefore lose it's relevancy and it's group feeling, and members will go to other political groups to get their group feeling fix.
-===== "Wokeness" and the Rise of Fascism =====
+===== The Shadow in Past, Present, and Future =====
+==== The Past: "Woke" ====
 Like many of my thoughts, the concept of shadow politics came to me as I was trying to understand modern US politics. In particular, I was trying to understand how fascism, which I consider to be one of the worst possible political ideologies, had managed to gain a foothold among the population. More broadly, I was interested in how a liberal society had produced so many people that were opposed to liberalism.
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 In 2016, I predicted that a billionaire, influenced by right-wing propaganda, would take over a social media website and spread right-wing talking points extremely far and wide, kickstarting an explosion of right-leaning people, including fascists. This uncanny prophecy, which seemed unthinkable at the time, came to pass in 2022, when Elon Musk acquired Twitter, renaming it X. Now Elon, who, for lack of a better word, seems to be completely deranged, is running the show, and seems to be boosting his own tweets and the tweets of right-wingers, retweeting literal nazis. As I predicted, fascism entered the mainstream.
-===== “Antiwoke”, Transgenderism, and Pedophilia =====
+==== The Present: “Antiwoke” ====
+**The Shape of the Right**
 Now we must consider the other side of the political equation, that is, the Right. It seems to me that there are about six segments of the modern Right, give or take:
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 The last five groups mix and blend together, at times more distinct from one another, at other times indistinguishable. It’s a huge tangled mess of ideas, often contradictory, but all united in opposition to one thing: “wokeness”. This is what I call the “Antiwoke Right”.
-You’ll notice that I
+You’ll notice that whenever I use terms like “woke” and “antiwoke”, I put them in quotation marks. I do this because the word is really only pejorative, and no one opposed to “woke” can even attempt to give a coherent definition of it. At least with fascism people could point to an actual thing that existed at some point, whereas “woke” is nothing more than the vague notion of a thing. This vagueness is what allows for the “antiwoke right”  to stick together despite being composed of many contradictory notions. “Woke” can, and does, mean just about anything. It means masks, the belief the vaccines work, the idea that the earth is round, the notion that science is the best way to approximate truth, etc. It doesn’t help that many of them are anti-intellectual, meaning many don’t even consider a coherent worldview a worthwhile thing to have. (Furthermore, the plurality of types of rightists lends itself to an incredibly diverse array of notions — which effectively doesn’t matter, because they will ally with each other anyways)
+While the “Woke Left” mainly critiques power structures, the “Antiwoke Right” mainly critiques so-called degeneracy. “Degeneracy”, like “woke”, is a word that has no meaning, thus, it really is only a gesture at a feeling of disgust, “wrongness”, decay or general non-conformity. You might notice a big problem with this — people have different opinions on what is disgusting. One must remember, however, that being a shadow of the Left means that it is the Left’s true enemy, meaning that it is opposed to humanism (the idea that humans themselves have value), and thus they are apathetic about fairness, equality, or human dignity. So, the real shape of the movement is opposition to things that //this group of people finds disgusting//, and the idea that they must also take power, so that their standard of wrongness becomes the true standard of wrongness.
+Consider an ugly person. We can’t help finding the person ugly, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t extend the same cordiality to them as we do to our fellow man. We do this because we believe in the basic notion of universal human dignity, that everyone deserves to be treated equally, on the basis of their actions. It’s difficult to imagine a society in which it would be considered not just socially acceptable to be cruel to ugly people, but socially required, as a form of group participation. Yet, the “antiwoke right” is already engaging in this form of group cruelty. In the same way that we could say to be engaging in “performative virtue” in our treatment of ugly people, it may soon be that we will engage in “performative vice” in our treatment of them. I have called this “vice signaling”.
+In the same way that fascism is the left’s shadow because they are inescapably authoritarian, degeneracy is the right’s shadow because they, themselves, are inescapably degenerate. In the literal sense, this group of people want us to “degenerate” (ie, to regress) backwards, away from the shining beacon of “The West”. Consider, for instance, anti-intellectualism. Part of what made the west so powerful was our beliefs in certain ways of thinking, such as rationalism, and the triumph of reason over blind faith. And yet, the right is increasingly skeptical of the institution of science (critically, they are critical of it without offering a real substitute).
+Furthermore, the idea of degeneracy is, itself, degenerate. It is the base instinct of disgust taking precedence over our higher virtues. In this way we quite literally regress to the level of the uncivilized savage, who acts on emotion without thought. And, of course, it must be pointed out that within the “antiwoke right” there are contingents of people who lack any sort of moral conviction or fiber — in my above dissection of the right, I call this group of people the “amoral crowd”. Even outside of this group, many do not take pleasure in the higher art of the West but rather continue to consume facile forms of entertainment.
+I don’t (necessarily) say this to levy a criticism of the “antiwoke right”, but rather to explain its obsession with degeneracy, and why “the degenerate” is the shadow of the group.
+**Transgenderism**
+During Trump’s 2024 campaign, he ran an ad with the tagline “Kamala is for they/them; Trump is for you”. We see from this that the existence of transgenderism ends up being a useful political tool for Trump. It’s clear why this is — it is a sexual and aesthetic form that can sometimes elicit a feeling of shock and disgust in cisgender individuals.
+In order to justify revulsion towards this group of people on logical grounds, there is a narrative that transgenderism is a social contagion, in which older transgenders “groom” impressionable, and otherwise cisgender, children to be new transgenders. Let’s assume for a moment that this really is true. Suppose that I was the “arch-tranny”, and that I had to secretly steer society in such a way that would cause transgenderism to explode. Here’s what I would do:
+  * **Isolation**: I would make it so that half of all adults would have extremely negative opinions on transgenderism, meaning that young people who were struggling with their gender identity would find it difficult to trust adults who might be able to talk to them about it.
+  * **Closed Ranks**: I would make it so that many people were very angry at transgender people, sometimes lashing out physically, to cause transgender people to operate in secret and close ranks.
+  * **Gender Roles**: I would emphasize and fetishize gender roles, making a clear distinction between the way that men are supposed to be and the way that women are supposed to be — “Men like sports”, “Women like flowers”. I would also claim that if you don’t live up to these gender ideals, you are pathetic, or that there is something wrong with you. I might even claim that you are secretly transgender, thus pushing youths that don’t tick all of the boxes closer to considering transgenderism.
+  * **Men of Dishonor**: Furthermore, I would make it so that the ideal of masculinity is a stupid, selfish brute. This would cause some young men to begin to loathe their own sexuality, and dread puberty.
+  * **Ignoble Opponents**: Even furthermore, I would make the group of people who recognize that transgenderism as a social contagion act in an outrageous and cruel manner.
+  * **No other coping mechanisms**: I would cast doubt on the efficacy of mental health interventions, such as therapy or medication. I would claim that such things don’t really work. I would indeed doubt and dismiss the fact that mental health is actually real. I would shame people for using these interventions, claiming that such things aren’t manly 😉
+  * **No voice of reason**: I would campaign for the removal of sexual education classes from schools, so that youths aren’t exposed to correct and realistic understandings of sexual maturity, causing them to run right into the arms of groomers.
+  * **Apathy towards the youth**: I would make the group of people that were most opposed to transgenderism also the group of people that seemed to be apathetic towards things most effecting young people, such as school funding.
+I hope it’s clear that I think that the Republicans seem to be doing more for the transgender movement than even the Democrats. Indeed, transgenderism is an element of the Right's shadow.
+**Pedophilia and other Sex Crimes**
+[TODO: Karoline Levitt's Wall of Convicts]
+On April 26th, 2025, the Trump administration put a row of posters on the White House lawn, [[https://www.axios.com/2025/04/28/trump-posters-white-house-arrested-immigrants|showing mugshots of various illegal immigrants]], along with the crimes they allegedly committed. Many of the alleged offenses were sexual crimes, including against children. It seems that the purpose of this display was to bolster support for the government's policy of deporting foreign nationals to the El Salvadorian prison CECOT, which is known for human rights abuses, without due process. This policy has come under fire for a number of different reasons, including the fact that there is good reason to believe that several people who were deported to the prison are innocent. I consider this policy to be a campaign of terror against Latin Americans, and the panic over pedophilia is being used to justify this terror campaign.
+This concern seems to be entirely disconnected from reality. It is clear to me that there has never been a safer society for children than ours. The University of New Hampshire [[https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/trends-child-victimization|reports]] that substantiated cases of child sexual abuse have declined 53% since the early 1990s, and sexual assaults against children have similarly declined by 52%.
+{{:politics:philosophy:us-child-maltreatment-rate-trends-1990-2016-from-finkelhor-et-al-2018.png?400|}}
+//mind the fact that in this graph the sexual and physical abuse rates are multiplied by 3 and 2, respectively//
+If there has been a //decrease// in the actual rate of child sexual abuse, why has there been an //increase// in discussion of it? The reason is simply that pedophilia is the most disgusting perversion that people can think of, and since their shadow is degeneracy, they project this shadow, manifesting as pedophilia, onto the world.
+Like what happened with fascism, there is greater demand for pedophiles than there are actual pedophiles. To meet the demand, pedophilia will be projected onto an ever-increasing subset of the population, especially upon those that the government finds convenient to marginalize. For instance, Latin-American immigrants are no more prone to sexual crimes than any other ethnic group, but this group is being singled out as a hotbed of rape and pedophilia. Those people who are unfairly singled out will be subject to absolutely brutal treatment, and few people will have the moral courage to defend them - after all, enabling a "pedophile" is as bad as being one.
+Having this perfect tool to slander their enemies, the Right will be able to get away with almost anything, under the auspices of protecting children. This tool, however, will be their undoing. For every non-pedophile accused of being a pedophile, the power of the word to control people decreases. People will become desensitized and ambivalent to claims of pedophilia. "Pedophile", in fact, will be a term that is co-opted by those who protest any outrageous actions of the government.
+==== The Future: The Satanists ====
+At this point, it should be clear what will happen next. The Right, unable to restrain their own shadow, will project it onto the world, bringing forth their ultimate enemy. The Right fears degeneracy, so this group of people will embrace degeneracy. The Right fears darkness, so this group will embrace darkness. They will reject all rules, especially moral and spiritual rules; they will be a form of devil-worshipper, the likes of which has never been seen before. I have taken to calling this group of people "Satanic Hyper-Pedophiles".
+"Though we see now through a glass darkly, soon we shall see face to face." Those who are wise can see the signs of the times. An ideology, based upon the rejection of all moral law, is at this very moment being nurtured in the bosom of the Right. Above, I called these people "the amoral crowd". People such as Andrew Tate preach to the youth things including the idea that women deserve to be raped, based upon an idea that all law and all morality is an element of what he calls "The Matrix".
-If the shadow of the “Woke Left” was fascism, then the shadow of the “Antiwoke Right” is so-called degeneracy. “Degeneracy”, like “woke”, is a word that has no meaning, thus, it really is only a gesture at a feeling of disgust, “wrongness”, or general non-conformity.
+I have also paid close attention to the rise of psychopathic internet groups, who delight in causing suffering to individuals for no real reason. Entire communities of people are built around the shared harassment of people. Those that oppose it are labeled "moralf*gs" -- the shame causes the perpetuation and intensification of their wickedness.