Maybe you spent time last week perusing X postings related to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Aside from the many accolades, conservative influencers did fine jobs identifying left-wingers who not only celebrated Kirk’s assassination, but offered attaboys to Tyler Robinson, the triggerman. Some even called for more violence. If you didn’t have time earlier, scroll through the Libs of TikTok’s and the Vigilant Fox’s threads, for starters. You’ll get an eyeful. “Somebody had to do it” wasn’t an uncommon refrain. Who, this side of hell, delights in an act of murder?
What was striking was that many of the posts featured females. Was that the result of sampling biases? Not likely. It was self-promotion. Call it malignant feminist self-empowerment. Not that there aren’t Charlie Kirk haters among “progressive” males -- his killer is an XY, after all, who lived with a trans -- but left-of-center females dominated the posted videos. Why so?
There’s no point rehashing Kirk’s qualities or listing his achievements. Others who knew him have provided rich, poignant testimony to his stellar character and unshakable dedication to his faith and freedom. His very public record is testament enough.
If you sift through the haters’ postings, you’ll think they inhabit an alternative universe. Abundant public record be damned. For them, Kirk was an ogre, some mythical beast. He checked off every box that inflames the leftist mind. Homophobe, transphobe, this-phobe, that-phobe. They fictionalized Kirk. Damn reality, too!
Are the celebratory outpourings over an innocent man’s murder indictive of a sickness in our society? Yes, they are.
That sickness starts with an obsession -- the obsession with self. “If it feels good, do it” was a 60s mantra that has sparked a decades-long deep dive into hedonism, regardless the blarney about “self-actualization.” The Me Generation ethos metastasized, spreading throughout the society.
What does preoccupation with self do to a person’s mind and emotions? How does it impact relating to others? How does it warp perceptions? What happens when academics have, for decades, peddled the notion that there’s no external or objective truth? Should we be stunned that people -- mostly females -- popped up on TikTok and Blue Sky giggling, praising, toasting, and jigging in reaction to a coldblooded murder? Shades of the Manson girls, huh? Perhaps females have been more greatly damaged by over a half century of being battered with me, me, me? Or are they just inclined to be more visible?
The counterculture, which arose in the 1960s, has been a pox ever since. It’s indulgers have trashed norms, shredded traditions, denigrated faith, and demeaned family. The destruction was justified, we’re told. Had to tear down to build. Had to stamp out injustice and inequality to achieve both. But the building never started. That would put too many academics, activists, talking heads, and politicians out of business. You really don’t want what the left would build, anyway.
The counterculture’s early champions declared that they wanted a society guided by love, peace, and harmony. Instead, we saw the counterculture devolve into violence -- campus riots, the Chicago Democrat convention riots in 1968 (remember the Chicago 7?), the Weather Underground and Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, spiraling drug abuse and addictions, climbing rates of STDS, broken relationships, fatherless children. Anger, resentment, and score settling for real -- or more often, imagined -- wrongs replaced the hype about love and peace.
All the utopian claptrap can’t stack up against the hard and thankless work involved in keeping society coherent and healthy -- as healthy as possible. Perfect is the enemy of the good.
There aren’t lots of attaboys for being loyal spouses and raising kids to be good and productive citizens -- for work, not entitlement -- for being a good neighbor, for obeying laws and holding up your end in innumerable civil exchanges, and, yes, for seeking to right authentic wrongs. The Civil Rights movement was comprised of little-remembered people who sought redress through peaceful assembly, law, and legislation. Violence was spurned. Martin Luther King Jr., along with movement supporters, declared nonviolence a tenet.
How far removed are today’s “social justice warriors” from that standard? You know, those who inhabit social media, who call for violence, or as the women of TikTok and Blue Sky have done, take fiendish pleasure in snuffing out a man who strove to build bridges and right America in accord with its traditions.
Perhaps, radical feminism’s -- is there any other sort nowadays? -- quest to erase differences between males and females has taken a toll on female psyches? The mission is to make women more like men. Radical feminism is about unmooring females from their natures. Okay, granted, there are more beta or feminized males today. But the primary goal is to make females on par with men in all regards. It’s gone to absurd lengths.
Biological and physical differences between males and females are mere social constructs, we’re informed. Males and females have distinct temperaments? Nonsense. Those can be remade. Men can have babies and breast feed. Why not? Want to transition to the other sex? Do it. Nothing that surgery, hormone infusions, and playing dress-up can’t solve. Don’t let DNA and unambiguous physiological differences and performance interfere. Women can be lean, mean fighting machines. Open up frontline combat roles to females. Not really suited, huh? Well, just lower the bar and let’s all pretend.
Feminism is long past opening doors to opportunities -- education and professions. We can all agree that’s good. It’s turned fiercely militant against nature. It’s veered deeper and deeper into derangement.
Manhood is routinely battered. A man being a man is “toxically masculine.” Yet, women might be pummeled more. Females are primary nurturers and civilizers. Today’s feminism is about depreciating marriage and childbearing -- brazenly cheerleading abortion, now up to birth. It’s been about ridiculing stay-at-home moms. Virulent feminism is very much part of the Me Generation ethos. Sleeping around and forgoing marriage and kids in favor of career achievement -- all wins. Self-sacrifice and giving? Dirty words. Those only lead to subservience.
Of course, none of the women who cheer Charlie Kirk’s assassination consider themselves fiends. They don’t because of their acculturation. Herein lies an irony. Progressives inhabit an insular world. For all the excess emphasis on individuality, independence of judgment is penalized. Group-think is imposed. Progressives surround themselves with mirror images of themselves. They receive affirmation for expressions of right-think.
Charlie Kirk was a monster, the collective concluded. Say he was, because if you deviate -- if you say he was a decent guy who didn’t deserve his fate -- the collective will drum you out. Ask any progressive who has dared to dissent about being shunned by family, friends, and colleagues. That’s the stuff of a cult.
We’re now three generations from the counterculture explosion. That movement has done a fine job unmooring millions of people from foundational principles and values, which provide social stability and grounding. One by one, the guideposts have been ripped out. Truths have been replaced by fantasies. Nature and reality have been turned on their heads.
The affluent and better educated, who should serve as bulwarks against societal degradation, are, instead, the principal purveyor of heresies. Elite universities -- attended by the rich and their children and underwritten by them -- purvey all sorts of bizarre ideas that lead to social deformities. It seems that academics are in races to produce ever fringier, ever weirder, takes on humans and the human condition.
Do understand the power of ideas, however poisoned. Do appreciate that it’s easier to destroy than build. Do understand that an entire social movement dedicated to upending traditional society has caused significant harm and is still claiming victims. Has womanhood been more egregiously assaulted? If no more than the assaults on manhood, then the wounds may be more profound. It’s no small wonder that the ghoulish women of social media -- fangs and claws barely concealed -- are who they are.
J. Robert Smith can be found at X. His handle is @JRobertSmith1. At Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover.
Image: Ted Eytan