Thread by @PnictogenHorses

the modern "#conservative" movement, the right wing of American politics, is fundamentally about the primacy of emotions over reason.

of course that's not something that right-wing politicians and pundits will ever admit openly. @MattWalshBlog pretends to be "rational".

(1/x)

Western society exalts itself as the sole embodiment of reason and logic and science on Earth; even mere #Christian bigots like @dalepartridge or @jordanbpeterson have taught themselves to pretend that their bigotries—and indeed their religious assertions—are "logical".

(2/x)

this is an easy trick for human beings to manage.

any human being can be taught to stick, without ever yielding, to an assertion—however absurd the assertion is. "@jordanbpeterson is logical and rational" is an absurd assertion but Mr. Peterson and his fans stick by it.

(3/x)

one can observe the behavioral pattern of #Christian religious faith—faith in defiance of logic—invading the sphere of intellectual activity and academic discourse.

right-wing partisans like @jordanbpeterson invest their pseudorational ideologies with *religious* fervour.

(4/x)

why is @jordanbpeterson the premier expert on all intellectual matters, to one of his right-wing fans, or to himself? because he says he is, and God is with him. he must, by the nature of his pseudoacademic celebrity, be circumspect with the direct invocations of God.

(5/x)

but Mr. Peterson surrounds himself and his cult circle with specific #Christian iconography; lately he's been quoting the Bible and speaking very much the same way as any Jesus-flavored grifter-preacher like @dalepartridge or @PastorMark. Peterson's now a religious idol.

(6/x)

the same is true of @realDonaldTrump or @RonDeSantisFL, or any other fascıst @GOP politician in whom right-wing bigots like @realchrisrufo and @mtaibbi have invested all their trust and hopes. all of these people pretend, in their various ways, to be God's agents on Earth.

(7/x)

it's religion, not reason, that's at work behind the "gender critical" ideology of GC exponents like @bindelj, @Docstockk, and @jk_rowling. real-life human beings do not cleanly fit into rigid boxes (cf. "male and female created He them".)

biology does not work that way.

(8/x)

#conservative propagandists and politicians, however, do have some guilty semi-awareness that their hatreds are irrational, religious hatreds, and that their activities have a cultlike energy to them.

the "gender critical" movement is a good example of this phenomenon.

(9/x)

the "gender critical" movement comprises a tiny group of academic cranks and popular writers—@bindelj, @Docstockk, @HJoyceGender (who copied the antisemitic GC propaganda of Jennifer Bilek), @elonmusk's pal @AbigailShrier, and @jk_rowling are not legitimate scientists.

(10/x)

they are a tiny fringe of reactionary rogues.

money cascades into the "gender critical" fringe movement because there's plenty of right-wing elitists who donate billions to fund ANY extremist cause that suits the needs of fascıst politics (cf. #globalwarming denialism.)

(11/x)

American #Christianity is entwined with American #capitalism, after all; in this contemporary form of Christianity, nightmarishly corrupt and hyperpolitical in nature, worldly #business success—i.e. avarice—is touted as evidence of godliness. it's "#prosperity #gospel."

(12/x)

hence Christianity—American Christianity in particular—has a LOT of money to spend on propaganda, and they've been doing this for decades.

the installation of senile @GOP figurehead @RonaldReagan in 1980 accelerated this process; he was a hero to right-wing Christians.

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in particular, right-wing #Christian propaganda has relentlessly pushed the idea that ideological Christians "moral objections" are, somehow, rational and even "scientific". they even pretend that young-Earth creationism is somehow "scientific". it's what they do.

(14/x)

but no pet cause of right-wing reactionary politicians or pundits—not the "gender criticism" of @bindelj, nor the global-warming denialism of @jordanbpeterson, nor the #COVID19 denialism of @EricRWeinstein's feckless brother—is defensible on rational, logical grounds.

(15/x)

it's true that @bindelj, @jordanbpeterson, &c. habitually act as though they're the only defenders of Science™, everyone else having been corrupted by Communism or "woke ideology" or whatnot. right-wing cranks have a myriad excuses ready for why they're fringe cranks.

(16/x)

but it's a *pose*. it's #MarketingStrategy, really. #Christianity decided a long while ago upon the absurd intellectual posture that the cult of Jesus was somehow _rational_, even though no human being is obliged to believe in the reality of the #Christian Incarnation.

(17/x)

to believe in the #Incarnation (oh, it's a hashtag?) is to accept an irrational event on #faith. it is not *possible* for #Christian faith to be rational.

that's not always a problem; I myself have many irrational beliefs. I try at least to accept their irrationality.

(18/x)

but this is NOT something that right-wing #Christians, especially the pseudointellectual ones like @jordanbpeterson, have had the courage to accept. they've clung desperately to the illusion that only *irrational* people could possibly reject their religious faith.

(19/x)

they've wanted to believe that #Christianity was somehow rational...and thus have @jordanbpeterson and all other right-wing #Christian ideologues, all of whom claim to be paragons of reason and defenders of science, abandoned the world of reason. Peterson is _irrational_.

(20/x)

like Wither from #CSLewis's "That Hideous Strength", @jordanbpeterson's intellectual decay has cast him "out at last into the complete void."

Peterson and his fellows devoted themselves to fierce belief in absurdities...and now, they are intellectually absurd.

~Mona Drafter

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