In news that is bound to be celebrated by some deluded liberals as a great moral victory, the publication of a right-wing book has been delayed. Yesterday, it was announced that the memoir of Milo Yiannopoulos was to have its release date shifted from March to June. This delay is due to liberal criticism of the work, for which the Breitbart “editor” (not a term that should be applied to any person who basically defecates straight into a content management system) was paid a US$250,000 advance, but not in the way that we’d hope. Milo is not taking a little extra time to tone down his “thoughts” (not a term that should be applied to any expression that basically defecates all over the best Western philosophical traditions), but to deride the liberal protest of them.
Yiannopoulos may not have great skill as a writer or thinker, but his talent for promotion is Barnum-level. In electing to defer publication, he gives himself time to truly transition from shit-posting nobody to legitimate star, a rise itself facilitated by liberal protest.
When this tool met with recent protests at U.C. Berkeley, pre-sales of his book shot up. In the few hours that have elapsed since Milo announced his intention to examine these very protests, he’s at number 45 on the worldwide Amazon best-seller list.
Has someone coined a new logical fallacy to describe this phenomenon, yet? They really should. Something like “appeal to antagonism”. To prove the veracity of, or at least to amplify, one’s argument by recourse to describing the hostility with which it is met has become a great sales tool. And it’s one used by both Milos and anti-Milos; last year we saw several liberal feminist memoirs moved to best-seller status by almost identical means. People are violently opposed to me, which means everything I say is right.
[The alt-right is filled with party starters, the left with party poopers]
It’s easy to understand how writers come to this conclusion — when I’ve met with personal threats in the course of a day’s work, I sometimes put it all down to capitalist ideology, before acknowledging that I may not have convincingly argued my case. It’s very easy to understand why people would protest an abhorrence like Milo. The guy is viscerally offensive and appears as a good place to lob one’s very real frustrations. If you have been subject to sexism, racism, transphobia or any of the prejudices Milo presses into the service of his fast-growing celebrity, he seems a cathartic target.
But, the guy is growing rich(er) on this disdain, however legitimate it is. More than this, cartoonish and hateful “thoughts” of the type become more generally profitable.
The trick to effectively protesting Milo, surely, is to make him unprofitable, or at least to threaten someone’s profit. When she suspended her contract with Yiannopoulos’ publishers, Simon & Schuster, best-selling feminist writer Roxane Gay made such an effective protest. Perhaps those eager to see Milo consigned to history’s biohazard bin might consider suspending their Amazon accounts, or even their interest in The Washington Post, both entities owned by the world’s fourth richest person, Jeff Bezos. Jeff might dislike the alt-right and his newspaper certainly devotes many of its pages to its undoing/promotion. But he loves money way more than his apparently liberal morals.
I do understand that the playground advice to ignore one’s bully has been shown to be ineffective. “Pay him no mind and he’ll go away” simply doesn’t work in schoolyard interaction. It does work in the market, though, and it’s surely hopeless to keep calling a guy who has called his book “Dangerous” dangerous. I want this fascist glitter feral gone from public life as much as any liberal does. I suggest that such unified belief in his power is only a way to guarantee it.
If you read Milo, or any of his fellows, you find that he makes no sort of argument at all. To claim, as he does, that some of the Western world’s most marginalised people are also the “elites” makes no sort of sense. It makes sense only in a time where there is a growing class of people who fear the loss of their privilege.
[Bolt’s most ‘fabulous’ interviewee]
People fear the loss of their privilege for good reason, especially in the USA. Whether liberal or alt-right, Millennials face student debt, labour insecurity and a guarantee that they will not, per the neoliberal promise, do better than their parents. More than half the US population sees less than $30,000 per annum income. To overlook this hard ground, as idealist liberal protesters are wont to do, and to see how “ideas” like Milo’s always take root therein, is the fundamental problem of self-described leftists.
Simply put, when most of the people have nice lives in the West, this shit has no traction. You either go on accepting that bad ideas just happen and take hold for no reason, or you get with the old and useful understanding that material conditions shape and talk to these ideas.
Milo is growing rich in a nation whose citizens are falling into poverty. His idealism — Milo holds entirely that it is the “bad ideas” of the politically correct that have got us into this mess — will not be undone with more idealism. He must be undone himself materially — tell Jeff Bezos that he’d better deliver on the promises of tolerance he makes via The Washington Post. A time that allows a twit like Milo to prosper can only be improved by the same means.
Helen
What’s with all the bling with Milo’s tat? Seems a little OTT in my view, but then I am only a humble librarian so what would I know about fashion.
“Has someone coined a new logical fallacy to describe this phenomenon, yet?”
I think it would be best described as a variant on the Streisand Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Helen, Robert,
I recommend the term ‘von Danikenism’ after Erich von Daniken who spent a good part of his first book whining that educated people scoff at him and that proves that he is right.
Ian! This is perfect!
By Jove I think you’ve nailed it Ian
Yeah, what’s better than a direct boycott? An ephemeral boycott, the effect on self being so widely out of proportion to the effect on it’s intended object as to make it meaningless. To decry liberalism then advocate the most liberalist, ineffective and irrelevant tactic, a consumer boycott … cognitive dissonance worse than Trump.
This did occur to me. But, given that Bezos claims to give voice to critics of Milo while also making so much money out of him, it struck me as a fun idea.
The point I wanted to chiefly make here (knowing nobody ever takes my advice) is that Milo is getting rich on our attention.
Mmmm… Well I don’t give him any attention and I don’t use Amazon. So far that’s not working. I’d say fight for free speech (at the moment it’s mostly paid for by the mainstream and the right – the rest of us can’t afford it), but the middle-class progressives who pass for ‘the Left’ don’t seem a huge fan of it.
Agree. But it’s an ineffective argument these days, brother.
When’s that ever stopped you! Viva la truth …
I am rarely deterred by my own irrelevance or that of my arguments, Bob. This is true.
Honestly, though. I think “freedom of speech” arguments have lost all effectiveness. It’s not about freedom of speech, for mine. As far as I’m concerned, Milo can continue to bleat his arguments and I will defend at least as far as the mail box his right to do this.
It’s more, for me, about caring less about “the right to debate” etc and having faith that some kind of “Hitch slap” or whatever is going to change the world.
In essence, I am saying stop worrying about Milo. Let the twit talk. Maybe work out a way to prevent him profiting from that talk; possibly even, at the local level, have the book thrown at him for what are his perhaps unlawful disclosures. (I am not referring to his general nonsense, here—freedom, freedom etc.— but those incidents where he violates the privacy of individual students, doxing and delivering details of transpeople and the like, which is simply not on.)
Mostly. I am saying that he is only as powerful as your own political alternative permits him to be. That saying he is “dangerous” without yourself posing any intellectual threat to the dominance of his ideas is hopeless.
I find the FoS stuff really dull. I mean, Of course. But it’s really not about that.
To your last comment, Friday arvo:
Sounds like we’re in agreement then. As said before, I haven’t taken any notice of him. But for those who do, it would be interesting to foreground the rabid anti-gay views of many of his fellow-travellers …
But, yeah, ignore the wanker. Like many on the right, his primary focus is denigrating ‘the left’, providing self only in opposition to a mythical Other; and like many, he has a great nose for weakness and is an expert on pushing buttons. The US ‘left’ in particular, rooted to a large degree in prim puritanism, reflexively shuts down debate in a version of ‘good manners / polite society’ that stands at odds with their putative rebelliousness. He goads them into hypocrisy, then points it out. I saw the same thing at Uni in student politics, when the corrupt Labor Right students effortlessly enraged the lefties. Time to toughen up and ignore or return fire.
This is: ‘The US ‘left’ in particular, rooted to a large degree in prim puritanism, reflexively shuts down debate in a version of ‘good manners / polite society’ that stands at odds with their putative rebelliousness. He goads them into hypocrisy, then points it out. I saw the same thing at Uni in student politics, when the corrupt Labor Right students effortlessly enraged the lefties. Time to toughen up and ignore or return fire.’ is a fantastic summary of the real problem. Since when did those bourgeois, liberal, puritanical pontificators become ‘the left’?
That’s the bit that really annoys the bejaysus out of me. There’s no such thing as “cultural Marxism”, the whole idea is just a quixotic windmill for the grandchildren of Thatcherite babyboomers to tilt at. ‘The left’ doesn’t concern itself with culture. It concerns itself with material resources, and it takes what it must regardless of cultural prescriptions.
If a majority of very low paid Americans can’t work out that it’s clowns like *poulos and Trump that are absconding with their money, lifestyle, future (or whatever you want to call it), what can you do? Most great civilisations in history have lasted at least 1000 years, the Yanks will be lucky if they crack the 500. Viva la revolution!
‘To claim, as he does, that some of the Western world’s most marginalised people are also the “elites” makes no sort of sense. It makes sense only in a time where there is a growing class of people who fear the loss of their privilege.’
This quote made me think of a similarity between alt-right identity politics and the liberal approach to framing the issue of domestic violence. Routinely, we see liberal-feminist appeals to the notion that the primary problem re domestic violence is gendererd elitism and its associated attitudes, largely suppressing discussion of the fact that domestic violence rates are highly correlated with low economic status.
Rarely do we countenance the idea that when men (or any other social group) are disempowered in the labour force and economy, they are more susceptable to the perverse notion that the oppressed are actually their oppressors. Sadly, it is easier to attempt to reclaim power by victimising the vulnerable than organising against the globalised wealth-extraction machine. To some extent, liberal-feminists and alt-right bigots both operate on the basis that it is easier and more gratifying to point the finger at identity oppression than engage in the broarder problem of economic oppression. This is especially true in the age when western audiences are babtised in identity political discourse and criticism of liberal socioeconomics is taboo.
Culture wars are divisive by nature. The focus must shift to a movement based on the understanding that economic oppression drives alienation, frustration and social division. This shift has the potential to be a unifying force.
I agree. They’re arguing in identically idealist terms.
This is a really interesting point, especially re the identity politics understanding of the causes of domestic violence (as opposed to an economic oppression understanding). Are you aware of any analyses of this particular issue (liberal understanding of causes of dv) that have been done that you could suggest for a noob to this politics to read?
Hope I’ve got this right. I’m starting to wake up from a purely identity politics understanding of left wing politics towards a Marxist understanding of things and lacking the language to article my thoughts!
I don’t think it is possible to get the whole culture war to disarm, mostly because it ties into partisan politics. As long as we have elites, their squabbles will be the loudest. They don’t mind being contradictory when doing so is in their interests. The best you can hope for is building a movement below all that noise, one big enough to talk over the culture warriors.