How About Just Stay Home Instead?

The experience of going to university is supposed to be opening one’s eyes, widening our horizons. Just by that virtue in itself, the nature of universities is very liberal. You meet people, you learn about the world, etc. This is why I don’t understand people entertaining the idea of conservatives posing as libertarians in campuses fighting against the liberal bias in academia. It is such a bold-faced farce that it boggles the mind how far it has come.

Turning Point USA has been wildly successful disseminating its poison in campuses. They have a professor’s watch list which aims to drive professors which they deemed as having a leftist bent out of campuses. They also provide platforms for far-right bomb throwers like Milo Yiannopoulos. It is a shame that Canada is not immune to this and now Simon Fraser will have a chapter calling itself Turning Point Canada in its campus. Despite distancing itself from the American group, it doesn’t take much to see how close it is the originators down south.

“Millennials seems to be increasingly more liberal, so this is just about offering an alternative view. Our professors and so on are increasingly majority liberal and maybe even further left than the Liberal Party of Canada.” How is that any different from Turning Point USA? And as much as the co-founder claim that they are not fans of Milo Yiannopoulos, I’m sure they would be more than happy to host his speeches in Canadian schools of Milo’s stock hasn’t fallen so low that he is now hawking pills for Alex Jones.

See, the reason why there are so many liberals in university is because once you open your mind to learning, to questioning, to empathy, then it is very difficult to subscribe to conservative or what many people would define as libertarian values. Read a couple of books, talk to a couple of people, grow up a little, and you’ll realize that Ayn Rand is a selfish hack. Why come to university to reinforce conservative values when the very act of leaving your small town and living and studying in university is the very definition of being non-conservative? Be conservative? Then live by your old codes, stay in your town, and don’t bother learning new information. Why go to university in order to learn more? Why spin a cocoon when all you want is to remain a caterpillar?

And maybe I’m wrong here, but in terms of academia married to liberal thought, has there even been progress in anything while being fueled by rigid conservative ideals? Has there ever been anything new and wonderful that originated in selfish libertarian values that didn’t end in outright disaster? Laissez-faire is great in expanding the marketplace of ideas and freedom in theory, but caveat emptor will ultimately be too tiring if not deadly. Conservative academia is farce and libertarianism is an unworkable selfish dream.

This really worries me right now because the alt-right’s current darling, Jordan Peterson, is a Canadian, and his pseudo-intellectual arguments, though sometimes difficult to discern, is really quite ridiculous and is nothing but vile racism and misogyny. We also recently had a terrorist incident inspired by incels, a men’s group who gather online and share misogynistic and racist sentiments due to their inability to get attention from the opposite sex. So yeah, Canada now has old hatred cloaking itself open-mindedness, academia, or victimhood right in its own backyard.  The hateful right is coming for our universities and will soon target our teachers.

There Goes their Martyr

Let me get this straight. So flirting with racists and terrorizing black and transgender people is okay, but pederasty is not? Got it.

Just this morning, a well-known alt-right troll, let’s call him DayGlo Metropolis, just got a speaking gig at CPAC as well as book deal cancelled because a video of him defending pederasty (and some may argue pedophilia) came to light. While this is one of the few instances where bad behavior doesn’t get rewarded by more media exposure, I’m sure that the alt-right is already hailing DayGlo as a martyr to their cause. It’s quite ironic since these are the same people that rage against people using victimhood as a form of currency, something that DayGlo has accused feminists of doing. In any case, here are a few things regarding the interesting week with DayGlo.

Bill Maher is a show man. He’s not a deep intellectual, nor is he a particularly funny comedian. He’s a show man in the guise of an intellectual. His show is a good platform for people and would frequently feature good dialogue on current issues, but he also uses it to occasionally raise the profiles of people who couldn’t be more transparent about their fraud. Or worse, he normalizes people who should ideally be run out of the room. He’s had Joe the Plumber. He’s had SE Cupp, a supposed atheist who admires those with religious convictions. He’s friends with Ann Coulter. And last Friday, he had DayGlo. He likes to defend booking vile personalities by saying that people should be free to debate and cloaks himself as a freethinker, but in reality, it’s all about the ratings. He was after the DayGlo crowd and those who wanted to see him taken down a notch. He delivered, and DayGlo was shown as a shallow fraud, but that’s not how DayGlo’s supporters see it. And in the end, it just raised his profile, adding another notch to his growing list of media appearances.

I actually share a lot of Bill Maher’s views. His show can be very enlightening and has certainly changed my mind on some issues. But his flirting with noxious personalities as well as Islamophobia is making me skip his show more often in the past couple of years.

There’s great irony in DayGlo spreading hate against transgender people, particularly by raising concern over their bathroom access in fear of them preying on children. Not only is this a dumb concern; people and children will not be attacked by transgender people much more than by cisgender people, but he’s the one who defending relations between teens and much older men. I have yet to see a transgender person defend pederasty. I’ve only seen DayGlo do so.

DayGlo made his bones through #GamerGate which was a bit of a controversy a couple of years ago. A hack feminist, let’s call her Bonita Sarcastaman, made a video series claiming that video games were often sexist. She inflated many of her claims, but I couldn’t really argue with the point that some video games do traffic in a bit of sexism. Sex sells. Shorthand on sexual imagery both on male and female characters is just something that’s par for the course. In any case, Bonita made it a bigger issue than it should be (there ARE other more crucial feminist issues out there), gamers took the bait and made it an even bigger issue, and DayGlo became their champion as he took on Bonita and her supporters. So yeah, hack feminist produces hack “provocateur” intellectual. No one wins.

The funny thing is DayGlo is the tech editor for Breitbart news, which I imagine is why he got involved in #GamerGate in the first place. But when was the last time anyone heard DayGlo talk about tech? Hey gamers, you know how you accuse Bonita of not being a “real gamer” as if being a gamer is a virtue? I doubt if Dayglo wants to do anything with you either.

CPAC and conservatives would embrace anyone as long as they are against their enemies (The enemy of my enemy is my friend?). It is no coincidence that the first homosexual they tried to have as a speaker also happens to hate being homosexual. Many of the black conservatives on television are often there to condemn other black people. These conservative outliers are the immunity idols. They are what allow people to say hateful things because a member of the group they hate happens to agree with their hateful views. “I’m not homophobic. This gay guy says that homosexuals are a danger to children. I just happen to agree with him.”

I’m not a fan of gotcha journalism. Too often, words or actions are taken out of context, and people are brought down by them. This applies even if their sins do not particularly relate to their function in society. Context matters. I particularly was not too concerned about Donald Trump’s Howard Stern appearances because back then, no one really thought he was going to be president. Also, he was in the Howard Stern Show. Things were bound to get outrageous. However, I was concerned about his comments in the bus regarding “grabbing pussy.” At that point, he was no longer entertaining an audience. He was bragging to another guy, trying to impress him with tales of sexual assault. It was demonstrating someone’s privilege and misogyny.

Someone dug up an old video of DayGlo and used it to damage him. I normally don’t approve of this, but in this case, I believe whoever did it was just doing the homework that Simon & Schuster should’ve done. They didn’t realize that DayGlo was a vile character? Why are they in the business of enriching people who terrorize others? Didn’t they hear about what happened to Leslie Jones? Was that not enough? I believe Simon & Schuster is just as guilty as Bill Maher in trying to monetize DayGlo’s hateful notoriety. I also believe that Bill wouldn’t have booked DayGlo if the pederasty video surfaced earlier. But the thing is, just like Simon & Schuster, I don’t think Bill and his producers really cared about DayGlo’s hateful history. They saw it as a plus. Yay, more ratings! I really hope they do get some repercussions for their actions as well. It is one thing to be a bully, but it’s another to sit by and encourage a bully to work his craft.

And no, I don’t think liberals are afraid of DayGlo (as Bill Maher suggested). I don’t think liberals are scared of the likes of Tomi Lahren, Alex Jones, etc. They just don’t want to reward dumb and hateful people with more attention, especially when these bigots are not interested in sincerely and intelligently discussing issues. The reason why I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh is because I already know what he’s going to say. The same thing with Sean Hannity. There’s not one original thought that ever came out of their heads. Why waste time listening to a talking point on a loop?

On Ancient Cases of Fellatio

Love the talent but hate the person, that’s exactly how I feel about Nelson Shanks. In a world where people make art careers without even knowing how to draw accurately, he maintains the (arguably) unfashionable tradition of academic painting. Just looking at his Website, it is amazing that such a talent still lives and breathes and creates magnificent work. It is like the work of a man taken out of the Renaissance; wonderful and beautiful paintings. The man has more talent that many artists could ever hope to have.

This is why this whole business with the Bill Clinton is all the more disappointing. In an interview with the Philadelphia Daily, he reveals that he’s hidden references to Monica Lewinsky in Bill Clinton’s portrait which was destined to be hung at the National Portrait Gallery. He said that he found the former President’s lie offensive and that the affair was a shadow to the Clinton presidency. He was quoted saying that the 42nd President was “the most famous liar of all time.”

How obnoxious is that?

Now, I enjoy putting hidden messages and allusions not just in my work but also in the works I see and follow. But Shanks just put his own personal politics in what is meant to be an apolitical peace, lied about it during the process, and missed the irony throughout the whole thing. And what was so unforgivable; the former President’s extramarital affair, something which is a personal matter that his family appears to have moved beyond from? The hidden “humor” is crass, misplaced, and really should not be brought up now since everyone has already moved past it. Poor Monica Lewinsky deserves a life past her youthful indiscretions.

Regarding shadows to someone’s presidency, I think the big shadow in the Clinton presidency is their relationship with the banks and how they deregulated them. It is an overbearing cloud that still haunts the world to this day.  And as for lies, I think the biggest lies are the ones that cause the most lives. George Bush and Dick Cheney got American into an unnecessary war. It cost thousands of military and civilian casualties and created a quagmire which Barrack Obama perpetuates.  How’s that for a shadow over someone’s presidency?

The shadow of that dress is not that overwhelming in comparison.

A part of me thinks the whole thing is just a cry for attention. I wonder if setting up a dress to cast shadow during the painting process even truly happened. Shanks claims the Clintons have been trying to get the portrait taken down from the National Portrait Gallery, but representatives from the gallery deny this and the Clintons apparently couldn’t care less. If this was a cry for attention, it really is quite sad because the man is amazingly talented and shouldn’t need to court the raving right wing in order to get attention.

I don’t mind politics in art. I think it’s the artist’s job to tell truths in their work. And should it be in the realm of politics, then so be it. But harping at the Clintons regarding an old scandal just seems petty and ridiculous. And in the end, what message is the artist truly trying to say? I think it speaks more about the artist’s narrow minded politics than anything else.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just my progressive leanings, but I don’t think conservatives make for good messengers in art. I haven’t seen any good examples. There are some good technical artists out there; but most of the time, the work just comes off looking bizarre, hateful, hypocritical, and deeply misinformed.