In Defense of Mary Sue

bonddrew

There are two distinct ways in which the term Mary Sue gets used in literary works (as well as any other fictional medium, really). The most common usage today is in the context of the perfect protagonist. This could mean a character that has a seemingly limitless aptitude for displaying/learning skills that go well beyond the realm of reason even within the reality of the fanciful narrative in which s/he exists.

Think of characters that are described as flawless physically, and around whom all the other characters gravitate towards, whether the plot necessitates it or not. Obvious examples are characters brought to life within the pages of fan-fiction, but I would say that such writings are somewhat of a given on account that they are meant to be tributes to existing characters, thus overemphasizing said characters attributes might be unavoidable in this genre. More worthwhile examples of Mary Sues are characters that are actually successful, and one could say well-respected, within literature.

Characters like James Bond and Nancy Drew in their original literary inceptions could very easily be argued to fit this description. James Bond speaks every language of every country he steps foot in, can fight (and always win) in every fighting style confronted with, and can (and will) seduce any woman he desires because every woman he meets just naturally lusts after him without hesitation. Likewise, Nancy Drew effortlessly picks up any activity she tries, is seemingly liked by everyone and often complimented on just how great she is by the other characters, and of course understands investigative deduction and forensic science well beyond what ought to be plausible for a person her age.

A word needs to be said about not going overboard and pinning the Mary Sue label on any character that just happens to be either capable, or powerful. For example, although Superman is essentially a god-like character in many regards, he’s not really a Mary Sue as the term is commonly used. Notwithstanding the fact that he has a fatal weakness in kryptonite, a lot of the narrative around Superman centers on the way his immense power keeps him on some scale separate–even isolated–from the very people he is dedicated to protect. No matter how humane he is, he is never going to be human, and will always be an outsider in that regard in the only world he knows as home (especially since his birth planet no longer exists). In this sense, there is a genuinely ongoing tragedy underlying the Superman saga, whether it is explicitly stated or not, in a way Mary Sues don’t really have to deal with.

There is a secondary definition to a Mary Sue, and it involves authors who essentially write themselves into the plot of their stories as a means of wish-fulfillment. To put it simply, when the main character in a story is written as a idealized version of the author her/himself, and is written in a way to fulfill the perfect protagonist archetypes described above, then we have a Mary Sue on our hands.

I can see why people dislike either incarnation of the Mary Sue trope sneaking into the pages of a story. Perfect character can get stale very quickly, because they are largely unrelatable to the vast majority of readers. Moreover, the overreaching plot of a story will become very boring if we can tell from the start that the main character will always save the day, get the love, or that every obstacle encountered is just a superficial plot piece that offers no real danger in the long run. However, despite all this reasonable criticism on why not to write characters in this way, the fact is that Mary Sues can actually resonate with readers if they find the story engaging enough–compelling writing just have a way of trumping all tropes. The two examples of James Bond and Nancy Drew can attest to this just by how prolific both characters have been through the decades. (It should be noted that I am aware how Bond has been greatly “de-Sued” in his cinematic portrayal over the years, in particular in the most recent Daniel Craig films, which show him as a far more vulnerable and broken person than he ever was in print.)

What this tells me is that people don’t mind Mary Sues so much as they like to use Mary Sues as a convenient way to write off a work of fiction they probably disliked to begin with. And I get that, too. Sometimes, characters in a book can just rub you the wrong way. I for one absolutely loathed Holden Caulfield when I first read The Catcher in the Rye, and am still not too found of the little shit to this day. (I’ve mellowed out about him because I’ve come to terms with the possibility that he’s a character I’m not meant to like.) If I discovered that Holden was written to serve as an idealized stand-in for J.D. Salinger my opinion would not be swayed one way or the other. This brings me to the final point I want to make on this topic, and it deals with the issue people have of authors writing themselves into the characters. As anyone who has ever written fiction can confirm, it is unavoidable that some part of you will come through, in some way, in every character you will ever create. I’ll even go as far as to say that I have never written a character that didn’t reflect some aspect of my personality, morbid curiosities, lived experiences, faced dilemmas, overcome setbacks, learned failures, and hard fought successes. And I know that people will object that I’m shamefully stirring away from the genuine opposition leveled against Mary Sues (i.e. an author’s perfect protagonist wish-fulfillment), but I would argue that the fear of not wanting to create a Mary Sue-type character may be holding some writers back from exploring the full depth they can push themselves to because they are too paranoid about falling into this trope. What I would urge instead is for a different approach.

You shouldn’t just see yourself as the author of the story, but remember that you are also its first reader. You are the first one who will look through the characters’ eyes and see the world as it is written for them to see. Regardless of whether you are a novice or been doing this for years, it is no easy feat to create an entire world from whole cloth, and then give to it a pair of eyes (several pairs, if we are being honest) for others to share in the experience. It can be a rather frustrating task to even know where to start. My take on the matter is simply to realize that, as you’re struggling to give sight to your story’s narrators, it is perfectly fine to first start with the pair of eyes ready made in your head, and expand from there without fear of breaking some unwritten rules of storytelling.

Darwin’s Use of Natural Selection, and Metaphors in Science

Darwin's Natural Selection: Misunderstanding Morality | by Jakub Ferencik | The Humanists of Our Generation | Medium

From its initial publication on November 24^th, 1859, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species revolutionized the scientific field through its presentation of evolutionary theory as the biological process capable of accounting for the diversity of life observed in the world. And the key means by which Darwin proposed evolution to be possible was a mechanism he called natural selection.

From the start, controversy arose against Darwin’s strictly naturalistic explanation for the emergence of new species, and opposition formed swiftly to denounce evolution by natural selection as an insufficient theory that is unscientific in its analysis. Most of the early opposition was religious in nature, but a more legitimate note of dissent came from Darwin’s own colleague Alfred Russel Wallace, who criticized Darwin’s choice of diction in referring to the evolutionary process by the term natural selection as misleading to the general public, because it needlessly implied a selector in the process. Darwin countered Wallace’s objection by making the case that, for explanatory purposes, natural selection served as a sufficient term as it gives people a descriptive (albeit metaphorical) idea of how the wholly naturalistic phenomenon operates in comparison to the widely familiar practice of artificial selection.

Wallace himself was a proponent of evolution (often referred to as its co-discoverer along with Darwin), and was by no means opposed to the idea of natural selection. He simply preferred the phrase “survival of the fittest” as a much better alternate to natural selection, arguing:

Natural Selection is, when understood, so necessary and self-evident a principle, that it is a pity it should be in any way obscured; and it therefore seems to me that the free use of “survival of the fittest,” which is a compact and accurate definition of it, would tend much to its being more widely accepted, and prevent it being so much misrepresented and misunderstood.[1]

Wallace thought that among the scientists in the field, who understood their work, the use of natural selection was not an issue, but among those who did not understand evolution and its process, the metaphor would fail to convey Darwin’s true meaning. Undoubtedly aware of the attacks his and Darwin’s theory was already being subjected to, Wallace must have been worried that confusing people about the function of natural selection with metaphorical language would only serve to move skeptical minds further away from embracing evolutionary theory.

Darwin responded by agreeing that natural selection can be misleading to some, and even decided to incorporate “survival of the fittest” alongside natural selection as a compromise to Wallace in subsequent editions of On the Origin of Species. But Darwin also commented how through the continued use of natural selection, his intended meaning will become more widespread, and weaken the sort of objections Wallace made.[2] Despite these concessions on the issue, Darwin remained largely dismissive of Wallace’s concern, even bluntly responding that Wallace overstated the case for the opposition, and implied that certain individuals will misinterpret any term simply because they are too keen on scrutinizing over matters that are trivial to the average person.[2]

Darwin introduced the concept of descent through modification (i.e. evolution) in Chapter I of On the Origin of Species by drawing parallels to the artificial selection observed in animal domestication[3], something most of his readers would have been familiar with at the time. He does this as a means of easing his audience into his argument in Chapter IV, where he finally makes his case for natural selection. The confusion Wallace referred to can be argued here by Darwin’s parallel between artificial and natural selection, and his stating how, “this preservations of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variation, I call Natural Selection,”[4] because it indicates the presence of intelligent oversight (as is the case for artificial selection), when in reality no such implication need be made for the process to function. Though in his exchange with Wallace, Darwin appeared to be shrugging the matter off as a nonissue, he nevertheless thought it important to both defend his use of natural selection, and clear up any confusion about his intent in later editions of the book: “It is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.”[5] Thereby reiterating his confidence that by continually familiarizing the public with his true intended meaning for natural selection, the term can be salvaged and the misguided dissent will disappear.

Charles Darwin insisted that metaphorical terms are needed in science for the sake of expressing an idea, and that it is the general descriptive quality that ought to be focused on by readers, not so much the personification of abstract concepts. For example, when one says that particles are physically attracted to one another, few actual think there is some sort of conscious intimacy taking place between the consciousness-devoid matter. Same goes with the description that gravity pushes down on a table, in that nobody would claim that the result caused by the force is driven by a self-awareness to hold on to the object. In the case of natural selection, while in a literal sense a misnomer, it is nevertheless an apt description of the mechanism taking place.

Despite what is often asserted within anti-Darwinian circles, evolution by natural selection is actually not a completely random phenomenon, in that there does occur a mode of selection. To explain it simply: Different variants exist among and within different species, exhibiting different traits; some of them will be better adapted to a given environment, thus they will better survive in said environment, leaving more descendants with the same beneficial traits than the less adapted species. It is blind, unguided, and in the long-run goalless, but also not really random, in that nature itself non-randomly provides the setting in which the various random traits will either flourish or flounder. Thus, although the selector is an unintelligent and unaware agent, it is a selector nonetheless; a natural selector. Meaning that Darwin’s use of natural selection as a metaphorical expression to describe the mechanism of evolutionary theory is a fitting one, and an entirely justifiable one.

Natural selection, as a term, is metaphorical only in the broad sense, but very descriptive in light of the proper understanding of the science involved in its function. Darwin was right to point out that, given enough promotion, a phrase will begin to take on the definition popularly assigned to it even among the most stubborn minds. Originally, the Big Bang was coined as a dismissive mockery of the theory, and is neither accurate not descriptive, but it has such wide use that objections have been thoroughly forgotten, and nobody emphasizes its metaphorical implications. This leads into the main point, and it is one that Darwin himself indirectly made to Wallace, how for those who are opposed to the implications of evolution no term or explanation will be justifiable, and misconstruing natural selection is a means by which to either conform the concept to their personal liking or discredit it as insufficient. The same would happen with “survival of the fittest,” or any other alternative phrase that could be proposed. And it is through the merit of its work that science is judged, not by its ability to accommodate to the ignorance of its detractors.

[1] Francis Darwin and A. C. Seward, eds., More Letters of Charles Darwin: A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters (London: John Murray, 1903. Vol. 1.), 270.

[2] Francis Darwin and A. C. Seward, eds., More Letters of Charles Darwin: A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters (London: John Murray, 1903. Vol. 1), 272.

[3] Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species ed. James Secord (Oxford: University Press, 2008), 111.

[4] Darwin, Origin of Species, 141.

[5] Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species, 6th edition (London: John Murray, 1872), 63.

Nietzsche’s Great Blunder on Human Inheritance

The agony and the destiny: Friedrich Nietzsche's descent into madness

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote extensively about his interpretation of human development (as well as human degradation), and in his beautifully articulated fervor he often fell into the habit of overextending his narrow understanding of evolutionary theory.

One cannot erase from the soul of human being what his ancestors like most to do and did most constantly / It is simply not possible that a human being should not have the qualities and preferences of his parents and ancestors in his body, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary (Beyond Good and Evil, “What is Noble,” Section 264).

The detrimental part of Nietzsche’s error above is his apparent endorsement of Lamarckian inheritance (an early evolutionary hypothesis that states how organisms can pass on traits they acquired in their lifetimes to their offspring; considered to have been largely displaced as a scientifically viable theory in favor of Darwinian natural selection). In the same section, Nietzsche goes on to say that if one knows about the character traits and likes of the parents, an accurate inference about the child’s personality traits and likes also becomes possible; emphasizing that it is only, “with the aid of the best education that one will at best deceive with regard to such a heredity.” Nevertheless, Nietzsche ignores the impact that environmental pressure plays on the development of a child’s psychology, i.e. the fact that people (in particular children) seem to readily adopt the characteristics and traits that are prevalent in their surroundings (this is not an absolute rule, but a general statement).

For example, I have always lived in working-class urban areas in the United States, where there reside quite a few immigrant households (my own included). And where there are immigrant households in the U.S., there are also first-generation Americans. By Nietzsche’s assessment these first-generationers should retain the “qualities and preferences” of their parents and ancestors, yet in reality, more often than not, they simply don’t.

If they were born here–or arrived here at a young age–went to American schools, associated with American peers, and indulged in American pop culture to any extend, their qualities and preferences will be inseparable from that of anyone else whose ancestry goes back several generations in this country. This will be true in regard to their most basic characteristics, such as their accents, their mannerisms, their values, their ideals, their politics, and their interaction with societal phenomena. What remains of the traditional ties to the parent’s mindset becomes solely a sentimental practice for the sake of the still unassimilated elders, rather than a reflection of sincere attachment to ancestral values.

Nietzsche might have countered by saying that this is just part of the deceptive education he warned about. But if we accept that people can be deceived about their likes and preferences by their surroundings, does it not also warrant the notion that people are deceived about their likes and preferences by their parents (i.e. childhood indoctrination), rather than having inherited them by Lamarckian means? In fact, under close scrutiny Nietzsche’s two opposing premises seem to be virtually identical, as long as one does away with the Lamarckian inheritance component in the first.

Nietzsche rejected free will as a viable factor in human psychology. Thus he may have been motivated to accept acquired inheritance as a necessity to explain human behavioral traits in a completely deterministic universe. But, if so, this is a needless exercise on his part, since the fact that people’s behaviors are determined by a combination of genetic (in a purely biological sense, not the abstract personal interests discussed above) and environmental factors, is sufficient enough in offering a thorough explanation of the matter. However, I doubt that free will held any real motivation in Nietzsche’s reasoning on the subject.

More likely, Nietzsche saw Lamarckian inheritance as a more fitting addition to his greater philosophical aims. Charles Darwin had adamantly proposed that in the grand scheme of things, the only coherent way to speak of evolution is on the level of populations, not individuals. To Nietzsche–who by all accounts had no trouble accepting either Darwin’s theory by natural selection, or the common descent of living organism–this view would have been too naive to satisfy his want for a more inwardly self-reflection (he was after all more a philosopher, than a scientist), not to mention I suspect he probably saw it as antithetical to his own promotion of individual development and preservation, in favor to the preservation of the population as a whole.

Thus, it might be safe to say, that in this case at least, Nietzsche had fallen into the same trap he had warned others of with so much rational eloquence. He overlooked the fact that the veracity of a conclusion cannot be determined by its conformity to our preferences, but must stand on its own merits.

Yes, the Alt-right is Racist, and Fascist, too

I’ve always been of the opinion that the best thing about the internet is that it can connect you to people you would never have had the chance to meet otherwise. Unfortunately, the worst thing about the internet is that it can connect you to people you might never have wanted to meet in the first place. A further caveat I need to add to my thinking here is that it also gives opportunity for groups of people, who would otherwise silently fester in the fringe of their own obscurity, an outlet by which to promote and recruit for their ideas. Trailing in that online tradition of appealing to edgy opportunism, mixed in with out-group paranoid hysteria, development of an in-group lexicon, and add a good sprinkle of desperation for online celebrity (propelled forward by a base of fans hiding behind the unrestrained security of online anonymity). Finish it off with a dose of victimhood mentality about being an aggrieved, unheard sector of society, and you have the key ingredients of an Identity Movement.

The alt-right is one such Identity Movement in the news lately. It’s hard to tell whether the white ~~supremacist~~ ~~nationalist~~ “identitarian” movement is really winning over any hearts, or if its vocal presence and relentless social media self-promotion is just giving that impression. Either way, these brand of racists are no longer content with posting anonymously on message boards like Stormfront [no, I’m not linking to it; you can google it if you’re that curious], and are confident they can gain a mass appeal among America’s white majority. One of the main reasons why I’m doubtful of the alt-right’s claim to be gaining mainstream traction is the fact that despite being a movement focused on race, whose primary objectives deal entirely with the promotion (though they would undoubtedly call it protection) of white people and white identity–well to the point of wanting race to be the determining metric of citizenship in a proposed ethnostate–it’s main proponents (and their online followers) will whine incessantly if you so much as dare actually pin the dreaded “racist” label on them. (It has to be a social progress of a sort when even racists consider being a racist a bad thing, and I’m one to take any progress I can get.)

Deflection, conflation, and obfuscation are common tactics of argumentation and self-defense among the alt-right when it comes to fending off the (accurate) racism charge leveled against them. Usually something along the lines of:

“The leftists/liberals are the real racists! All they do is talk about racism, and always at the expense of white people. The alt-right is just a reaction to the left’s/liberal’s anti-white racism. The Left’s anti-racism is just a code word for anti-white.”

Okay, I’ll bite. For the sake of argument, let’s grant the premise entirely. Let’s grant that the current political Left has a prevalence of anti-white racism at the core of its ideology. Now, how does the Left being racist against whites (a scenario wherein racism is a bad thing within the stated premise), justify an equally racist pro-white reaction against it (wherein now racism is stealthily flipped as a desirable response)? Surely, if the initial racism from the Left (as the alt-right identifies it) is a bad thing, then racism as a counter to it would be equally bad, as it would make you simply an inverted copy of that which you are opposing to begin with.

What the alt-right misses (be it intentionally or unintentionally) is that rather than succumb to a false dichotomy in which one must choose a side between racist leftists and the racist alt-right, it is possible to denounce both sides as racists, and oppose them both simultaneously (as the vast majority of people living in the Western world already do). Just like I can oppose a crime committed against a person, without having to condone the wronged person’s subsequent retaliation if he or she decides to even the score by committing an unlawful act in revenge.

It simply amazes me how people involved in this argument (including those attempting to argue against the alt-right) fail to point out how saying that other people (people you ideologically oppose) engage in racism, doesn’t nullify or justify one’s own racism. After all, the KKK and the Nation of Islam are both ideologically just as racist as each other, regardless that the stated goals of their racism contrast one another. To repeat, simply pointing to racist practices of other groups (practices that you wish to emulate, by the way) doesn’t make your racism more justified, or less racist.

I’ll state it even clearer for alt-right supporters: whenever you find leftists/liberals saying we should get rid of whites on the basis of them being white (by whatever active/passive/Marxist/post-modernist/cultural/political means or influence you wish to identify it as) it is racist. When the alt-right says we should get rid of non-whites on the basis of them being non-white (by wanting to create an ethnostate where citizenship is to be determined based on race, which will inevitably deprive current non-white citizens of their citizenship status based strictly on the criteria that they are not white) it is racist. And I can–and I will–call them both as such, and point out the myopia of calling out one side’s racism while mimicking the same line of thinking from the other end of the spectrum.

Alt-right spokespersons are very quick to eschew the racism charge against their ideology by saying that they (and people like them) are essentially just in favor of preserving white identity as a unique and distinct concept, just as all other races ought to be respected in their desires to preserve their own unique identities. When stated in such terms, it can sound rather benign. But the reality is that every time people who are sympathetic to the alt-right start to map out their end goal (i.e. the creation of a white ethnostate, wherein citizenship rights are to be primarily based on the merits of a person’s race) of just what this sort of ideology entails if it was actually implemented, the outcome is always, by necessity, indefensible on every civic and (I would argue) moral ground.

Once again, deflection and obfuscation are the means by which people within movements like the alt-right communicate. So whenever challenged on the indefensible violations of human rights that would inevitably follow were their proposition for a white ethnostate put into practice, their go-to retort is to insist that nothing about their goal of creating a white ethnostate is inherently violent, in and of itself, against non-whites who happen to already reside in the carved out area; insisting that sufficient compensation to these non-whites to simply be relocated out of the white ethnostate would be a peaceful alternative to the transition. I’m tempted to point out how these are the same people who mock the political Left for being unrealistic utopianists for advocating for a classless society, all while sincerely putting forward the expectation that a group of native-born citizens will peacefully relinquish their citizenship rights (and all the protections and privileges it guarantees them) as long you give them enough cash to make it worth their while. However, I’ll be charitable once more, and for the sake of argument grant even this (absurd) premise well beyond any reasonable sense that it deserves.

So let’s say the alt-right accomplishes its goal, and a white ethnostate is established. Let’s say that within this ethnostate there is a moderately-sized metropolitan city of 150,000 people, whose non-white population now needs to be relocated. For the sake of being generous, let’s also say that the percentage of that non-white population is as low as 10% of the whole, leaving us with only a meager 15,000 individuals that now need to be removed. And since I’m in such a generous mood, let me put the total percentage out of this already small group of individuals who will actively reject any attempts to be removed from their place of birth (regardless of the monetary compensation offered to them to do so) at a measly 1%. That’s 150 individuals. 150 native-born, law-abiding, multi-generational citizens, whose legal status and citizenship rights will now have to be forcefully revoked, who will have to be forcefully evicted from their country of birth, not on the merits of any wrongs that they have individually committed, but based strictly on the metric of having been born as the wrong race. This is the reality of what the alt-right is advocating for, if one follows their proposition to its logical conclusion.

So why is this point not being hammered every single time someone like Richard Spencer gives an interview? And then continuously followed up on when he gives an evasive non-answer that fails to acknowledge the violent ethnic cleansing campaign that will undoubtedly have to happen to fulfill this alt-right talking point? How can you let these same people babble on about being stalwarts for the cause of individual freedoms and liberties, while advocating for the implementation of policies that seeks to deprive people of the greatest guarantor they have for safeguarding their individual liberties: their citizenship rights–rights most of them have a privilege to by virtue of their births, regardless of their race.

The reason I’m writing this post isn’t because I’m worried the alt-right will actually achieve its stated goal. I’m fully aware that all of this is a fantasy scenario. A racist, fascistic wet-dream of a fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. The logistics of it are not only impractical, the morality of it are intolerable even among the population they are trying to appeal to, i.e. conservative-leaning whites. I’d even go so far as to say that the proposition of creating an ethnostate, where being white will be the primary criteria considered for citizenship, is furthermore not just ahistorical, but outright anti-historical.

The reason I say this rests on the fact that even during America’s most openly pro-white eras–where slavery was an acceptable labor practice and open discrimination against non-whites was not only tolerated, but often encouraged–even at such a time, where the proclamation that the United States was a de facto “white country” would not have raised the slightest eyebrow among the population at large, even at that time, citizenship still was not and could not be based on the merit of race alone, as evident by the existence of non-white freemen that lived and worked in various sectors of American society, and were still considered American citizens. Despite the widespread (socially acceptable) discrimination that existed against them, and despite the fact that there were a multitude of legally binding social obstacles that prevented them from enjoying their full citizenship rights on equal terms with the white American populace, the one fundamental right they could not be deprived of was their status as a citizen of the country. They were still American, and were identified as such by the highest courts of the land.

Perhaps there will be alt-right supporters who read a post like this and say, “Yes, well I don’t care what you say, I’m still in favor of a white ethnostate.” Rest assured that my goal in writing this prolonged screed on your screen isn’t to convince you to give up your views. It’s simply to get you to be honest with yourself and acknowledge that when you say you’re fine with a white ethnostate, you are by definition saying you’re fine with revoking the citizenship rights of nonwhites, even if they are native-born and law-abiding members of society. And you further support this policy, even if it means using force against whatever percentage of these now racially undesirables refusing to give in and surrender their rights to the nation they were born under–essentially endorsing a policy of ethnic cleansing in the region you wish to carve out only for yourself, and people you wish to racially identify with. Furthermore, it would go a long way to your credit if you could do so under your real name, if these are the convictions you honestly hold. Because if you do it solely behind the safety of an online pseudonym, where no one can tell if you’re being sincere or trolling for the “lulz”, you can’t turn around and expect anyone to be willing to waste their time and energy engaging in argument with an opponent whose honesty cannot be reasonably deduced.

Moreover, the real reason I bothered writing this post comes down to the fact that those of us who look at the alt-right and see the absurdity of what they are saying need to stop with the near-apologetic way we talk about these people. Yes, the alt-right is fascist by virtue of the very goals they outline, and the means they are willing to resort to accomplish them. Don’t allow yourself to get derailed arguing about free speech and free expression by a group that’s literally talking about wanting to strip away the citizenship rights of people on account of them having been born the wrong race. How can you say you support free expression, when you don’t even support basic rights of citizenship? By definition, you cannot subscribe to this view, and still maintain to be an advocate for either individual rights, or any sort of enlightened values. The only word for this line of thinking is authoritarian. And pointing a finger at what the authoritarian, anti-white leftist/progressive “cucks” are doing, doesn’t negate the fact that while the ideological goal may be different, your the intent and ideological methodology is identical.

Because authoritarianism, by any other name, from any other side, still smells just as rotten. And the alt-right was rotten at its core from its very inception.