The Politics of Guilt and Pity

The Double Standards of Neo-Marxism

The predominant ideological narrative amongst Western elites and its attendant Commentariat is neo-Marxism. According to this perspective, the world is divided up into "the haves" and the "have nots" whom "the haves"  exploit.  The policies of most Western governments and political discourse in general reflect this ideology in one way or another.  It is an ideology of faux-guilt and faux-pity.

A corollary of Western neo-Marxism is that non-whites are an exploited minority in most Western countries.  As such, being largely dispossessed of wealth and perpetually poor(er), they deserve more than just sympathy.  The enlightened neo-Marxist must stand with them in solidarity.  The upshot is rampant hypocrisy and double standards.  Let a white middle-class person rob or rape and the full weight of the law will justly fall.  Let a black or Hispanic person do the same, and all kinds of double standards and extenuations are likely to apply.  The latter has done wrong, to be sure, but they are oppressed and exploited, so deserve a measure of understanding and sympathy not appropriate for a member of the "exploiter class".

Domestic violence in New Zealand we are told is predominantly a Maori problem.  Maori elites and the chattering classes blame exploitation of Maori by society at large (but essentially white Europeans) for this mess.
  The extenuating circumstances of oppression range from "colonial exploitation" to alcohol and to not enough government largesse--but it's always someone else fault, and the someone represents neo-Marxist oppressor classes and their prevailing exploitative powers.  Whites are privileged.  Maori are disenfranchised, oppressed, and semi-enslaved--or so runs the neo-Marxist zeitgeist.  The chattering classes are donkey deep into this kind of thinking and spurious ideology.

Maori consist of three groups: one group are true neo-Marxists, believing that Maori and other poor people are oppressed and exploited (Hone Harawira and followers).  The second group are those who are not true believers, but see a wonderful opportunity to play on effete liberal white guilt and have hands out perpetually for money and privilege (educated Maori elites operating within the neo-Marxist zeitgeist).  The non-Maori elites of this country are more than happy to hand over sympathy and other people's money to assuage their false, neo-Marxist guilt and pity.  The third group of Maori despise the whole zeitgeist and long ago took personal and family responsibility for their own welfare.  This last group walk tall upon the land, seeing themselves predominantly as human beings, not disenfranchised, oppressed, colonial subjects.

The first group are true neo-Marxist believers; the second are cynical exploiters of an ideology which happens to provide leverage; and the third are too smart and too dignified to be seduced by such ideological stuff and nonsense.

The same double standards are applied to international affairs.  The world is divided into those countries and races who are oppressed by the West, on the one hand, and the "first world" oppressing powers, on the other.  Generally the Western neo-Marxist elites cut the poorer, exploited peoples an awful lot of slack.  They rationalise and justify behaviour that ordinarily would not be tolerable to "upper-class" nations.   For example, Egypt recently closed its border with Palestine in response to smugglers and terrorists.  The Western Commentariat generally reported this erstwhile atrocity in measured terms.  It was unfortunate, but understandable.

This, from the Associated Press:

EL-ARISH, Egypt — With dynamite and bulldozers, Egypt’s army demolished dozens of homes along its border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, after the military ordered residents out to make way for a planned buffer zone meant to stop militants and smugglers.  The plan to clear 10,000 residents from some 800 houses over just several days has angered the area’s already disgruntled population, which has long held grievances with Cairo. . . .

Over the past decade, the northern region of the Sinai Peninsula has become a hub for Islamic extremists, although insurgency has spiked since last year’s military ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. It has also spread to other parts of Egypt, with militants targeting police in Cairo and the Nile Delta.  The move to set up the planned 8-mile buffer zone, which will be 500 meters (yards) wide, comes after militants attacked an army checkpoint near Sheikh Zuweyid town last week, killing 31 soldiers. No group claimed responsibility. 

After the attack, Egypt declared a three-month state of emergency and dawn-to-dusk curfew there and indefinitely closed the Gaza crossing, the only non-Israeli passage for the crowded strip with the world.  Mona Barhomaa, a female activist who lives 800 meters from the border and who is not affected by evacuation order, said she supported the demolitions. . . .

Tanks and armored vehicles sealed off all of Rafah as thick grey smoke rose in the sky each time demolition charges went off and another house was toppled. Bulldozers knocked down other buildings as residents hurriedly left them, loading furniture, luggage, and personal belongings into pickup trucks before handing their houses over to the army for destruction.  “People are in a state of shock but helpless at the same time,” said Ahmed Aetaa, who lives in nearby Sheikh Zuweyid town and who is in touch with friends packing and leaving their homes in Rafah, where the main border crossing is located. The corridor will eventually be monitored by surveillance cameras, and feature a water-filled trench that will be 40 meters wide, 20 meters deep and run all along the border to the Mediterranean Sea, officials said.

Imagine how the narrative would have been framed had Israel conducted a similar action.  Behold the neo-Marxist ideological mindset at work.