Day 218: Fish soup

An unfortunate upshot of my recent blogging about YouTube was the discovery of the videos of Steven Crowder. In case you don't know, and I hope you don't, Crowder is a staunchly right-wing YouTube personality and ex-Fox News presenter who has risen to prominence through his vociferous video put downs of liberals, social justice warriors, cucks, whatever those people call anyone on the left. Videos titled “Crowder dismantles two idiot feminists!!!” - that kind of thing.

Yeah.

The videos that brought him to my attention were his series Change My Mind, where he rocks up at college campuses, sets up tables displaying inflammatory statements such as “Rape Culture is a Myth” or "There are only two genders", and then asks passers-by to “change his mind.”

The purpose of the videos is ostensibly to open debate, to allow for freeform conversations between people of differing views, and to see whether any common ground can be reached.

I say ostensibly, because it’s all a ruse. In fact Crowder - whose name, by the way, is only one letter away from Chowder, which, incidentally, is a dish I find to be pungent, distasteful, yet inherently lacking in substance - has no intention of having his mind changed, and nor is there a likelihood of that happening. He prepares and researches extensively before showing up, makes himself certain of the beats surrounding his axiomatic premise - such as that murder is wrong, therefore abortion is wrong - memorises all of the common arguments against this premise, along with rebuttals to them, finds data to support his positions - preps himself as much as possible, and then unleashes himself, as an experienced presenter familiar with performing in front of large crowds, upon stuttering and nervous college kids who haven’t yet fully developed their opinions.

The point of the videos is to assert his dominance, to make liberals look inherently foolish and illogical, and to entertain his army of obsequious fans. An army, by the way, that, despite Chowder at least paying lip service to civility, drown his videos in comments of the most repugnant bile, an endless, utterly boring stream of invective; transphobic, homophobic, racist, just really shitty stuff. Chowder I think would claim to not speak for these people, while refusing to denounce them, saying they go too far but their anger at left-wing idiocy is warranted. I don’t know, I don’t want to put words in his mouth. That’s the impression I get.

But back to the videos themselves. There is actually plenty to give you pause for thought. Chowder is bright, he has thought a lot about his positions, you have to get up early, and be lightning fast, to go up against him. He makes a few points that made me see the fallacies in my own arguments.

Which is fine. I genuinely appreciate having my beliefs tested. Opposing views hammer against the hulls of your beliefs, and either the beliefs weather the blows, in which case you have renewed faith in them, or they become punctured by too many holes, let in too much water, and then you get to let them sink and go find a bigger boat.

I don’t have a problem with having my mind changed. It can be hard, sure, to detach your beliefs from your ego, from your sense of self, but it is one of the best lessons you can be taught. Be open to it. Let whatever is old and illogical die and fall away, and whatever is useful develop and grow. Opinions evolve. This is not weakness. It is life.

Thing is, I don’t get the impression Chowder is much into this. For us socialist lefties? Sure. For himself? Not so much. He has his ulterior motive, and when this is in danger, when he's not getting the results he wants, I've seen him steer the conversation back to entrapping his victims, or even to saying he's getting nowhere with them and forcing them to leave.

His stunts with Change My Mind feel like… what? Like a semi-pro boxer setting up a ring on the high street and goading members of the public to come in with him as a way to get some exercise, and then beating the shit out of them. Is he a good boxer? Not particularly. Is he better than someone off the street who’s had no training and doesn’t know how to move their feet and hasn't even stretched today? Of course.

For the show to be what it purports Chowder should announce to the campus that he’s coming, what it is he’s going to be talking about, and what his premise will be, thus affording his opponents the same ability to research and construct arguments that he affords himself. To not do that is cowardly, and cheapens the entire show.

What's worse, Chowder frequently confuses the fact that he's allowed to say whatever he wants with the question of whether he should. Does he have the right to go onto a campus and loudly proclaim to women, many of whom admit to him that they themselves have been raped, that there's no such thing as rape culture? Yes, he has that right. Is it an appallingly cruel move? For sure. He frequently mocks the idea of being "triggered", yet either he doesn't understand how post-traumatic stress works - in which case he's a fool - or he doesn't care that his arguments are literally harming people afresh, making them re-experience their trauma as if it was happening right then - in which case he's the worst human being imaginable.

There’s so much more I want to say. I’ll say it another time.

For now: music. Let’s go with… Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me! 

"Your tells are so obvious,
Shoulders too broad for a girl.
It keeps you reminded,
Helps you remember where you come from.

You want them to notice,
The ragged ends of your summer dress.
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl.
They just see a faggot.
They'll hold their breath not to catch the sick."

Laura Jane Grace's pained anthem is everything punk rock should be. Soulful, scrappy, righteous, tearing itself apart with fury. The best refutation to the miserly small-minded thinking of alt-right Youtubers that I can imagine, argued not with bar charts and secondary school logic, but with the primal immediacy of music itself - an immediacy that dives below intellect and touches us on a level far more profound than that linear re-presentation of reality can comprehend. Music isn't an after-the-fact attempt to measure reality, like intellect; music is reality. 

What does this reality say? Fuck you, Steven Chowder, you stinky fish soup cunt. That's what.