How much longer will Americans be expected to fund murder-justifying fools?
I have been hesitant to write about Charlie Kirk's assassination. I have been filled with anger, sadness, revulsion, and incredulity over the past few days.
I did not follow Kirk extensively, but I watched a good number of his pro-life debates and, like many people on the right, I admired his reason-based arguments, passion for the unborn, general kindness even to those who ridiculed him, and insistence on political tolerance and non-violence. When he was killed, I was sickened not only at what had happened, but also by the malicious glee and pleasure that I knew would be the response of his enemies.
The left has surprised me in being even more disgusting and unashamed than I had expected.
On the day after Kirk's assassination, Ms. magazine decided to join in the exultation, re-publishing a heartless essay reflecting on how Kirk had allegedly brought his death on himself. The essay is not by any means the worst of what has been written—not even close. It is an example of the dreary average.
"Dying To Be Men: American Masculinity as Death Cult" was written by Emily Taylor, a self-described "intersectional feminist" who teaches literature and women's and gender studies in South Carolina.
Taylor's article pretends to care about Kirk's death while pointing out how richly he deserved it. A picture of Kirk with his arms spread wide at a Trump rally accompanies her outline of "how white supremacist, misogynist and homophobic ideals of manhood fuel violence in America—and put men themselves at risk."
Yes, you heard that right: according to this feminist college professor, it was white supremacy, misogyny, and homophobia that killed Charlie Kirk.
It is a good bet that Emily Taylor has never watched a whole video of Kirk debating students on a college campus. Like so many commentators over the past few days who have slandered and reviled the conservative activist, she presents no evidence for her claim that he was "white supremacist, misogynist and homophobic." These terms have become little more than emotion-laden place-holders to be deployed against any white conservative whose ideals offend feminist ideologues. Taylor is satisfied to allege that "the violent discourse espoused by Charlie Kirk and many others has resulted in his murder in front of a crowd of thousands of students" and that "Kirk built his career on racism and misogyny."
One would think that such heavy judgements would not be offered without a single reason.
But Taylor's article isn't really about Kirk. Her purpose is mainly to assure feminist readers that they need feel no compunction about the targeted assassination of a speaker on a college campus who advocated moral and social dialogue. It is an axiom of feminism, and a not-particularly marginal view generally, that white Christian conservatives are vile people whom the enlightened would prefer to live without.
In her article, Taylor repeats all the usual emetic and bigoted reasons why men like Kirk are allegedly "violent." It is because they are afraid of the greater wisdom and strength of women and people of color, etc. "What they are most afraid of is their own irrelevance and mortality, but instead of seeking a place in communities of care, these men grope for ways to lash out with violence and dominance." There is nothing good about traditional masculinity: "Because there is such deep insecurity, men who otherwise might have a moral compass instead go along with the death cult [of hegemonic masculinity] to prove that they, too are men."
This is Feminism 101, smug and asinine, remarkable only in the extraordinary insensitivity and tone-deafness of categorizing Kirk as a death-cultist allegedly lacking a moral compass.
There is not a moment's pause in the hatred, no hesitation in expressing such arrogant condemnation.
Taylor's main fear in the essay is that the millions of Americans who admired Kirk and appreciated his verbal jousting with academic feminism may decline to fund more academic feminism. "It is no surprise," she reports bitterly, "that [Trumpian Republicans] are desperate to attack the very academic fields that lay their weaknesses bare: women's and gender studies, sociology, the humanities, and public health." She and her allies feel free to justify Kirk's murder, but still expect those who loved him to pay for the justification.
In Taylor's view, men like Kirk dislike gender studies because it exposes unsettling truths about sex and gender. Taylor is particularly insistent on the link between "hegemonic masculinity" and "white supremacy," as well as on heteropatriarchy's failure to affirm alternatives such as homosexuality and non-binary identity. "Trans people pose the biggest threat," she asserts, "because they show that biological sex and gender are distinct categories, and that gender identity is constructed. This takes all of the power away from having a penis—again, unacceptable."
It may be interesting to see how Taylor will attempt to explain the fact that Kirk's killer hated white Christian conservatism and was just the sort of "anti-fascist," trans-loving, furry-allied, non-heteronormative and sexually transgressive young person she celebrates.
Taylor ends her article by reminding readers that "We have to keep up the fight to protect these very disciplines that help us to understand how violent, white American masculinity poses one of the country's biggest threats." This is what is being taught in thousands of gender studies classrooms across North America.
Taylor's final paragraph repeats her fake sorrow over Kirk's death, striking a note of maternal care for America's (though not, it seems, Kirk's) children:
"I'm sorry for Charlie Kirk and all the other men like him that have been raised in this America and with these ideals of masculinity. I'm sorry that he decided to adopt this hateful ideology and to profit from it. And as the mother to a boy and a girl, my heart breaks for the America these children are growing up in. Here's hoping we can save ourselves."
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for the conversation by Ms. editorial staff about re-publishing this item on the day after Kirk's blood was spilled on a college campus. Was it considered an important message that grieving Americans needed to hear? Were the editors concerned that too much sorrow over a conservative white man's murder might defuse or delegitimize feminist anger, even for one day?
For the record, I don't think Taylor should lose her job for her vacuous moral posturing; but I see no reason why her position should get one penny of public funding.
I could keep on doing this, finding other feminist commentary and itemizing feminism's hollow claims of moral superiority—but it is beside the point.
Feminists have nothing to offer to prevent political violence, and neither do women in general. Feminism blames violence on the wrong causes and advocates solutions, such as the further feminization of society, that will be useless or will worsen the violence.
When the bullets start to fly, women can do little but run for cover.
Men will, in the main, have to deal with whatever violence breaks out in our societies, and men will be the ones who bring it under control. That is why most women should have supportive and subordinate roles in government, security, policing, and so on. Only good and strong men can make our societies safe.
The best that women can do is support the good men to help them win; and pray against the bad ones.
I don't know what to do about the thousands of North Americans, many in teaching, administrative, and healthcare positions, who are so full of righteous hatred against white conservative Christian men that they are gleeful to see one killed in front of his wife and children—and then have the gall to act as if they could create a better world. In actuality, their godless and vengeful beliefs lead to endless bickering, jockeying for victim credentials, societal degeneration, and hatred.
Charlie Kirk articulated an age-old vision of the good that we discard at our peril. It is a vision in which men and women work together in heterosexual families and communities—with men in the major positions of power—to create a stable social order conducive to the raising of healthy children. We will either have a patriarchy that conserves our Christian and European inheritance, or we will lose it all.
One can disagree about economic systems and foreign policy, but Kirk's primary vision is, in my view, indispensable. The sterile narcissism of women's sexual empowerment, gay pride, transgenderism, and so on, are secondary at best and in the main useless or destructive. In its near-200-year existence, feminism and its intersectional and Marxist offshoots have never offered any viable blueprint for a flourishing, productive society.
Kirk's ideals and practice were particularly attractive to young men because young men, above all others, want and need the opportunity to develop and contribute their talents, take pride in themselves and their country, pursue justice, stand for the good, protect the weak, and govern their lives with courage and reason. Sexual excess, victim rhetoric, anti-Americanism, and perpetual grievance offer them nothing good. Charlie Kirk became the symbol of their rejection of the noxious nonsense being preached on college campuses and more broadly.
So far, good men have shown extraordinary patience, generosity, forbearance, and willingness to listen as, over the past 50 years, their views have been marginalized and the society their forebears built has been undermined. Men have been told that their day is over and all that is left is for them to be ashamed and obedient. They've been encouraged to mutilate their consciences and their bodies.
They have suffered and endured; Charlie Kirk and others inspired them with the possibility of reasoned resistance. His death will harden their resolve to resist, reasonably or not.