The two most powerful words in the English language
We are not using them enough.
The two most powerful words in the English language are, so what? We do not use them enough.
A “so what?” is a rebuff, a rejection of some cherished belief. It confronts the promoter of an idea with the worst form of disagreement, indifference.
In a narcissistic world where attention is often the goal of agitators, genuine disinterest is difficult to manipulate. It disarms anyone intent on destroying established norms.
A “so what?” forces a reconsideration. It has the strongest effect on the issues we care most about.
Nobody enjoys their precious cause being dismissed. That is why we must use it more.
Who cares?
Many of today’s moral crusades are imposed on us against our will. We are told we must attend to issues most of the world ignores.
Here are a few to consider.
Racism and diversity
Accusations of racism are now endemic in Western nations. The underlying drive is one of punishment. Natural wariness of alien peoples is recast as a moral failing, the antidote to which is enforced mixing to demonstrate the backwardness of one’s social inferiors. A policy unique to Western countries.
The promotion of diversity quotas rests upon tacit acceptance of the idea that homogeneity is undesirable. This requires our participation to succeed, especially the consequence of this belief, that the mass importation of foreigners is needed to improve society.
The response to accusations of a lack of diversity should be, so what? It needs to be laughed at. Who cares if we are too homogenous? Says who?
No rational group seeks to dilute their numbers. This is a perverse affectation confined to a handful of ethnomasochists who think racism is unique to Western societies.
A robust rejection of this helps recalibrate to the global norm, a useful reminder to anyone steeped in woke catechisms. Much of the world views out-group preference as either treason or mental illness, a perspective easily observed simply by travelling.
Sexism and gender equality
There is a mismatch between the sexes. Men win the prizes, dominate their fields and invent the inventions.
We are told this is a disgrace. Such patriarchal domination will not do.
A key flashpoint is the “gender wage gap” that unwittingly illustrates the insincerity of feminism. There is no wage gap. There is a lifetime earnings gap. This is a consequence of decisions women voluntarily make such as spending more time with family or choosing less risky employment closer to home.
This is firmly established and supported with unimpeachable data, often produced by the very governments pursuing gender pay gap legislation.
Polite counterarguments against feminist talking points like this fail despite their thoroughness because facts are dismissed as they are inconvenient to a lucrative narrative.
Therefore the response to accusations of gender imbalances should be met with a robust so what? If they don’t care about engaging with established facts why should we care about the issue at all? Energetic indifference is the only way to deprive feminism of its momentum.
Much of the “argument” for gender equality is emotional manipulation. It abuses men’s protective instincts in a shameless way.
A firm “so what?” arrests this natural urge in men. It provides a small space for us to escape manipulation and examine the facts.
Who cares if women are underrepresented or have less money? This is a result of decisions women themselves make, so solve the problem yourself. Stop begging men for special favours.
Climate concerns and environmental issues
Environmentalism has been captured by anti-western activists. Their target is modern society which they hate.
Energy use, food choices and freedom to travel are all on the chopping block. In their warped worldview modernity is the source of our ills and must be curtailed to bring about their imagined paradise.
Like radical feminism, the drive behind today’s climate agenda is deception not an honest assessment of facts. It is a form of socialism with its attendant control mechanisms wrapped up in pleasant sounding eco-friendly, green-flavoured claptrap designed to deceive the inattentive.
Those drawn to state communism can no longer sell such a disgraced ideology on its merits so must disguise it as concern for the environment. They usually try to induce artificial claims about some foreign group we are told will be flooded, baked to a crisp or snowed into submission thanks to our love of steak dinners and air conditioning. It’s all about the guilt trip. Yet another manipulation.
This is their main source of weakness. Why should we care about such abstract nonsense? Who cares about the temperature eighty years from now or the plight of The People’s Democratic Republic of Congolia? We can’t even find it on a map. Let them solve their own problems.
These are just some of the causes we are hassled with. Most are luxury beliefs driven by fraud or implausible claims. Many are designed to manipulate our decency. Much of it can be stopped in its tracks if we just respond with so what?
Compared to who?
A complementary technique to the so-what technique is to ask a more probing question when confronted with today’s invented crusades — compared to who?
This pre-prepared query places the emphasis on the accuser, a disconcerting experience to anyone who has uncritically downloaded today’s Great Cause and has no idea why.
I am racist? Compared to who? The Chinese? They think everyone is backward, especially us. What about the Indians, who rank among the most racist on Earth. Are we as bad as them?
America’s black minority, the focus of inordinate energy and resources over many decades, almost always close ranks particularly against American whites. Black solidarity is taken for granted and often championed even while white equivalents are condemned as dangerous. Are we as race conscious as them or other ethnic groups in our midst?
Aggressive in-group preference is the global norm. It is out-group preference in the form of anti-racism we need to explain since no one else does it. Even ethnic neutrality is an oddity peculiar to Europeans. The world is out for itself and makes no bones about it.
Sexist? Compared to who? What about women, who routinely ridicule men for being men? What about the entire media complex who also denigrate men, especially white men?
What about Muslims and Hindus who have inflexible and well publicized views on where women reside on the scale of rights and freedoms? Are we that sexist? What European man is telling his wife to cover herself head to toe when she leaves the house?
The mistreatment and denigration of women is a global norm. Almost no culture outside the West gives any consideration to females. Many view women as volatile cranks only suited to child rearing and cleaning. Special efforts to elevate them to equal status with men is considered insanity by much of the world and is openly mocked. How do we compare to that?
We invented the conservation movement the rest of the world ignores yet we are hassled for not doing enough.
Anti-pollution laws, clean air acts and unleaded petrol are things we didn’t just propose but enacted many decades ago with enthusiastic support. They were not hard sells precisely because we are famously considerate in comparison to almost everyone else.
India is just one example. Their sacred river, the Ganges, is a toxic disaster that kills people. Given its cultural importance that would be like us dumping nuclear waste inside St Peter’s Basilica.
How is it possible in the least racist, least sexist, least polluted, most egalitarian societies we are pilloried like this if not a concerted effort by social manipulators to target us with invented grievances in the knowledge we are nice to others? What is this if not exploitation of our good natures?
And that is the real point, our decency.
We are not the world’s racists, homophobes or wifebeaters. We are not the defoulers of the environment. But we are the world’s most considerate societies. We have universality baked in. We extend our magnanimity to all comers; men, women, gays, immigrants, you name it.
When we do anything we attempt to drag everyone up, however misguided.
But this instinct is now a liability. The targets of our fairness only see ever more discrimination, unfairness and abuse by which we mean they see an opportunity to leverage more concessions from people prone to agonize over universal principles. Our concern for fairness is perceived as weakness, and they are right.
There is one clear antidote to this ingratitude, withdrawal of privilege. A suspension of the goodwill they abuse.
A standard response of so what? Who cares? Now go away.
The next time someone hassles you about climate and pollution think of the Ganges. When a feminist annoys you with some minor female inconvenience think of those slaves covered head to toe so they don’t inflame male passions and invite rape, and how little the sisterhood cares about them. When you are accused of racism think of the level of anti-white venom aimed at a group who make up less than ten percent of the global population and create societies the world flocks to.
It is time to reject these causes and get back to building up our great nations exclusively for ourselves and ousting the hangers on with their manipulations.
And that means an entirely different set of priorities. It means a rejection of other people’s grievances. It means confronting tomorrow’s sob story with a very energetic so what?
PLEASE HELP
I think this topic is important. We are being exploited by many different forces. European and North American cultures are specifically targeted thanks to our magnanimity.
Most of our woes end when we learn to say no! It is our passivity that condemns us. Active rejection begins when more of us have the courage to say so what?
That is our power. Western man’s indifference and our ultimate withdrawal of support for fake causes.
We must learn to wield this power better and assert ourselves with manipulative detractors, most of whom expect our acquiescence.
And that begins by internalizing the response of so what?
If you agree, please share this piece wherever you can. Every little helps to get people thinking more seriously about these absurdities as they are destroying us.
I’m amused that, given your nom de plume, you didn’t include the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin declares that “So what?” is his new rallying cry.
Most policies and such can be boiled down to two or three words, I think, after reading this.
Policy vis-a-vis migrants and such making demands? "No. Out"
Retarded races demanding money from us? "For what?"
Aggressive moslems making threats? "Bombs away!"
I tell you, without joking or being hyperbolic, I was in charge of antion with nuclear capabilites and some moslem nation sponsored terrorism against my people and nation? "Boom" goes Mekka. I'd give them 24 hours to deliver all culprits and suspects bound hand and foot first, and the it's "you lose one city or oil field every 24 hours until you comply".
And it would still kill fewer than moslems have murdered non-moslems.