Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

"The Patriarchy" is code for what those of us in a previous generation grew up with as “The American Dream,” which rewards meritocracy. This includes science, scholastic achievement, merit-based bonuses, and anything where there is competition that the best wins out. Since the founding of America, this dream has created lots of winners which provided success and progress, but also lots of losers, comparatively speaking. The advent of social media has brought anybody generally dissatisfied with their life together in a battle that has the chance for them to emerge as the winners. Their strategy is simple but apparently not obvious because they have been executing their plan unrecognized for decades: first change the goals, then change the rules, then go to war.

Examples of changing the goals: accomplishments don’t mean anything. They're denigrated as White Cis-gendered Privilege; so that everyone’s opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. Conscientiousness is now cast as meanness, such that no constraints are considered valid, either in government or personal life, when pitted against subjective, self-centered sanctimony. And Diversity rather than assimilation, so that a person's dissimilarity from the rest of society becomes an advantage.

Examples of changing the rules: Identity supersedes merit as with Affirmative Action. Guilty until proven innocent; the #metoo campaign requires no supporting evidence for penalties. Feelings before facts; commentary is considered news. And worst of all, being offended supersedes Free Speech.

So far the rebels in the Virtual Civil War have been successful by exploiting the courtesy and conflict-avoidance ingrained in the rest of us, and it's not just to the detriment of White men; all of us on the other side are considered The Patriarchy.