Live by the Mob, Die by the Mob
Rachel Zegler's karmic retribution + subduing the Dwarf of Ignorance.
On the last Break the Rules, genius animator and liberal feminist “TERF warrior” Nina Paley joined Jack the Perfume Nationalist and philosopher Chad Haag to discuss the end of traditional fairy tales in favor of what’s perceived to be female empowerment. The focus of this discussion was young actress Rachel Zegler of Disney’s upcoming “Snow White” remake who was hating on the source material for being dated and sexist as a stereotypical “damsel in distress” story.
During the stream, Nina brought up how she thought the show’s description implied that Zegler was a “damsel in distress” herself due to being in her early twenties and easily brainwashed to believe whatever is politically correct, only to now be on the receiving end of mob cancellation.
For Nina, this was not a good reason to attack a dumb young girl, but after the stream she found that this actress’s naivete had a much darker side that was indeed worth confronting.
Beyond the parroting of woke talking points online, Zegler was leading her pitchfork-wielding mob against former Mandalorian star Gina Carano after she made fun of using pronouns on Twitter and further clarified her stance by writing: “I’m not against trans lives at all. They need to find less abusive representation.”
J.K. Rowling was a target of Zegler’s as well for criticizing the term “people who menstruate”, though beyond celebrities, there was a call for violence against her ideological enemies as she tweeted: "elbowing a transphobe, stepping on a homophobe . the joys of walking thru NYC”.
Instead of advocating for dialogue against bigotry, this corporate-friendly celebrity influencer is one of many such beings who encourages sticks and stones against words that hurt the identities she’s allied with. This has been an all too familiar paradigm where “punch a Nazi” goes far beyond anyone who would advocate for the positions of Adolf Hitler, and instead treats the slightest ridicule of one’s ideology as grounds for cruelty.
Nina’s got skin in the game herself as she’s been canceled online and in public for views on gender and womanhood which are similar to that of Rowling. A 2019 showing of her animated masterpiece Seder-Masochism was protested against by Trans Rights activists, though at least there was a screening to be held, unlike other instances of cowardice.
In addition to canceling her existing work, the crowdfunding website Indiegogo deplatformed Nina as well, without appeal, for going against the Terms of Service with her at the time in-progress “Agents of H.A.G.” comic book. While the specific rule Nina broke was never specified, what is clear from all these examples is that there’s a slow creep of what might as well be a social credit system where what you express can rob you of the ability to get paid.
Is Ignorance an Excuse?
Such is the cultural stupidity of today’s social media driven prolonged adolescence who cannot distinguish words from actions. An excuse given for Zegler could be “they know not what they do” as you would not ruin the life of a child for aping bad examples they were exposed to through continued brainwashing and peer pressure. But having the brain of a child does not excuse you for things that children are excused for.
One reason why you cannot compare the two is that especially from a younger age of around 3 to 11, you have a greater opportunity to imprint the right kind of “programming” in order for it to be that much more likely your daughter grows up to be a decent and responsible adult instead of hanging out with seven weirdos who aren’t even dwarves.
But there is much less of a chance that such changes will occur later in life as is the case with many of our current “young adult” demographic who have retained the sophistication of a child but without the child-like open mindedness, as their brain has been clogged up with too much garbage by that point.
Even if they act like grown babies to the extent of wearing diapers on the government's dime while waging “diaper jihad” against those who oppose them, society cannot be their babysitter.
An additional reason for not considering such mentality as an excuse is that this form of child-like ignorance has been the rule as opposed to the exception for most of society in history. This means that otherwise “innocent” people have been swayed into accepting or weaponized into participating in the worst of atrocities. This was not because these people were some sadistic criminal masterminds but precisely because they were dim, docile, or cowardly enough to go along with the program.
On its face, it’s absolutely ridiculous to compare history’s mass murderers and their enablers with ideological online mobs, but what unites them beyond the fanaticism of its adherents is the lack of heeding history’s warning of such mobs by a public with the memory of a goldfish.
Fortunately in this recent case of the Snow White remake, as well as Bud Light among others, we are seeing a gutteral karmic pushback as many within the masses have grown tired of this paradigm and seeking their own mob justice.
The Agency of Karma
The concept of Karma in Hinduism states that all of our actions will have reactions of some sort based on whether they were beneficial or harmful. This transpires through many lifetimes where the fruits of our actions keep us bound to Maya (perceived reality) through desiring an embodied state as human beings.
Given how impossible it is for us regular humans to know why someone is experiencing a particular situation in life, it makes no sense to speculate on such matters. But it's even more of an insult to life when we surrender our agency and superstitiously expect Karma to pull a “Deus Ex Machina” and take care of whichever societal malignancy rears its head.
On the contrary, being apathetic to the mob while it has not yet come for us personally makes us little better than a willing accomplice. This apathy by itself is a form of ignorance brought on by short term feelings of being protected because of not (yet) being in the crosshairs of evil.
Karmically (but also realistically) speaking, people “intelligent” and ignorant alike end up suffering through their inaction when the lack of retribution for wrongdoing gives that much more license for it to be spread as far as we allow it to. This way, equally ignorant agents like our Rachel Zegler are used as the instrument of punishment when none dare stand up to her.
While the elite liberal-minded opinion makers of Western society are in theory supposed to be the ones to stand up for its values, it’s only recently that figures like J.K. Rowling and Bari Weiss have been in the spotlight.
Much more commonly, those aligned with the Right and anti establishment circles have been the quickest to defend particular Western ideals. But the problem is that in the case of the conservative Right, there’s been a rising tribalistic contrarianism towards any policy favored by their political opponents.
And the dissident anti establishment sphere is no better on the whole in their dismissal of our institutions without any idea of what their alternative system of choice means in the long run.
Such tribalistic thinking ends up creating a closed loop, but it is the same kind of loop around most of the “beautiful people” who may see Rowling and Weiss at a gala ball, and may even voice their agreement to them in private. Yet in public, most continue playing lip service to their young and vicious anti-liberal darlings like Rachel Zelger while opposing their tribal enemies’ ideas out of the same sense of contrarianism.
While not being a Deux Ex Machina granting instant justice, Karma will chew up and spit out those who remain conveniently silent amid fanatical censorship, by having the problem get worse till something is done about it. Though the longer it takes for more people to become aware, the worse these problems will get.
Hopefully the ones who have already started to push back like Rowling will at least be reborn as some great sorceress with a pet snowy owl.
The Duty to Resist Ignorance
When it does come to the more anti-liberal sentiment on the Right, the mobs of what looks to be karmic justice going after Rachel Zegler are very different from Nina Paley, in that they do not require knowledge of Zegler’s more nefarious actions in order to go after her for thinking the old “Snow White” is sexist and dated. While coming from a place of being sick and tired of woke ideology, there is always the opportunity for such energy to grow into what is just as ugly as the weaponization of social justice against those who don’t tow the line.
The more “responsible liberals” in places of influence remain silent, those further on the right will look around and find nobody who will criticize whenever things go too far. Those potential liberals will be too scared to adopt any of their good ideas let alone be seen to positively engage with them.
In any case, all manifestations of such energy when not directed in a clear headed way come with a high degree of ignorance that Zegler and her ilk have embodied as well as encouraged. Going back to Hinduism, we can find the embodiment of this quality in Apasmara, the dwarf of ignorance.
This little dwarf cannot be killed because doing so would destroy the whole point of our attaining wisdom through effort, thus devaluing the knowledge we have gained. Instead, Apasmara must be subdued as is symbolized by the god of destruction (and formlessness) Shiva dancing the “cosmic dance” on top of his little dwarf body.
Likewise, when we attain wisdom, it allows us to have more of an overhead view so that the problems of ignorance are seen as the pesky little cosmic dwarves they really are, and can likewise be treated before the dwarves grow into uncontrollable giants.
Yet even if we were to subdue the outer ignorance to our greatest capacity, this dwarf remains buried inside of each and every one of us. And while it's nice to sit back and observe karmic justice done to those who in many ways deserved it when they “die by the mob”, such an attachment to schadenfreude is quite the nutritious meal for our little Apasmara.
Ultimately though, whatever pleasure we get from the misery of those who empower hate mobs against differences of opinion is a small karmic price to pay for defending the right of others to express themselves. And like the example that Nina set, we should distinguish between what’s worth defending and what is ultimately dumb but far less harmful.
Agreed, mobs and ignorance tend to go hand in hand. But when you say there is the potential for anti-woke to become just as ugly as woke mobs, isn’t that potential already actualized? As bad as leftist cancel culture is on social media, right cancel culture makes its way into actual policy. For example, the CRT hysteria on the right over the last year or two has resulted in book bannings and potential legal consequences which silence teachers from discussing the realities of race in America. I think by any measure, right wing populism, which takes anti-wokeism as its core tenet of belief, is far more influential and effective politically than left-wing populism, which tends to stutter and fail when up against far more powerful and entrenched establishment left. This is why Trump won and Bernie was edged out. True he represents economic left populism not cultural populism. But I think the center left wants to keep a lid on both and is generally successful; whereas the center right now just IS right populism, with anti-wokeism being one of the most influential ideologies both on the internet (like Rogan being the most popular podcast) and in real life (where the only question as far as the right is concerned is the anti-wokeism of Trump versus that of someone like DeSantis). I think this demonstrates that in fact the opposition to wokeism has made the choice to live and die by the mob, because that’s what it is now. And if you’re looking for ignorance, there’s a lot more of it on that side considering how anti-intellectual it often is.