American media publishes pearl-clutching moral outrage pieces at a remarkable clip and with remarkable persistence, so keeping up with all of them is, to be honest, a bit of a hassle. Here at Social Matter we devote a few interns to the task, and even then their filing cabinets always runneth over. Here’s an excerpt from one article that’s representative of the sort of papers they squirrel away: Waytz, A. et al., “A Superhumanization Bias in Blacks’ Perceptions of Whites,” Social Psychological and Personality Science (forthcoming). A new study suggests [that] in general, black people are more likely to think […]

This is going to be a bit of a hard and sober piece for most supporters of GamerGate to swallow. Bitter medicine is how I would describe it. GamerGate in its current form will likely not exist a year from now. Chan movements don’t have the energy to sustain themselves for longer than a year without a significant drop in firepower, especially if the other side begins to take steps to starve them of oxygen: apathetic responses, instead of white hot rage, from the SJWers, as well as lack of concrete success. Project Chanology didn’t win. Occupy Wall Street did […]

The main problem with the American right is that it is almost solely a set of democratic institutions. While there are a small number of right of center foundations and right-wing fundraising machines, most of the effort and money on the proper right goes towards encouraging people to vote for Republicans at the polls. Part of the trouble is that Americans tend to see elections as a legitimate way of resolving major social issues. Mandatory education trains all Americans into believing that a democratically elected government acting within the legal norms set by a written constitution can solve all human […]

It mystifies me to hear the various journalists, “indie game developers,” and yapping dogs from the periphery who have arrayed themselves against GamerGate describe that movement as right wing. (Or at least it would mystify me, if I weren’t already aware of the… we’ll say “plasticity” of the English language when it’s on the lying tongues of progressive shills and charlatans and grievance mongers.) The point of confusion, of course, is that, whatever else they are, nerds are not right wing. Not collectively at any rate. In fact, I would guess that, as a group, they tend toward to the […]

What would progressives do if they won? Go back to their homes, raise families, work hard—all the normal activities of active duty soldiers returning from war? It’s an instructive question to ask the progressive. Were you born to reshape society, in order to gorge yourself at the Sunday buffet without your brother-in-law (in reality, your sister-in-law) giving you disapproving looks? And suppose that that magically happens. Suppose weight isn’t an issue at all, or rather that fatness is lauded. What then? When the ring is cast into the fires of Mount Doom, do you go back to the Shire to live […]

The left has run a successful campaign to interfere with the lives and businesses that employ skilled labor for centuries now. One of the chief methods by which it has accomplished this is by expropriating children from their families, interfering with the traditional system of apprenticeship, making family businesses run on residential property illegal, and by mandating a universal system of education which churns out a mixture of half-capable proles and indolent Brahmins with expensive educations to act as pliable bosses. Marxism and its offshoots has been the typical method for the left to co-opt skilled labor by encouraging them […]

In the far and soundless distance Fine as the aether, thin as a veil We mark a heavy, noticed absence The sound of no sound, without fail No face to find in the shadowed clouds No voice speaks in the starry crowds Not to sing, to scream or to wail No such pattern in their photonic shrouds; Fermi asked why such a thing may be And a paradox was made in fear The endless singing of a mindless sea And we alone to speak and hear? What lies beyond, in half-sleep trance Or is man barred galactic entrance Or is […]

Not many professors of literature lead what you would consider a glamorous life. Except for the few who get to teach whatever courses they want to, it’s pretty repetitive. They get locked into a rhythm where they teach the same classes over and over again, each time to a new group of students who ask generally bad questions and write generally bad papers. Even worse, the modern professor of literature is always on the defensive. He has to justify the study of literature to a skeptical student base and a skeptical administration as well. That is, both groups want to […]