Empathy is Their Kryptonite
How the ability to care about others is being systematically eliminated
In an absolutely staggering display of open racism, cultic influence and personal corruption, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams went full segregationist on Twitter yesterday, so I went at him through the guy who has made him a Twitter star, former richest man Elon Musk.
It’s not a coincidence that Adams basically articulated the rationale for apartheid, which is how Musk grew up and what he wants back.
My tweet plus a few more got Scott Adams’s attention, exactly as I hoped for. He quoted tweeted me twice, sending piles of his racist fans at me. Then he briefly tried to troll me directly and decided that this lib wasn’t going to be owned so he blocked me.
More accounts piled on like this professional racist and riot porn producer with 580k followers.
To be perfectly blunt, this was a perfect execution of the trap I intentionally set. I wanted to see how they would react to blatant dimestore racism. So I baited them.
NOTE: Don’t do this unless you’re prepared for an onslaught. After 2 1/2 years of it, I am basically immune. Just see the replies to any of these tweets to understand what you’d be in for.
So, I spent quite a bit of time toying with the racists, Nazis and anarchists who came after me, just to see how they could possibly justify their cult leaders’ behavior. As you might expect, they couldn’t justify the behavior — but they didn’t even try. Instead they attacked me for caring.
The entire project of authoritarians is to gain power by acquiring and erasing the rights and freedoms of individuals through fraud, coercion and fear. That results in the signal characteristics of all fascist movements being cruelty, radicalization and othering.
The reason for this is simple, the more freedom people have, the less power the authoritarian has — or at least this is the zero sum game that they play in their own head. In order to strip people of their rights, you need to do a couple of things. You need to make them hurt. And you need to blame it on people you can scapegoat.
If you can get enough people hurting and angry, you can use the shared hate of the scapegoated group to pretend to be on everyone else’s side. That’s what Scott Adams and Elon Musk are doing, scapegoating Black people for the problems of white people — to pretend to be on white people’s side, in order to set the stage for authoritarianism. “Divide and conquer” is a cliche for a reason.
Elon Musk and Scott Adams are modeling the behavior they are looking for out of their followers, unabashed racism and mockery of anyone who dares to call them out for their sociopathy and ignorance.
And in the meantime, there is no serious coverage of this overt racism. It’s as if the KKK took over CBS and no one bothered to cover it.
The reason why journalists are afraid is that there are consequences to telling the truth. A few months ago Musk suspended a bunch of journalists for doing their jobs. Does anyone think that didn’t have an effect?
There’s good reason to be afraid of Elon Musk, which you can see in his tweet. He sees all of this as literal war and Twitter as a massive psychological weapon.
But the key phrase here is “woke mind virus” which is a euphemism for “cultural marxism” which is a conspiracy theory that Jews and liberals have conspired to spread the dangerous idea of caring about other people. Elon Musk has literally declared war on empathy. In public.
If you express positivity, or rage at injustice, or especially empathy toward those less well-off, you are labeled — “shitlib,” “libtard” or just plain old “lib.” You will be called a “cuck” or a “beta” or any number of homophobic smears. You will be punished by strangers for having emotions, for showing any “weakness” whatsoever.
Because that is the lie at the heart of it all, that caring and love is the same thing as weakness. At the end of the day, the more you care about others, the less you care about your cult leaders — and they want it all for themselves. That’s what makes them fascists.
Our challenge is fighting fire with fire, to play with the rules that exist in the real world, but without losing our humanity, our empathy, in the process. I’m still working on it.
In the meantime, fuck racist Scott Adams and Dilbert forever. Consequences happen.
#BoycottDilbert #FAFO
Your work is saving hearts, minds and lives. You inspire and give courage. Our very own Zelensky! Mark everything with a bold S for Stewartson! My admiration keeps growing for you. ✌️❤️😉
Our ability to care is expansive. You are a wonderful and soulful example ... you set an example of standing up to "the bully" and fighting to protect our language and our spirits in these difficult days.
Words matter, laughter matters, racist cartoons are an ancient way to "other" people deemed less than or other. We need inspiration, literature, libraries, access to knowlege and freedom to think critically. To be curious and learn everyday...thanks Jim for teaching about the dangerour musk version of twitter. And for caring. Empathy is priceless.