“WIIIIIIITCH!”
Why Progressives’ Intellectual Laziness Leads to Death
Progressive “arguments,” such as they are, often seem to take their cue from Jim Belushi’s Salem witch prosecutor in the famous SNL skit. In that skit, the judge turns to the prosecutor and asks him if he is ready to present evidence, arguments, and proof in the case (2:01 in the linked video). Belushi rises from counsel table and solemnly examines several papers from an extensive case file, as he seemingly prepares for a lengthy discourse. Suddenly, he turns to the accused, stretches out his arm, points his finger, and screams “WIIIIIITCH!” With nary another word, the prosecutor nods to the judge and sits down as if he has done everything necessary to obtain a conviction.
This brings me to the progressive case against Charlie Kirk, which amounts to stretching out their arm, pointing their finger, and screaming: “Racist!” or “Misogynist!” or “Homophobe!”
Over the last few years, I have watched countless hours of videos of Charlie’s campus debates. In all that time, I never heard a single hateful word come out of his mouth. So, it comes as no surprise to me that every time one of Kirk’s progressive detractors is called on to provide an example of his perfidy, they either run for the tall weeds or splutter insipid “everyone knows it” pablum.
For too long, we have given progressives’ intellectual laziness a pass. They have grown accustomed to spewing slurs (homophobe!) as a substitute for reasoned discourse. The intellectual laziness this has engendered has consequences.
Some years ago, philosopher J. Budziszewski predicted that it was only a matter of time before character assassination would be replaced by real assassination. Sadly, Professor Budziszewski was a prophet.
Barry, I don't think it is laziness. When people simply don't want to know something, ignorance is a choice. Often a strategy.
For example, I regularly hear Canadians trashing the U.S. and its government who clearly have nooooo idea what they are talking about.
It's not that they couldn't find out. They could type a question into the navbar. "Can President Trump strike down the 1st Amendment?" (No.) "Is he free to ignore it?" (Not for long.)
But finding such things out would mean that they could not indulge their favourite anti-American fantasies. So they don't. And they only listen to those who confirm their biases and beliefs.
Fortunately, none of the people I am thinking of are dangerous to anyone (but themselves).
However, picture the same mindset among young people who can be recruited for violence. Now you have a group from which assassins and rioters can easily be recruited.
Schools used to try to circumvent this sort of thing. Today, they may well be encouraging it.
Some of this is the inherent laziness found in the room temperature IQs inhabiting the so called social sciences and humanities departments of all too many colleges and universities.
However, we have to bear our own culpability here too. For far too long we’ve been tone policed and declared “not winsome” whenever we dare to offer even the smallest amount of push back against the world. The Seeker Sensitive/Attractional Church models and philosophies are lonnnng overdue for their date with the large garbage container conflagration. Any man looking to fill a pulpit for more than just the morning announcements had best find his courage because the pendulum swing the other direction is going to be messy.
Worse, we have allowed the experientialists and emotives to declare the intellect the enemy of the faith. “Knowledge leads to pride” says one former pastor of ours deliberately suggesting that knowledge is a bad thing. Not many of us even know of, let alone could indicate the contents of one or more of the historic confessions of the faith. We declared catechism a “Catholic” thing and promptly replaced it with VeggieTales and gross out games. Very few could connect current moral controversies in our culture to scripture apart from what they’ve read on social media. Charlie Kirk educated himself on theology and morality far past many pastors as near as I can tell. And still his most vocal tone critics came from so-called evangelicals. And when these people aren’t tone policing everyone who dares to disagree, they are actively seeking ways to become more like the world.
Case in point, what if the head of IVCF or Cru had been killed? Would anyone have noticed? Could they have filled even a medium sized church let alone an NFL stadium? Two long standing college ministries that syncretized, pandered, accommodated, and tone policed themselves into irrelevance. They became intellectually lazy themselves and were thus ripe for the enemy to compromise them. Charlie Kirk showed that standing unmovable on the unchanging Truth of Christ has an impact.
Yeah, the left’s intellectual laziness is on full display for those with eyes to see. But I won’t let our side off the hook for their own intellectual laziness either. Charlie Kirk proved that solid apologetics and an unwillingness to budge one Angstrom on the truth still has an impact and a far greater one than our lazy intellects could dare to dream.