Don’t Be Offended, Get Even

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

If you’re offended by prominent politicians, media personalities, actors and entertainers who emerge from their privileged left-wing cocoons to deliver lectures and speak down to their “inferiors,” you’re not alone.

“Elite” progressives are among the least self-aware people on the planet – and they possess no sense of irony at all. But, don’t be offended, get even. Here’s how.

During the 1960s, Malcolm Muggeridge, editor of the satirical magazine, Punch, published a phony advance itinerary for Nikita Krushchev’s upcoming visit to the United Kingdom listing the most ridiculous places the Soviet premier might visit, roughly half of which were eventually in Khrushchev’s actual itinerary.

That event formed Muggeridge’s Law, summarized by author Tom Wolfe in a 1989 Harpers Magazine book preview essay: “We live in an age in which it is no longer possible to be funny. There is nothing you can imagine, no matter how ludicrous, that will not promptly be enacted before your very eyes, probably by someone well known.” Another version postulates that it’s impossible to parody political correctness because real political correctness has become just as or more ridiculous than satire.

The Shenk Corollary, a just-now addition to Muggeridge’s Law, states: “Muggeridge’s Law encompasses arrogant, egoistic, self-styled intellectually/morally-superior, highly-serious, well-known progressives who caricaturize themselves by expressing distaste for ordinary Americans and traditional American values.”

They’re not polite about it, so critics needn’t be, either. Rosie O’Donnell, panelists on “The View,” the NY Times editorial board, Al Sharpton, CNN, Sean Penn, Maxine Waters, MSNBC, Barbra Streisand, Michael Moore and many academics — their numbers are legion — take themselves very seriously. But, filtering out their frequent, sometimes general ignorance, partisanship and obnoxious condescension reveals them to be mostly funny, something they will never understand or accept.

For those who are aroused by left-wing A-list posturing and sanctimonious twaddle, the best reaction is laughter and/or mockery. Progressives’ reflexive reactions to such treatment disprove the old show-biz axiom that any publicity is good publicity. More than indifference, more than inattention, more than lousy ratings or readership, more than anything, self-important elitists hate ridicule, no matter how thoroughly deserved.

Ironically, the principle of politicizing ridicule was institutionalized by the hard left in Rules Numbers Four and Five of Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals.” Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis on, corresponded with Alinsky and embraced and applied Alinsky’s radical philosophy. So did community organizer Barack Obama.

Alinsky: “The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this… The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

Liberals are trying to whine and lecture America into submission, so pay them back in their own currency.

Progressive outrage at conservatives who exploit this key vulnerability is both amusing and highly satisfying. Turnabout is fair play. And the left is all about “fairness,” right?
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http://www.pottsmerc.com/opinion/20171212/jerry-shenk-rules-for-radicals-do-not-be-offended-get-even