Law Of Inverse Pathological EnthusiasmBy Rod Dreher
February 19, 2022
One of my liberal readers dings me in the comments over my “obsession” with Hungary. Now, I have been in Hungary since February 2, and will be here through the end of April. It is true that I have written a lot about Hungary, for some easy to explain reasons: 1) What’s happening in Hungary is important to right-of-center politics in Europe and the US; 2) I am actually living in the country, unlike nearly all the Western commenters who offer opinions about the place and its government; 3) earlier this week, I was in a group of visiting Western intellectuals who spent 90 minutes talking with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s leader. That sort of thing doesn’t usually happen in any country, so naturally I wanted to write about it.
It is certainly true that I am passionate about Hungary, and enjoy writing about it. But “obsessed”? I looked up all the posts I’ve written since arriving here. There are twenty-six, in total. I broke them out by category. Not all of them fit into specific categories, but compare and contrast:
Wokeness: nine posts
Canadian trucker protest: four posts
Hungary: five posts
So, after two weeks spent in Hungary, during which time I met with the Hungarian prime minister, and participated in a conference in which lots of visiting American and western European intellectuals talked about Hungary, resulted in a grand total of 20 percent of my TAC posts being about Hungary. Some obsession!
This is a typical example of how leftists view dissent from their ideological priorities: as a sign of psychological pathology. The issue is not that conservatives talk too much about homosexuality (or race, or gender fluidity, etc.). The point is that conservatives don’t agree with progressives. Therefore, we must be obsessed with the issue. This is a straightforward attempt to manage the discourse to render dissenters as mental defectives.
Here is an example. Pro Publica and the Texas Tribune sound the alarm against crazy right-wingers who are trying to stop or otherwise restrict the presence in school libraries of pro-LGBTQ books, on the grounds that this kind of advocacy is age-inappropriate. Excerpt:
On the campaign trail, the women promised to comb through educational materials for any signs of “indoctrination” in the form of books or lesson plans that they charged promote LGBTQ ideology or what they referred to as critical race theory, a university-level academic discipline based on the idea that racism is embedded in U.S. legal and other structures.
“When my daughter was 4 years old, my parental rights were taken away here at the public library in Hood County,” Graft, who said on the campaign trail that her school-age children did not attend Granbury public schools, told attendees at a GOP forum before the election. “I stood up for my daughter then, and I’ll stick up for our kids now.”
The yearslong journey in Hood County offers a window into the fiercely contentious debates over curriculum and library books that have cropped up across the state and country in recent months. Once-nonpartisan school board races are taking on a decidedly partisan tone, and administrators are now sounding like political operatives.
What these conservative campaigners are doing strikes me as normal democracy. They believe that people should have a say in how public schools educate their children. This is considered by progressives to be a sign of bigoted obsession. Mind you, the conservatives might be wrong — I don’t think they are, but for the sake of argument, let’s consider that they are — but that is beside the point. Pro Publica frames them as menacing bigots for exercising their rights as parents and as citizens. I have no problem with commentary criticizing these efforts. That is also the right and the responsibility of progressive citizens.
What I object to is the pathologizing of conservative dissent. * * *
Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/law-of-inverse-pathological-enthusiasm/
