Tag: SJW

The self-lobotomizing of SF/F

Jeffro Johnson brings his epic series on Chapter N to a close with a sobering conclusion on the mental barriers being erected to separate entire generations of science fiction and fantasy readers from the genre’s history:

This estrangement between the generations… it isn’t normal. And it’s not just that people in the seventies would have read many of the same science fiction and fantasy authors that their parents and even grandparents did. The scope of things that fall within the black hole of the generation gap seems to be expanding almost exponentially now. Even things like Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry– I would have watched the same stuff that my big brother watched when I was a kid… and we were familiar with the same classic cartoons that out parents and grandparents would have watched. But that’s changed now. And it goes beyond these things just sort of quitely dropping off the radar for the moment. Millennials that will admit to never seeing them still “know” somehow that these things were racist or something and deserve to be erased. It might seem silly, maybe, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

When it was announced that the World Fantasy Award was replacing its iconic Lovecraft bust, Joyce Carol Oates declared that the literary canon is “saturated with racism, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-democracy… and lunacy.” Graciously she allows that “tossing it all out is no solution.” But why wouldn’t you toss it out…? If it really was as bad as people say, you probably would do just that. I mean really, why would people read the works of such terrible people…? They don’t. And if by some chance they do, the reaction can be almost physical sometimes, as this woman describes it:

    I read a lot of Bradbury as a teen and thought his stories were wonderful. Rereading his stories now is actively painful to me. I’m a lot more able to pick up on those subtle cues, and less able to make excuses for them, that the author doesn’t really see his female characters as important, or real, or three dimensional, or people.

Are we really so advanced a civilization now that The Martian Chronicles necessarily should make us ill?

Older people steeped in the classics will dismiss that as an outlier, but it really is a sign of the times. This attitude certainly shows up in a great many of the reviews of old works of fantasy and science fiction that pepper the internet. It’s almost as if there is a barrier in these peoples’ minds. As soon as they get to something they been trained to think of as being “problematic”, they shut down. Very little in the way of any kind of analysis of the material can even be done, because calling out and reviling everything from Madonna/Whore complexes to “black and white morality” is the sort of thing that passes for deep or sophisticated thinking.

The retiring of Lovecraft’s bust from the World Fantasy Awards is therefore not so much reminiscent of statues of Stalin being pulled down in post-Soviet Russia. It’s more a reflection of the Berlin wall… going up.

Social justice convergence destroys everything it touches and erases history because it can neither tolerate nor survive truth.

Mailvox: we are all Spartacus

An anonymous reader shares his experience with SJW attacks:

I’ve just finished reading your book “SJWs Always Lie” (great book, thanks for that!). Like you, I was following GG from when it was still #burgersandfries.

Even though I’m no longer a gamer (I was a pretty hardcore gamer a decade ago, but work got in the way), pretty soon I recognised the importance of what was happening (overt censorship on 4chan of all places!) and found myself switching from observing to supporting the movement on IRC and the image boards, as well as funding & helping 8chan cope with the influx of users that were jumping the 4chan ship.

Eventually I resumed using my Twitter account as the action moved there.

Since I’ve never had a problem standing by my opinions I’ve always used my own name on the Internet. And it’s not hard to find where I live from a simple search on my name, so I’ve never had to worry about doxxing.

This changed when [a major SJW went after him] and eventually it became apparent to me that the best course of action would be to discontinue using twitter under my own name and not respond at all to whatever the charge was. Luckily this all blew over in a few weeks…. I absolutely hate that I had to back down. I feel strongly I shouldn’t have had to back down. Anyway, now I’m as “unfragile” as one could get: independently wealthy, no care for reputation & ready to kick some SJW ass.

PR-hungry SJWs are setting up one scam “anti-abuse” “support” organisation after another, with the clear purpose of getting to people in a fragile and/or vulnerable state of mind to indoctrinate them into the cult of SJ. One telltale sign of this is that they invariably start by isolating their “clients” from any pre-existing support structure.

I was thinking it might be a good idea to counter by setting up a support organisation for SJW targets. A real anti-abuse organisation.

If we can get to targets with practical and legal advice (Cernovich maybe?) before they shoot themselves in the foot by publicly apologising or even resigning we could severely limit the impact these attacks have. This could easily be structured 1:1 on the strategies in your book.

And with a big enough, partly or mostly anonymous, support network of sympathetic employers we could perhaps even get people new (possibly even better) jobs in the event they’re still fired. That would completely take away any “power” these offendotrons have and effectively declaw and defang our common enemy.

I’d be willing to fund & support such an endeavour if we can get a critical mass of allies together. I’m terrible at PR though, but I figured you may be up for it.

I am indeed. I’m still getting my head around how to tackle these various projects; the wargame one is the first one that we’ve consciously set up but there are some other independent offshoots by various Ilk that have begun taking shape. This is something that requires Brainstorm discussion, however, so I’m going to invite the emailer, and the heads of the various offshoots, to participate as panelists.

Is this something we should do before or after Christmas? Brainstorm members, share your thoughts, but do so anonymously. Due to recent attempts to target the Dread Ilk on Facebook, I want EVERYONE who comments here regularly to shift to using anonymous names and/or numbers. 

VFM can identify by their numbers. Note that I’m going to issue new numbers soon since too many of the old ones are connected to personal identities. I’ll do the same for Brainstorm. Everyone else, start using names unrelated to your personal lives and interests. It’s not a joke. There are active attempts, by SJWs and Republican politicos alike, to “map the Alt Right topology”. They are doing this because they want to identify as many of you as they can and then expose you in order to put social pressure on you, which includes disemploying you.

You’ve seen what they’ve done to me, what they are still doing to me on a daily basis. But not only do I not care about social pressure, their attempts only make me, and others like Mike Cernovich, more popular. So, they are starting to switch from the hard public targets to the softer targets of our supporters.

What we’re going to do is render those attempts useless. Note that when you are commenting with your new handle there is ZERO need to point out that X is really Y; we will recognize the thoughts and styles soon enough. But if you are not a genuinely hard target, you should be setting up alternative Twitter and Gmail accounts now, don’t kid yourself into thinking that you are more antifragile than you are. Unless you can legitimately afford to walk away from your job tomorrow due to badthink, please go to the trouble involved. Some of you are already doing this, but I want all the Dread Ilk to do so.

This will also permit the use of drive-by commenters as virtual shields, as they’ll be the only ones who are readily tracked down and most of the SJWs activities will be consumed in futile misdirection. Misdirection is always the better part of valor.

This isn’t a cultural war we’ve chosen, but it is one that the SJWs have thrust upon us. And we are all Spartacus.

That took longer than expected

The first fake review finally appears:

this book will just make you hate those people more
By Beamer on December 9, 2015

Unsurprisingly, this book is preaching to its choir. Are you a straight white male terrified of the fact that, while white males remain the most powerful group in America, people other than straight white males are being represented more and more often? Do the thoughts of gay people being able to marry or, gasp, women being named CEO over a perfectly qualified male keep you up all night?

Then this book will completely back your worldview.

But if you aren’t a frightened, shallow, impotent straight white male, this book will just make you hate those people more. I happen to be a straight white male. I embrace new thoughts in our leadership, because let’s be honest, we haven’t done such a great job the past 50 years. But Vox Day disagrees, and very openly feels only straight white males should lead.

Either you’re a terrified, impotent straight white male and you love him, or you’ll find this book to basically be an excellent reason to move to Canada.

It’s a fascinating portrait in SJW rhetoric. I mean, there is no reason at all for gay men and women to be just little bit concerned about mass migration from the Muslim world, right?
 

Love Gravity Wins.

The review is pure rabbitology. See, if you want to consider yourself brave and virile and deep, or if you’re female or non-white, or if you’re male and white and deeply apologetic about it, you must not read this book! It is Elil! Beware! Badthink and Thoughtcrime and Tharn await the unwary!

But at last, VFM, it’s Wild Hunt time! Beamer is male, has a dog, and likes the Repairman Jack novels of F. Paul Wilson. He’s a graduate of Boston College and Duke, and uses or used a Blackberry at work. His first name may be Mark and he had a relationship of some sort with a woman named Beth. First one to correctly identify him and provide contact details wins the free hardcover of his choice from Castalia House and gets a virtual skull for social media bragging purposes. Bonus skull for providing place of employment.

Duke University
MBA – 2010.
JD – 2007.

BA – English and Computer Science – Boston College.

Fan of hardcore music.

Soft spot for cheesy aquatic adventure novels.
Uses Blackberry at work. 

VFM Rules: The SJWs take a shot and the VFM immediately apply the Five Ds in reprisal. Dig, Doxx, Discredit, Disemploy, and Devour. Better make that move to Canada now, Beamer. The Vile Faceless Minions are coming for you.

UPDATE: And VFM 38 got him. But 59 minutes? Really, Minions, I expect more speed out of you. Everyone whose minion number ends in 4, you will report to Malwyn for encouragement and inspiration.

UPDATE 2: I can’t what it who even…. what is this?

The Unreality Principle

John C. Wright explains why the Left cannot, and will not, wake up. Not now, not ever.

How long until the Left wake up? The answer is: NEVER.

The Left will never wake up to reality for precisely the reason that Leftism is a mental system of excuses and psychological tricks and traps meant to allow the Leftist to escape from reality.

That is what all their rigmarole, jabberwocky, lies and evasions, all their complex obfuscations, and penning endless tomes of endless nonsense from Marx to Keynes to Al Gore, all their riots, marches, protests, sit-ins, think-tanks, media moguls, money laundering, awards shows, convulsions, antics, stunts, clamor, libel, slander, and cacophony is for: Reality avoidance.

That is all that it is for.

It was not always thus. Perhaps a generation ago, there were Leftists who joined the Democrat Party for what were political reasons, to promote labor unions, impose regulation on banks and businesses in response to some threat, real or imaginary, posed by the free market, or to encourage the welfare state to help the poor.

Perhaps two generations ago, there were real Marxists who really believed that socialism was more efficient and more productive of human wealth than the free market. But after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, no honest person can maintain that socialism is more efficient at encouraging wealth and creating and distributing goods and services than a free market.

All socialism produces are mounds of corpses in mass graves, and gulag-states surrounded by barbed wire, with all guns pointed inward.

Even Bill Clinton, a weasel without an honest bone in his body, announced the era of big government to be over, and took the first step to dismantling the American version of Marxism, Johnson’s Great Society. If he saw socialism as a failure, anyone can see it.

And so the criticism changed strategy. In the shadow of the Holocaust of Jews by the Nazis, where Nazism became the synonym for evil in a world which has ceased to speak of the Devil, racism was identified as the main scourge and flaw of the West, and attempts to eradicate racism by means of embracing multiculturalism became the norm.

This is ironic. Tribalism, racism, and the presumed superiority of one’s own bloodline over any foreigners is the norm of human existence, and only the Christian religion gives anyone any reason to condemn it. Here in the West and here alone is anyone even concerned at calling it evil or trying to eliminate it. It would be like the West trying to wipe out polygamy, when we are the only ones whose culture rejects polygamy. No one else sees it as wrong.

Be that as it may. Multiculturalism is not a doctrine, it is an attitude: the attitude is to praise inferior and savage societies in any ways in which they differ from Christendom, and to blame, scold, vilify and upbraid Christendom for any ways in which we differ from Utopia. It is the attitude of a nagging wife unwilling to divorce a hard-working husband and provider she hates and loathes.  Multiculturalism is nagging.

The nagging is based on the idea that all cultures are equal, and all equally provide for human liberty and human happiness. Skyscraper and yurt: the same. Cathedral and igloo: the same. Wright Brothers and the Cargo Cult of Melanesia: the same. American cosmetics industry and pre-Western Chinese practice of breaking the bones in baby girls’ feet for footbinding: the same. Western abolition of slavery and Hindu caste system: the same. Medical Doctors and Witch-Doctors: the same. Scientific agriculture and Maori cannibalism: the same. Progress and stagnation: the same. Christian martyr and Muslim suicide bomber: the same. Jesus and Mohammed: the same.

See how it works?

The Christian West, with our industrial and scientific revolutions (the byproduct of our Christian metaphysics, university system and Christian individualism) not to mention our legal and juridical advances are held by hypothesis not to have made any particular advances in human liberty and happiness.

Any use of discriminatory judgment between the cultures of, say, the British Empire and he Aztec Empire is the product of bigotry, bias, or race-hatred.

After 9/11, it became clear that not all cultures equally provide for human liberty and happiness. Indeed, it is clear enough to any honest observer that come cultures are productive of vast misery and vast oppression, especially oppression of women, of children, of the weak and helpless. The growing slave trade in underage boys used as catamites by the Muslim is a clear enough sign of this, as well as the rape statistics that follow Muslim migrants entering Europe.

In recent years, with the cult of multiculturalism dead, and Marxism rightfully tossed into the crematorium of dead yet stupid ideas, the only thing left for the Left to do was to break all ties with honesty.

Political Correctness has its roots in Stalinism, and is as old as Marx himself, as old as the first lie every told by a snake in Eden. But since 9/11, with both their idols of multiculturalism and socialism smashed, the press and the Left generally expelled their less extreme elements from their midst, or shamed them into silence, and embraced falsehood as the source and summit of all good.

This is what I call ‘the Unreality Principle’ which is the principle that a lie is better than the truth because to lie and to believe a lie proves one’s loyalty. To lie and believe lies is morally superior than to tell and believe the truth, and the more outrageous the lie, the greater the moral superiority one can award oneself.

This is why you have to turn your back on them. This is why you have to reject them and refuse to have anything to do with them. They literally live in a different reality than you do; it is no less influential on their attitude and behavior than the real world despite being entirely imaginary.

There is one thing, and only one thing, capable of reliably cutting through the Unreality Principle and that is Jesus Christ. Logic can’t. Science can’t. Rhetoric can’t. Bonhomie and good will to Men can’t.

Jesus himself told his disciples to turn their backs and brush the dirt from their feet in response to those who would not listen. Do the same.

The convergence spreads

You can safely write off Swift, Mono, and Discourse, as all three have succumbed to Social Justice Convergence and adopted SJW Codes of Conduct:

One of my heroes, Miguel de Icaza, happens to have lots of life experience in open sourcing things that were not exactly open source to start with. He applauded the move, and even made a small change to his Mono project in tribute:

    When Swift was open sourced today, I saw they had a Code of Conduct. We had to follow suit, Mono has adopted it: https://t.co/hVO3KL1Dn5
    — Miguel de Icaza (@migueldeicaza) December 4, 2015

Which I also thought was kinda cool.

It surprises me that anyone could ever object to the mere presence of a code of conduct. But some people do.

        A weak Code of Conduct is a placebo label saying a conference is safe, without actually ensuring it’s safe.

        Absence of a Code of Conduct does not mean that the organizers will provide an unsafe conference.

        Creating safety is not the same as creating a feeling of safety.

        Things organizers can do to make events safer: Restructure parties to reduce unsafe intoxication-induced behavior; work with speakers in advance to minimize potentially offensive material; and provide very attentive, mindful customer service consistently through the attendee experience.

        Creating a safe conference is more expensive than just publishing a Code of Conduct to the event, but has a better chance of making the event safe.

        Safe conferences are the outcome of a deliberate design effort.

I have to say, I don’t understand this at all. Even if you do believe these things, why would you say them out loud? What possible constructive outcome could result from you saying them? It’s a textbook case of honesty not always being the best policy. If this is all you’ve got, just say nothing, or wave people off with platitudes, like politicians do. And if you’re Jared Spool, notable and famous within your field, it’s even worse – what does this say to everyone else working in your field?

Mr. Spool’s central premise is this:

    Creating safety is not the same as creating a feeling of safety.

Which, actually … isn’t true, and runs counter to everything I know about empathy. If you’ve ever watched It’s Not About the Nail, you’ll understand that a feeling of safety is, in fact, what many people are looking for. It’s not the whole story by any means, but it’s a very important starting point.

I’m not sure which amused me more. The Gamma tell: “Which I also thought was kinda cool” or the idea that a short humor video serves as an adequate rebuttal

Now, it is true that “a feeling of safety” is what many people are looking for. It’s why they should not be permitted to vote in a representative democracy. But (and this would be the only relevant point), “a feeling of safety” is not what people are looking for in technology projects.

As I told Robert Rosario, there is soon going to be a significant movement of talented programmers away from projects that have converged. Perhaps it is time to create a qualification that is awarded to sufficiently skilled and credentialed open source contributors who vow not to work on any open source project with a Code of Conduct, and to fork any open source project that adopts one.

This isn’t my field, but I have a vision for an effective anti-SJW technology force that will benefit greatly from the many open source projects bogging themselves down in social justice. If anyone who is actually in OSS in a signficant way would like to lead a Brainstorm discussion of it, let me know.

Star Wars justice convergence

The LucasFilm president explains her vision for Star Wars:

They are really, really making a huge effort across the company to put more focus around casting women and putting women in positions of responsibility, with directing and various other positions inside, different lines of business in the company. It’s not just about casting female protagonists. It’s gotta be across the board throughout the industry.

I think Hasbro, who’s making toys for a while, they were perhaps a little reluctant to move too quickly with something that’s been such a successful boys line. I think they’re recognizing that selling to girls is just as effective as selling to boys. More and more the lines are being blurred as to deciding ahead of time that some things are for boys and some things are for girls. I think that’s a big part of the conversation. It’s all of these areas that are contributing to change really happening.

Over the last several years that I’ve been in the business it seems to me that this has been a topic of conversation every few years. Then everybody thinks it’s a trend or that it’s a significant change. And then it doesn’t really move the needle. I think that’s — hopefully— what’s going to begin to happen now. It’s going to be real change. And not just perceived change.

Among those “real changes” are going to be declining sales, frantic PR spin to explain away the declining sales, and eventually some bitter diatribes about how the market is not worthy of their brilliant, progressive, and socially just products.

It’s at times like these that I am very, very happy that I was able to convince myself that Star Wars ended with The Empire Strikes Back. (I put Return of the Jedi in the same category as The Star Wars Christmas Special, which I also saw and was rather confused by, what with the Wookies living in trees and all. In retrospect, that should have been our first sign that George Lucas just go lucky, he didn’t actually know what he was doing.) I did give the Phantom Menace a go on opening night; I remember how we all felt almost as if we’d gone back in time, we were so excited that the future we’d imagined when we were kids was actually upon us!

And then, after about five minutes, we all realized that our imaginations were now rather preferable to George Lucas’s. I walked out of there and never again gave any subsequent Star Wars-named product another thought.

Anyhow, as Jeffro observes, this is classic SJW entryism at work. They’re essentially cargo cultists, they have no understanding of what made Star Wars valuable in the first place, and so they will further destroy what has already gone far, far past tragedy and is now well into self-parody.

He didn’t read the book

SJWAL didn’t reach New Zealand in time to prevent one gentleman from cutting his company’s throat by apologizing:

On the company’s Facebook page Mr Garratt offered his apologies.

“We apologise to all those who have been offended by our sign. It was very poor judgment on our part.”

In an earlier post, he said there was no offence intended.

“It was not our intention to offend any people in the community … Cait is more then [sic] welcome to stay at my house with my family anytime. I will have a wine or a beer with her quite happily and it would be an honour.”

Rebecca Jones, the mother of a 9-year-old transgender boy, was not satisfied and wanted a “face-to-face apology”.

“He seems to think a donation is enough. It is not,” she said. “I want an apology to my 9-year-old son AND a donation, and the transgender community is behind me on this.”

Ms Jones said he was just trying to “save his reputation”.

Well, he’s not going to be able to do so. When you find yourself in a position of repeatedly apologizing to child abusers – and as Camille Paglia says, treating a child as if he is “transgender” is child abuse – that should be your first sign that your strategy is less than entirely effective.

What part of NEVER APOLOGIZE is hard to understand? When someone comes to you and demands an apology, there is only one correct response: “No, absolutely not.”

An apology to SJWs is no different than a confession to the police. It is not the end of the matter, it is something to be delivered to the prosecution.

Standing up to SJWs

Even before I was doing it, even before #GamerGate, Doug TenNapel, the creator of Earthworm Jim, was standing strong against them:

For more than a decade, the comics, cartoons, animations, and video games of Doug TenNapel have been entertaining millions. Yet a single opinion that swam against the tide of progressive opinion caused him to be subject to years of attacks from an all-too-familiar mob of online public shamers.

TenNapel has a long and accomplished career in entertainment. He’s the man behind Earthworm Jim, a 1990s smash-hit video game that spawned a cartoon series and a toy franchise. He has written an episode for the popular animated series’ Adventure Time and acted as a guest animator for Spongebob. His most recent creation is Armikrog, a point-and-click puzzle game created with stop-motion animation.

Despite his obvious talents, there’s a niggling aspect of TenNapel that continues to cause him problems: he’s a Christian Conservative. In addition to his other creations, he’s the series writer and executive producer for VeggieTales in the House, an animated series popular with Christian families. He has also designed the cover art for a number of Christian rock bands.

In the liberal, progressive world of arts and entertainment, it was only a matter of time before such an unfashionable background got him into trouble.

If you want to support Doug, his new game, Armikrog, is 50 percent off on Steam for the next two hours. VFM, if you’re on Twitter, tweet the article.

I should probably also mention that in the new year, we will have some exciting news to announce concerning Mr. TenNapel and Castalia House.

Grow up or get out!

A Christian university president’s message to SJWs:

This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a
university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a
sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears that this young
scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not
showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and
his peers, feel uncomfortable.

I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to
be this self-absorbed and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are
hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus,
makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an
“oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

I have a message for this young man and all others who care to
listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon
is called a conscience. An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad.
It is supposed to make you feel guilty. The goal of many a good sermon
is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness.
The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your
confession, not your self-actualization.

So here’s my advice:

If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell
you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking
for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less
than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.

If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in
confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather
than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you
are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted,
there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere)
that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t
one of them.

You will notice that unlike Missouri president Tim Wolfe, who resigned in the face of SJW pressure, Mr. Piper will be keeping his job. About the only thing that could possibly have been better is if he announced that he had expelled the SJW student who complained. And talk about sticking the rhetorical landing!

“This is not a day care. This is a university!”

As the brand name universities succumb to social justice convergence, the Christian universities will rise in both educational value and social cachet. Which is why they need to set policies in place to defeat SJW entryism now. 

The final five percent

Now you know why SJWs are constantly telling us that we are -phobic. Third Law. This recent Twitter exchange, which an old acquaintance brought to my attention, is extremely amusing.

V. aimmyarrowshigh ‏@aimmyarrowshigh
Pre-emptively block V/ox D/a/y, for your own safety. Literal safety.

Ella Dawson ‏@brosandprose
@aimmyarrowshigh oh he’s blocked. I subscribed to a GG autoblocker like a year ago and it saved me from a WORLD of harassment this summer.

V. aimmyarrowshigh ‏@aimmyarrowshigh
Good, good. He’s a sociopath, and I don’t say that lightly.

Ella Dawson ‏@brosandprose
one look at his profile is enough to make that extremely clear.

V. aimmyarrowshigh ‏@aimmyarrowshigh
It makes me feel physically sick that men like that are still given sizable platforms and go unquestioned.

Ella Dawson ‏@brosandprose
Yup. I’m terrified 95% of the time.

In the interest of accuracy, I should point out that I am NOT a sociopath. While I am narcissistic and machiavellian, I score unusually high in empathy, so I am actually more anti-sociopathic than the average individual. It is merely my predilection for abstraction and my natural curiosity that makes me come off as sociopathic to the superficial observer.

The bad news is that because I can feel your pain, I am quickly able to learn which buttons one must push in order to inflict it upon you. I believe it may have been R. Scott Bakker who warned that the torturer you should fear most is the one who sheds tears as he works.

But as Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil, I am pleased that I can give these women what they most want, which is fear. They need that heightened sense of drama in order to feel alive, and I am content to know that merely by acknowledging the fact of their existence, I can grant them what they crave.

Am I not kind?

In any event, it appears they do well to fear me in light of the intellectual company in which I am to be found these days.