Did you ever wonder why it is that the left live in such an all-encompassing echo chamber? Why they are so assured in their ideology that they actually believe that they can comfortably espouse their views on all manner of hot-button left-wing topics in absolutely any social setting without any discourse? The answer is quite simple. Despite their wild conspiracy theories about sexist, racist, religious, homophobic old white men controlling every facet of their daily lives, for a very long time the left have traditionally dominated the entire conversation in media, academia, the arts, and culture without allowing the silent (or perhaps more accurately silenced) majority to get a word in edgeways. Only recently has there been any kind of sea change. For the longest time, conservatives, libertarians, and centrists have been mute.
Someone who doesn’t lean to the left is unlikely to get any kind of start in traditional media. There are some traditional conservative media outlets, to be fair. Just like there is a pearl in every few hundred oysters, a diamond amid tonnes of coal, or a four-leafed clover in a field of the three-leafed variety.
But if media were expected to meet ideological diversity quotas in the same way as workplaces are strong-armed into meeting gender/ethnic quotas, their ABC would look a lot more like the eclectic crowd at Brietbart with the odd conservative like Pakistani-born Allum Bokhari, African-American female conservative Sonnie Johnson, or the very camp Milo Yianoppoulis. Instead, the lack of ideological diversity quotas gives us a dearth not only of different ideological opinion, but interestingly, different cultural backgrounds (because as we all know, progressivism is arguably the whitest ideology outside of white supremacy), leaving us with what is a conspicuously waspish liberal media as evidenced by this particularly embarrassing tweet by the Huffington Post.
Likewise, for the conservative or centrist looking to make his or her way in academia, it feels more than a little like a Jew trying to join an exclusive country club circa 1982. It’s very much a closed shop, and isn’t going to happen. Sure, you can live a lie and pretend to believe all of the right things, but you’ll be quickly ostracised and threatened by your peers or colleagues if you don’t at least parrot all of the right things. Even an apolitical stance usually won’t be regarded as good enough.
Academia has a way of circling the wagons when any conflicting ideology appears on the horizon. Just look at the difference between the way self-confessed child molester but all importantly left-leaning Lena Dunham is regarded by the students and faculty of UC Berkley, compared to the way these same students in all of their painstaking inclusiveness welcomed a gay Jewish man who happens to deviate from the party line.
The arts are similarly homogenised in a marinade of soft to extreme left sensibilities. No arts grant was ever awarded to someone whose piece or performance was critical of a left-leaning party or their policies. When Kevin Rudd conceived the highly controversial Pacific Solution, we saw no arts body funding for anti-Labor policy statements. All arts funding bodies know where their bread is buttered and always cheer for the home team. A mere few weeks later under an Abbott government, we saw a virtual tsunami of highly politicised grants intended to destabilise the sitting Prime Minister and follow through with his successor.
Culture is similarly dominated by the left, at least in the public square. Approximately 0.3% of the world are transgender. Approximately 0.3% of the world’s population equates to approximately 21 million. A lot of people in the scheme of things I grant you. But there are approximately 8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses on the planet. There are approximately 24 million Sikhs in the world. Religion allegedly dictates and controls the cultural narrative, but can anyone honestly say that Jehovah’s Witnesses or Sikhs get as much press, or are as visible and treated with as much reverence, or enjoy the same level of cultural currency as the transgender community?
The silent majority are largely silent only because they are unwelcome in any of the traditional forums that reflect public opinion. Like the carefully orchestrated polls that backfired on Democrats during the U.S. election, this ensures that traditional media, academia, the arts, and culture continues to reflect a false economy of left-wing ideology, giving the average conservative, centrist, or libertarian the impression that he or she is very much alone in their views.
The Internet, and especially alternative and social media, was a game changer. This is the phenomenon that the MSM have recently dubbed ‘fake media’. They are as critical of it as any established business model is of a new business model that threatens their power base. When generic printer cartridges first appeared on the scene, printer companies lied in their manuals saying that these reconditioned cartridges would ruin their machines. We see much the same kind of hysteria from traditional media in regard to their new competitors ‘ruining’ their news machine.
A genie has been released from the bottle. A 16-year-old German girl can see what is happening around her due to extreme Islamisation and upload a Youtube video.
A pair of Trump supporters can counter the those who would silence them on Twitter. And Grumpy Motorist can call to task the sacred cow that is PETA.
The silent majority have undoubtedly been backed up to the wall for quite some time, yet they have been handed a lifeline of technology. Media, academia, the arts, and culture are swiftly being democratised by the Internet and other avenues. Cracks are appearing in the progressive echo chamber. The silent majority will remain silent no longer.
It’s your XYZ.