I like your crown, particularly when you wear it at a rakish angle. And that mantle – ermine and rubies are so-ooo you! You are a reigning monarch (choose one: King or Queen), and the year is 1700-ish. Being of humble persuasion, every morning you kneel on the stone floor of the cold castle throne room and give thanks for your good fortune to live thus in this age of enlightenment! You know nothing of electricity, central heating, air conditioning, mass fast communication and travel, sanitation and refrigeration, daily fresh food from around the world, modern medicine, entertainment, computers, indoor plumbing etc. Might be a smidgen of class envy among the peasants (ooh, ermine and rubies!), but that’s human nature. Can it get any better than this?

And it did…in a material way. The “have-nots” in the 21^st century have infinitely more than the “haves” of royalty had back then. So why is it that unhappiness still exists? Could it be that true happiness draws more from how we choose to look at things than from material circumstances? The external world may change exponentially, but our inner metrics are timeless. Love and loyalty remain the same, honesty is still the non-negotiable linchpin of human bonds, the quality of communication ever defines relationships, we reap what we sow, and happiness is measured by how much we control our individual lives.

On the dark side, hypocrisy thrives, double standards still poison reality, deceptions murder our moments… We make our choices and inevitably shape our consequences. 2020 has sharpened the distinctions between individualism and herd mentality just as it has clarified what motivates the players. For all the rampant passions, mindless emotions and empty rhetoric that clamor for our souls, this is a time for reason. Keep your silence, if you like, but think.

Not that many years ago, pop psychologists were telling us we were losing a generation of young people because they had no heroes. It was a time of cynicism, a time of anti-heroes, a time of chipping away at mere mortal feet of clay. In the name of entertainment, media and education, we metaphorically hauled traditional heroes down from their pedestals. What we didn’t fully appreciate is that when you destroy a hero, you orphan the values they stand for. What happened next in that vacuum of values was predictable. Under the rubric of political correctness, the definition of “hero” itself began to change. A hero was no longer someone who selflessly sacrificed themselves for traditional values, worked hard, defended law and order, chased lawbreakers, played by democratic rules, put on a uniform with all its risks, stood up for faith or family responsibility, or honored the opportunities of education, self-determination and merit-based outcomes. A hero became someone who was victimized by all those things.

The transformation of the word “hero” has moved gradually and subtly across all demographic lines. A hero need not actually do something heroic. A person who gets a terminal illness is said to be heroic. Ditto other involuntary circumstances. Survive being thrown off a ship or becoming lost in the wilderness? You are a hero. Heroism no longer necessarily involves a voluntary act or choice. Suffering is a path to heroism. Victimization is the new mantra. Victims are the new heroes. 

Overstated? We are all familiar with the generality of systemic racism, the tragic deaths arising out of blue and black confrontations, the frequent chants of “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now! Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon!” But is there an articulate statement to support what I wrote above about political correctness redefining victimization?

Perhaps the starkest illustration was just thrust upon us in mid-July 2020 when the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History released its “whiteness chart,” explaining white privilege and condemning values that it declares suppress Blacks. Among those denounced values listed are: “individualism, hard work, objectivity, the nuclear family, progress, respect for authority, delayed gratification, Christianity” and others long-considered foundational to a free, secure and stable society. The list stunned Americans of all colors who thought the denunciations couldn’t be a more racist portrayal of Blacks. The Smithsonian chart was almost totally ignored by the media, but thankfully those outraged Americans who saw and rejected it included majority mainstream Blacks who don’t want to be anyone’s victim, particularly when they are succeeding with just those values erroneously cited as exclusively “white culture.” I don’t think anything more clearly defines the gulf between the rapidly expanding Black middle-class and Blacks who have embraced negative cultural values. Hopefully the dominant Black middle-class will continue rescuing a generation from motivational dead-ends and the enslaving mind-set that victims are heroes.

If the Smithsonian’s “the Devil made me do it” approach doesn’t bring America’s crossroads into focus for you, there is plenty of other convoluted thinking out there. Vicky Osterweil’s new book, IN DEFENSE OF LOOTING promoted in an NPR interview on August 27^th of this year, produced this statement: “Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. … It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage.”

These examples notwithstanding, turning virtues inside out is not exclusively a racial issue, and they certainly can’t be narrowed to a race. Author Vicky Osterweil is white, young and female, yet another protest activist eerily reminiscent of the liberal campus radicals from the 60s like Patty Hearst or Bernadine Dorn. 

When Orwell wrote in his prophetic novel 1984 that the three slogans of its socialist Party were “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength,” it seemed preposterous then that common sense concepts could be so inverted. But political correctness has redefined so many things in a topsy-turvy way, that a few decades later here we are. The Smithsonian and defense of looting examples above are just the latest anti-intellectual manifestations of unbridled emotions and “doublethink” that throw tantrums in our streets and convolute our media into gaslighting us. It took us a while to get here, but now it is emerging.

Over time, generations of young people have been mis-educated by miseducated teachers from kindergarten to campus. Too many college classrooms run by activist gurus (who assure their captive audiences that what was formerly greatness is a fraud of history and white male infamy) have embraced victimization as the path to heroism. We are at the stage where protest and civil disorder become anarchy, where blame inflames righteous justice in the Hitler socialist model (National Socialist German Workers Party – the Nazis) to right all the wrongs of defeat and humiliation by flooding the streets with mobs (brownshirts) propagandizing, looting, burning, pulling down statues, defacing and destroying in a bid for power at the highest level. It’s as mindless now as when the Reichstag was burned down or during Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). Perhaps Goering said it best: “…when I hear the word ‘culture,’ I draw my revolver.” I won’t parse the political correctness of it. You can see it as you wish. But I hope you will approach the upcoming election as a mandate for our country’s survival rather than voting for a token personality. Please DO something courageous and heroic and help elect the best course for the nation rather than whichever candidate offends you the least. This time around, we are electing much more than a person; we are ratifying an irrevocable course for America.

I’ve posted some things on Facebook in the last month of my life-long friend legendary Peter Adams which have attracted some attention. The photos below are from a Boundary Waters adventure we shared a few years ago.

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan