Max's Musings

Sometimes, I just want to shoot from the hip, so consider this lighter fare, where I don’t dive too deep or get too analytical.

“Sexualize?” You mean “empower?”

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. In my never-ending quest to write shorter pieces more frequently, I’m releasing this hopefully easy-to-finish essay where I share my thoughts on a variety of topics, some of it beyond the usual scope of my writing’s subject matter. Sometimes, I just want to shoot from the hip, so consider this lighter fare, where I don’t dive too deep or get too analytical, even if the subject matter remains overall serious. Consider it “Max’s Musings,” as the title goes, and this could be the beginning of a regular series, but as always, don’t hold your breath on that.

Like An Abuser, The Left Never Stops

The Left is having quite the moment over actress Sydney Sweeney. Infuriated by American Eagle’s new ad campaign featuring her, they couldn’t help but dig deeper to find out what Sweeney’s political leanings are.

Let’s hope they feel vindicated:

Source

Here’s the evidence:

Source

Which begs the question: who cares? Why is this a problem? Yes, I get that leftists and liberals think she was promoting Nazism in one of the commercials. Yes, I get that they prefer to see overweight “women of color” or even bearded transgender women in advertisements over physically attractive White biological women. Still, this is a bit obsessive, no?

The fact is, celebrities and other public figures are forced to walk a tightrope when it comes to politics. They’re expected to either be on the correct side or convey the correct opinions, usually of the left-wing variety. Otherwise, they’re expected to keep their mouths shut about politics. That’s actually not a bad idea, but what happens when their political leanings are “investigated” and uncovered by bad-faith actors? What’s to be done, then?

More important, in looking up and revealing her voter registration, they also revealed her address. How does this not amount to doxxing? This could very well lead to harassment, stalking, maybe even voter intimidation somewhere down the line. Someone with as large a profile as Sweeney is a prime target. Let’s hope nothing bad happens to her.

The outrage over the American Eagle ad campaign is considered by some to be manufactured and the product of the perpetually online. However, as YouTuber Angela Rose shows, that may not really be so.

As she shops for the jeans featured in the now-infamous commercials, she also asks young Gen. Zers what they think of the ad campaign. Watch and listen to what they have to say:

I’ll be interested to hear what you all think of what these young people think. Personally, I think it vindicates those who’ve characterized “Zoomers” as neurotic, which basically means a predisposition to view things negatively. As it happens, envy is an emotion associated with neuroticism. There’s a lot of overthinking involved in many of the responses, which suggests to me over-socialization and, potentially, indoctrination. They have a negative reaction to the commercials because they’ve been told their entire lives that what they’re fighting against is White, blonde, and beautiful.

Older generations have always been worried for younger generations. What I find worrisome about Zoomers is that they seem to have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong, yet that sense is defined almost entirely politically. It’s not defined by culture, customs, mores, or anything pre-political. This says something about our susceptibility to truly dangerous phenomena like totalitarianism. Political values are imposed entirely through force. It’s why people like

Rod Dreher

are constantly sounding the alarm about it: America has the generation capable of implementing it. Unlike totalitarian regimes of yore, today’s totalitarianism is implemented from the bottom-up.

20 to 30 years ago, nobody would’ve been bothered by the Sweeney ads. Critical, maybe, but the criticisms would be confined to the classrooms. It wouldn’t be a matter of public debate, something for the vice president and now even the president to weigh in on. The fact so many young people think the ads were inappropriate because it was “overly sexualized” would actually be encouraging if not for the fact this is the same generation that sees “sex work” as normal and even empowering. The contradiction can only be explained by politics. It’s certainly not young people, young women especially, becoming more conservative and traditional in their values.

This is why the reaction to the American Eagle ad campaign matters and why I’m talking about it. Once upon a time not so long ago, something like it wouldn’t have created the outrage it has. The fact it has is a sign of how deep the ideology runs in our society. We like to make fun of the lunacy and stupidity of the Left, but it shouldn’t be underestimated, either. They’re in power and they can make our lives a living hell.

Cancel Culture Isn’t Dead

Keeping on with the theme of burgeoning left-wing totalitarianism, let’s talk about the cancellation of bodybuilder and fitness influencer Joey Swoll. After Hulk Hogan died, Swoll posted a tribute to the most famous professional wrestler ever on social media, which he later took down after it led to a deluge of criticism from people who cited Hogan’s history of racism. We’ll talk about that more in a minute. Swoll responded by firing back at the critics, leading to even more outrage, as he committed the unforgivable sin of using the term “colored,” leading his critics to accuse Swoll himself of racism. This video was also later taken down.

This in turn resulted in a groveling apology by Swoll, followed later by an announcement that he was leaving social media, suggesting that the apology didn’t achieve the intended effect of placating his critics. He’s back now after only a few days, meaning the cancellation effort actually wasn’t effective. Still, there are many lessons worth learning from Swoll’s experience.

We’ll tackle this going backwards. I think we have years of evidence proving that once you become a target of cancellation, nothing will stop it from happening. Not even an apology. In fact, it seems not apologizing is the better option, because to do so amounts to a confession of one’s sins. Remember: if you did nothing wrong, what’s there to apologize for? This was Swoll’s one true mistake: apologizing for nothing. By doing so, he validated his critics, who, predictably, smelt blood and went for the kill. They won.

Swoll also made a smaller mistake in responding to the critics at all. I’m not suggesting he has a thin skin, but I do think Swoll felt hurt by the critics. If you follow Swoll as I do, his accounts aren’t toxic at all. He uses his platform to promote healthy living and eating, exercise, and appropriate gym etiquette. He doesn’t use it to make fun of people or get one over at the expense of others. He’s a “positivity” influencer, so I think he felt the criticism he got was needlessly unjustified, so he in turn felt the need to respond and defend his honor.

I get it. At the same time, I also think you need to be careful in how far you go in defending yourself. Sometimes, all it does it open the floodgates even more. I think a statement like this would’ve more than sufficed in responding to the critics while also slamming the door shut on the entire affair:

Yes, I’m aware Hulk Hogan said things many of you find offensive. I’m not celebrating that. I’m celebrating the positive contributions he made, including to my own life. Nobody’s perfect. I’m choosing to celebrate the areas where Hogan did good with his life. Feel free to condemn the man, but please don’t tell me how to react to the death of someone who influenced me for the better.

Okay, so it wouldn’t have slammed the door shut once and for all. But Swoll did assume a very defensive posture in his actual comments. The only effective response to a cancellation attempt is to go on the offensive and also be honest. Hogan did say offensive things, after all. By failing to go on the attack, Swoll opened himself to even more criticism, as well as the unforced error of saying “colored.”

About that - it’s not an offensive term. Full-stop. Yes, it’s an outdated term. Yes, it has a negative connotation. But let’s quit being hysterical for a moment and just look at the term objectively - in any other context, is “colored” still an offensive term? It’s not, because unlike the dreaded N-bomb, it’s not a slur, which would be offensive regardless of the context. More important, how is “colored” any different from the Left’s preferred, politically correct term “people of color?” I don’t see the difference. There’s none.

As far as Hogan’s history of racist remarks? I’m not a fan of Hogan the person for reasons that go beyond offensive comments. I’m a fan of professional wrestling; though his contributions to the industry are massive and undeniable, Hogan also has a reputation for dishonesty and a toxic level of selfishness in the sense he can never see the bigger picture beyond himself.

For example, it’s expected that even the biggest stars in the industry are expected to take a scripted loss every now and then to either advance a storyline or to put over another star. Hogan, however, is one of the few talents who had creative control as part of his contracts to ensure he can dictate outcomes exclusively to his benefit. This would be like an actor having the ability to dictate the plot of a movie he’s starring in. It’s ridiculous and makes no sense in any other context.

For a public figure with widespread appeal, Hogan’s racist remarks are deeply problematic. At the same time, I’ve never viewed racism, spoken or unspoken, as a crime worse than murder, either. It’s just not. If Hogan had committed a legitimate hate crime - i.e., killed someone just for being Black - that would be another matter altogether. But that’s not what happened here. My own views on race, on the Black community, are very radical by mainstream standards. I’d hope that nobody thinks less of me because of it, because they’re not driven by animus. They’re driven by real-world, plainly observable behavior.

People who knew Hogan speak well of him. Some don’t. I have no reason to doubt them, either way. At the same time, I do see Hogan as someone who’d be a problematic personality even without the racism. Which brings me to my point: we need to judge actions more than speech. We need to judge people within the totality of their profile, not just based on something bad they said once or twice. I just will never believe that someone who says something bad or socially unacceptable is some terrible person who is hated even more than some of history’s mass murderers. Given some people really do think Hogan is more irredeemable than Stalin, maybe that says something about how the way to people’s hearts isn’t through kindness, but through fear.

As for the cancellation of Joey Swoll, the key is to never apologize. Even when you’re wrong. There’s no use. As Swoll says in his farewell message, it means nothing to do the right thing. Certainly, doing the right thing regardless is the definition of integrity, but I don’t think apologizing was the morally right thing to do either, so Swoll’s integrity isn’t affected in any way.

The cruelty of cancel culture is that the online mob will never have the courage to confront you in public. This is why you cannot give in to them. Their unwillingness to put any skin in the game makes them most unworthy of any apology or validation.

Islam Wins By Demanding Submission

While attending the funeral of a downed New York City police officer killed in a mass shooting, state Governor Kathy Hochul made clear she does what Islam tells her to do, despite not being Muslim herself:

Source

Hochul answered criticism, saying:

I wore a headscarf to honor a fallen Muslim NYPD officer at his funeral. Respecting a grieving family’s faith is “wut” leaders and anyone with basic decency would do.

Hochul isn’t entirely wrong - religions should be respected, especially in their houses of worship. Politicians most notably have a history of doing so if only to avoid any unnecessary controversy. But religions should also respect the broader society. The U.S. is effectively secular and a big part of that entails religious rights not superseding individual or broader collective rights. It’s a tough balancing act to follow, but one religion in particular has been allowed to have its way more often than not. That religion is Islam.

Note that Islam isn’t the only religion which has women wear a head-covering. Some Christian denominations do so as well. The difference is that Christians either don’t require non-adherents to follow their customs, even when inside their places of worship. If they did require non-adherents to do so, let’s just say it wouldn’t go down as well.

That’s because, unlike Islam, nobody fears Christianity. In fact, Christianity is regarded with disdain throughout the West, even as it remains the most followed religion, especially in the U.S. If you disdain something, you won’t respect it.

Though often considered distinct from one another, fear and respect actually have considerable overlap. In fact, as one psychologist puts it, fear is the basis of respect:

I’m not sure what the polling data shows these days. But I have a feeling if you asked the person on the street, more would be more willing to say they respect Islam than they say they respect Christianity. This isn’t just out of political correctness. This is because Islam is much easier to respect because Islam not only demands it, but acts on it. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists, but I think, deep down inside, many see a use in terrorism: it teaches others that Muslims are dead-serious about their religion and that they aren’t to be trifled with.

As Islam floods the West, especially Europe, societies have chosen to submit to Islam rather than stand up to it. That’s because standing up to it means risking violence, which means giving up comfort. It’s why so much of the West will ultimately go down without a fight.

Equality Exacerbates Sex Differences

How it came to be is a long story, but our society accepts almost entirely without question the belief that gender roles and sex differences are entirely a product of culture and a matter of choice. Change the culture, change the norms, and sex differences can go away.

The strange thing is, there’s no scientific basis for this. It’s a theory with little evidence to back it up. If anything, the science says quite the opposite, which is that gender roles were born from immutable differences between the sexes. Our society’s decisions should be made in accordance with science, right? That was the lesson of 2020, if there ever was one.

Anyway, I spent most of today reading scholar

Rob Henderson

’s latest essay on gender differences. The whole thing would probably take it’s own essay to fully break down, but I wanted to share what I thought to be its most interesting findings.

I found this the most fascinating:

Interestingly, countries with greater sociopolitical equality and gender egalitarianism tend to show the largest sex differences in personality traits. For example, men and women in highly egalitarian countries like Denmark and Sweden differ more from each other than do men and women in more traditional societies such as Vietnam and Botswana.

Think about it - if all a society needed to do to make men and women more equal was to adapt its culture and norms to be more feminine, which countries like Denmark and Sweden have done and then some, why have gender differences become so stark?

More:

The same pattern appears in educational preferences. In developing countries, women are more likely to study engineering and other lucrative fields. In richer countries, where economic security is more assured, women tend to opt for less remunerative majors such as communications or psychology.

There’s been a concerted effort to get women into STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math - fields in the West. It hasn’t worked. Feminists claim it’s because of enduring prejudices, but I think the science shows that it’s because women prefer not to get into STEM. It’s a boring answer, but real-life is usually pretty boring. The barriers for entry aren’t there any longer. If you lower the barriers and women aren’t any more likely to enter these fields than they were when the barriers were up, then were the barriers really the issue?

It’s the same reason the skilled trades continue to be male-dominated - when given the choice, women don’t want to do those jobs. Even most men prefer not to do those jobs these days. Yet millions are spent on ubiquitous ad campaigns aimed at getting women to work in skilled trades. Just watch TV today - the only thing more prevalent than the over-representation of Black people is the over-representation of women as skilled tradespeople, be it a handyman or pest exterminator.

The bottom line is this:

In relatively rich and free societies, people are better able to express their underlying traits and preferences. In contrast, less affluent and less egalitarian societies tend to impose stricter behavioral expectations, which compress sex differences. Psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams has summed up this dynamic succinctly: “Treating men and women the same makes them different, and treating them differently makes them the same.”

And:

Many in Western societies assume that treating men and women the same will naturally lead to convergence in their interests and preferences. But the world doesn’t work that way. The freer people are and the more fairly they’re treated, the more their differences tend to emerge rather than disappear. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that young men and women are diverging politically more than previous generations did.

Basically, the regimes of the West are trying to accomplish something using the wrong means of doing so. If you want men and women to be on the same page, you don’t do it by maximizing choice and treating them as interchangeable parts. You certainly don’t do it by forcing men and women to be one another’s economic competitors. Instead, you do it by imposing expectations on both genders and demanding they live up to them.

Though my opinion of public schooling tends to skew negative, it still serves as a perfect example of how the genders are more equal when they’re both expected to behave a certain way. Even then, a social pecking order arises. But it’s not one divided along gender lines. If anything, the inability to socialize with the opposite gender will isolate a person. That’s not how things work today. Public school is a terrible way to organize society, but the point still stands: society is more equal when behavioral expectations are imposed. The same goes for other institutions, most notably the military.

Unfortunately, as long as the West remains richer and freer - free in terms of being exempt from any real societal expectations - a more traditional arrangement which compresses sex differences isn’t likely to emerge. It’d probably take a total collapse of the existing order, along with maybe a war, for society to revert back to a more sensible arrangement. But in that case, gender relations will have become the least of our worries.

If They Say It’s Dangerous, That’s Because It Is

We’ll close on one more topic. As longtime readers know, I enjoy travel and do so semi-frequently. Combined with my prepping lifestyle, travel safety is something I’m greatly concerned about. The world can be a wonderful place, but there’s also a lot of danger out there. No amount of loving the world and all its children will change this.

I was watching a video on the YouTube channel “Chilling Scares” this morning and in his latest video, I learned for the first time about the story of Elliot Eastman. At the time a 26-year-old Vermont native, he traveled to the Philippines for the first time in 2023, where he met a young local woman, was married within months, and eventually moved to and settled in the Philippines. Long story short, Eastman was eventually killed in a botched kidnapping attempt. Though one of his killers was arrested, Eastman’s body was never recovered, as his killers dumped his body into the Sulu Sea to lose the evidence. It’s a deeply tragic story, one which missed me completely at the time, but did draw significant media attention in the U.S.

The thing that strikes me about the story, what makes it all the more sobering, is that Eastman’s wife came from a part of the Philippines called the “red zone.” It’s referred to as such because it’s the most dangerous part of the country, especially for foreigners. This area not only has high crime, but violent separatist movements as well, along with Islamic extremism. The Philippines continues to engage in a low-level war against these groups as we speak, in addition to criminals and gangs.

Eastman was aware of all this. Yet, he still chose to move to this part of the country out of love. Now, we all know love makes a man do incredibly foolish things. Regardless, this was still a decision made with incredibly poor judgment. Not only was he aware of the danger, Eastman is smart enough to know that the government and police in places like the Philippines don’t function like they do back in his native Vermont, nor even in more dysfunctional states like California. The influencer apparently spoke very candidly about how dangerous that part of the country was. Still, he was determined to stay and make a life for himself, his wife, and what I presume to be a family-to-be.

The thing about the rest of the world is, if you’re a foreigner, you’ll perpetually be a foreigner. Your legal status in the country doesn’t matter. Not only that, Eastman, as a White male, stands out in a place like the Philippines. This makes him an immediate target, someone for bad people to zero in on. To think that he’d ever be accepted as a local, as a member of the community, is wishful thinking, especially somewhere so dangerous, where the rules of the jungle apply.

I have little more to say about this except to study up on Eastman’s fate and learn from his story. We all like to think we share something in common with all the people of the world, that everywhere you go, people are good and want the same things as us. That might be true in spades, but it’s not the whole story. If most of us were good, we wouldn’t need to build civilizations, which are effectively massive fortresses. We certainly wouldn’t need governments.

So please, if you’re aware that a part of the world is a dangerous place, don’t gamble with your life. None of us are as in control of our fates as we think. The world isn’t so bad, but it’s not as good as we’d like it to be, either. Don’t risk everything just to prove something. You might just end up proving only your own bad judgment.

Well - that ended up being long than I expected! But whereas it usually takes me at least a few days to complete the typical essay, this one I completed within the day. Baby steps, folks.

What do you think of any of the topics discussed today? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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