Youth for Western Civilization is a nationwide group that’s dedicated to “the survival of our own culture and civilization,” and although they don’t quite make that “our” explicit, it’s pretty clear that they mean white people of European descent.
So, are they rallying for more Shakespeare courses? Encouraging members to enroll in classical Greek programs? Not exactly. The typical YWC activity looks more like the tone deaf “Straight Pride Day” a Towson chapter held last week at that university. (Watch a video of the proceedings here.) Predictably, other students protested the event, giving YWC the perfect chance to act all marginalized and wounded.
But there is a small glimmer of hope for humanity here. One anti-YWC attendee reported staying on afterward to talk with the “calm and respectful” YWC reps for nearly two hours. It ended with a group hug.
So, I’m not sure what the criticism is here. Tone deaf? How so, exactly?
Because there are people who don’t like their message?
They’re using provocative slogans and publicity stunts to gain attention?
These are hardly things unique to the YWC, and from what I understand, the YWC takes queues from Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals” – hardly a right wing source.
@KEVINSLAUGHTER It is not the YWC strategies or message that presents the problem. They’re argument is that they are unfairly treated. But the problem with that argument is that these YWC “western” whites view their social, cultural, and economic experiences as a norm that everyone must follow, rather than as an advantaged position that is maintained at the expense of others. Solutions to problems of inequality can only be achieved by explicitly discussing the implicit advantages that whites as a group hold in society. I think you will see that this is true in the gay/ straight dichotomy as well. Perhaps that was what was achieved at the two-hour discussion that followed the “protest.”
Or perhaps they view their culture as something which they ought to be able to experience without having to be made to feel guilty about it: to revel in their heroes, their history and their achievements without having to apologize that theirs achieved more than others who were supposedly “marginalized” in the society that was built by and for the ancestors of these “western” whites.
@Kjell Could you name a few heroes, some instances of history and the achievements the white western civilization proponents are made to feel guilty about or feel they must apologize for?
@Jan: Christopher Columbus, and Thomas Jefferson are a couple of examples of Western Figures that the left forces normal people to apologize for, regardless of whether or not the allegations against both of them stick.
As for your main argument, western european whites are in fact discriminated against, what do you think happens when people start using affirmative action and gender equality as qualifications for college, grad and law school, and the workforce? Someone has to suffer reverse discrimination as a result.
I’m curious Jan, as to where you fall on the political spectrum because your [EDITED] arguments can only have originated from one particular ideology.
@Jan – Every white southerner, and pretty much every white, is supposed to feel guilt over slavery. When only 10% of Southerners owned slaves, and NONE of those people are alive today, and slavery has been outlawed for generations, why on earth would anyone alive feel _guilt_ over it?
But, until recently when Native Americans kicked their former slaves out of the tribe for not being racially pure (ahem), we never hear about reparations from either black freemen who owned slaves OR American indians.
American Indians owned slaves at the SAME level as white southerners, around 10%.
So, like those who believe that as descendants of Adam and Eve are guilty of the original sin, the left believes that whites are stained with the sin of slavery forever.
Glad to see a vigorous debate but let’s remember not to insult! We want all views to be expressed but without invective, please.
I guess I just don’t quite understand what straight pride has to do with a celebration of Western Civilization. Especially if you’re tracking Western Civ back to the Greeks, who certainly did make some exciting moves w/r/t democracy, but were also hardly a “straight” culture
BWright and KevinSlaughter you both seem focused on affirmative action and slavery. You propose that because of affirmative action and slavery, whites feel 1) discriminated against and 2) are made to feel guilty, respectively. So, what’s your point? The Supreme Court ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, in 2003, generally eliminated affirmative action. With regard to slavery, it is still practiced worldwide. It’s not clear whether you are for it or against it (personally, I’d love to have my own slave), but you don’t want to carry any guilt about it. That’s clear. So don’t. You didn’t and wouldn’t have slaves. Just hold on to that. As to the Indians, they are odd balls. Who can figure them out? What I don’t understand is why whites feel that the world was intended for them and should be protected for them from anyone else having an unearned or even and earned piece of it. As if whites somehow earned the privilege of owning the entire earth. However the earth is populated mostly by people of color and their population is growing, exponentially. So are you proposing an affirmative action plan for whites? Is that the point? Save the formerly vanquishing people, the disappearing tribe?
@Jan -I won’t repeat examples as BWright has named a few, but suffice it to say there a host of others. I guess it boils down to whether a group of people have a right to have their own particular culture, history, and civilization preserved. The course of history demonstrates that this isn’t the case, and that societies which do not do this (or who lack the strength to do so), perish.
YWC clearly believes that there is merit in preserving many of the facets of Western Civilization, that there is something to be gained from a study of its history, its ideas and thoughts, and traditions, and that in this study valuable lessons can be learned with respect to our own “enlightened and progressive” modern times. Moreover, they believe that as the inheritors of that Civilization, they have a right to preserve that culture. Under what circumstances does a notion of equality enter this equation, any more than it does a Chinese person passing down Chinese traditions, or a Zulu passing down Zulu traditions, etc?
@Jkell Of course people have a right to preserve their culture. We have a whole system of government, education, historical museums and press, as well as a society that imbues us all with the values of Western Civilization. Which aspects do you feel are not being preserved that you want to see protected? And, how does “Straight Pride” fit into saving Western Civilization?