Language is a tricky thing in our leftist world. Not only are leftists obsessed with inventing words out of whole cloth (“transphobia,” “cis,” “rapey”), they are engaged in a constant struggle to alter the definitions of existing words. This subtle warfare is part of why they have been so successful in implementing their program; people support them because they seemingly support things that everyone wants, such as “justice” and “equality.”
As a tongue-in-cheek guide to leftist terminology, Mediocracy is a worthwhile read.
Fabian Tassano is a satirist in the Swiftian bent; his book begins with a tale about a land called “Telluria” descending into leftist degeneracy and failure. “Mediocracy” is Tassano’s term for the social and economic environment fostered by leftism, in which the individual is subsumed into the collective and everything is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator:
In a mediocracy, we are required to think of ourselves as products of society. The concept of innate ability is considered threatening, as it implies an area that society may not be able to control. A simple way of minimising the significance of intrinsic differences between individuals is to stress those aspects of the person common to everyone, e.g. physiology, aging, sex.
To this end, Mediocracy offers up nearly 200 pages worth of satirical definitions, related in Tassano’s clinically comical prose. Each segment is about a page long, consisting of the mediocratic definition of a word contrasted with its real definition, along with quotes from real-world personalities like Bono and Tony Blair to back up Tassano’s explanations:
A mediocracy likes to take pride in its supposed tolerance. But what exactly is it tolerant of? Sexual activities, rudeness, brutality in movies, certain types of crime, resentment of inequality, other cultures if their membership is large enough.
On the other hand, there are things mediocracy tolerates only grudingly if at all: capital accumulation, celibacy, non-egalitarian theories, non-proletarian versions of masculinity, private medicine, business, Christianity, hierarchy, aristocracy.
Mediocracy covers the gamut from “sex” to “tolerance” to “diversity” to “depression” and more, not only explaining how leftist language manipulation distorts reality, but showing the twisted logic that connects all of these points. Tassano shows that the obscurantism of the left is a feature, not a bug; only by mutilating concepts such as “society” and “culture” can the left survive and thrive in our world. Indeed, he closes the book out with a quote from Orwell’s 1984 concerning Newspeak and thoughtcrime.
I don’t know if Tassano considers himself a reactionary, but his book makes a fine addition to the neoreaction reading list.
My problems with Mediocracy are two. One, Tassano doesn’t go into quite enough detail to fully flesh out the logic of mediocracy, instead counting on the reader to fill in the blanks. While this is fine for those of us immersed in reactionary thought, Mediocracy is a bad book for beginners as it will leave them scratching their heads. Two, a number of the definitions, such as “sacking,” seem like filler and probably could have been cut out.
Aside from these points though, Mediocracy is an amusing and illuminating book explaining just how leftists distort reality and confuse us all.
Click here to buy Mediocracy: Inversions and Deceptions in an Egalitarian Culture.
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