How Close We Are to Unravelling

“The religion of Social Justice is redolent of the old paganism but without even the mortal transcendence of its pantheons.”

George Floyd’s murder by police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25th in Minneapolis was a horrific case of authority abused in pursuit of cruelty, exercised with the insouciance of the psychopath. The protests that resulted from this killing were impassioned and saw huge numbers turn out in Minneapolis to protest peacefully. As we saw, these protests devolved into violent rioting and the widespread looting of properties. Footage of Minneapolis now shows large areas burned to the ground, resembling a bombed-out warzone.

The protests and subsequent violence spread across America. New York City was the stage for unrest of unhinged ferocity, with mobs running riot in Midtown Manhattan, smashing storefronts on 5th Avenue and scouring high-end stores clean of merchandise. Cities from Washington D.C. to California were then wreathed in smoke as rioters, some of them Antifa extremists and others simple opportunists, exploited an opportunity to cause havoc. In London, on Saturday, June 6th, police officers were injured during a mass demonstration, and a mounted officer was knocked from her horse after it bolted from being attacked.

What is disturbing to me is the language and imagery used by actors from the media to massive corporations to excuse, explain away, or obscure what has happened. This has helped kill the complexity noted above. Media outlets such as Vox and Mother Jones scold those who use “riot” instead of “protest.” Slate, meanwhile, argued that violence was a reasonable reaction to Floyd’s death and endorsed it as a form of resistance. Corporations, meanwhile, are only too eager to jump onto the social justice bandwagon, their leaders using rhetoric and symbology to proclaim themselves part of the moral community of the woke, conveniently distracting us from their unethical practices and over-dominant market positions.