James Lileks probes for National Review Online readers a popular response to dissent from liberal orthodoxy.
One of the great rhetorical achievements of the Left is defining disagreement as a mental illness: Since there is no rational basis for disputing their tenets, you must be afraid of their ideas, and this fear is so pathological it is a phobia, like a mortal dread of clowns, or spiders, or clowns with eight legs. Your primitive, irrational brain converts fear into a brackish swirl of bilious ichor, and before you know it, you’re a Hater.
Really? I hate Brussels sprouts, but I do not fear them. (Unless they are served by clowns.) I fear my child getting hit by a car, but I do not hate Henry Ford for mass-producing the internal-combustion engine.
Note: Some hates are signs of a healthy mind. When shown a picture of a Koch-funded hospital, you are expected to react as if shown a picture of Emmanuel Goldstein butchering an endangered Amazonian toad. …
… It’s only a matter of time before doubts about anthropogenic climate change will morph into a phobia, followed by full-blown Gaiaphobia. Then you can only imagine what will qualify as hate speech. You could say “I hate solar panels,” but only if you’re referring to a meeting you’re required to attend. Also: Don’t say it; the words might traumatize someone who overheard it and didn’t have context. Better safe than scary.
