The Demonizing of Charlie Kirk by the ‘Included Middle’

Commentary

‘Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2)

It was the shot seen around the world.

The percussive violence of the bullet that struck Charlie Kirk in the neck on Sept. 10 was not only seen almost instantaneously, but also understood. The technology of the smartphone and decades of campus politics accomplished both.

Symbols, however, aren’t unequivocal. They need to be interpreted.

For me, Kirk was a Christian martyred while defending free speech. His assassination symbolizes the illiberalism of our universities and the extreme intolerance disguised by their use of the word “tolerance,” but revealed by their garish celebrations. For them, Charlie had paid for violating university-culture shibboleths.

The extent of the problem, however, is not confined to the radicals. It also extends to the many who claim to be “in the middle,” those who express pity for Kirk’s wife and children, yet also “understanding” why the event happened.

While they have not gone so far as to endorse Charlie Kirk’s murder, they partly blame the victim for it.

His speech is the true cause.

How did it transpire that ‘moderates’ could blame the victim?

Charlie Kirk was largely unknown to the public only a few days ago. He was a conservative Christian pro-life activist whose organization, Turning Point, set up events on university campuses to debate his political and ideological opponents.

Kirk’s actions were in keeping with the historic liberal idea of a university as a place where intellectual debate happens. Yet for the past decade, while Kirk’s organization grew, campuses darkened. The inversion of tolerance introduced by Herbert Marcuse in the 1960s has kept intensifying.

We are not helping ourselves by calling such academics “liberals.”

The public assassination of a non-politician defending liberal values demonstrates the metamorphosis from the “naked public square” of liberalism to one wrapped in the ubiquitous (though always changing) identity flags of the LGBT+ community and their “identity” speech codes.

What underlies the illiberalism of the radical left?

Michel Foucault’s diabolical view of language and human nature.

According to Google Scholar, Foucault has over 1.4 million citations, roughly 75% more than any other author in history.

To put that in context, only the Bible has had more influence on Western culture, a source not much cited by academics. That is because the humanistic assumptions of all foregoing generations (not just the Bible) are fundamentally opposed by Foucault and his disciples.

This is an important point.

Our educators not only have anti-Western and anti-Christian assumptions, but also anti-human ones, which is why “green” posthumanism is a political juggernaut among Western countries. Their understanding of humanity’s role in the order of nature has been “queered” by Foucault’s paradigm shift.

Foucault’s anti-humanism necessarily entails the silencing of his opponents. Why?

Because modern universities tacitly forbid the question of whether Foucault might be radically in error. They defend his ad hominems against human nature by accusing his critics of ad hominem attacks. They defend Foucault as a gay man.

To make this clearer, observe this: While campuses pay lip service to diversity, equity, and inclusion, they tellingly reject any creed of a common human nature, and when speaking of minority rights, they reject the rights of the ultimate minority, the individual, to dissent from how the “group” uses language.

Is there an alternative view of language to Foucault’s?

Yes, there is, and it is the one that reigned until the 1960s.

Humanistic theories of language all emphasize the inherent potential of human individuals to communicate and express themselves rationally within a moral social order rooted in the family.

Christian humanism views language as a divine gift that reflects human dignity and a unique gift to communicate meaningfully, rationally, and knowledgeably. It emphasizes that language should be used with wisdom to express love, truth, and the moral values rooted in Christian teaching. The whole Classical and Christian tradition of the university, a medieval Christian institution, was rooted in humanistic theories of language.

Foucault’s anti-humanistic theory of language rejects traditional views of language and humanity, arguing that concepts of human nature and communication are historically relative and shaped by social and ideological factors within language.

It is language that speaks, not individuals.

Foucault argues that the family is an inherently patriarchal institution and the moral order based upon it is an oppressive social construct. His disciples thus reject individual human dignity, reason, and objective knowledge, and consistently emphasize the power dynamic in language wielded by individuals appealing to those standards.

It’s all about language and who has the power to control it.

The Effect of Foucault’s Anti-humanism

In George Orwell’s “1984,” the character Winston Smith declared that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

Orwell was critiquing the denigration of language and people in a totalitarian state. But for those using Foucault’s anti-humanistic view of language, 2+2=4 will not be granted: It is “white supremacist patriarchal” math.

Interpreting the Silent Approval

In their belief that Charlie Kirk’s language was responsible for his assassination, the so-called moderates have found themselves complicit in what Orwell described as the “Two Minutes Hate.” It is a daily ritual during which members of the Outer and Inner Party of Oceania had to watch a film of the principal enemy of the state and shout their hatred.

The “moderates” are the “included middle” in this two-minute hate-fest of Charlie Kirk.

Why are they silent? Because they have assumed Foucault’s premises about language and human nature.

How do we see that?

They refuse to observe any of Aristotle’s three laws of thought. Their conformity to speech codes around gender identity is proof that they reject his law of identity and his law of non-contradiction, and by standing on the fence about an assassination of a man speaking on campus, they are also rejecting his law of the excluded middle.

When “moderate” people accept the assertion that “words are violence,” they show that they are actually immoderate. They are Foucault’s disciples. Discourse thinks for them. They, the “included middle,” are enslaved to a hollow and deceptive philosophy.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.