The State of Things)

It is impossible to be properly judged without being known. At different times, different categories of people have had broad generalizations made about them because of the category, not because of who they actually were. They have been accused as a whole for the problems in the world, each member guilty simply by association. Of late, being a White, Christian, male with traditional conservative views has lumped me into such categories of disdain and ridicule, with no regard for who I actually am and why I believe the things that I do.

Over the past couple years, it has become apparent that the wholesale disparagement of White, Christian, conservative, masculinity will not go unchallenged in the West. For a long while, it did. I watched as the prior generation, and many of my own peers, and even I, myself, simply shook our heads and went about our day quietly, trying not to think about the hostility growing against us. But with the assassination attempts on Donald Trump and his second election into office, something clearly changed.

And that is not all good news.

Worse, Not Better)

It is one thing to no longer agree to being walked on, it is another to start retaliating with sweeping generalizations against the other side. Sadly, the latter trend is growing alongside the former. I am seeing more and more defenses against blanket criticisms of White, conservative, men, but then also blanket criticisms where someone “knows” what a woman speaking really means, because all women are a certain way. Or how one is “fatigued” with Black people, as a rule. Or how every liberal is morally compromised. Not just that there are problems with certain individuals, but with all of a certain category.

We are trading one mistake for another. We are right to stop being overly passive. To stop pretending that being walked on is a virtue. We should not be afraid to openly disagree with the trends that we’ve been seeing, and to advocate for the principles we hold dear. We need to restore fairness and equal treatment on both the legal and societal level. But in doing all of that, we must not leap all the way painting everyone on “the other side” with the same brush.

Of course, not every White, Christian, conservative will do this. But as their views becomes more popular, the basest and most easily influenced among them will reduce things down to “this side good, that side bad.” Sadly, the basest and most easily influenced cohort seems to be increasing every year.

So, when I say “us vs them” thinking, that I believe retaliation for the past is about to increase, I am not saying that I am happy about it. I think the injustices of the past decades were tragic, and I think those of the coming decades will be also. I am not happy that White, Christian, conservative men were so unfairly treated, but neither am I happy for the reckoning that is coming back in turn. I do believe that reckoning is inevitable, though. It will happen, whether I like it or not.

And I think there is a very simple reason why this reckoning is inevitable, and a reason why it is just starting to begin now but will soon be fully upon us. I will endeavor to explain with my next post what lines were crossed that went too far, and what will happen now in retaliation.