The Meaning of Meanings

Infrastructure

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The Biden Infrastructure bill is getting a lot of criticism for what it isn’t—an infrastructure bill. That is, it’s only tangentially about infrastructure. Anywhere from 5-20% of the roughly $2 trillion goes to roads, bridges, and utilities—what we generally consider infrastructure. And not just us, but the dictionary too: “The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems.” Concrete, asphalt, steel, and wire, and the maintenance thereof—that’s what most people consider to be infrastructure. Or do they?

The Biden administration is thinking more creatively. I’m not going to argue on the virtues or venalities of the bill or why Congress should allocate $2 tril for it; I’m more interested in the terminology. To road-and-bridge maintenance, the administration adds

“Care infrastructure”: money for elder and child care
“Educational infrastructure”: money for building new schools
“Human infrastructure”: money for job-training and union organizing,
“Research infrastructure”: money for universities and think tanks (to come up with conclusions the government likes, says my cynical side)
“Environmental infrastructure”: money for incentivizing electric cars and phasing out gasoline engines

We can argue about each item on the list—and there are a lot of items—and whether government bureaucracy is the best way to facilitate them, but (being a language person), I’m most interested in the way the administration is finding so many applications of the world “infrastructure.” They’ve stretched it to embrace anything the administration wants to do, thereby making it practically meaningless. This shapeless blob of a word now covers broad consensus (roads and the power grid should be adequately maintained) as well as ideological fringes.

Such terminology is perilous, in that it

Blurs distinctions and definitions. This is a feature, not a bug, of postmodernism, which pretty much denies objective meaning. As an academic theory po-mo only harms students; as a governing philosophy it harms everybody.
Tends to make humans into a commodity: buying units to purchase desired products, workers to be trained, young minds to be conditioned, old people to be sidelined. American citizens become part of American “infrastructure.” And what does that mean?

“Infrastructure,” then, isn’t about asphalt and wire; it’s about forcing American society into a model favored by one end of the political spectrum. If everything is infrastructure, everything is subject to restructuring.

March 22, 2021March 22, 2021

Every Good Thing

A picture book published last September is scoring stars in all the children’s-book review journals: I Am Every Good Thing. The book celebrates boyhood—particularly black boyhood—as a radiance of joy and exuberance and possibility.

Words and phrases like “good to the core,” “star-filled sky of solutions,” and “perfect” overstate the case. Other thoughts, like “I am the tree that falls in the forest and doesn’t make a sound” are more puzzling than clarifying. But the truly disturbing page, near the end, shows our hero with an unmistakable halo. “I am what I say I am” is the facing text.

I Am, or I Am Who I Am—Does that remind you of anyone?

I can understand the need for a book like this. Boys have been medicated and castigated and exhorted to act like girls for the last twenty years or so; about time they are appreciated for the rambunctious risk-takers they are. Black boys, especially, need inspiration to grow into strong and capable men.

But I’m not sure that the self-affirmation expressed in the title is the best way to go about it.

In fact, I’m sure it’s not.

You don’t have to be convicted of original sin to see the problem here. The title is patently untrue. Boys are not every good thing: while lively and funny, they can also be self-centered, aggressive, reckless, impetuous, and thoughtless. (My five-year-old grandson is a lot of good things, but I could tell you some stories . . .) Both boys and girls lack plenty of good things, like maturity and good judgment. That’s not a bug; it’s a feature, the very definition of a child.

Now, wait a minute, the author and illustrator might object: we don’t mean it literally. Or maybe they do. I don’t know, and the casual reader or first-grader who finds this book thrust at him by his reading specialist won’t know either. If the intention is the build his confidence, this reminds me of the self-esteem movement that began in the 1980s. I call it sticker-sheet confidence, because it seemed to consist of handing out accolades like exclamatory stickers (Awesome Work! You Rock!!)

The Self-esteem Movement, as a conscious Movement, was gradually buried under a pile of evidence that self-esteem is not endemic to good character. In fact, it may actually be inimical to good character. Building confidence is not a matter of telling kids they’re awesome, but helping them along the road to becoming awesome. That’s a lifelong process.

And they’ll never be as awesome as a halo-crowned figure identifying himself as I Am. Assuming godlike status is not the key to success. We have it on good authority that that’s the road to destruction.

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020

Nine Reasons to Read the Bible–Even If You Don’t Believe It

1. It’s unique. The Bible Creation story is not like any other creation story. The Bible God is not like any other God. He’s the only ancient deity to link worship (temples, sacrifices, etc.) to a moral code. He is absolutely central; a person beyond personality, not a representative of window or fire, not an idea, not a philosophy. He escapes easy generalities, and so does his book.

2. It’s eerily familiar. We’re always hearing echoes of it, not only in everyday conversation (broken heart, labor of love, thorn in the flesh, eye for an eye), but in values we take for granted. Whatever our political persuasion, we agree that the hungry should be fed, the injured cared for, the helpless attended to. None of these principles were widely accepted in the ancient world. We believe—or at least we say—that love is the greatest power in the world. Rameses, Nebuchadnezzar, and Julius Caesar would have laughed at that. “Love conquers all” is the story told in the Bible’s thousand-odd pages.

3. It’s historically relevant. Even if you’re skeptical about archaeology finds that support what it says about ancient times, the Bible’s influence on history is well documented. Those who are certain it inspired oppression, crusades, and pogroms should turn over a few more rocks. Though it has been misused as a weapon, the Bible is also (and much more logically) the inspiration for revivals, reforms, and rethinking. It directly inspired the greatest surge in literacy, enterprise, and empowerment the world has ever seen (i.e. the Protestant Reformation). The Enlightenment usually takes credit for those achievements, but without the Reformation there would be no Enlightenment (and after the Enlightenment gleefully kicked away the Scriptural platform it was built on, it collapsed in something called the Reign of Terror).

4. It’s a treasury of ancient literary forms. Poetry, Historical Narrative, Allegory, Practical Instruction, Romance, Apocalyptic Imagery—every style and genre known to the ancient world is easily accessible between these covers, and in a multitude of translations, too.

5. It explains the origins of two of the most consequential people groups in the history of the world: Jews and Christians. You may not like them. Often enough, they haven’t liked each other. One was a relatively small group bound by blood and tradition, which had a wildly outsized influence on world history and a proportionate amount of suffering. (The honor of being a chosen people cuts both ways). The second group is, by design, much more numerous and diverse, bound by faith and a conviction that God loves the world enough to die for it.

6. It tells one Story. A rambling tale, to be sure–any tale would ramble if it took about 1500 years and at least 39 authors to tell it. But the general outline of the story is the model for all stories in all cultures. There’s a setting, a protagonist, an antagonist, a problem, a development of the problem, a climax, and a resolution. Why do we tell stories this way? Whether or not the Bible is the origin for the model, it’s a classic example of the model. And the type of story it tells, of desolation and redemption, still haunts us.

7. It provides the only objective reason for treating human beings as anything other than random accidents, disposable trash, or interchangeable parts to be manipulated. The reason is this: the Bible is very clear that human beings are shaped by God to bear his image. For that very reason, they are not to be willfully murdered (Genesis 9:6) or even carelessly insulted (James 3:9-10). If the value of humans is set by other humans it can shift at any time. If that value is set by God, no one can alter it.

8. It’s the most banned book in history. It’s too reactionary, too subversive, too authoritarian, too libertarian. Tyrants fear its revelation of a rival power; anarchists, modernists, post-modernists, communists, utopians, and well-intentioned progressives hate it for the same reason. The book is a scandal and a trouble—aren’t you curious as to why?

9. It’s still around. And still a best-seller. What explains its remarkable staying power? Unless you are willing to at least become familiar with it, you’ll never know.

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020

Cynical Theories: a Review

Have you read White Fragility or How to Be an Anti-Racist? Even if you haven’t read them, you’ve probably heard of them. I’ve heard from WORLD readers who are making a good-faith effort to examine their own biases by exposing themselves to challenging points of view from the Times best-seller list. I applaud the motivation, but some of those books should come with warning labels: Ideas produced in the hothouse atmosphere of the modern university may not be profitable for the real world.

So don’t read those without reading this: Critical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. Cynical Theories, by two academics who have been there, tracks antiracism to its source. Also radical feminism, post-colonialism, toxic masculinity, trans identity, genderqueerness, body positivity, fat shaming, and intersectionality. Even if you’re not aware of those things, they are aware of you, especially if you’re white, straight, and male. Or if you disagree with any proposition from the toxic well of Theory.

“Theory” is the broadest term for all the academic disciplines examining power and privilege. It’s rapidly expanding to embrace all the academic disciplines, including the hard sciences and mathematics. How did this happen?

It goes back to a sickly academic trend called postmodernism. Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida were major advocates of postmodernism, with its prevailing view that truth is socially constructed. What you might understand as a “fact” is actually a composite of points of view, inferences, and assumptions from your social strata. In fact, there’s no such thing as a fact. Truth is not just relative, it’s meaningless. The only thing that matters is power: who has it, and how they exercise it.

Postmodernism killed literature by divorcing it from any meaning the author might have had in mind and “deconstructing” it to uncover the underlying power plays. The disease soon spread to the arts and social sciences. When I first learned about postmodernism in the early nineties, it seemed a dead-end philosophy. That turned out to be true, but I didn’t suspect what might revive its gasping, expiring body. The salvation of postmodernism was Theory, which clarified its precepts, expanded its reach, and made it, not an academic discipline, but a Dogma and a righteous Cause.

The precepts are these:

All knowledge is socially constructed, with language (“discourse”) as the creative agent. This includes the hard sciences and mathematics.
All knowledge works to privilege the identity group to which it belongs by race, sex, gender, nationality, or physical characteristics.
The identity group with the highest privilege are straight white males, who have successfully structured society to maintain their dominant position.
All other groups (and intersectional combinations of groups) are thereby oppressed.
The only remedy for oppression is to deconstruct white male privilege by making it stand down while other identities and “ways of knowing” achieve an equal place at the table.
If this set of propositions seems to lack empirical evidence, well, empiricism itself is a white male invention and thereby suspect.

Do you see anything that might need to be deconstructed here?

Like most social analysis, Cynical Theories probably overstates its case, but I found it helpful and illuminating. If leftist agnostics are blowing the whistle, we’d better listen.

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018

The Judge on the Altar

I don’t write about politics much, because it’s a trap. It’s too easy to see your own “side” as the good guys and the other side as mendacious maniacs (or pick your own alliteration). Worse, it’s too easy to hunker down in the mosh pit and convince yourself that this is the good fight: this bill before Congress, this election, this next Supreme Court Justice. There may certainly be elements of a good fight in any of these, but the real fight is taking place on another level altogether.

Having said that, I’m going to make a political observation. The Democrat party, as a whole (not convicting all Democrats) seems to have sunk their fortunes into a grab bag of propositions that can be lumped together under the heading of “Identity Politics”—IP for short. IP weaves the academic pursuits of latter-day Marxism, deconstructionism and intersectionality among strands of feminism, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ identity, and other aggrieved groups who haven’t even worked up to being aggrieved yet. Its policies lean toward statist solutions (i.e., big government; welfare; socialist tendencies). In the interests of bipartisanship, I agree that IP would never have taken hold without some justification. Forms of oppression has tainted our country, and injustice lingers on. I disagree about causes and solutions, and I strenuously disagree that oppression is the whole story. But that’s the problem: to many on the far side of IP, oppression is the whole story.

Identity Politics has become a cult. Its sacred history is a catalogue of oppression by white men, its eschatology is the emasculation of white men, its creed is White Men Are Oppressors, and its high priesthood is the Democrat leadership—many of whom are white men, redeemed by sacred rhetoric. Its high religious festivals are elections, both general and mid-term; its ethic is protest and resistance; its holy relics include abortion (as a symbol of a woman’s control over her destiny).

Cults have their heroes and villains and sacrificial victims. Last week we witnessed a ritual sacrifice, complete with ceremony, theater, laying on guilt, and one “lamb without blemish.”

Let me say at the outset, I don’t know the facts of the Ford-Kavanaugh case. Nobody does, except the accused and the accuser, and possibly not even those two, given the tricks that memory plays over time. But adherents of the cult were presented with the perfect victim: not only white and male, but a preppie! Not just privileged, but super-privileged! Not merely a boy scout, but a devout Catholic! Not just innocent of the charge (so he claims), but a virgin at the time! (So he claims.) Everything that radical leftism hates and longs to pull down was sitting before them in that committee room, and they knifed him.

He had his defenders, and won a procedural victory when the Senate Judicial Committee voted him out on strict party lines. But he’s bleeding, and if he makes it to the Supreme Court, he’ll bleed for the next decade at least (if not impeached by a Democrat majority). The cult has worked itself into an ideological frenzy on the merest suggestion. Among the accusations and conclusions I’ve encountered: he was probably drunk at the hearing, he falls into seething rages, he can’t be trusted to coach his daughter’s basketball team, he may have run a high-school rape ring, he got blind drunk at parties in college and there’s just no telling what he did or can do.

I’ve bumped into these allegations without even looking for them; just imagine what I’d find at fever swamps like Think Progress and Democrat Underground. They came not from anonymous angry birds on Twitter, but from mainstream journalists and pundits and authors. Brett Kavanaugh is no longer a man to them—he was never a man, but a symbol of white supremacy in all its wickedness. He’s the merciless slave-owner, the callous CEO, the ogre of the boardroom, the . . . the . . Republican.

The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Bruce MacKinnon

This cartoon was making the rounds over the weekend: Lady Justice, her scales knocked askew, flat on her back, held down with one hand over her mouth by a faceless attacker labeled “GOP.” Yeah, well—what about assumption of guilt, and lack of evidence, and equality under the law, which is why justice is supposed to be blind? To the IP faithful, “procedure” means “stonewalling.” What do they want? A conviction! When do they want it? Now!! And they’ve got it. In another age, they would be yelling, “To the guillotine!”—so we can be grateful for the procedural niceties that remain to us.

Just consider these cartoons, presented from opposite sides of the story. Which has the most emotional punch? Which has the most rational appeal? Can there be any reconciliation between these two views?

“But love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” The great reconciler is at work, but he only works through one heart at a time. Views aren’t reconcilable, but people are.

September 1, 2018

Who Invented Writing? And Why Does the Bible Not Care?

The answer to the first question is, nobody knows. It’s apparently a Sumerian invention, adapted by the Akkadians and picked up by all Middle Eastern cultures. The Phoenicians get credit for developing the first alphabet (22 letters), but it was really a mashup of Egyptian and Sumerian. The Hebrews weren’t far behind, and the Greeks invented vowels. Most of these cultures had some kind of origin story: writing as the gift of a god or demi-god. In the “Phaedrus” dialogue, Socrates tells of the god Theuth, who talked up his invention to the Pharaoh as an aid to wisdom and memory. The King was not impressed; he perceived the written word not as an aid but as a crutch:

By telling them many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.

That’s a good description of pretentious windbaggery, and may be one reason why the Bible makes no mention of how writing was invented. Nobody writes anything in Genesis. In Exodus, there it is: Ten Commandments written by God himself and a Torah written by Moses (who was, after all, schooled in all the arts of a sophisticated culture). Written words are a medium for the Word, but not, strictly speaking, the Word Himself. (Remember, Jesus never wrote anything—recorded for us, that is—except some mysterious words in the sand.)

While the slow and tortuous development of writing went on, God spoke—to Noah, Abraham, Jacob, finally Moses. With the alphabet in place, he instructed prophets to set things down, not for their own erudition and proof-texting, but to let his people know what he was like. Like all technologies, writing is a double-edged sword, though more subtle than most: by it we pass down vital knowledge, and by it we’re burdened with conceited pedagogues.

Writing is a tool, not a talisman.

Of course God knows that. Knowledge is a means, not an end. Writing is a tool, not a talisman. It sets us free from immediate practical application and the limits of an individual mind, creates a place for the expression of ideas in a world of “things.” It also makes us think we know more than we actually do, when what it’s actually doing is setting the table for genuine knowledge. God doesn’t need it; his words endure even when no on

e listens to them. But our words are airy and fleeting. Like rain, they fall and evaporate on the heads of our hearers. Good words can bless, and evil words can hurt, but that depends on who hears them and what frame of mind they’re in.

Writing is our one shot at making our words endure past the hearing. But the Pharaoh’s words to Theuth—actually Socrates’ words—hold just as true today: reading and understanding the content represented by a pattern of words on a page makes us think we know the content. We don’t really know anything unless we live it out. That’s why the Bible puts such importance on doing: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers [or readers] only.” “He who hears my words and does them is like a man who built his house on a rock.”

Writing is a tremendous gift, no question. I make my living by it. Like all gifts, though, it’s not to be worshiped or exalted for its own sake, only for how it brings us closer to God.

December 8, 2017

Anywhere with Jesus: a Christian View of a Squirmy Subject

Several years ago I had a preacher friend who provided interesting insights into the pulpit life. During the years of our acquaintance, in spite of normal frustrations with his flock, he could usually count on at least a few encouraging words after each sermon. Except for the time he preached about the temptations of Christ. His text was not the famous showdown in the wilderness, but Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every way has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” The sermon emphasized that the text means what it says; in every way means every way. Including sexual temptation.

That made the pew contingent very uncomfortable. It wasn’t hard to tell. As my friend recalled it, “Usually I get a pat on the back when the folks line up to shake my hand at the door. Like, ‘Good message, brother,’ or, “That one really hit me where I live.’ But for that sermon I got a Hi or a Nice day or something completely irrelevant, like, ‘Uh . . . I like those pants.’” (Note: this was in the 70s, when pants were more interesting than they are now.)

What does this anecdote have to do with the subject of masturbation? And why am I writing about masturbation? To the second question, I’m writing because I was asked about it, and my initial reluctance was overcome as I thought (and read other Christians’ thoughts) about it. Image result for loneliness images

As to the first question: Jesus has everything to do with everything.

The following is written with Christians in mind; I recognize it will make no sense to anyone else.

The Bible, as so many observers point out, has nothing directly to say about masturbation, good or bad. But of course the Bible speaks to a wide range of issues indirectly and it’s up to us to do the hard work of rightly discerning the word of truth. Not to mention searching out what pleases the Lord (Eph. 5:10).

One reason the Bible is silent on this issue is that it might not have been a big problem in that time and place. People tended to marry young, and when they weren’t enjoying marital bliss, or sleep, they were pouring their energies into hard physical labor, religious festivals, or intense partying (think of those week-long wedding celebrations). And considering the housing options of the time, privacy was not an easy thing to come by.

In the law, sexuality was treated matter-of-factly when it came to physical consequences like monthly periods and male discharges (at least some of which had to be nocturnal emissions). Leviticus gives detailed instructions for purification after each one. Why be purified after a natural function that the Lord himself created? I had some thoughts about that here, but for now it strikes me that these laws concern men and women in isolation from each other. There are no purification rites for married sex (unless it occurs during a woman’s time of “uncleanness”), because that is exactly what those bodily functions facilitated . Lawful sexual intercourse is already pure, and it points beyond itself. It’s about relationship at its most intense, intimate, and productive level, and it reflects something of the intense, intimate, and productive relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit.

Our experience on earth, even in lawful matrimony, often falls well short of this ideal. And turning from these Gates of Splendor to the squirmy subject of masturbation is a big step down: awkward and fraught with guilt. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want the Holy Trinity in our walk-in closets or under our sneaky sheets–and really, can’t we have a little privacy here? Surely there’s a place we can carve out for ourselves alone. There must be a place, not just in our homes but in our heads, where we can retreat for a few minutes and relieve a little pressure, purge of those disturbing fantasies, take a quick dip in mindless therapeutic pleasure and emerge clearheaded and ready to take hold of a straight untangled mission. Just wait here, Lord—I’ll be right back.

But . . . seriously?

We know better. “Know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” That he goes where we go? That we can’t retreat to our inner sanctum and lock him out?

Nobody knew this better than Jesus did. Nobody was indwelt like he was. Still . . . he was tempted in all ways as we are. All ways means all ways.

Don’t we tend to think that it was really kind of easy for him to resist temptation? Except for that last, of going to the cross—of course that was hard. And maybe the one about turning stones to bread when he was hungry. After a 40-day fast, of course he was hungry! So sure, that was probably a tough one too, but the rest of the temptations he was subject to must not have been that difficult for the man-who-was-God. Or so we tend to think.

And that’s how we underestimate Satan, to our great disadvantage. His most potent temptation is this: Take the fast lane. The lure for Christ was to shortcut the process of “learning obedience through suffering” (Heb. 5:8), to reach across the grand redemption plan, to seize the crown that was rightfully his. Isn’t that the heart of temptation for us–to forgo process and go straight for satisfaction in whatever form it appears? Jesus faced this too, in all ways. He knows our every weakness in the biblical sense of experiencing it, not just mentally acknowledging it, Yet without sin. No shortcuts. He took the long hard way of the cross—meaning that, when it was time to claim his rightful crown, he would not be alone. He would take us with him.

Now . . . all this will likely seem hopelessly abstract to the teenage boy or the frustrated single woman. Christian counselors and doctors make good-faith efforts to reconcile biological drives with biblical principles, a tension stretched further by an oversexed culture and delayed marriage. Some grant that masturbation may be a useful therapeutic tool as long as it doesn’t become obsessive, has no pornographic connections, and is divorced as far as possible from erotic thought (like a good deep-tissue massage). I can’t judge the wisdom of that for any one person. Just a few contrasts to keep in mind:

Sex is intended for relationship. Masturbation is solitary.
Relationships take work. Masturbation is easy.
We are intended for perfect union with Christ. Masturbation is the last place we want him.
This union isn’t sexual, but is better than sex. Masturbation, while it lasts, whispers that there’s nothing better.

My best attempt at practical application is this. If you’ve already given in to this temptation, more times than you care to count, remember that Christ was tempted in all respects as we are. That’s your comfort. Yet without sin—that’s your salvation. You won’t be able to pull him down to your level but he will, in time, bring you up to his. Temptation is a trial but it’s also an opportunity to work on that relationship and begin laying up what will be treasure in heaven: that satisfaction you longed for all your life, fully met and never ending.

February 24, 2017

On to the Next Victim, or, Where’s Milo?

I started hearing of Milo Yiannopoulos a couple of years ago, probably on the Corner at National Review. Even then, I kept getting him confused with Matt Yglesias (same initials, different ethnicity and politics). The picture gradually came into focus: editor at Bretibart News; gay, outrageous, mean, flamboyant, opportunistic.

My first online encounter was this link: “WATCH: Milo visits Memories Pizza to apologize on behalf of normal gays.” Remember Memories Pizza? It was that mom-and-pop business in Somewhere, Indiana, that had to shut its doors after the co-proprietor innocently told a news reporter they wouldn’t want to cater a same-sex wedding. A hailstorm of disapproval almost forced the business to shut down entirely, but now they’re up and running and Milo paid them a visit. He was endearing and sweet, and even though I had heard he was a dispenser of vile tweets, and the pizza show was probably a stunt, I felt warmer toward him—not to mention more aware of him.

He was already making speeches on college campuses at the invitation of the Young Republicans or Conservative Action League. He didn’t call himself a conservative—or not always—but he delivered on conservative themes: pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-free market, even pro-Christian. Search for “MILO: Catholics are right about everything” on YouTube and you’ll find a speech that, colorful language aside, sounds a bit like Frances Schaeffer.

Milo was fine as long as his sphere of influence didn’t extend much beyond Breitbart. Then his horse—I mean Donald Trump–won the Triple Crown: viable candidacy, nomination, presidency. Though he didn’t fit the Trump-supporter stereotype, Milo jumped that bandwagon early . . . and rode it right into the spotlight. Once a gadfly, now a target.

Last December, his star ascending, he signed a book contract with Simon & Schuster worth a reported quarter-million. Soon after, S&S authors started protesting, including over 150 children’s authors and illustrators who signed a letter. Then came the noisy, fiery campus protests. In one interview, Milo expressed amazement that someone as “silly and harmless” as himself could spark such rage. Maybe he really meant it. In any case the protests earned him enough street cred to be offered primetime exposure as keynote speaker at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference, not the sleep device).

But then there was that other interview, revealed earlier this week, in which he apparently expressed support for pedophilia. He claimed the interview was deceptively edited; he’s never approved of sex with children; the conversation was about sex between older men and teenage boys (like in ancient Greece, you know?). But one by one, the rugs jerked out from under him: book cancelled, speech cancelled, even Breitbart cancelled. Where’s Milo?

I don’t mean where is he physically—he made a statement that included apologies and promises to stay in the spotlight. It might be better to take a nice long vacation by the lake with a Bible, but what I actually mean is, where is he politically, philosophically, and spiritually?

David French wrote a thoughtful piece at National Review outlining three conservative responses to the smug, dominant left-wing media “machine”: You can try Reasoning with (like Ross Douthat on the NYTimes editorial page), or Replacing with (producing parallel institutions like Christian schools, Christian movies, right-wing talk radio and news services), or Raging against (matching the left outrage for outrage). Yiannopoulos is a prime example of the rage angle, not that he’s angry. Until this week he appeared to be having the time of his life.

Simon & Schuster are in business to make money, and it’s their business who they sign and who they drop. CPAC shouldn’t have invited him in the first place—choosing a speaker because he outrages all the right people is like inviting a match to dynamite. As for Breitbart, they stuck with him while he insulted Jews and women and African American actresses, but sex with kids is off-limits. It’s good to know something is, but couldn’t someone have taken Milo aside earlier and put a grandfatherly word in his ear about standards and basic kindness?

Of course the left is showing selective outrage; links to Bill Maher and George Takei making similar statements–or jokes–have surfaced, but the scalp-takers are already looking for their next victim. Milo is hardly innocent, and even his friends acknowledge his mean streak, spiking up in what he chose to post and tweet. He gleefully collected enemies on both sides and clouded his true convictions with showmanship. By now he’s buried under so many pile-ons we can’t see him, but there’s a man in there. More to the point: there’s an immortal soul worth praying for.