Intellectual Cannibalism at UCT

It is always satisfying when your enemies turn on one another. For reasons I have made clear, I oppose the protest movements. Now it seems they have started to oppose themselves. This past week, the Trans Collective stormed a Rhodes Must Fall photo exhibition, accusing the movement of not taking transgender rights seriously and marginalising the group based on their gender. They requested that their photos be taken down (while simultaneously condemning the scarcity of photos of transgender protesters), while vandalising the exhibition. While the Trans Collective is a toxic, fallacious and hate-filled group, it is very satisfying to see them turn on RMF, who are just as toxic.

The left-wing movement at the University of Cape Town has always been tenuous. It is made up of: groups that despise whites, groups that are white, Islamic fundamentalists, Feminists, Socialists, Nationalists and all manner of intellectually contradictory ideas.

It comes as no surprise that a whiny and self-obsessed group like the Trans Collective would attack a group that focuses on race and not the oh-so-important matter of fictionalised genders. Every movement in the left-wing alliance has their own goals and have shown that they refuse to have any compromise. The fact that they have cooperated for so long shows how little they really know about their own and each other’s ideologies.

There is not enough room in the alliance for more than one self-obsessed ideology, and the Trans Collective is desperately grasping for legitimacy to sate their narcissism. This course of events shows even more flaws in the idea of intersectionality (Oppression Olympics), which was theorised to try unite “oppressed groups” but actually creates a hierarchy of “victims” with the most “oppressed” being the leaders – let’s call it Victimocracy.

Many RMF members have tried to appease the Trans Collective due to this hierarchy – capitulating due to a nebulous and theocratic doctrine without justification. Due to the constructivist nature of intersectionality, however, individuals can easily seize power by merely identifying as an oppressed group. It’s an unsustainable system built on self-appointed weakness. The fact that weakness gives power also adds to the self-contradiction within the movement.

The Trans Collective is founded on fictionalised goals and against a fictional enemy (the Patriarchy). If the RMF and other leftists obey them due to their rank in the Victimocracy, then the movement will lose even more legitimacy as they lose all credibility in their goals.

This shows the inevitably self-destructing nature of the left. Intersectionality unites a myriad of contradicting views, but hold them together with a self-flagellating view that the weakest must lead. If compared to natural selection, this is basically killing all the healthy members of a pack so the sickly can breed. When the most obscure and weak lead the movement for no real reason, then it will collapse.

For those who stand for reason, the left tearing itself apart is a good thing. We may be approaching the start of the collapse of the left-wing Social Justice Warrior, and will perhaps have a few good years before Conservative Fundamentalists start trying to legislate morality again.

In contrast, however, the left-wing may be stupid enough that they don’t even notice the inconsistencies in their alliance. They may just blindly obey the Intersectional god and listen to whoever is the most female, most trans, most disabled and most black.

Hopefully, the latter will not happen and the left will start tearing itself apart – so maybe UCT can get back to work.