Charlie Kirk’s murder was a tragedy. “Vital few” (Reuven Brenner) doers on the left, right and in between make the world go ‘round, and Kirk was a member of the “vital few” regardless of whether you agreed with him.
Add in the impact of his murder on his family, and what’s tragic becomes indescribably awful. Which is why it would be better if those who sided with him (or not) weren’t trivializing Kirk’s murder with predictable attempts to implicate other things for what happened to him.
One conservative opinion piece from this week lamented the “atomized culture” of the internet “in which young men retreat into confused inner worlds and virtual realities” as a possible factor. The explicit point was that the internet’s endless plenty helped turn accused Kirk murderer Tyler Robinson into what he became, and perhaps has blood on its hands for past and future atrocities.
Videogames have similarly taken a big hit. Many fingered their popularity as a possible driver of Robinson’s negative evolution. This included Jonathan Haidt’s observation from The Anxious Generation that videogames “put some users into a vicious cycle because they used gaming to distract themselves from feelings of loneliness.”
If we ignore how few murderers there are relative to how many young males enjoy the internet, videogaming or both, it’s worth asking when youth and young adulthood have ever been easy. Sorry, but life is challenging at all stages, particularly during the teens and the years after. To pretend that young men didn’t retreat into their own, lonely and sad worlds before the internet and videogaming is hard to take seriously.
From there, just stop and consider Kirk himself. What made him so well known was the same internet some of his allies (and critics) are presently trying to demonize. Contemplate the virality of Kirk’s on campus responses to college students questioning his views. After that, please remember a previously popular prediction on the right that conservative professors would utilize the internet to save young conservative minds from those allegedly incurable and awful left-wing college professors. Yes, conservatives eager to blame the internet and its isolating qualities have in the past lauded those same isolating qualities as a way to protect young people from expensive left-wing instruction.
Which brings us to trans people. Particularly since the Annunciation tragedy, it’s become increasingly accepted wisdom that men transitioning into women represent a singular threat to peaceful American life. In the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, X and other social media lit up with commentary that Kirk’s murderer was a trans, that he lived with one, etc. If you’re on social media, you know.
Except that men who’ve transitioned into women have long been a cherished and well-regarded part of the right. Think economist Deirdre McCloskey (transitioned in 1995, and positively revered by conservatives), Jessica Riedl (a well thought of Manhattan Institute scholar who transitioned in the past year), along with frequent Fox News guest Caitlin Jenner. What say conservatives intent on finding murderous qualities within personal choice?
Rather than employing demonization, it would be much better if the conservatives of old reared their wise heads. Instead of blaming other things for horrific crimes and creating victims out of evil people, conservatives of old judged people as individuals. This included the wise mantra that “guns don’t kill, people do.”
So true, but for being true a rejection of some of what’s coming from the right at present. If other things are allegedly causing individuals to do horrible things, then horrific acts are being implicitly excused in the name of victimhood. The latter is never attractive, particularly when there are real victims of the cruelty visited on Charlie Kirk last week.
Originally posted to Real Clear Markets.
