Milo on my Mind

For some reason, the name Milo Yiannopolous has been appearing lately on my Facebook feed. I guess he's in the news a lot now that Donald Trump is president-elect and Steve Bannon is his chief advisor and Bannon is affiliated with Breitbart.com and Yiannopolous is apparently the technology editor at Breitbart so of course social media would be all a-flutter.

I've been remotely aware of Mr. Yiannopolous but not enough to have formulated an opinion about him. I know, for instance, that Twitter has censored him and that college campuses are banning him. Both of these should be enough to commend him. Then again, the rumors, the hearsay. Alt right! White nationalist! Racist! Bigot! Homophobe! (well, scratch that last one. See BBC interview, below). Maybe I should back away slowly . . . .

Anyway, the other day, on two separate occasions, I saw Facebook postings of a year-old article by Milo (the same article, coincidentally, about women studying science and math), accompanied by reactions ranging from sneering dismissal to consternation to outrage. Curious, I decided to read that article, as well as a few others. And as I did, something began to dawn on me. The guy was yanking our chains. He was making outrageous statements almost matter-of-factly. Isn't this one of the characteristics of irony? Saying one thing, meaning another? For instance, in the article about women and math, he wasn't attacking women. He was attacking something else, political correctness, the hypocrisy of social engineering. Where Facebook people saw misogyny, I detected satire.

But then I began to doubt myself. What if Mr. Yiannopolous was, in fact, serious? What if he really did think women didn't belong in the sciences (for instance) or on the Internet (for another instance)? What if these Facebook folks were right and I was wrong?

Fortunately, I belong to an online community collectively known as Ricochet, which bills itself as "the leading place for civil discussion of the center-right and beyond." As a dues-paying member, I have the privilege of initiating a conversation about whatever's on my mind. Today, Milo was on my mind. What better place to learn more about him than on Ricochet.

So I created the post, "Explaining Milo," which includes at last count 144 responses from the Ricochet community. Judging from the responses, I think my initial impression, that he's a satirist, is accurate. And while I'm not quite ready to label him a modern-day Jonathan Swift, I do think he's a provocateur. Many of the commenters on my post seem to agree, though there's some debate as to the efficacy of his approach.

It occurs to me that most people, both right and left (but predominantly those on the left), in taking Mr. Yiannopolous oh so seriously, may be missing the underlying significance of what he's actually saying. Maybe we need to stop freaking out for a moment, unplug our sensitive ears, and listen.

Explaining Milo (Ricochet)

Breitbart: Gone but not Forgotten

He was one of a kind, sui generis.

Oxymorons define him: Beautiful freak. Happy warrior. Fearless conservative.*

Though many of his enemies celebrated Andrew Breitbart's death (go here to read the hateful things people wrote after he died), a few of his adversaries grudgingly admired him.  

Piers Morgan, for example, could be heard admitting on his program after Breitbart's death that he "really began to like Breitbart" and that their "chemistry" bad been "getting better." 

And Matt Taibbi, in his Rolling Stone obituary "Death of a Douche" (March 1, 2012) wrote:

I say this in the nicest possible way. I actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart. Not in the sense that I would ever have wanted to hang out with him, or even be caught within a hundred yards of him without a Haz-Mat suit on, but I respected the shamelessness. Breitbart didn’t do anything by halves, and even his most ardent detractors had to admit that he had a highly developed, if not always funny, sense of humor.

Referring to the sordid Andrew Wiener saga (which the media tried to dismiss as a Breitbart-fabricated smear), Taibbi wrote, "For that one brief, shining moment--still one of the most painful-to-watch YouTube spectacles of all time--... Breitbart could legitimately claim to have the biggest, hairiest balls on earth." A bit crude, but you get the point. 

But yes, Breitbart crashing Weiner's press conference was a thing of beauty. 

That, along with images of Breitbart rollerblading in the midst of hostile protesters, getting right up in their faces, not backing down. He was fearless. 

That's what I admired most about Breitbart, what I personally found so attractive. 

Breitbart's admirers were devastated when he died unexpectedly two years ago today. He was one of the few, if not the only, conservative who seemed to understand the key principle of warfare: know your enemy.  

Breitbart not only knew and understood the Left, he also understood and employed the power of social media. As one of the founders of The Huffington Post and The Drudge Report, he was in the vanguard of a new wave of journalism. The launching of Breitbart.com seemed to be a partial fulfillment of his vision of speaking truth to power. He hated bullies, which is one reason he defended the Tea Party with such passion (oh how I wish he'd been around when the IRS story came to light).

Andrew Breitbart left a gaping hole when he died, and I'm pretty sure he's irreplaceable. Nevertheless, his vision of an empowered "citizen journalist" lives on at the website he founded which continues to expand (recently added: Breitbart London and Breitbart Texas).

And yes, some are trying to pick up his mantle, so to speak. I particularly like Ben Shapiro, seen here pulling a Breitbart and crashing a UCLA Student Association Council Meeting to speak out against the attempt to boycott Israel.

I'm guessing Andrew would have approved. 

 * "fearless conservative" is the phrase Matt Romney used to describe Breitbart. I include it here as an oxymoron as an indictment on most conservatives, including myself, who tend to cower and slink away rather than confront.