Moral relativism at work

  Well it proves one thing ...   It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have education enough to admit when you're wrong.

 ~ Sam Quint, Jaws

The more I observe Brooks Simpson, the more I wonder how someone of his pettiness and questionable integrity managed to obtain a position of such importance as a professor of history at a major state university.

Last month, there was the silliness of tacking a deadline onto Kevin Levin's "Chandler Challenge." Remember that?  Mere days after the challenge appeared on "Civil War Memory" Simpson was chiding Southern heritage advocates for not replying to the challenge -- and declaring "victory" for Levin. I pointed out to him that Levin had issued no deadline, and likely the busy-ness of the holidays kept some people from taking the time to locate and buy the magazine. Some may have tried to buy it and found it wasn't available in their bookstores yet.  A couple of people had mentioned that at Levin's own site.

So Simpson, apparently not realizing how petty and childish it made him look, tacked on an artificial deadline after the fact -- to a challenge that he didn't even originate.

Then, there was his chiding me for not reading Brian Steele Wills' biography of Nathan Bedford Forrest -- only minutes after his recommending it.

He demands instant results, instant compliance for the purpose of slinging accusations, employing the tar-brush, and/or publishing insinuation and innuendo if he doesn't get them.

Frequently, his demand-tantrums are combined with other smear tactics, such as guilt by association.  Guilt of what?  Why, racism, of course.  It's one of the very few bad things left in an American transformed by liberalism's moral relativism.

Exactly why he has developed such an obsession with the Southern Heritage Preservation Group on Facebook is mystifying.  Presumably, it does something for his ego to criticize the group's designation as Southern rather than Confederate, or to point out the imaginary "racism" of its members.  But why?  What's it to him?  It's not like the group has any sway in the greater scheme of things.

The SHPG not a 501C3 nonprofit group with tens of thousands of members like the Civil War Trust.  It's not the SCV, which has thousands of members, highly visible heritage defense efforts, and a legal department not afraid to use the courts when necessary. It's not even the Civil Warriors blog and forum. It's just a Facebook group, just one of 620 MILLION Facebook groups.

In other words, it's an internet-based social media anyone can join -- anonymously.  Most of the group's 1,300+ members are lurkers who never post.  Some people use it to post or read about heritage issues around the country, but clearly, most activity on the group's  page comprises the airing and sharing of personal opinions. In other words, it's a discussion group/chat room -- i.e., Mark Zuckerberg's updated version of Usenet. It has little to no power or influence.

Thus, Simpson's interest in the group is mystifying. I can only chalk it up to the liberal obsession with rooting out divergent beliefs and eradicating them. Nobody, and I mean nobody, must be allowed to hold, let alone express, an opinion different from the status quo -- which, of course, is determined by Simpson and his fellow travelers.

His obsession with declaring guilt-by-association is more revealing of him than he realizes, perhaps.  Most intelligent people realize that how people differ is at least as important as how they are similar.  You'd think the champions of diversity would be the first to acknowledge this, because without differences, there'd BE no such thing as diversity.

But not in Simpson's mentality.  If a racist is wearing a green plaid shirt, then everyone who wears a green plaid shirt is a racist. Thus, all who support, say, political independence for the South, are mental clones in all other areas -- so The League of the South = the Southern Nationalist Network = Occidental Dissent. Pay no attention to how these groups differ (two of them don't even appear to be groups, just websites); to Simpson, that doesn't matter, regardless of how true it is. When your purpose is to smear people with racism, can't let a little incidental like TRUTH get in the way.

Shortly after a Hunter Wallace, who runs the website titled Occidental Dissent, joined the SHPG, Simpson threw a typical tantrum at Crossroads, chiding members for tolerating racists in violation of the group's stated policy. Of course, Simpson has no access to private discussions of the group's officers, so he didn't know that said officers were already privately discussing Wallace's membership when Simpson posted his tantrum on Crossroads.

He's like a little kid, demanding instant gratification, and thinking everything that happens, happens because of him. And if he doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist...

Keep in mind that this petty childishness and moral relativism are exhibited by a professor of history at a major state university.  It's scary to think of  young minds in learning-mode coming under his influence.


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Image of  Robert Shaw as  as Quint  in the movie Jaws translinked from ScrapeTV under Fair Use of U.S. Copyright law.