This is the real and most pressing question raised by any social problem.
The rules for the woke are:
- Never give the appearance of blaming the victim of any social problem, or anyone whose life is poor or unenviable, by examining the bad choices he makes
- Refrain always from looking at the reasons for those choices, since victims are victims and not responsible for their acts, unlike the small class of human beings who are not victims
- Do not stare at a social problem for very long. Turn to abstractions, to structures over which the victim has no control
The rawness of reality must be avoided, says Dalrymple, so that
utopian schemes of social engineering can be spun.
The bien-pensants view people as
in the grip of forces that they cannot influence, let alone control—and therefore as not full members of the human race.
That people are reduced to automata suits the élite, for it
increases the importance of its providential rôle in society.
