Vestal Victims and the Cult of Left-Wing Narcissism
The magical vestal virgins of ancient Rome were believed to be so powerful that the vestals held sway over the daily life of Rome for almost one thousand years. Their mystical powers were believed to originate in sanctified chastity through a complicated system of rituals. The touch of a vestal virgin, incorruptibly pure, could exonerate a convict; their testimony was accepted without question or need to swear an oath.
The Romans did not have faith in their many gods in the modern sense of the concept. Rather, they maintained a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" contractual relationship with their deities. Roman daily life included ubiquitous rituals, sacrifices, and flattery to the gods to win material advantages – a bountiful harvest, protection of the city, good health. Today, ordinary people enjoy a surfeit of material comforts even the Roman emperors would have envied. In a nation of plenty, what, then, is the purpose of the left wing's obsession with victimology?
The answer is narcissistic gratification, which is accomplished through belief systems that preserve a sense of virtue without having to offer actual self-sacrifice or service. The "accredited" victim groups serve as psychological pilings to support that self-serving structure. In fact, so great is their role in this delusional system that they are conferred vestal status.
Like a Roman vestal virgin, Christine Blasey Ford, star of the lurid and brutal hoax perpetrated by the Democrats during the recent Supreme Court confirmation, initially demanded that she not have to swear an oath. She did, but it was irrelevant to the cult of the left, which insisted that she must be believed simply because she is the right kind of victim.
The Democratic Party is no longer a political party; it is a cult. Democrat candidates run no longer on a political platform, but on a promise to energize the hatred against whomever their base needs to revile. Similarly, liberal progressivism is no longer a political ideology. It has devolved into puerile, senseless incantations irrelevant to the problems facing the citizens of the American republic.
The difference between an authentic political party and the current Democratic Party is that the beliefs and positions of major political parties in America have derived from a substrata of unchanging truths regarding equality and human worth, articulated in the Declaration of Independence. Some argue that the Democratic Party has always been a cult and never stood for eternal and self-evident truth of equality and freedom. Granting that even if one hundred years ago Democrats and progressives stood for eternal verities, they no longer do. They have deteriorated into a malignant dogma that features preferential victimology – vestal victim groups that feed their increasing ludicrous narcissism.
The American left is no longer a political movement. It is a form of psychological self-stimulation that has no interest in dry policymaking; denies the settled truth of the superiority of free enterprise over socialism; and justifies and even delights in violence against conservatives all in pursuit of the next ego-inflating, feel-good social justice conceit. It is why the Democrats are always in search of the next charismatic "star" rather than a genuine leader.
One way to tell that the fanatical victimology of the left is based not on principles of universal human worth, but on a manipulative and hateful divisiveness is that when an accredited vestal victim receives special considerations, the human and legal rights of someone else are violated. The 2018 Best Victim Actor goes to Christine Blasey Ford. But victim Ford will be just fine. She will continue to jet around the world with her newfound wealth. It is America that has POTSDAM from watching the disgusting and criminal spectacle the Democrats put on at the Kavanaugh confirmation. Senator Mazie Hirono telling men to shut up, Senator Cory Booker casting himself as Spartacus, the preening and posturing of empty senators – it was all mindless, histrionic narcissism.
The Romans had six, maybe seven vestal virgins to negotiate with the gods. But the modern lust for narcissistic self-aggrandizement can never be sated. Left-wing smuggery needs an endless parade of victims to wail over as stagecraft for display of passionate but painless moral superiority. Here are a few examples.
Wealthy elites, especially, have heightened motivation to champion preferred victims. Elizabeth Warren had little to gain early in life by lying her way into left-wing victim identity. It was not until she reached Harvard that it was advantageous for a woman with a face that makes an egg white look brown to claim to be "of color." American Indians are a cherished victim class to elites because they are believed to live in faraway places like Wyoming and Montana or somewhere.
Valerie Jarrett is a high vestal of the racial victimology category. A special one of Jarrett's pedigree cannot be an object of derision without severe and immediate punishment to the jokester. Roseanne Barr's human and legal rights were instantly violated when she blasphemed against Jarrett. Barr was vilified in the ugliest terms; the totality of her life stood for nothing. She was stripped of her livelihood and her creative achievements – no two ways, no explanations accepted, no possible defense, because she mocked a vestal victim.
Another aspect of vestal victimology is that in its orthodox form, the victims' protectors do not themselves belong to the victim class. Pregnant women constitute the highest and most sacred class of vestal victims the left wing ever created. Just the thought that this class of victim might find it more difficult to terminate a pregnancy sends the Democrats and the entire left wing into fits of narcissistic rage unlike any in American history.
The LGBTQ amalgamation has produced vestal victims for decades. The special rights crusade du jour is the demand that males with sex identity disorders be allowed to compete against females in different sports. Such males who are artificially managing their hormones are defeating female athletes decisively. The world cycling championship was just won by a huge, burly man who stood shoulders above the females he beat. It is unjust to female athletes and a catastrophe for the value of fairness in athletics, which has been a mainstay of the American character. But when a vestal victim is elevated, someone else will be harmed.
For too long, the cult of vestal victimology has held sway in American society. As William Butler Yeats wrote, The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.
The vestal virgins of Rome disappeared into history with the advent of Christianity. So too will the cult of vestal victimology eventually be consumed by truth. Let us, as the best, find the conviction to hurry that day.