Moviebob and the Self-Delusion of Political Ideology

If you care enough about stupid irrelevant internet writers to be reading my stupid irrelevant internet blog right now, you're almost certainly familiar with Bob "Moviebob" Chipman, a stupid irrelevant internet writer of somewhat greater note than myself, both for having some moderately successful movie review and cultural criticism series published via The Escapist, and for being a hilariously petty, self-aggrandizing technofascist. Indeed, everyone's acutely aware of the underpinnings and implications of Bob's political statements except, seemingly, Bob himself.

And this particular aspect of denialism and self-delusion about one's own political beliefs is hardly unique to Bob, indeed it's endemic to the political landscape, in which the vast majority of participants will never truly engage with criticism of their viewpoint and will simply go on believing that whatever they currently believe is the "sensible," "default" viewpoint, and it's everyone else who is a weird and dangerous extremist. We're not violent, our statements don't suggest any pernicious power dynamics, we're just arguing for common sense, why would anyone oppose that? Everyone believes this to a greater or lesser degree, if not about their political philosophy than certainly about their general day to day philosophy, and I'm no exception. Here is where I would normally wheel out an example about some viewpoint I hold that I consider to be the common sense default even though that's not necessarily legitimate, but that's where the problem comes in, isn't it? If I'm aware that one of my assumptions could use some examination, then what's to stop me from actually examining it? Absolutely nothing. And once that examination has occurred, it's no longer just an assumption. The way that these "default ideas" survive within a person's worldview is by hiding themselves from said person, so nobody's really equipped to get specific with this sort of self-criticism. The best I can do is say "well there's probably some idea I'm holding onto out of an assumption that it must be right, I dunno what it is but I'm sure it's there. There are certainly beliefs like that which I held in the past and have now examined and either confirmed or rejected, so it seems irresponsible to assume that the job is done."

But I'm getting ahead of the script. Let's talk about Moviebob, the fascist who doesn't know he's a fascist.

Moviebob was just minding his own business, posting about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Very Good and Woke because they repropriated Thor's Hammer as an icon from white nationalists, who of course do not still go around wearing Thor's Hammer necklaces and using Norse mythological iconography and themes to spread Nazism, when a meany leftoid of some repute who goes by the title "Garbage Ape" decided to juxtapose this claim against the fact that Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter "donated $360,600 to an outside group supporting" (openly nationalist candidate who put a white supremacist in the white house cabinet as an immigration policy advisor) "[Donald] Trump that does not have to abide by the $5,600 limit on direct contributions." Bob did not appreciate this.

Given that the two images posted in the tweet are an unedited screenshot of Bob's own words and a crop from a Los Angeles Times infographic breaking down the share of celebrity donors held by each prospective 2020 presidential candidate, it's unclear what "that thing" Bob's referring to is.

In response, that bullying Garbage Ape posted some more of Bob's own words at him, specifically this semi-famous screenshot in which Bob claims to be fond of eugenics.

Again, Bob is none too pleased at being presented with things that he has said in the past, and opines that he's not sure what this Garbage Ape's problem with him is, as "[he] seems an otherwise decent guy; but constantly turns up spreading the same harassment memes targeting me as the alt-right twits."

Now one could feasibly choose to spend time pointing out to Bob that if simply showing him things which he has said is an example of a "harassment meme," then perhaps he should put some thought into saying less awful things, but we'll put a pin in that for now because the conversation moves in a different direction as somebody suggests that Bob "clear the air" on the eugenics thing.

But it would seem this was hasty, as apparently Bob has cleared the air on this particular issue, as he links to an article which even called "Let's Clear the Air"! So let's be fair to Bob and take a look at what he had to say about his previous ostensibly pro-eugenicist statements as of July 2018.

Well, first off, this post isn't even primarily about addressing the things he said, it's primarily about explaining how and why he left The Escapist (it was crumbling into dust and they couldn't afford to pay him anymore) and trying to pin it primarily on the fact that The Escapist chose to report on at-the-time developing stories involving the messy consumer revolt/culture war/harassment campaign/thing that was GamerGate. It is secondarily about promoting his return to The Escapist. These are the topics which take up roughly the first half of the post in question.

Bob, if for some reason you're reading this, I have to give you some advice: When you write a public apology for things you've said and done in the past, don't bury it in the second half of a content update tucked away on your own website which only dedicated fans will even know exists. And if you choose to do all that, know that in so doing you give up the right to be upset at your critics for not acknowledging said apology.

With all the preamble out of the way, what does Bob's actual apology look like? Well, not much, honestly. He spends a lot of time outlining how "Where I come from, if someone hits me, I hit back, if someone insults me, I insult back, I don't play nice with the enemy ook ook ook ook ook [beats chest furiously]"

"I am very badass" -Bob "Moviebob" Chipman

You might notice that this feels less like an apology than it does a humblebrag, and this only becomes more clear as he gets to the part where he actually acknowledges that a line may have been crossed at some point with his behavior.

"Look, guys, I get that I was a bit of a meanyhead, but I just can't stop myself from defending the life and dignity of oppressed peoples against an authoritarian regime"

See, Bob understands why leftists and progressives might be turned off by the fact that he openly and actively dehumanizes entire demographics simply because his ideological opponents claim to speak for them, he gets that defining "progress" as "leaving behind those who are insufficiently useful to me" sounds bad, and he wants you to know it all actually comes from a place of wanting to protect the downtrodden.

After which he says that he's "committed to making my points in a more constructive way." He even put it in bold text so you know he's serious.

I'd like to take a moment here to examine the degree to which this has actually been put into effect; it's been a year and change since this post, plenty of time for Bob to turn around his behavior online. For example, let's look at what he said in April of 2019, about 9 months after his apology:

Oh... Oh no...

But hey, change takes time. I mean, 9 months is a pretty long time in which to enact change like "stop actively dehumanizing large demographics" but, still, effort is effort. Let's fast forward to a whole year after apology, and see how he's doing.

Ahhh, yes, I see. "Obsolete."

(Quick side note, don't take my use of that last image as a sign that I'm against open borders, I'm very much for it and of the viewpoint that the alleged "economic risks" of open borders are at best exaggerated. I just don't choose to back this stance up with the idea that even if the economic risks are real, that's fine because the people who would be hurt by them don't matter to America moving forward.)

Okay, so I guess Bob doesn't actually care to shape up his behavior when discussing politics in the interest of being a more, uh, decent human being. That's unfortunate. And it would seem, therefore, that he still kinda stands by his previous eugenicist statements, right?

Well, yes and no. It's clear that he still absolutely believes in and just can't stop himself from espousing the belief that certain groups of people just aren't necessary moving forward and should therefore be jettisoned by whatever means necessary, but, according to Bob, this doesn't really have anything to do with eugenics!

"But Bob," I hear you asking, "What about that time that you tweeted about how it's annoying that the Nazis soiled the image of eugenics as a science?"

Well, that was just an edgy joke which doesn't really have anything to do with his viewpoint, akin to that time James Gunn got witchhunted for making some edgy jokes about pedophilia a decade ago.

The James Gunn comparison is Bob's, not mine.

Now, there's one fundamental problem with this defense, and particularly with the comparison to James Gunn; James Gunn's edgy jokes had literally no connection to things which he continues to say and views he continues to espouse. James Gunn hasn't made a habit of going on twitter and talking about how molested teenagers were "asking for it" or getting really conspicuously upset about people not understanding the difference between the words "pedophilia" and "ephebephilia."

Wait, what are you doing here? Get lost.

(For that matter, James Gunn's jokes didn't consist of him saying "I support and endorse pedophilia," they consisted of him "quoting" public figures "admitting to being pedophiles.")

The fact is, Bob, that just because you say that your ideals aren't eugenicist in nature doesn't make it true. Eugenics is based around the idea that certain segments of the population are a net negative and that removing them from society is the best thing to do in the interest of future progress; the fact that the Nazis interpreted this to mean that those of "impure blood" should be removed via breeding control and murder, and that you interpret this to mean that those who are "stupid and regressive" should be removed via economic suppression, doesn't change the fact that your ideals are fundamentally eugenicist and have no place in civilized society. Make no mistake, this is the core of Bob's ideology; to quote Bob himself, he "wants human civilization to hurry up and [...] automate to the point where physical prowess is no longer a determinant factor of social mobility (while intellectual prowess is perhaps more determinant than ever)". According to Bob himself, he wants to replace the current economic hierarchy which values physical labor to some degree (increasingly less so as time goes on) with one which only values mental and emotional labor; "The hierarchy is fundamentally a good thing to have," says Bob, "The problem is just that the Wrong People are benefitting from it. We need to adjust it so that only the Correct People are placed at the top of the hierarchy and wielding political and economic power." This is sort of "progressive" if you squint your eyes and only focus on the parts that involve pushing technology forward and making the hierarchy more race-, gender-, sexuality-, etc-neutral, but the fact of the matter is that Bob still fundamentally wants a hierarchy in which some people have unchecked power over others, and the group that he thinks should be on top, the "intellectuals," is one which he identifies himself as a part of. Bob's politics are fundamentally and damnably self-serving, regressive, and inhumane.

So no, Bob, people pointing out your past and present eugenicist and fascist behavior to you is not simply a "career lynch mob" out to destroy you because they just think you're mean or whatever, it's people looking at your political statements in context of each other and coming to the conclusion that your "joke" about eugenics was about as "ironic" as the average /pol/ post talking about "(((them.)))" (For those who have justifiably avoided /pol/-adjacent part of the internet, "(((them)))" means jews, and the /pol/ posters aren't joking. They're actually just nazis, just like Bob is actually just a eugenicist.)

So that's the extent of Bob's apology; a bunch of bluster about how actually he hasn't really done anything bad outside of being a bit harsh in his tone from time to time, and promising that he'll try to clamp down on that, which he has not done to even the most miniscule of degrees. It's pretty pathetic to see in action, but let's be fair to Bob here; he's not the only one who fails to examine his own views. Plenty of people are actually kinda sorta fascist (or at least support unnecessary hierarchies) without exactly realizing it, because the nature of our society is that the status quo is constantly beaten into us as the "default," the "natural order," the "way things should be." When people support capitalism, they don't usually pause to think about whether a hierarchy of productivity is really just; that's assumed, because it's the default, it's "common sense" that "people should get what they earn." (And it's equally "common sense" that "what they earn" should be defined in terms of market productivity that benefits capital, and paid out in wages.) It's "common sense" that America should place its own interests above global concerns such as climate change and civilians being trapped in warzones with nowhere to go, not because the average proponent of this view has performed a rigorous analysis of the pros and cons of open borders and ecological deregulation, but because they were born into a country with closed borders and a lack of environmental regulation, so that's the "default." Bob was born into a world where somebody has to be on top and somebody has to be on bottom, and rather than question this paradigm, he simply decided that he should be on top. He's a particularly striking and hilarious example of this sort of intellectual self-delusion, but in no other way is he really unique. Let Bob Chipman be a cautionary tale to all of us; don't assume a default, don't fall for the lie of "common sense." Examine every assumption you can get your hands on, because if you don't, you might stumble into an absurd and broken ideology, without ever realizing it.