backlash

Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger__ syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he__ subject to Harvard__ speech codes that prohibit any __isrespect for the dignity of others_; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard__ Inquisition (the __ffice for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion_). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can__ get a decent book deal until Newton builds his __uthor platform_ to include at least 20k Twitter followers _ without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse.Newton wouldn__ last long as a __ublic intellectual_ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say __ffensive_ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he__ drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn__ have Newton__ Laws of Motion.

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator__ first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.

The anti-feminism bacllash has been set off not by women's achievement of full equality but by the increased possibility that they might win it. It is a pre-emptive strike that stops women long before they reach the finishing line.

It was a frightening metaphor for what the United States was becoming _ a Titanic of rich, proud dimwits heading for the iceberg of anti-colonialist backlash.

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.

During a period in which women and children__ testimony of incest and sexual abuse were gaining an increasingly sympathetic hearing, lobby groups of people accused of child abuse construed and positioned __itual abuse_ as the new frontier of disbelief. The term __itual abuse_ arose from child protection and psychotherapy practice with adults and children disclosing organized abuse, only to be discursively encircled by backlash groups with the rhetoric of __ecovered memories_, __alse allegations_ and __oral panic_.Salter, M. (2011), Organized abuse and the politics of disbelief.

And if I see you step foot on my property again, I__l do more than make a phone call,_ he says, waving the baseball bat around menacingly.