Ethics Hipsters are the new Puritans

Actress Lena Dunham poses at Elle Magazine annual Women in Television dinner in Los Angeles, California January 13, 2015. (Reuters)

• An Austin Texas psyche rock band, Dream Machine, is deported from its label because its lead singer, a refugee from Bosnia, makes supportive remarks about legal immigration.  (Here is a link to an interview I did with the band: https://vimeo.com/225709341)

• Feminist critics attack the movie "Dunkirk," an historical reenactment of the World War 2 evacuation, because well—It was the first time there were no women on a French beach.

• Outcry erupts when a Broadway play tries to substitute theater legend Mandy Patinkin for a black actor in a play, to help save the play from closing due to declining ticket sales. Unable to hide the fact that he is white, Patinkin and the producers back down like good fearful liberals; the play  - which features a diversity of talent - is now in jeopardy as ticket sales continue to drop.

• Leftwing madwoman Lena Dunham hears voices -- specifically, a conversation between flight attendants over their opinion on trans issues - and instead of confronting them, she narcs on them to their bosses. Like a paranoid member of some sort of regressive left secret police, she seeks to punish strangers over an unacceptable conversation she claims to have heard in her head.

The airline, however, can find no evidence that the conversation actually happened in real life, and are disputing the account.  An investigation, which pokes a constellation of holes in Dunham's story, suggests she might have fabricated, or at the very least exaggerated  the incident - much like her recent excuses for abandoning her dog at a pound, and assorted lurid tales she alleged in her desperate, attention-craving memoir. In each case, she wasted the time of responsible, employed men and women  - time that could have been better used to deal with actual concerns, instead of indulging a fantasist.

The old prudes are the new crusaders. They're badly-dressed fascists.

What do all of these examples have in common? Who are these people behind these destructive idiocies?

All of these outraged moralists - the record label owner, the women's magazine editor, the hackneyed progressive performer - fashions themselves a hipster, a person of noted cool. Yet their positions on all matters rival the intolerance of an 18th century Puritan.  They are the 2017 version of that sitcom staple nosy neighbor, or the old man shaking a rake at a passing car.

What you're seeing is the rise of the ethics hipster - a term coined by King Buzzo of the Melvins. An ethics hipster is a tool who pretends to salute the idea of free expression, but will happily try to censor you if your expression runs counter to their rigid, narrow and wholly predictable assumptions about life.  The old prudes are the new crusaders.

Do you think for a moment, if they had actual power, that they wouldn't try to censor you completely? Of course they would! Give them time.  In their ideal world of free expression, the only expression that is free, that is celebrated - and protected - is their own zealotry.  And because they constantly redefine what is unacceptable, and have no issue with punishment for violators - they're badly-dressed fascists.

Dunham tattled on the unknown flight attendants because she wanted to get them fired to build her brand and to stay relevant as her career fades into deserved obscurity. In five years she’ll be known as the crazy actress who betrayed her puppy.

Castleface Records dropped the band Dream Machine over opinions on immigration and feminism - but what they really did was virtue signal - to tell their mob of pitchfork-and-tweet-bearing social justice warriors that  - "see, we got rid of this band, so please don't come after us!" They are pathetic cowards.

And there's the Broadway play, The Great Comet: its producers quickly backing down from using a bankable star to save a struggling show - only because the star was deemed by activists to be the wrong color. If the show closes because of that, then many actors of all stripes, genders and colors will be out of jobs.

The ethics hipster pretends to help society but in reality, is only out for himself (or herself, or...etc).  They act as if they're doing the moral thing, when they're only trying to cynically profit from the rising tide of modern Maoists - by meeting the demands of the new wardens of the intolerant prison of grievance. They will punish you, if it helps them get a leg up. In fact, they’ll punish you in exchange for 100 new Twitter followers.

In times of real artistic genius, creative people turn their backs on prigs and prudes and do what they want to do and make art. The history of art is a history of incorrectness, even offense. It’s time for real artists - writers, actors, musicians - to reject the hysteria of the righteous mob and celebrate the true diversity of ideas, because that’s what ultimately leads to better art. It probably won't happen—just try to find a little artfulness on your TV or at the movies. How ironic is it that the very people who claim to be fearless artists, fear art most of all.