IT’S OFTEN SAID that a conservative is just a liberal who’s been mugged by reality, but in the case of one young liberal it seems one mugging isn’t enough. Georgetown student Oliver Friedfeld and his friend were robbed at gunpoint one evening, “patted down” and relieved of their iPhones.
What surprised young Friedfeld, however, was not the fact he’d been robbed, but that other people’s reactions were so harsh. He didn’t like hearing them call his muggers “thugs,” “criminals” and “bad people.” Friedfeld is such a good liberal his reaction could come from a textbook (it saves thinking, after all): people cannot stop themselves acting criminally if they’re “otherised”, ie, from the wrong side of town, and it’s all his fault for being so “privileged”. (Or it could have come from a page of Robert Fisk‘s greatest hits.) That clearly points the finger at the rest of us who also don’t live on the wrong side of town, by the way. We, too, must bear the fardels of socio-political jargon. To paraphrase the old song made famous by Jolson: “You made me mug you/I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to do it…”
Mr Friedfeld is no doubt a pleasant and well-meaning young man, but his lack of common sense is dangerous. Sympathy is wasted on those who would stick a gun in your face and rob you. “I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me,” he writes, “In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay. They wanted my stuff, not me.” Yes, I’m quite sure if they knew you and just how high up you are on your “perch of privilege” but nevertheless understood their plight, they’d hand back your phone and apologise with tears in their eyes. And true, they only wanted your stuff, but the fact remains they had guns and would probably have removed you from your life and your stuff permanently if need be.
I don’t know what his co-muggee friend thinks of this, since he’s maintained a public silence on the matter. Maybe he and Oliver have candid but civil disagreements about the correct response over cafe macchiatos after their lectures on Social Justice in Otherised Communities. Friedfeld has come in for a lot of mockery over his stance, and rightly so. If it shifts him just one inch from his orthodox liberal idiocy it may just save his life. Another real mugging may be final. Next time the “otherised” someone may just pop a slug in his gut before appropriating his iPhone. There’d be no chance then to parade his understanding to the world. And that would be a real waste of privilege.
