Myopia is an affliction, not a virtue.
Myopia is a term for a vision defect. It is not a cloak of valor.
If anything has bridged our 21st-century cultural divide, it may be the recent death of Charlie Kirk. When it comes to Kirk, the chattering classes across the spectrum consider their unique view of his death a veritable cloak of virtue in numbers. Everybody agrees with me, so we must be right!
I’m going to go out on a limb here. Charlie Kirk was not killed by social media, college inculcation, or trans activism. The Internet isn’t independently any more responsible for his death than the scoped, bolt-action Mauser .30-06 wielded by his assassin. He didn’t go chumming for it either. There may be a relatively simple apex answer for what is responsible, but it’s probably not what most people anywhere along the spectrum are claiming.
Events like Kirk’s assassination do not generally lend themselves to clean, easy narratives no matter how strongly the world wants them. In the real world, events are influenced by a complex swirl of social differential equations that require time, patience, and effort to decipher—and the world happens to hate anything that requires time, patience, and effort.
That brings us to what’s behind door #2.
“Myopia” is an optical term for a lens aberration in the human eye that results in refracted light being focused in front of instead of on the retinal plane. Known less technically as nearsightedness, it’s also useful as a concept to describe a lot of what passes for cogent thought in the 21st century. It may not be all that accurate in that regard, but it sure is easy—especially for minds nourished on a junk food diet of safe spaces, lack of rigor, and oppressor/oppressed paradigms.
Throw in a dollop of tribalism, and myopia is transformed from an affliction to a virtue. That’s how it gets spun up into a force field.
I know only as much about the myopia in most partisan bubbles as anyone else on the outside looking in. But I know a lot about the myopia inside academic and media bubbles. As bad as you imagine that it might be, I can assure you that it’s actually much worse. Those bubbles are as opaque and impenetrable as the core of a neutron star.
It is no surprise to me that some in higher education and the media are currently in trouble over intemperate remarks made in the wake of Kirk’s death. I’m unsurprised that they put themselves behind the 8-ball because many of these folks imagine three things to be true: 1) that they are cloaked in unassailable virtue, 2) that everyone who matters thinks exactly the same as they do, and 3) that the ends justify the means when it’s what they want that’s at stake.
That’s what killed Kirk. Tyler Robinson was a tool (yes, I am aware of the double entendre) powered by leftist myopia cloaked in virtue. Many young people now believe that violence is an acceptable way to purge people who have notions with which they disagree. One of them found Kirk.
Kirk, ironically, was one of the few influential individuals on the right earnestly trying to connect with people like these. If they didn’t like Kirk, wait until they see what likely comes along next.
What I think infuriated the left about Charlie Kirk is that his ripostes to their attacks were simple yet very effective. At a typical Kirk event on a college campus, a crowd of opponents, after trying unsuccessfully to cancel him, would show up with an entire posse to take him down. But with Kirk, the virtue-by-size bit didn’t work. Kirk responded to disapprobation with debate—preferably one detractor at a time, but all at once if necessary. He then functioned a lot like a mirror—and I don’t think that his opponents particularly liked what they saw.
As I wrote in my last column, We don't have a violence problem in this country; we have a liberal Karen problem, I did not agree with Charlie Kirk on very much. I am an ex-academic, a lifelong centrist, and a secular advocate who has become part of the political/social right without moving because of social relativity.
I am not a natural fit with my new homies. I think that the constitutional mandate for separating church and state is just as important as those mandating free speech and gun rights. I’m generally for reproductive rights. I don’t care about your lifestyle as long as you leave me out of it. I think that building strong families is in our national interest, but strong families sometimes need help. I believe that education, knowledge and scientific discoveries are worth achieving. I know that there are such things as experts, even if they are not perfect. I know that just because a lot of what the media has to say is bullshit, it’s not all bullshit.
All of that makes me far more at home with the right these days than on the left. Go figure.
To usefully comprehend this world, you must learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff, eschewing the indolence that prevents even the effort. The powers that be always rely on ignorance and indolence to survive. Myopia makes it easy. Remember that.
Even though I had substantial disagreements with Kirk, I would have still enjoyed speaking with him. It’s not a requirement of mine that anyone agree with me on everything in order for us to not only treat each other civilly but actually get along. I think that’s what Kirk was trying to promote. I’m sorry that there is now one less eloquent voice for doing so.
The myopia of many who disagreed with Kirk prevented them from seeing any of that. For them, disagreement with someone like Kirk is tantamount to moral turpitude on his behalf. That’s an excuse for making him just go away. If you are looking for a simple answer for what killed Kirk, that might be it.
It was Charlie Kirk this time, but who knows who is next? I doubt that this stops here.
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on X at @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.
One does not have to believe in God or in revelation to find wisdom in ancient traditions. So here is an admonition I really wish more people would read and respect: “If your enemy falls do not exult; if he trips let not your heart rejoice, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and avert His wrath from him.” (Proverbs 24:17-18 JPS)
When conservative acquaintances would chuckle at a news clip of Biden stumbling while climbing the boarding stairs to Air Force One, or of him turning to shake hands with thin air, I would be the spoilsport who reminded them of this maxim. After all conservatives are supposed to set an example in respecting these maxims.
I could foresee a day when I might stumble or suffer a visible senior moment and so I could sympathize with Biden in those moments. But I have been horrified by the blatant gloating over the murder of Charlie Kirk. Even from a purely secular viewpoint such behavior is both low class and lacking in prudence.
Yours is the clearest explanation I have read about what's behind this terrible event.
Much Thanks