Last July, the news satire website Babylon Bee released a satirical piece entitled Obese Man Explains to Doctor He's Just Fighting Far-Right Extremism. If only such a view were limited to the world of satire. This is one of the things I enjoy about Babylon Bee -- it is so spot-on that the satire mimics reality. Or rather, that might be the case because we live in such topsy-turvy times that the world is turning into one big inadvertent parody.
Take a look at the article that The Guardian posted earlier this month: Getting fit is great -- but it could turn you into a rightwing jerk. This article from writer Zoe Williams is one of the latest examples of how a once-reputable media outlet has since devolved into passing off baseless psychobabble as news. The Guardian is sadly not the only ones publishing this liberal dribble. Time Magazine claimed exercise is based in white supremacy. MSNBC believes that exercise and hypermasculinity go hand in hand with right-wing extremism to the point where they linked it to Hitler.
Let us forget for a moment that there have been plenty of fascists and right-wing extremists who have not gone to the gym. What is driving this nonsensical view? I had to go back to a piece I wrote in 2022 about how those on the Left are, on average, less happy than everyone else. One of the factors I discovered about happiness is the correlation between conservatives and fitness. The thing is that these Left-leaning commentators have the causality backwards.
It is not that going the gym turns you into being more right-winged. As I pointed out, conservatives are more likely to accept personal responsibility, which includes taking care of one's health (Chan, 2019). Conservatives value conscientiousness (Schlenker et al., 2012), which entails such features as impulse control, self discipline, and being task-focused. It is the values that drive the actions, not the other way around.
It makes me wonder why Zoe Williams at the Guardian ripped on fitness as a form of self-actualization. After all, self-actualization is the highest stage on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Reaching a sense of self-actualization is a good thing. I figure that Williams is using such lines "the more self-actualized you become, the higher you are on self-righteousness" possibly as a form of projection, but certainly as a defense mechanism.
It has sadly become all too common for those on the Far Left to go ad hominem on things they find disagreeable, whether it is anti-capitalist views or calling almost everything racist. The reality is that obesity is an unhealthy lifestyle. Physical fitness should not be a political statement, but simply as a part of a healthy and happy life. Yet the response of many on the Far Left has been to embrace fat acceptance and fat positivity. From this viewpoint, it is not an individual's fault if they are fat. They argue that sugar is addictive and advertising of fast foods is too strong for people to overcome the temptation. It is their unfortunate circumstances that make people obese and there is nothing that can be done to surpass it.
In Jack Canfield's The Success Principles, the first chapter is about how you take 100 percent responsibility for everything. To quote Mark Manson, "Just because something is not your fault does not mean it is not your responsibility." The premise behind this notion of radical responsibility is that it does not matter if it is your fault; you take ownership for the situation and make the best of it regardless. As I brought up in 2022 when discussing obesity:
Life has always been a struggle...It takes time and effort to go and exercise. It takes discipline to follow a diet or exercise regiment. It takes impulse control to not eat compulsively, smoke, or drink too much alcohol. The whole premise behind personal development is that you are not fine just the way you are and there is always room for self-improvement. It should not matter if there is more processed food or if more people sit at a desk for eight hours at work. Anything worthwhile in life takes time, patience, effort, and discipline. Health habits, discipline, self-control, and prudence used to be considered values, but not in a country where self-gratification is more important than self-improvement.
I see a similar antagonistic, hateful reaction from the Far Left when it comes to Israel. Zionism is a repudiation of centuries of Jews being oppressed and marginalized and it is beyond the pale for the Woke World that the marginalized would want to and succeed at overcoming victim status. Those who decide to exercise are taking an increased amount of responsibility in their personal lives. Those who go to the gym and become fit are invalidating the "you are fine just the way you are" mentality. In addition to shedding the fat or the pounds, people who go to the gym and become fitter shed the excuses and the victimhood mentality.
Exercise is a pathway to that self-actualization. Personal responsibility, self-control, and discipline are characteristics that increase likelihood of success, health, and happiness. While these sound like positive attributes, it would explain why the woke Left gets angry and calls exercise "extreme right-winged behavior." Numerous examples of people overcoming obesity to become their healthiest selves refutes the victim-worship that has become so prominent in U.S. society, particularly on the Far Left.
I think the values that going to the gym inculcate is even more than threatening political power of the political Left or the clout the Woke have in U.S. culture. The reason why these commentators are on the offensive is because their strategy of reducing people to their circumstances is at odds with reality. The cognitive dissonance results in them attacking what is an otherwise non-political activity that has been proven to improve life outcomes. As someone who believes in personal responsibility, their inability to cope with these realities is not my problem; it is theirs. I am going to take my personal responsibility to continue to exercise and find ways to be my healthiest and happiest self.
No comments:
Post a Comment