The Dialectic of Kurtinitisism
Liberals love ideological objectivity; liberal newspapers are financially dependent on it.
According to the professional standards of Des Moines’s community of journalists, ideological objectivity is the farcical notion and utterly boring business model best understood as the editorial balancing act between the center of the political spectrum and various strains of conservatism. The Des Moines Register, the city’s lone enduring paper, typifies this. While its opinion section generally publishes the expected takes allowed by the established bipartisan consensus, “we need gun control,” “the trump tax plan is actually good,” etc, one voice, one boisterous reactionary voice, stands out:
Iowa View contributor Joel Kurtinitis.
Joel is an impressive pundit, not because he offers well-crafted language or crucial political insights, but because of how well he embodies the assertive pomposity of young conservatism in 2018. No fellow Register columnist is as condescendingly confident as Joel. No other can match the self-assurance of his ideology, a set of beliefs that are equal parts smug and empirically unfounded.
Joel is Polk County’s conservative intellectual, Iowa’s Ben Shapiro. That being said, he is no derivative of Shapiro’s brand of genteel Buckley revivalism. No, his ideology is more elaborate, defined by various intersecting incoherences that he has managed to meld into a fustian right-libertarianism. Galvanized by Christian fundamentalism and a general misanthropy towards all who are not members of the white bourgeoisie, Joel has synthesized a political philosophy that I have deemed Kurtinitisism.
Before I continue to analyze Joel’s writings and ideals further, I have to be forthright with my readers. Kurtinitisism is not pleasant. At best, it’s an infuriatingly incongruous ideology. Joel is not inspired by an especially robust tradition of creatives and intellectuals. According to one of the best tweets I have ever scrolled upon, Joel publicly admits to being influenced by faux-comedian Steven Crowder and alt-lite life coach Jordan B. Peterson. Crowder is most known for his classic bit “The Violence of Deportation is Actually Really Funny” and Peterson has gained notoriety for reformulating fascistic mysticism into life advice for friendless, suburban teen gamers. So, keep Joel’s acclaimed contemporaries in mind as I begin to deconstruct his thought.
Joel has advocated for a wide range of nonsensical policies that modern libertarians believe are sociopolitically necessary.
These include:
“I should be allowed to pack heat at the Iowa State Fair”
and “Racial diversity is actually bad and white flight is good”
The corpus of Kurtinitisism certainly starts a discussion.
While Joel’s think tanking comprises the bulk of his work, his cultural criticisms are what thoroughly expound on Kurtinitisism, particularly his enlightening August 2017 column “Outrage over Me So Hungry, Tipsy Crow shows left’s dogmatism.”
Some context is necessary. In the late summer of 2017, two Des Moines eateries came under fire for racist public relations. Me So Hungry, a hip hop themed breakfast joint owned by two white suburbanites, (now named Eggs and Jam) was called out for its ill-conceived original name. The Tipsy Crow, a yuppie bar downtown, was also rightfully chided for its dress code that banned work boots, baggy jeans, and other types of fashion culturally and racially coded as the wear of a caricature of an urban, black male. Joel, pen in hand, came to the defense of the restaurants with an immediacy only someone who respects the right of property over personnage could possess, i.e. an outspoken libertarian.
We should be so very grateful we have someone like Joel to take a stand against the oppressive hegemony of the p.c. police, a force that is definitely real and not the spook of a person that probably gets upset when they see interracial couples in commercials.
While this column is less policy oriented than some of his other pieces, its paranoia regarding left-leaning political expression conveys the theoretical basis of his school of thought, rightwing cultural vanguardism. Conservative capitalists dominate the political apparatuses of America, from Congress to the DMV, but the social realm is distinctly more aligned with left-liberal customs, like believing restaurants with hokey, vaguely racist names should probably pick another title. Kurtinitisism was developed to be a foil to the liberal unanimity of public life, to challenge its popular left opposition on text.
In efforts to invalidate anti-racist concern, Joel deploys the classic conservative logical maneuver, “actually you’re the ones being racist.” According to Joel, if someone declares that a ban on Timberland boots is clearly a method of shunning low income patrons without explicitly calling for their removal, that is actually stereotyping because you’re the party saying all black people wear Timbs. It’s a willfully obtuse claim. Obviously not all black people dress like that, but it’s incredibly naive to contend that a ban on clothing associated with a certain stratum of urban life, one that happens to include black men, does not have racist and classist motivations.
I would assume that Joel is intelligent enough to understand the flimsiness of his argument, but I would also assume that Joel doesn’t really care. He’s not writing to proffer nuanced political analyses, Joel is on the discursive frontline of a 20teens culture war, a campaign that conservatives are unquestionably losing. The praxis of Kurtinitisism is a desperate crusade of spitting out op-eds that depict marginalized people as tyrants.
Joel’s columns always present the same basic thesis, “The Left, and their so-called progressive ideals, are actually bad and repressive.” You think the name “Me So Hungry” is offensive? You must be anti-free speech! You think banning guns from a public event is good? You must be anti-constitution! You think diversity in schools is important? You must be be the real racist!
This is the sole tactic of Kurtinitisism. By describing left-leaning ideas as anti-intellectual, authoritarian, and hypocritical, Joel can affirm that his own ideology, and the current neoconservative establishment it helps propagate, is more fair and reasonable. Of course, these assessments of left-liberalism have no historical support. The outraged libs of the imaginary p.c. police don’t kill black people with impunity, or invade whatever nation they please, or redistribute wealth upward into the top tiers of society. The reactionary authorities that Joel’s purportedly anti-authoritarian ideology is aligned with do.
I’m sure Joel would proclaim that Kurtinitisism is in many ways opposed to the statism of the mainstream GOP. But, he would be wrong. There is a dialectical relationship between Kurtinitisism and neoconservatism.
Louis Althusser concisely explains the objective of any dominant class in his essay “Ideology and State Apparatuses.” Summating one of Capital Vol. 2’s theses, Althusser elucidates “in order to exist, every social formation must reproduce the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces, and in order to be able to produce. It must therefore reproduce: 1. the productive forces, 2. the existing relations of production.”
Thankfully, Joel is nowhere near (for now) the seats of state power. He can’t really influence the forces of economic production. He does, however, have some sway over the relations of production, in that he has been given a platform to advocate for conservative policies and beliefs that would maintain the brutal social structure of capitalism if implemented. When Joel decries public schooling, or disregards local racism, or defends anti-abortion bills, he is principally acting as a mouthpiece for the GOP’s conception of governance and society, albeit posing as an alternative libertarian voice.
Joel needs the GOP and the GOP needs a constituency filled with Joels. It’s important to remember that his understanding of libertarianism has never existed in practice outside of the internet. The absolute private property rights that Joel considers the apotheosis of individualism and freedom could not be secured without the force of an overarching capitalist state. This becomes the GOP’s role in the dialectic of Kurtinitisism, entrenching the racialized class hierarchy of the economic base, a social order that Joel thinks is wonderful and necessary.
Joel fulfills his dialectical function by emphatically promoting the GOP’s party line on healthcare, welfare, culture and probably everything else if he was allowed to write more columns. The GOP appreciates the work idealogues in its libertarian caucuses do. Who else will shamelessly tout the dissolution of food stamps as a project of freedom?
Aside from its vanguardist approach to opinion writing, Kurtinitisism is also an intrapersonal restraint. Joel subscribes to a hollow libertarianism that truly, longingly desires an empowered neoreactionary authority. Joel would clearly love to see the United States transition into a nation where uzis can be taken into elementary schools, where people with uteruses lose their bodily autonomy, where black people still face structural disenfranchisement. But, when confronted by the left-leaning liberal status quo of modern life, Joel utilizes Kurtinitisism to sublimate that craving. Instead of just accepting that none of his beliefs are actually anti-state, Joel portrays himself as a libertarian by castigating the social domain, public infrastructures, and popular culture.
Considering Joel is one of the Register’s more incendiary, clickbaiting columnists and late capital continues to cannibalize itself, I imagine we will get to see the self-satisfaction of his opinions evolve into more arrogant and vitriolic forms. How long until he mirrors conservative observers of past and releases an unambiguously racist essay? How many weeks until Kurtinitis explicitly dehumanizes Muslims in an op-ed, or proposes via tweetstorm that homeless people should be forced into indentured servitude? I guess that will depend on what Kim Reynolds says in her next public address and when he finishes his Jordan Peterson Youtube playlist.
Kurtinitism may seem like a niche ideology, but it is a component of a larger reactionary system. Its interrelation with the GOP has to be confronted by socialist power and discourse, and then met with a stronger dialectical movement against capital. Kurtinitism may be thought-provoking in the loosest connotation on page, but it is imperative that it stays there.
