by Simon O'Connor

I did not expect to be writing a Substack on Sydney Sweeney and denim jeans. In fact, I didn’t even know who she was until the latest brouhaha erupted over an American Eagle advertisement she headlined. I was aware of the White Lotus TV show so I am not completely out of touch … although I also have to admit, I haven’t watched!

Anyway, it seems the woke left have erupted in horror that a clothing company might use an attractive person in their ads, and worse still a person who is white and with blonde hair.

There is clearly an unwritten woke code that women like Sydney are verboten in advertising. While she is American, we can see this code manifest here in New Zealand when you consider how carefully curated most ads are – anything and everyone but a ‘Sydney Sweeney’. Just consider how many advertisements involve a Polynesian/Māori man and their female offsider – the latter who is usually the led or key protagonist in any advertising.

We don’t have to overcook this observation, but when so many advertisements (both here in New Zealand and overseas) reflect the same imagery and choice of actors, then you are not seeing coincidence but a deliberate choice. The outcry at Sydney Sweeney only emphasises this further for it is clear that the woke do not want diversity, but instead a calculated and ultimately exclusionary form of propaganda.

Alongside this, the radical woke left have gone nuts over the word play ‘great jeans/genes’. For the woke, puns and double entendre are now out of favour. They claim the ad is promoting eugenics which is quite the stretch and rather ironic when one considers the far-left’s views on a range of issues. Consider for example, progressives vocal support of various surrogacy and IVF dynamics that explicitly involve selecting the qualities a child is to have (and disposing of those that do not). They celebrate abortion for any reason, including sex selection and if the child is not perfect (whatever that means). They are also very happy to embrace trans-humanism, again, a eugenical dynamic. As is often the case with progressives, it is a classic case of projecting their actions and views onto others.

The whining got louder when media reported that Sweeney might be a Republican supporter. It seems that holding any political view other than far-left makes you completely unacceptable. You do not need much more explanation for why political discourse and social cohesion is breaking when faced with such zealotry, often and sadly amplified by mainstream media.

A final reflection to go deeper than the outrage itself, and that is to address the questions of the nature of beauty. I’m with C. S. Lewis that we can know and observe beauty, because beauty is not merely subjective – it objectively exists. Lewis masterfully writes about this in his book, The Abolition of Man, and I would highly recommend you read if you get a chance – it’s an easy 100 pages or so.

The idea of objective beauty flies in the face of modern progressive thinking. For the latter, there is not such thing as beauty, or everything is beautiful (thereby negating it’s meaning). Everything is relative, everything is simply in the eye of the beholder – that which is being commented on has no inherent truth, value, or beauty in itself.

While Foucault and friends would approve this lack of objectivity, this perspective is ultimately narcissistic for it reduces everything to the whim of the observer. Meaning is only created by the observer and so that which is being observed has no inherent value other than what the observer wants to make of it. Whether observing a person, a piece of art, or architecture – it’s value is not inherent, but only if given by the person observing it.

This might sounds all esoteric and philosophical but it is actually extremely important for this mindset says that you don’t have any inherent value, but only the value that others place on you.

If there is no objective beauty then there can be no objective truth.

Modern political discourse is all about subjectivity – there is no beauty or truth beyond what one wants it to be. Examples of this subjectivity are all around us, often carefully curated by left-wing institutions including academia, NGOs, and in mainstream media. Share an empirical observation around the reality of biological sex and you will be harangued by the woke arguing gender identity subjectivity. If you posit other ideas that do not accord with the subjectivity of the Left, you will experience the rampant cancel culture in our society. If your academic paper or opinion piece are not deemed valuable by the progressives in charge, then you won’t be published. Even casting your mind back to Covid days, the inherent value of every person went out the window with the likes of mandates because the observers (in this case the Labour government and it’s acolytes) decided such people didn’t matter.

If there is no objective or inherent value or beauty – be this in people or objects – then we are reduced to a society based simply on the will of those with influence and power, and at the mercy of their subjective views with no restraint.

A chilling reflection from overseas

Changing topics, one quick observation on Hamas’ deliberate decision to publish images and video of a starved, emaciated Israeli hostage (including digging purported his own grave) right in the middle of the Western world’s discussion of starvation in Gaza. This decision sadly shows how captured and blind many in the West have become. Put another way, many watching the conflict have aligned themselves so closely to this Islamic death cult that Hamas can happily share such photos and not expect any push back at all. In far too many cases, the man’s suffering was celebrated as ‘justice’ while simultaneously decrying a wider famine.

The images and video are disturbing in themselves and of course for Evyatar David (the hostage) himself – but alongside this is the disturbing truth that many here in New Zealand and across the Western world have become completely corrupted in their moral reasoning and outlook.

It does not bode well for Evyatar and other hostages, nor for Gazans, but it also does not bode well for New Zealand society when have people among us with such a warped sense of morality and justice that an Islamic terrorist group feels completely comfortable sharing not only images of horror but deliberately timed during a wider outcry about starvation and abuse, knowing full well it would not only be accepted but also celebrated in some quarters.

Originally published at On Point.