In defense of Karens: Do we owe America’s manager-summoning moms an apology?
Whether she’s demanding to speak to the manager, lecturing the barista, or calling the cops on a neighbor’s backyard BBQ — nobody likes a Karen. That’s why there are hundreds of thousands of internet memes aiming to mock her out of existence.
But maybe we’ve jumped the gun in villainizing America’s entitlement queens. Maybe Karens (irritating antics aside) serve a critical purpose in society.
That’s what Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman — BlazeTV hosts of “Rufo & Lomez” — argue.
“We need to mount a principled, unashamed, and unapologetic defense of the Karen archetype,” says Rufo.
The “Karen,” he explains, “is precisely the person who upholds the civic order. [She’s] the mother, the authority figure who is nosy enough and assertive enough to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re transgressing these important pillars of our social order.”’
Keeperman, who once “wrote an impassioned defense of the Karen,” agrees: “In a society that is undergoing this decay and in which our sort of infrastructure doesn’t work and basic service has been degraded … the attack on the Karen is a way to avoid ever having to confront that these things are breaking down.”
The Karen, he argues, is one of the only ones bold enough to stand in the gap and demand order and quality in a world of chaos and low bars. Even if Karens do go about it in annoying, “hysterical [ways],” they nonetheless “demand that things work … demand that there is a certain baseline presumption and expectation of etiquette in our public spaces” — and that, he says, is a good thing.
But not all Karens are equal. The one screaming about micro-aggressions and misgendering is not the same as the one demanding that rulebooks and protocols be followed.
The latter, says Rufo, is a “defender of civilization,” a warrior for “right and wrong,” and a lover of tradition. But this “universal tough mother” who defends what is good, right, and true unfortunately has been conflated with the “tote bag NPR Karen.”
Rule-loving, high-expectation sticklers — annoying as they can be — are the last line of defense against civilizational sloppiness. Mock them into silence and the only Karens left will be the ones policing pronouns instead of pool rules.
To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.
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