A bias in favor of civilization. Saturday morning, the first thing I saw was the half-naked corpse of a girl in the back of a truck. Her legs were twisted, and limp. Two terrorists pointed down at their lifeless trophy, as if she were a slaughtered animal, one grabbed a fistful of her matted, bloody hair, and they cheered. The girl was German, I later discovered, one of an estimated 260 civilians massacred at a rave (be warned, this account from Tablet is highly disturbing). The abject horror of that festival constitutes but one, unthinkable branch of Hamas’ sprawling weekend terrorist attack in Israel. Altogether, what I witnessed was barbaric to a degree I’d never before seen: multiple apparent rapes, mutilations, men and women, including the elderly, and small children — entire families — savagely murdered, with videos uploaded to Facebook, and screaming captives dragged to Gaza. At least 11 Americans have been confirmed killed in the attacks, with more assumed captured by Hamas, which is now threatening to televise hostage executions. But as disturbing as I found the carnage, I was even less prepared for the reaction here at home. While US politicians hedged, and the New York Times framed the unprecedented horror of this attack in the “both sides” language of a coward, thousands of people actually celebrated.

Moments after the German girl’s body was desecrated, a “human rights” advocate mocked footage of festival attendees as they ran for their lives. On Twitter, ‘edgy porn star’ Mia Khalifa cheered the “freedom fighters,” hoping for better footage of the massacre, while professors across the country helpfully contextualized the necessary carnage, many of them encouraging such atrocities at home. The DSA agitated for a race war, of course — a common theme from the far left — and a self-declared Somali-American writer and influencer, last seen in the pages of Soho House Magazine encouraging “decolonization” of the west, calmly stated what we’ve all long suspected: the most cherished hope of the “justice” brigade is not a land acknowledgment, but genocide of the “colonizers” (us (definitely me, let’s be honest)). All of these tweets have gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of supporters online. Outside, in the streets of London, Sydney, New York City, San Francisco, and all over Canada Palestinian flags were raised in celebration, and further calls for genocide were joyfully issued. Partly, this was just some good old-fashioned “multiculturalism,” our enduring strength I’m told. We should definitely let more of these people into the country, and pay for them to live here. But for the most part it was something darker: Western Civilization’s tremendous moral inversion, in which evil is framed the good, good is framed the evil, and the public is expected to parrot all the clown world blasphemies in unison as if some twisted Nicene Creed.

The inversion comes from activists and academics, and then it hits the press. From there, it’s driven through government, tech, and the broader business community, where the inverted morality is enforced. It spans almost every aspect of our daily discourse, from local politics and economics to hiring practices in tech, and as it has been left unchecked for years it has naturally metastasized — we learned this weekend — to the point of “yay rape.” Critically, the moral inversion is no mere contrary position on some polarizing topic, but a deep guilting of what is obviously true, and a dedicated championing of its almost photographic negative.