The Strange Case of Ilkka Kokkarinen

What happened to Ilkka Kokkarinen? Did the feminists at Ryerson University threaten his job? He insists that they did not. What did his wife say or do? He claims that she is the reason he shut his blog down.

What I and so many others can't fathom is his groveling apology, his "he loved Big Sister" moment. One can see that, faced with losing his job, he might accede to the demands of the totalitarians at his university. I can't say that I would behave differently. It's all very easy to have a blog and feel brave for writing and publishing heterodox opinion, but in reality one faces few consequences for it. So at least is my experience. In my present circumstances, if my boss told me that I had to erase my blog or be fired, I might not comply, but that's only because my opportunities elsewhere are good and my lifestyle wouldn't be greatly threatened. But if I were an immigrant like Ilkka, and if my job weren't easily replaceable, presumably like Ilkka's, I might be quaking in my boots.

Ilkka insists that it was his wife's opinion that caused his road-to-Damascus conversion. Here's what he said (and I guess I don't really fathom how Google cache works, because most everything from Sixteen Volts appears to be gone, but I managed to find this):

I am doing this completely in my free will to become a much better person than I used to be. No entity whatsoever has threatened me with any kind of consequences for blogging. This is not any kind of violation of my rights or free speech. In particular, if any of you want to start email or other campaigns about this, or in some other way publically accuse people and organizations for having treated me wrong, please don't. I seriously mean this. The recent events were merely a fortunate wakeup call for me to take a good hard look back at what I am and had become. This is not some underhanded attempt to grovel because I am afraid of losing my job or something. Because I'm not, as far as I know. And even if I were, that would be peanuts compared to the idea of the woman you love looking at you and you see how she is disappointed of you, asking you why you would want to write mean things. I would rather shovel shit for living every day than have to come up with an answer to that. Because there really is none.

Ilkka seems to be in denial. He was threatened with both the loss of his job and his wife's love, and then decides he not only has to accede to their demands, but to denigrate himself and declare himself an "asshole".

His wife, like so may women, seems to adhere to the principle that, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." The fact is that opinions are going to offend some people, who want their cozy and self-serving views to remain unchallenged. The retailers of opinion know this. We, meaning everyone, hold our opinions in such a way that an attack on them often feels like an attack on ourselves, and the sniveling feminists not only feel this but use it to every advantage. Many if not most women navigate emotionally, and the strictures of logic and rational argument don't go a long way with them. Ilkka succumbed at the first whiff of grapeshot:

I am deeply humiliated and ashamed by this experience, and at least I understand my place in the whole world much better. This will therefore be enough of the virtual world for me. I will now sign off permanently, thanking everybody for bearing with me, and once more apologizing for everyone who I have hurt or insulted in my thoughtlessness. When I go out next time, I will be looking at the whole world in a very different way.

He even said (quote unavailable) that he's ripe for conversion to Christianity.

I think that what galls so many about this is the implication that because Ilkka now says that his writing was mean-spirited, and that he behaved like an "asshole", we who enjoyed and admired and found sustenance in his blog are also mean-spirited assholes. We haven't seen the light that he now sees. No doubt he didn't ask to be a hero, and he declined the possibility when it was held in front of him, as was his perfect right to do so, but his denigration of his former self and his repudiation of his writing are, frankly, gratuitously offensive. He hasn't merely changed his mind, he's calling on us all to renounce our anti-feminist, anti-leftist views and be "nice".

Update: Sixteen Volts archive as well as the Danimal archive to be published here.