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This is a very fair point and I absolutely don’t deny that a healthy civilization embraces hierarchy and allows the strong and the virtuous to impose their will upon the weak and the degenerate. My complaint here is that the structures of society that cultivate virtue and coordinate the actions of the strong in order to direct their actions toward the benefit and protection of the weak have broken down; in their absence, the strong are instead incentivized to act privately and purely for their own individual self-interest, and the weak are preyed upon instead of protected.
I am someone with a lot to offer society, but only if society creates the conditions that allow me to not need to engage in interpersonal violence in order to function. I have little to no interest in the libertarian ethos of self-reliance and rugged manly individualism; I acknowledge that this is good and healthy for certain people, and I want there to be outlets for them to express and experience that lifestyle, but count me among the people who thrive under precisely the “bug-man” strictures that such people are chafing against.
I do want and need the state to have my back and protect me; I would prefer the state not to be a nanny state, but rather a daddy state, where we send men who look like Daniel Penny to take out the trash, rather than sending nurturing female social workers to coddle and enable the Jordan Neelys of the world. I want the strong to be on my side, and to enact violence against the “weak” - in this case, the morally weak and the useless - on my behalf and in the service of a society that benefits both the Virtuous Strong and the Useful Weak.
Deep down in places we don't talk about at parties, we want him on that subway. We need him on that subway.
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