I was thinking about this earlier today before I read your article, as I'm writing a trans-critical article for a Canadian feminist website who recently liked one of my pitches. It's about misogyny in the trans movement (pretty exclusively transwomen, although of course obNotAllTransWomen :) ) and it's making me think about what I do and…
I was thinking about this earlier today before I read your article, as I'm writing a trans-critical article for a Canadian feminist website who recently liked one of my pitches. It's about misogyny in the trans movement (pretty exclusively transwomen, although of course obNotAllTransWomen :) ) and it's making me think about what I do and don't like about the trans, or maybe just the alphabet soup set (LGBTQIIAPDQXYZASPCANAACPNOWKKKMOUSE :) )
And pretty much what I have a problem with is: 1) Gynophobia and misogyny 2) Ever-divisive language and labels and frankly 3) So much rank First World Privilege of all colours and flavours, mostly with self-created problems and oppressions, bitching about pronouns and whether chicks with dicks should be let into rape crisis centres when people like them with REAL problems face violence, severe homophobia (which is also at the root of genuine transphobia) and unacceptance of who they really are in places a fuckuva lot less tolerant than Canada and the US.
I find I don't much care *why* people choose to be this or that, including male or female, I just have a problem with the ones who make problems intentionally for others. Y'know, us Gen X-ers were the ones who helped to usher homosexuality and bisexuality out of the closet, and we were the ones experimenting (that's an editorial 'we' as I've never explored either, but I've had an interesting conversation with an old classmate from high school on Facebook this week that indicates my other classmates were experimenting a lot more than I knew at the time) and it just wasn't a big deal. I mean, there were a few assholes - I remember some 'het-hating' more-manlier-than-thou hardcore lesbian whose heterophobia and misandry were overlooked by the foremothers and forefathers of the 'wokies', liberals who were *too* tolerant of the sort of bigotry they'd have never tolerated from the Reagan set (that far back...)
So, I stayed away from Becky since she hated us 'hets'. Everyone else was fine, and mostly just wanted to live their lives without drama.
The LGBTQ blah blah blah set today I think wants a lot more drama, and no matter what you say they will challenge it with a lot of vague, obscure, obfuscating language (I'm not even sure I understand what Chevanne was trying to say). She acknowledges that the LG etc doesn't play by the rules but says you don't get to decide 'what it's going to be,' and I say - why not? They change the language and the rules all the time so why can't you/we? Fuck ANARCHY NOW!!! :)
You're right, it's really all about alleged grievance. I don't remember this overwhelming sense of grievance when I was growing up and I think that's what's going on with a lot of these folks. The thing is, if you don't want to learn to live with others you're not the solution, you're the problem. And these folks clearly don't want to live nicely with others.
When we were growing up, grievance had not yet been weaponized for power over other people.
And the neo-progressive toolkit is extremely weak on "learning to live with others" as you say, like how to compromise well, reciprocal rights, the value and sustainability of mutual benefit interactions, respectful and clear communication, "I statements", etc. It focuses mostly on perpetual conflict between the oppressed who have the moral high ground, and their moral inferiors the oppressors/privileged, and has an extensive toolbox for that conflict (eg: sanctioned ad hominem attacks or stereotyping of privileged groups).
If they ever "won" and defeated the cisheteropatriarchy, they'd turn on each other immediately to get their MHG (moral high ground) dopamine fix, and because their toolkit is only good for fighting against a common enemy, not for peacefully resolving conflicts even with a former ally.
They are advocates of deep multiculturalism with a terrible lack of ability to deal constructively with real world (sub)cultural differences.
OK, point made and venting done for now. How to invite them back to reality?
"If they ever "won" and defeated the cisheteropatriarchy, they'd turn on each other immediately to get their MHG (moral high ground) dopamine fix, and because their toolkit is only good for fighting against a common enemy, not for peacefully resolving conflicts even with a former ally."
They haven't won, and they already do that. I'm not sure how to bring them back to reality but maybe when they get Trump or one of his clones elected, it'll give them the good swift kick in the ladynuts they need.
There's so much similarity between the far left and far right - they merely disagree on whom they hate. What about showing them, "What's in a better, more equitable world for *me*?" Which is pretty much everyone's question about everything. Although we're also dealing with people who exhibit a LOT of psychological problems, largely unaddressed, and their hatreds are how they express their anger at the world.
Mass enforced therapy? I'm joking...
Reading Hate Crime Hoax now by black sociologist Wilfred Reilly who makes a lot of points about how black Americans need to address the problems in their own neighbourhoods, including within themselves. How racism and oppression only count for a small, not insignificant but small, reason for their being left behind. He points out that American whites are suffering from a lot of the same problems and that African, West Indian, and Southeast Asian immigrant kids don't have the same educational and cultural problems American POC do. It's the same situation I face with self-infantilizing feminism, in which women who are good at paying lip service to empowerment quail like frightened bunnies at suggestions of exercising some *real* power and throw tantrums if you suggest that women can do a lot more to help themselves and each other. Lefty antiracism and feminism look largely the same, you could take an article about one or t'other and substitute the word 'black' for 'woman' and vice versa, and post the article on the other social justice blog :)
Steve's thang is to get black people to think about these things. My thang is to get women to think about these things. I'd like to see the alphabet soup set do the same...not all LGBTQetc.'ers are far-left nutbags, plenty of sane, rational people there, including transwomen who get why penises aren't welcome in some women-only venues and support that right to keep them out, at least until we get a few things sorted out (like sex offender 'trans' and 'women' who act rather a lot like alpha male bullies).
> "They haven't won, and they already do that. I'm not sure how to bring them back to reality but maybe when they get Trump or one of his clones elected, it'll give them the good swift kick in the ladynuts they need."
Alas, the last dose of Trump had a lot to do with the woke train jumping the rails, for multiple reasons. Extremists on each side thrive on each other, as a way to bypass rational thinking - "look over there!!".
Also, learning from experience depends on closing the loop - correctly associating a good or bad outcome with the major causes, so one can attempt to have more or less of said factors in the future. One of my largest functional critiques of neo-progressivism is that it's very weak at that very thing - treating a proposed solution as a hypothesis to be reality tested and adjusted or abandoned if it fails to produce the intended result (eg: reducing rather than increasing racial bias). Because their policies are largely dictated by moral arguments rather than on the basis of pragmatic improvements, and promoted through ad hominem attacks rather than reason or persuasion, they become detached from reason and evidence, and from respecting feedback from reality. So they often double down instead, because it's only reality which is not complying; their morality-centered arguments (or rationales) are untouched by such feedback. They made no testable promises of results from following their strategy, only a moral argument for why "it must be done" because the nominal goal is unquestionable.
One of my own dictums is that even a very strong moral argument doesn't make a dysfunctional strategy magically become functional, or a counterproductive one become productive. If a program is failing or backfiring, shouting "but SLAVERY!" might help to keep it funded but won't make it work.
In that context, I think another dose of Trump would likely derail them even more, rather than invite them back to reality. As much as I dislike Trump, I can see that what conservative call TDS has some reality. (That is, he can be a real mess, and people's reactions to him can also be dysfunction too).
I was thinking about this earlier today before I read your article, as I'm writing a trans-critical article for a Canadian feminist website who recently liked one of my pitches. It's about misogyny in the trans movement (pretty exclusively transwomen, although of course obNotAllTransWomen :) ) and it's making me think about what I do and don't like about the trans, or maybe just the alphabet soup set (LGBTQIIAPDQXYZASPCANAACPNOWKKKMOUSE :) )
And pretty much what I have a problem with is: 1) Gynophobia and misogyny 2) Ever-divisive language and labels and frankly 3) So much rank First World Privilege of all colours and flavours, mostly with self-created problems and oppressions, bitching about pronouns and whether chicks with dicks should be let into rape crisis centres when people like them with REAL problems face violence, severe homophobia (which is also at the root of genuine transphobia) and unacceptance of who they really are in places a fuckuva lot less tolerant than Canada and the US.
I find I don't much care *why* people choose to be this or that, including male or female, I just have a problem with the ones who make problems intentionally for others. Y'know, us Gen X-ers were the ones who helped to usher homosexuality and bisexuality out of the closet, and we were the ones experimenting (that's an editorial 'we' as I've never explored either, but I've had an interesting conversation with an old classmate from high school on Facebook this week that indicates my other classmates were experimenting a lot more than I knew at the time) and it just wasn't a big deal. I mean, there were a few assholes - I remember some 'het-hating' more-manlier-than-thou hardcore lesbian whose heterophobia and misandry were overlooked by the foremothers and forefathers of the 'wokies', liberals who were *too* tolerant of the sort of bigotry they'd have never tolerated from the Reagan set (that far back...)
So, I stayed away from Becky since she hated us 'hets'. Everyone else was fine, and mostly just wanted to live their lives without drama.
The LGBTQ blah blah blah set today I think wants a lot more drama, and no matter what you say they will challenge it with a lot of vague, obscure, obfuscating language (I'm not even sure I understand what Chevanne was trying to say). She acknowledges that the LG etc doesn't play by the rules but says you don't get to decide 'what it's going to be,' and I say - why not? They change the language and the rules all the time so why can't you/we? Fuck ANARCHY NOW!!! :)
You're right, it's really all about alleged grievance. I don't remember this overwhelming sense of grievance when I was growing up and I think that's what's going on with a lot of these folks. The thing is, if you don't want to learn to live with others you're not the solution, you're the problem. And these folks clearly don't want to live nicely with others.
When we were growing up, grievance had not yet been weaponized for power over other people.
And the neo-progressive toolkit is extremely weak on "learning to live with others" as you say, like how to compromise well, reciprocal rights, the value and sustainability of mutual benefit interactions, respectful and clear communication, "I statements", etc. It focuses mostly on perpetual conflict between the oppressed who have the moral high ground, and their moral inferiors the oppressors/privileged, and has an extensive toolbox for that conflict (eg: sanctioned ad hominem attacks or stereotyping of privileged groups).
If they ever "won" and defeated the cisheteropatriarchy, they'd turn on each other immediately to get their MHG (moral high ground) dopamine fix, and because their toolkit is only good for fighting against a common enemy, not for peacefully resolving conflicts even with a former ally.
They are advocates of deep multiculturalism with a terrible lack of ability to deal constructively with real world (sub)cultural differences.
OK, point made and venting done for now. How to invite them back to reality?
"If they ever "won" and defeated the cisheteropatriarchy, they'd turn on each other immediately to get their MHG (moral high ground) dopamine fix, and because their toolkit is only good for fighting against a common enemy, not for peacefully resolving conflicts even with a former ally."
They haven't won, and they already do that. I'm not sure how to bring them back to reality but maybe when they get Trump or one of his clones elected, it'll give them the good swift kick in the ladynuts they need.
There's so much similarity between the far left and far right - they merely disagree on whom they hate. What about showing them, "What's in a better, more equitable world for *me*?" Which is pretty much everyone's question about everything. Although we're also dealing with people who exhibit a LOT of psychological problems, largely unaddressed, and their hatreds are how they express their anger at the world.
Mass enforced therapy? I'm joking...
Reading Hate Crime Hoax now by black sociologist Wilfred Reilly who makes a lot of points about how black Americans need to address the problems in their own neighbourhoods, including within themselves. How racism and oppression only count for a small, not insignificant but small, reason for their being left behind. He points out that American whites are suffering from a lot of the same problems and that African, West Indian, and Southeast Asian immigrant kids don't have the same educational and cultural problems American POC do. It's the same situation I face with self-infantilizing feminism, in which women who are good at paying lip service to empowerment quail like frightened bunnies at suggestions of exercising some *real* power and throw tantrums if you suggest that women can do a lot more to help themselves and each other. Lefty antiracism and feminism look largely the same, you could take an article about one or t'other and substitute the word 'black' for 'woman' and vice versa, and post the article on the other social justice blog :)
Steve's thang is to get black people to think about these things. My thang is to get women to think about these things. I'd like to see the alphabet soup set do the same...not all LGBTQetc.'ers are far-left nutbags, plenty of sane, rational people there, including transwomen who get why penises aren't welcome in some women-only venues and support that right to keep them out, at least until we get a few things sorted out (like sex offender 'trans' and 'women' who act rather a lot like alpha male bullies).
>"They haven't won, and they already do that."
And today I saw this:
https://quillette.com/2022/05/17/confessions-of-a-social-justice-meme-maker/
Pretty much what I was referencing. Except in this case, there was the financial payoff of making a living involved as well - which is not rare.
What a great article! Excellent breakfast reading. Thanks for sharing it.
> "They haven't won, and they already do that. I'm not sure how to bring them back to reality but maybe when they get Trump or one of his clones elected, it'll give them the good swift kick in the ladynuts they need."
Alas, the last dose of Trump had a lot to do with the woke train jumping the rails, for multiple reasons. Extremists on each side thrive on each other, as a way to bypass rational thinking - "look over there!!".
Also, learning from experience depends on closing the loop - correctly associating a good or bad outcome with the major causes, so one can attempt to have more or less of said factors in the future. One of my largest functional critiques of neo-progressivism is that it's very weak at that very thing - treating a proposed solution as a hypothesis to be reality tested and adjusted or abandoned if it fails to produce the intended result (eg: reducing rather than increasing racial bias). Because their policies are largely dictated by moral arguments rather than on the basis of pragmatic improvements, and promoted through ad hominem attacks rather than reason or persuasion, they become detached from reason and evidence, and from respecting feedback from reality. So they often double down instead, because it's only reality which is not complying; their morality-centered arguments (or rationales) are untouched by such feedback. They made no testable promises of results from following their strategy, only a moral argument for why "it must be done" because the nominal goal is unquestionable.
One of my own dictums is that even a very strong moral argument doesn't make a dysfunctional strategy magically become functional, or a counterproductive one become productive. If a program is failing or backfiring, shouting "but SLAVERY!" might help to keep it funded but won't make it work.
In that context, I think another dose of Trump would likely derail them even more, rather than invite them back to reality. As much as I dislike Trump, I can see that what conservative call TDS has some reality. (That is, he can be a real mess, and people's reactions to him can also be dysfunction too).