We’re living in strange, frightening times. There’s the rise of AI and the employment and mental health crises it’s going to bring. There are our dwindling natural resources and the political and humanitarian upheaval that’s going to bring. And in the middle of this, for reasons that will forever escape me, we’re arguing about whether men can become women (and vice versa) just by saying so.
You are literally denying bikes existence! You HATE bikes! Every time you write a bigoted, bi-phobic anti-bike piece of trash like this you are LITERALLY DESTROYING ALL BICYCLES!!!
Or maybe it's cars. I don't know. I lost track of whether you were defending the right of cars or bikes to exist.
Look, just stay away from the trikes, man! Just leave them alone, and when they're big-bikes they can decide whether they're really bikes or cars. LEAVE THE TRIKES ALONE YOU FILTHY BIKEPHOBIC PEDALPHILE!!!
No. I meant 'pedalphile'. Because Steve favours teaching innocent tricycles that they might really be Big Wheels and he's also a public proponent of teaching Critical Drag Race Theory in the schools. I suspect he's some creepy fetishist bikesexual!
That grown men prefer the limited legal rights of children? Just spitballing here.
I know you meant that they could then have sex with children legally because they would be classified as "underage" and it wouldn't be statutory rape anymore. I get it.
Of course it's not. Many people are playing games with adopting these identities to tweak the noses of the powerful, get some attention, make money, control people, whatever. Some type of gain for themselves. It's the new, modern grift.
If you go back to Foucault, it’s a way to give oneself permission to transgress moral norms, which are hegemonic social constructs imposed on true freedom.
Yes - I've bumped into this in my reading - an interesting take.
Transgressing moral norms. I'm not completely opposed to transgression - depending on the purpose and outcome. Sometimes norms need tweaking - for instance those which kept women bound into subservient roles for most of history. But, in spite of leaning libertarian and being pretty hands off about governing adult human sexual behavior, I do think there are some norms that are not oppressive and which are in place for good reasons. For instance those which protect children from sexual predators.
It's a tricky thing. I am not at all supportive of religious orthodoxy. But, on the other hand, the absence of traditional religion has been replaced by a secular religion that I find even more onerous due to a lack of the concept of redemption in the dogma and the focus on using shame to control people. Not that traditional religion didn't indulge in some of this as well. But, there was typically an out - a way back. Regressive left ideology allows no way back, just a life of simmering shame and inner struggle for those who have "transgressed" by using wrong words or having the wrong color of skin or the worst sin of all, not being sufficiently oppressed by the system.
And, finally - what is true freedom? It's so subjective and personal that there really is no answer. I suppose Foucault chafed at norms that prevented him from pursuing his appetites and sought a rationalization via his philosophical musings. That's not really that special. We all do this - try to rationalize and justify what we desire. To me, the line is consent. And children can't give it meaningfully so they should be off limits. Period.
"even more onerous due to a lack of the concept of redemption in the dogma and the focus on using shame to control people. Not that traditional religion didn't indulge in some of this as well. But, there was typically an out - a way back. Regressive left ideology allows no way back, just a life of simmering shame and inner struggle for those who have "transgressed" by using wrong words or having the wrong color of skin or the worst sin of all, not being sufficiently oppressed by the system."
"No way back," you say. When I think of "no way back," I think of Buddhism and the lack of discipline to free oneself from samsara. That is truly unforgiving. The opposite of Christianity.
The Left's offer of redemption is total submission. And membership in the club. For human psyches, that counts for a lot. Even secular people have to depend on their "myths."
Aside from the falsehood there is the immaturity of all this. Any limitation of any kind is oppression. If you deny my right to identify as something I am not and never can be, it’s no different from mass murder.
If you don’t use my magic pronouns when I am not there to hear them, I’ll get you fired.
We need to push back on all this, and push back hard.
I wonder how DSM 5 even hppened without insurance companies making some phone calls and stopping it. Under DSM 4 the "trans" cult would have nothing. No hormones or surgery before 18, a year living as the opposite set before any cutting.
IIRC, they said they didn't wanna call it a disorder so it would be treated medically. I guess to avoid any stigma. Personally, I donno about the DSMs.
We're talking about a psychiatric condition in which people feel uncomfortable in their healthy bodies, and if the "trans" are to be believed, uncomfortable enough to kill themslves.
Tavistock, formerly the UK's most prominent gender reassignment clinic, is getting sued by over a thousand people & families. The NHS has shut them down.
TY. Yeah, Sweden Finland and France have also cut most-a it out. It's funny how people in the U.S. sometimes don't know this is an *experimental* procedure. And there hasn't been much good quality research in the area. Or *good* quality research. Figures.
Thank You, as always, Steve. I can't top You and M Chardenet. But, seriously...
"And last but certainly not least, it matters because reality matters."
The fact that this even needs to be *said* shows how literally insane our societies are. And I mean the real meaning of literally. Back when words had generally recognized meanings, instead-a inverted (and perverted) ones.
"We’re living in strange, frightening times. Fixing them will need all of us to work together. So if we can’t even agree on what a car is, we’re in deep trouble."
Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?
"Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?"
As Orwell said, "in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." But the truth is also the ultimate weapon against lies. It always wins in the end. We just need enough people to stand up and tell it.
You're right again, Sir. It's hard for me to get motivated, because I don't have an audience that will listen. So glad You do, Steve. Or they listen, at least somewhat.
I get the superficial similarity, where wishing becomes believing it's true.
But I think they have significant differences in causation and dynamics which are important to ground our opposition in.
"Trump won" is at heart a simple denial of a specific well-evidenced truth, a long term problem with human systems. It's troubling because it's a larger example than we have had to deal with in the US in my lifetime, but in nature it's not new. Even if Trump won and was authoritarian, that's hardly a new problem in human history.
The underpinnings of Critical Social Justice ideology are more deeply in conflict with the fundamental basis of a successful society, like rational thought itself. Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful. Merit is less important than "representation". Feelings are more important than facts. Using logic is white supremacy. Doctors often make mistakes in assigning boyhood to somebody. Free speech is discardable, since it's seen as a tool of the privileged to keep their power; thus it's praiseworthy to win power by suppressing any dissent. Building societies atop concepts of universal principles, mutual benefit relations, and reciprocity is of no value; whichever side has the moral high ground has no need to care anything about neutrality or what the other side needs, they are OWED obedience period!! There can be no compromise, and there is no need to listen to the other side (and possibly be corrupted into wrongthink thereby).
If this ideology gains the power it seeks, I don't see how a high tech society which is highly leveraged in order to support billions of people, yet fragile and stretched, can survive. ESPECIALLY at a time when all of those systems seem to be in danger of crashing at once, and we need extremely functional political processes in order to survive. In my view, this presents an existential challenge to modern society, it's not just about generational differences in musical tastes or the relative value of home life versus work life.
And this ideology seems to me to be extremely dependent on controlling the horizontal and vertical (old X-1 reference, sorry). It simultaneously strongly believes that it is unquestionably morally superior about everything that matters, and is deathly afraid of needing to justify itself through open discussion. So in order to propagate and expand, it HAS to control the channel, has to control what ideas people are exposed to. It must control the internet via public/private "misinformation" suppression. It cannot afford to NOT cancel dissident voices to the best of it's ability - and to seek more power to do so.
The mixture of themes and memes it's based upon point towards seizing control - only in the name of justice of course. Sort of a diffuse version of the Vanguard Party controlling the state as the politically conscious proxy for the nominal dictatorship of the proletariat - just until all of the masses have been re-educated to understand the truth and fall in line, of course.
So I see them as very different phenomena in many important ways, even if some of the symptom may overlap (more than one disease can cause a fever).
A lever on what is true and what is false is the ultimate form of control, the sine qua non of totalitarianism. Both Trump and postmodernist thinking point that way, but the postmodernist paradigm is vastly more comprehensive.
Years ago, the maligned Scott Adams remarked that facts don't matter. He wasn't saying that they shouldn't matter, just that they are held in disregard by the masses. People perceive their perceptions as reality, but that is born in desire. The world is not what we wish it to be.
The conflict between robbing children of their childhood and retaining a childish belief system is indeed frightening.
Perfect analogy. And the motivation to support a shared reality is worth fighting for. A very noisy 0.1% is trying to cast a spell on the majority and it’s been remarkably successful. A story of rotten incentives by many media and governmental orgs and schools.
You are literally denying bikes existence! You HATE bikes! Every time you write a bigoted, bi-phobic anti-bike piece of trash like this you are LITERALLY DESTROYING ALL BICYCLES!!!
Or maybe it's cars. I don't know. I lost track of whether you were defending the right of cars or bikes to exist.
Look, just stay away from the trikes, man! Just leave them alone, and when they're big-bikes they can decide whether they're really bikes or cars. LEAVE THE TRIKES ALONE YOU FILTHY BIKEPHOBIC PEDALPHILE!!!
I bet you hate drag races too!!!!
Okay, I clearly need to introduce a comment of the week prize😂
This is the comment of the year!
"Pedalphobe" I think you meant. Just brilliant!!
No. I meant 'pedalphile'. Because Steve favours teaching innocent tricycles that they might really be Big Wheels and he's also a public proponent of teaching Critical Drag Race Theory in the schools. I suspect he's some creepy fetishist bikesexual!
Who can top this?? Hilarious!!!
Well, we already are seeing "transableism" and "transracialism." "Trans-speciesism" is not far behind. Wanna get married to a sheep?
And we're in really big trouble when grown men pronounce that, "I identify as a child." Guess what that implies.
It's all equally "valid" according to the same postmodernist epistemology upon which transgender ideology is based.
"And we're in really big trouble when grown men pronounce that, "I identify as a child." Guess what that implies."
They're way ahead of you. I wonder how long it'll be before this also achieves #stunningandbrave status.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3356084/I-ve-gone-child-Husband-father-seven-52-leaves-wife-kids-live-transgender-SIX-YEAR-OLD-girl-named-Stefonknee.html
Somehow the “like” button for this unsettling article about this gross man seems inappropriate.🤣. This is truly foul and sick.
That grown men prefer the limited legal rights of children? Just spitballing here.
I know you meant that they could then have sex with children legally because they would be classified as "underage" and it wouldn't be statutory rape anymore. I get it.
That is the same postmodernist logic behind “trans women are women and trans men are men.” How is “trans children are children” any different?
Of course it's not. Many people are playing games with adopting these identities to tweak the noses of the powerful, get some attention, make money, control people, whatever. Some type of gain for themselves. It's the new, modern grift.
If you go back to Foucault, it’s a way to give oneself permission to transgress moral norms, which are hegemonic social constructs imposed on true freedom.
See https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/france-s-reverence-for-intellectuals-shielded-michel-foucault-from-scandal/
Yes - I've bumped into this in my reading - an interesting take.
Transgressing moral norms. I'm not completely opposed to transgression - depending on the purpose and outcome. Sometimes norms need tweaking - for instance those which kept women bound into subservient roles for most of history. But, in spite of leaning libertarian and being pretty hands off about governing adult human sexual behavior, I do think there are some norms that are not oppressive and which are in place for good reasons. For instance those which protect children from sexual predators.
It's a tricky thing. I am not at all supportive of religious orthodoxy. But, on the other hand, the absence of traditional religion has been replaced by a secular religion that I find even more onerous due to a lack of the concept of redemption in the dogma and the focus on using shame to control people. Not that traditional religion didn't indulge in some of this as well. But, there was typically an out - a way back. Regressive left ideology allows no way back, just a life of simmering shame and inner struggle for those who have "transgressed" by using wrong words or having the wrong color of skin or the worst sin of all, not being sufficiently oppressed by the system.
And, finally - what is true freedom? It's so subjective and personal that there really is no answer. I suppose Foucault chafed at norms that prevented him from pursuing his appetites and sought a rationalization via his philosophical musings. That's not really that special. We all do this - try to rationalize and justify what we desire. To me, the line is consent. And children can't give it meaningfully so they should be off limits. Period.
You write:
"even more onerous due to a lack of the concept of redemption in the dogma and the focus on using shame to control people. Not that traditional religion didn't indulge in some of this as well. But, there was typically an out - a way back. Regressive left ideology allows no way back, just a life of simmering shame and inner struggle for those who have "transgressed" by using wrong words or having the wrong color of skin or the worst sin of all, not being sufficiently oppressed by the system."
"No way back," you say. When I think of "no way back," I think of Buddhism and the lack of discipline to free oneself from samsara. That is truly unforgiving. The opposite of Christianity.
The Left's offer of redemption is total submission. And membership in the club. For human psyches, that counts for a lot. Even secular people have to depend on their "myths."
Foucault and a large group of his intellectual contemporaries tried to get the age of sexual consent reduced to 13.
I will send a longer response to your thoughtful comment once I have thought about it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRCb4gtaMNY
Woody Allen would think of this...Gene Wilder is perfect in this!
The diamond necklace was hilarious!!!
Aside from the falsehood there is the immaturity of all this. Any limitation of any kind is oppression. If you deny my right to identify as something I am not and never can be, it’s no different from mass murder.
If you don’t use my magic pronouns when I am not there to hear them, I’ll get you fired.
We need to push back on all this, and push back hard.
"Aside from the falsehood there is the immaturity of all this. Any limitation of any kind is oppression. "
This part doesn't get spoken about enough. Pure childish narcissism.
Thank You, Sir Chris.
I still believe lawsuits are the best response. Where feasible.
A few successful lawsuits and insurance will stop funding the clinics. Not many kids will get sliced at those prices.
The UK is very far in advance of us here on this side-a the pond. In this regard, among other things.
I wonder how DSM 5 even hppened without insurance companies making some phone calls and stopping it. Under DSM 4 the "trans" cult would have nothing. No hormones or surgery before 18, a year living as the opposite set before any cutting.
It would still be called a disorder.
IIRC, they said they didn't wanna call it a disorder so it would be treated medically. I guess to avoid any stigma. Personally, I donno about the DSMs.
We're talking about a psychiatric condition in which people feel uncomfortable in their healthy bodies, and if the "trans" are to be believed, uncomfortable enough to kill themslves.
But we mustn't call it a "disorder."
That would be ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑓𝑢𝑙.
Christ, I despise these people.
Tavistock, formerly the UK's most prominent gender reassignment clinic, is getting sued by over a thousand people & families. The NHS has shut them down.
TY. Yeah, Sweden Finland and France have also cut most-a it out. It's funny how people in the U.S. sometimes don't know this is an *experimental* procedure. And there hasn't been much good quality research in the area. Or *good* quality research. Figures.
We drag our ass on everything. Would taken us longer to abolish slavery if Europe hadn't bugged us about it.
Thank You, as always, Steve. I can't top You and M Chardenet. But, seriously...
"And last but certainly not least, it matters because reality matters."
The fact that this even needs to be *said* shows how literally insane our societies are. And I mean the real meaning of literally. Back when words had generally recognized meanings, instead-a inverted (and perverted) ones.
"We’re living in strange, frightening times. Fixing them will need all of us to work together. So if we can’t even agree on what a car is, we’re in deep trouble."
Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?
"Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?"
As Orwell said, "in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." But the truth is also the ultimate weapon against lies. It always wins in the end. We just need enough people to stand up and tell it.
You're right again, Sir. It's hard for me to get motivated, because I don't have an audience that will listen. So glad You do, Steve. Or they listen, at least somewhat.
MAGA and woke seem closely related: communicable psychoses. “Trans woman” and “Trump won” are cut from the same cloth.
I get the superficial similarity, where wishing becomes believing it's true.
But I think they have significant differences in causation and dynamics which are important to ground our opposition in.
"Trump won" is at heart a simple denial of a specific well-evidenced truth, a long term problem with human systems. It's troubling because it's a larger example than we have had to deal with in the US in my lifetime, but in nature it's not new. Even if Trump won and was authoritarian, that's hardly a new problem in human history.
The underpinnings of Critical Social Justice ideology are more deeply in conflict with the fundamental basis of a successful society, like rational thought itself. Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful. Merit is less important than "representation". Feelings are more important than facts. Using logic is white supremacy. Doctors often make mistakes in assigning boyhood to somebody. Free speech is discardable, since it's seen as a tool of the privileged to keep their power; thus it's praiseworthy to win power by suppressing any dissent. Building societies atop concepts of universal principles, mutual benefit relations, and reciprocity is of no value; whichever side has the moral high ground has no need to care anything about neutrality or what the other side needs, they are OWED obedience period!! There can be no compromise, and there is no need to listen to the other side (and possibly be corrupted into wrongthink thereby).
If this ideology gains the power it seeks, I don't see how a high tech society which is highly leveraged in order to support billions of people, yet fragile and stretched, can survive. ESPECIALLY at a time when all of those systems seem to be in danger of crashing at once, and we need extremely functional political processes in order to survive. In my view, this presents an existential challenge to modern society, it's not just about generational differences in musical tastes or the relative value of home life versus work life.
And this ideology seems to me to be extremely dependent on controlling the horizontal and vertical (old X-1 reference, sorry). It simultaneously strongly believes that it is unquestionably morally superior about everything that matters, and is deathly afraid of needing to justify itself through open discussion. So in order to propagate and expand, it HAS to control the channel, has to control what ideas people are exposed to. It must control the internet via public/private "misinformation" suppression. It cannot afford to NOT cancel dissident voices to the best of it's ability - and to seek more power to do so.
The mixture of themes and memes it's based upon point towards seizing control - only in the name of justice of course. Sort of a diffuse version of the Vanguard Party controlling the state as the politically conscious proxy for the nominal dictatorship of the proletariat - just until all of the masses have been re-educated to understand the truth and fall in line, of course.
So I see them as very different phenomena in many important ways, even if some of the symptom may overlap (more than one disease can cause a fever).
A lever on what is true and what is false is the ultimate form of control, the sine qua non of totalitarianism. Both Trump and postmodernist thinking point that way, but the postmodernist paradigm is vastly more comprehensive.
"Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful."
That's gratifyingly succinct.
I've been saying this for awhile. Two sides of the same toxic, corroded coin.
Both demand enormous changes affecting everyone for no coherent reasons.
Both demand absolute agreement and conformity on every tiny detail.
Neither would have passed a psychiatric exam twenty yers ago.
Both justify growing violent tendencies with myths.
Yah: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychosis
psychosis
noun
psy·cho·sis sī-ˈkō-səs
pluralpsychoses sī-ˈkō-ˌsēz
Synonyms of psychosis
: a serious mental illness (such as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions
More to the point, truth matters.
Truth? I hear we're "Post-truth" now. And thus, the results we see today, right?
Damn, that guy is touchy about his bicycle-cum-car...
Years ago, the maligned Scott Adams remarked that facts don't matter. He wasn't saying that they shouldn't matter, just that they are held in disregard by the masses. People perceive their perceptions as reality, but that is born in desire. The world is not what we wish it to be.
The conflict between robbing children of their childhood and retaining a childish belief system is indeed frightening.
Perfect analogy. And the motivation to support a shared reality is worth fighting for. A very noisy 0.1% is trying to cast a spell on the majority and it’s been remarkably successful. A story of rotten incentives by many media and governmental orgs and schools.
Just fucking brilliant.