I started a social science PhD program in 2002, and let me tell you, you could not undertake that enterprise at a major research institution without having to read A LOT of Marxian theory. Especially stuff falling under the heading of Critical Theory. If you wanted to be successful on the job market, you had to be fluent in Critical Theo…
I started a social science PhD program in 2002, and let me tell you, you could not undertake that enterprise at a major research institution without having to read A LOT of Marxian theory. Especially stuff falling under the heading of Critical Theory. If you wanted to be successful on the job market, you had to be fluent in Critical Theory.
Critical Theory is ultimately really simple to understand: instead of the old-fashioned Marxian idea of the workers taking control of the means of production, you have oppressed groups (non-white, non-western, queer, etc.) taking control of the means of discursive production. Basically, if you control the language, you control the reality.
Gender Theory is a perfect example of this neo-marxist doctrine. Under this theory, gender is considered to be nothing more than a cultural construct, a construct that oppresses people. Biology has nothing to do with gender. People are, in essence, only cis-gendered because they are dupes, and they enjoy having privilege. And the are oppressors, insofar as they insist that everyone must accept the gender binary.
Among the woke (the drinkers of Critical Theory Kool Aid), trans people are pretty much the highest of holies. They have not only seen through the oppressor's lies, but have taken truly radical steps to attain liberation. Of course, being BIPOC trans means you have all the victim cards, basically you're playing the game of victim poker with a royal flush of oppression.
Let's be honest: people under the sway of this ideology are using trans people as pawns in a power game. Some trans people are actively trading on their own victim status in this power game. If you get in their way, they will definitely go after you if they can manage it. I stay off social media. It's an arena in which their power is magnified to maximum extent.
There's no arguing with glassy-eyed zealots. I've made the mistake of feeding the trolls here and regret it. It's a waste of time and vital energy.
Folks like Abigail and Bari are right: those of us who don't care for the notion of living under totalitarian conditions need to organize. The woke are actively creating totalitarian conditions wherever they have the power to do so. For now, it's a soft version. But for people who lose their jobs, or find themselves being terrorized on social media, that's not much comfort.
I work in nonprofit, in a rural state. My organization was very nearly torn apart by woke trouble makers. They eventually quit, but they wreaked havoc before they left, actually destroying two colleague's careers. Before they left, they created a horrible climate of fear and distrust. It's going to take months to undo the damage. It took me way too long to stand up to them, I'm not proud of that, but better late than never.
Right now, I'm getting people at work talking about the importance of enlightenment values and classical liberalism. I'm forging alliances between conservatives, libertarians, and liberals (actual liberals, not wokesters). I'm part of my organization's DEI team, which has now become a hub of enlightenment education. We talk a lot about ideological diversity and inclusion. I'm getting other people on the leadership team engaged in these discussions. And we're educating the board of directors on the dangers that lie ahead.
We're crafting a strategy for our hiring practices (especially leadership positions), figuring out how to best identify and avoid candidates who are woke. We're not going back if we can at all help it, but it's going to take vigilance and long-term commitment.
I'm afraid I'm not going to be sticking my neck out on social media, it's just not worth it. High risk, low reward. But, everyday, I do something to advance the enlightenment agenda at work. I never miss an opportunity to organize.
We all need to educate ourselves, to be able to effectively articulate enlightenment values. We all need to organize. Especially at work.
This comment deserves gold stars and neon lights around it. You’ve condensed CRT down to its essence in the most concise and cogent way possible. Excellent job. And GOOD FOR YOU, organizing intelligently to put the ogre back in its cage and dump it in the deep blue sea.
I also agree with you that it is a waste of time and energy to feed the trolls here. We know who they are. They know where our buttons are and how to push them. Don’t take the bait, there’s nothing to be gained. Ignore them. Starve them.
You're absolutely right, there is zero benefit in feeding the trolls. It's that much less time we can spend actively organizing people who are opposed to this madness.
This discussion has really brought out the troll brigade. It seems like radical gender theory produces a special brand of zealotry.
What most concerns me is how predatory gender theory activists are. Of course, if you want to propagandize and create converts, it makes the most sense to pursue vulnerable young people.
I think the gender zealots are the most likely to engage in ruthless campaigns of reputational destruction, but I'm not sure about that. My gut sense is that people who get hooked by radical gender have a lot of personal pain that they're desperate to project onto other people, so they have a far more personal stake in orthodoxy sniffing and heretic burning. It's not just cynical deflection for them, it's deeply personal. They base their entire identify around this stuff, so any dissent is an existential threat.
From reading the first-hand accounts of former trans people, I’ve learned that within the trans community there is a status tree, with masculine trans women at the top. By this I mean trans-identified males who are attracted to women and employ bullying and coercion to satisfy their sexual needs. These are the autogynephiles (transvestites) who refer to lesbians and radical feminists as TERFS, and who use doxxing, death and rape threats, and physical intimidation to exercise good old fashioned male privilege. I believe their malevolence stems from jealousy because they are not females, and rage because females are not attracted to them, leaving them sexually frustrated. In this respect, they are similar to incels, but with a lot more social standing and power.
This isn’t the whole story, of course, but it is a significant part of it, IMO.
Wow, that's a fascinating perspective. I'd say it says a lot about the dynamics of totalitarian movements. And cults. And perhaps hormones as well.
And the irony therein is just mind blowing: it's the very epitome of toxic masculinity, perpetrated by people who identify as women, in the name of liberation from traditional gender norms. In their efforts to dismantle the gender binary, they are reproducing the crudest stereotypes contained within that model. You couldn't make that up! Perhaps the weirdest irony of all: within radical gender politics, the only legitimate arbiters of femininity are people who were born with penises. Is that not a tremendous step backwards for women? And by women, I mean actual women, aka people who menstruate.
I should clarify my own position: I'm perfectly OK with more than two genders. It seems like four is a reasonable typology: women, men, trans-women, and trans-men. An enormous amount of variation on themes can live within that simple framework. And it doesn't deny the fundamental biological reality of the vast and overwhelming majority of humanity. And it doesn't necessitate constantly having to learn new and ever more fine-grained non-sensical distinctions. The endless proliferation of gender categories is completely unworkable for any but the zealots.
I'm not OK with the ritual of everyone having to state their pronouns all the time. I believe that ritual is an admission that gender is nothing more than a cultural construct (which is rubbish), that we can't trust common sense and our own eyes and ears (if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and was born with feathers, webbed feet and a bill, it's a duck and will most likely remain a duck), and that we should all be considering changing genders as an option on a regular basis. It's stealth indoctrination.
I’m sorry. There are no such things in real life as a trans man or a trans woman. There are men. There are women. There are women who think they are men. And there are men who think they are women. The latter two categories are mentally ill. Full stop.
This is right on the money: "And the irony therein is just mind blowing: it's the very epitome of toxic masculinity, perpetrated by people who identify as women, in the name of liberation from traditional gender norms. In their efforts to dismantle the gender binary, they are reproducing the crudest stereotypes contained within that model. You couldn't make that up! Perhaps the weirdest irony of all: within radical gender politics, the only legitimate arbiters of femininity are people who were born with penises. Is that not a tremendous step backwards for women? And by women, I mean actual women, aka people who menstruate." I actually read somewhere that the only people who should be allowed to attach the word "vagina" to their anatomy are trans women.
I'm an old lesbian and I have about 45 years of experience dealing with this category of person. I definitely didn't come up with this analysis yesterday, or by myself.
Your gender philosophy is very charitable. I see nothing wrong with it, although personally I don't think in terms of gender, I think in terms of sex, in my case, woman. I don't have to identify as a woman, because I just am one. I'm with you on the pronoun thing. If you can't tell what my pronouns are from looking at me, we're doomed anyway.
Gender as a concept is important to some people and frankly, who cares what we call ourselves as long as we live and let live? Sounds simple and friendly, doesn't it? I truly am more than willing to respect people's pronouns and to leave them alone to do their thing, as long as they do the same for me. This is where the trouble starts, because it requires accepting that ones beliefs are opinions, and opinions vary. It's the compelled speech, the harebrained dogma and the insistence that the Emperor is wearing a beautiful suit of clothes that spoils my good mood.
My insights into this have benefited greatly from the writings of folks like Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan. I try to work out the ramifications, but I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.
I think your perspective is eminently sensible, as sex and gender are pretty well aligned for nearly all of humanity. And, live and let live is about as good as we can expect as far as shared moral frameworks in any large-scale society. It requires so little of us, aside from not being hateful and just minding our own beeswax--it's not terribly complicated or demanding as moral imperatives go!
Yes, compelled speech is a serious threat to a free society, I very much agree with you there! If someone wants me to call them by some special pronouns, I'm willing to try my best in the interest of civility, but don't expect me to get onboard your Maoist happy train and recite your religious catechisms.
I actually consider myself TERF adjacent--I may be a dude, but I also consider myself a feminist ally, and I'm really not OK with women losing the prerogative to define themselves and their reality as they see fit (by implication, I'm not OK with men losing that either). So, to the extent that I believe actual women have the right to define femininity for themselves, I'm not OK with people who are not women usurping that prerogative. I consider trans to be a gender category outside of the binary (wasn't that their goal in the first place? It's all so bloody confusing!!), so yes, I suppose I'm excluding them and I'm OK with that.
One of the most disturbing new trends is labeling gay and lesbian folks as 'trans-phobic' if they don't have any desire to date trans people. How on earth is that progress? To the extent that this trend gains currency, this ideology becomes a threat to individuals choosing their own sexual orientation without fear of persecution and harassment. That's just crazy! Accusations of being trans-phobic are way too often just another libelous attack that is used to cow people into submission. That's how the post-modern, critical theory crowd rolls: by any means necessary, with the end always justifying the means.
I've been thinking and reading a lot in trying to find the roots of all this, and there are many. Besides Critical Theory and CRT and post-modernism in academia, another root is the gradual erosion of the difference between words and violence, hurt feelings and being unjustifiably harmed. The thin edge of the wedge, I believe, was recognizing that in addition to sexual and physical abuse, there is emotional abuse, which can leave deep and lasting scars - a very reasonable and helpful understanding. But then where is the boundary between emotional abuse and disagreement, argumentation, criticism? Then the self esteem movement swept the nation - observing a correlation between good self image and success, and between poor self image and problems, there was a movement to make every child special by constantly praising them. By now that over-simplification (and misattribution of causality) has pretty much been discarded as a path to success, but the kids raised in that era are now in influential positions, and we can see the ideas manifest in woke politics now. You can't disagree with a member of a marginalized group, that would cause harm to their psyche, just as bad or worse than physically attacking them. And I know better understand why some were talking about hate speech codes (and laws in some countries) as a slippery slope; they were right. Disagreement with a political framing is labeled as "hate speech" under an elastic conception, and as xxx-phobia or xxx-ism, and it is treated as unquestionable that it causes grievous and actionable harm to a vulnerable party. So quashing it by any means necessary is just pre-emptive self defense, using violence as needed to suppress verbal violence, like books that disagree with the prevailing dogma.
It feels to me like a cancer on liberalism. And I believe that in the course of another generation, if it continues to expand and metastasize, it may be deadly to a functioning liberal democratic society. But it came from well meaning roots (which I share), not from evil intention!
So we have to stop it - without yielding to an authoritarian response from the opposition. I alternate between concern about a neo-progressive authoritarian future, and concern about a more right wing authoritarianism promoted as the only way to expunge the neo-progressive stanglehold on society.
(I have adopted the term "neo-progressivism" as a descriptive and non-perjorative handle for wokism/idenitarianism/political correctness/the successor ideology/etc.)
"just another libelous attack that is used to cow people into submission. That's how the post-modern, critical theory crowd rolls: by any means necessary...."
If liberals can't face the truth of this, the US is doomed.
I started a social science PhD program in 2002, and let me tell you, you could not undertake that enterprise at a major research institution without having to read A LOT of Marxian theory. Especially stuff falling under the heading of Critical Theory. If you wanted to be successful on the job market, you had to be fluent in Critical Theory.
Critical Theory is ultimately really simple to understand: instead of the old-fashioned Marxian idea of the workers taking control of the means of production, you have oppressed groups (non-white, non-western, queer, etc.) taking control of the means of discursive production. Basically, if you control the language, you control the reality.
Gender Theory is a perfect example of this neo-marxist doctrine. Under this theory, gender is considered to be nothing more than a cultural construct, a construct that oppresses people. Biology has nothing to do with gender. People are, in essence, only cis-gendered because they are dupes, and they enjoy having privilege. And the are oppressors, insofar as they insist that everyone must accept the gender binary.
Among the woke (the drinkers of Critical Theory Kool Aid), trans people are pretty much the highest of holies. They have not only seen through the oppressor's lies, but have taken truly radical steps to attain liberation. Of course, being BIPOC trans means you have all the victim cards, basically you're playing the game of victim poker with a royal flush of oppression.
Let's be honest: people under the sway of this ideology are using trans people as pawns in a power game. Some trans people are actively trading on their own victim status in this power game. If you get in their way, they will definitely go after you if they can manage it. I stay off social media. It's an arena in which their power is magnified to maximum extent.
There's no arguing with glassy-eyed zealots. I've made the mistake of feeding the trolls here and regret it. It's a waste of time and vital energy.
Folks like Abigail and Bari are right: those of us who don't care for the notion of living under totalitarian conditions need to organize. The woke are actively creating totalitarian conditions wherever they have the power to do so. For now, it's a soft version. But for people who lose their jobs, or find themselves being terrorized on social media, that's not much comfort.
I work in nonprofit, in a rural state. My organization was very nearly torn apart by woke trouble makers. They eventually quit, but they wreaked havoc before they left, actually destroying two colleague's careers. Before they left, they created a horrible climate of fear and distrust. It's going to take months to undo the damage. It took me way too long to stand up to them, I'm not proud of that, but better late than never.
Right now, I'm getting people at work talking about the importance of enlightenment values and classical liberalism. I'm forging alliances between conservatives, libertarians, and liberals (actual liberals, not wokesters). I'm part of my organization's DEI team, which has now become a hub of enlightenment education. We talk a lot about ideological diversity and inclusion. I'm getting other people on the leadership team engaged in these discussions. And we're educating the board of directors on the dangers that lie ahead.
We're crafting a strategy for our hiring practices (especially leadership positions), figuring out how to best identify and avoid candidates who are woke. We're not going back if we can at all help it, but it's going to take vigilance and long-term commitment.
I'm afraid I'm not going to be sticking my neck out on social media, it's just not worth it. High risk, low reward. But, everyday, I do something to advance the enlightenment agenda at work. I never miss an opportunity to organize.
We all need to educate ourselves, to be able to effectively articulate enlightenment values. We all need to organize. Especially at work.
Very well said.
"not going to be sticking my neck out on social media".
Good. They're total cesspools, and I'm grateful that I was warned off of them by friends, over a decade ago.
The folks I most respect are, those who make a point of staying clear of them.
Those who I least respect are, those NON-public figures who suck-up to them.
I take it, that public figures like Bari are sort of stuck with them.
This comment deserves gold stars and neon lights around it. You’ve condensed CRT down to its essence in the most concise and cogent way possible. Excellent job. And GOOD FOR YOU, organizing intelligently to put the ogre back in its cage and dump it in the deep blue sea.
I also agree with you that it is a waste of time and energy to feed the trolls here. We know who they are. They know where our buttons are and how to push them. Don’t take the bait, there’s nothing to be gained. Ignore them. Starve them.
You're absolutely right, there is zero benefit in feeding the trolls. It's that much less time we can spend actively organizing people who are opposed to this madness.
This discussion has really brought out the troll brigade. It seems like radical gender theory produces a special brand of zealotry.
What most concerns me is how predatory gender theory activists are. Of course, if you want to propagandize and create converts, it makes the most sense to pursue vulnerable young people.
I think the gender zealots are the most likely to engage in ruthless campaigns of reputational destruction, but I'm not sure about that. My gut sense is that people who get hooked by radical gender have a lot of personal pain that they're desperate to project onto other people, so they have a far more personal stake in orthodoxy sniffing and heretic burning. It's not just cynical deflection for them, it's deeply personal. They base their entire identify around this stuff, so any dissent is an existential threat.
From reading the first-hand accounts of former trans people, I’ve learned that within the trans community there is a status tree, with masculine trans women at the top. By this I mean trans-identified males who are attracted to women and employ bullying and coercion to satisfy their sexual needs. These are the autogynephiles (transvestites) who refer to lesbians and radical feminists as TERFS, and who use doxxing, death and rape threats, and physical intimidation to exercise good old fashioned male privilege. I believe their malevolence stems from jealousy because they are not females, and rage because females are not attracted to them, leaving them sexually frustrated. In this respect, they are similar to incels, but with a lot more social standing and power.
This isn’t the whole story, of course, but it is a significant part of it, IMO.
Wow, that's a fascinating perspective. I'd say it says a lot about the dynamics of totalitarian movements. And cults. And perhaps hormones as well.
And the irony therein is just mind blowing: it's the very epitome of toxic masculinity, perpetrated by people who identify as women, in the name of liberation from traditional gender norms. In their efforts to dismantle the gender binary, they are reproducing the crudest stereotypes contained within that model. You couldn't make that up! Perhaps the weirdest irony of all: within radical gender politics, the only legitimate arbiters of femininity are people who were born with penises. Is that not a tremendous step backwards for women? And by women, I mean actual women, aka people who menstruate.
I should clarify my own position: I'm perfectly OK with more than two genders. It seems like four is a reasonable typology: women, men, trans-women, and trans-men. An enormous amount of variation on themes can live within that simple framework. And it doesn't deny the fundamental biological reality of the vast and overwhelming majority of humanity. And it doesn't necessitate constantly having to learn new and ever more fine-grained non-sensical distinctions. The endless proliferation of gender categories is completely unworkable for any but the zealots.
I'm not OK with the ritual of everyone having to state their pronouns all the time. I believe that ritual is an admission that gender is nothing more than a cultural construct (which is rubbish), that we can't trust common sense and our own eyes and ears (if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and was born with feathers, webbed feet and a bill, it's a duck and will most likely remain a duck), and that we should all be considering changing genders as an option on a regular basis. It's stealth indoctrination.
I’m sorry. There are no such things in real life as a trans man or a trans woman. There are men. There are women. There are women who think they are men. And there are men who think they are women. The latter two categories are mentally ill. Full stop.
You've got a lot of insight into this phenomenon.
This is right on the money: "And the irony therein is just mind blowing: it's the very epitome of toxic masculinity, perpetrated by people who identify as women, in the name of liberation from traditional gender norms. In their efforts to dismantle the gender binary, they are reproducing the crudest stereotypes contained within that model. You couldn't make that up! Perhaps the weirdest irony of all: within radical gender politics, the only legitimate arbiters of femininity are people who were born with penises. Is that not a tremendous step backwards for women? And by women, I mean actual women, aka people who menstruate." I actually read somewhere that the only people who should be allowed to attach the word "vagina" to their anatomy are trans women.
I'm an old lesbian and I have about 45 years of experience dealing with this category of person. I definitely didn't come up with this analysis yesterday, or by myself.
Your gender philosophy is very charitable. I see nothing wrong with it, although personally I don't think in terms of gender, I think in terms of sex, in my case, woman. I don't have to identify as a woman, because I just am one. I'm with you on the pronoun thing. If you can't tell what my pronouns are from looking at me, we're doomed anyway.
Gender as a concept is important to some people and frankly, who cares what we call ourselves as long as we live and let live? Sounds simple and friendly, doesn't it? I truly am more than willing to respect people's pronouns and to leave them alone to do their thing, as long as they do the same for me. This is where the trouble starts, because it requires accepting that ones beliefs are opinions, and opinions vary. It's the compelled speech, the harebrained dogma and the insistence that the Emperor is wearing a beautiful suit of clothes that spoils my good mood.
My insights into this have benefited greatly from the writings of folks like Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan. I try to work out the ramifications, but I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.
I think your perspective is eminently sensible, as sex and gender are pretty well aligned for nearly all of humanity. And, live and let live is about as good as we can expect as far as shared moral frameworks in any large-scale society. It requires so little of us, aside from not being hateful and just minding our own beeswax--it's not terribly complicated or demanding as moral imperatives go!
Yes, compelled speech is a serious threat to a free society, I very much agree with you there! If someone wants me to call them by some special pronouns, I'm willing to try my best in the interest of civility, but don't expect me to get onboard your Maoist happy train and recite your religious catechisms.
I actually consider myself TERF adjacent--I may be a dude, but I also consider myself a feminist ally, and I'm really not OK with women losing the prerogative to define themselves and their reality as they see fit (by implication, I'm not OK with men losing that either). So, to the extent that I believe actual women have the right to define femininity for themselves, I'm not OK with people who are not women usurping that prerogative. I consider trans to be a gender category outside of the binary (wasn't that their goal in the first place? It's all so bloody confusing!!), so yes, I suppose I'm excluding them and I'm OK with that.
One of the most disturbing new trends is labeling gay and lesbian folks as 'trans-phobic' if they don't have any desire to date trans people. How on earth is that progress? To the extent that this trend gains currency, this ideology becomes a threat to individuals choosing their own sexual orientation without fear of persecution and harassment. That's just crazy! Accusations of being trans-phobic are way too often just another libelous attack that is used to cow people into submission. That's how the post-modern, critical theory crowd rolls: by any means necessary, with the end always justifying the means.
I've been thinking and reading a lot in trying to find the roots of all this, and there are many. Besides Critical Theory and CRT and post-modernism in academia, another root is the gradual erosion of the difference between words and violence, hurt feelings and being unjustifiably harmed. The thin edge of the wedge, I believe, was recognizing that in addition to sexual and physical abuse, there is emotional abuse, which can leave deep and lasting scars - a very reasonable and helpful understanding. But then where is the boundary between emotional abuse and disagreement, argumentation, criticism? Then the self esteem movement swept the nation - observing a correlation between good self image and success, and between poor self image and problems, there was a movement to make every child special by constantly praising them. By now that over-simplification (and misattribution of causality) has pretty much been discarded as a path to success, but the kids raised in that era are now in influential positions, and we can see the ideas manifest in woke politics now. You can't disagree with a member of a marginalized group, that would cause harm to their psyche, just as bad or worse than physically attacking them. And I know better understand why some were talking about hate speech codes (and laws in some countries) as a slippery slope; they were right. Disagreement with a political framing is labeled as "hate speech" under an elastic conception, and as xxx-phobia or xxx-ism, and it is treated as unquestionable that it causes grievous and actionable harm to a vulnerable party. So quashing it by any means necessary is just pre-emptive self defense, using violence as needed to suppress verbal violence, like books that disagree with the prevailing dogma.
It feels to me like a cancer on liberalism. And I believe that in the course of another generation, if it continues to expand and metastasize, it may be deadly to a functioning liberal democratic society. But it came from well meaning roots (which I share), not from evil intention!
So we have to stop it - without yielding to an authoritarian response from the opposition. I alternate between concern about a neo-progressive authoritarian future, and concern about a more right wing authoritarianism promoted as the only way to expunge the neo-progressive stanglehold on society.
(I have adopted the term "neo-progressivism" as a descriptive and non-perjorative handle for wokism/idenitarianism/political correctness/the successor ideology/etc.)
"just another libelous attack that is used to cow people into submission. That's how the post-modern, critical theory crowd rolls: by any means necessary...."
If liberals can't face the truth of this, the US is doomed.