Sunday, June 7, 2015

"How identity politics is tying the left into knots"

"Do women and men have different brains?... What makes a Woman?"
Back when Lawrence H. Summers was president of Harvard and suggested that they did, the reaction was swift and merciless. Pundits branded him sexist. Faculty members deemed him a troglodyte. Alumni withheld donations.

But when Bruce Jenner said much the same thing in an April interview with Diane Sawyer, he was lionized for his bravery, even for his progressivism.

“My brain is much more female than it is male,” he told her, explaining how he knew that he was transgender.
Quite a quandary. Is the feminist tent big enough for the new comers? Maybe they can reach a compromise where Caitlyn Jenner counts as 3/5 of a woman? I don't know... She can call herself a woman, but not a woman woman.

Why can't we all just get along?

27 comments:

Leland said...

That's the whole thing about the Ministry of Truth, words and concepts change in order to keep those in power in power. Caitlyn just happened, but she has to have been born that way. If she wasn't born that way, then Bruce had a mental change, which would mean his sex is psychological change, which might be treated. So he always had this different way of thinking, I guess except when he chose to compete in men's athletic events.

Similar to this, I read the Breitbart review of the Mattress Girl video. I'm not sure if it is possible for me to cheapen the term "rape" more than this girl. Rape is now watching the video of her consensual sex that she gives you consent to see, but if you don't see it the way she instructs you to see it, then it is rape by you the viewer. It's like she wants to destroy the terms consent and rape, so they are meaningless.

Aridog said...

Not being critical of your choice of posts, Lem...but for the life of me I do not understand why this Bruce/Caitlyn thing is a thing at all. The world is in flames in many places, people are dying, often just from their living conditions, and we focus on one weird dude who hung around with the Kardashians too long? If there was ever an apt use for the term "queer", Jenner is the model. And I mean "queer" in the sense of "weird" not gay....so those inclined to rant, save the rhetoric. Semantics rules.

Aridog said...

Leland ... when ole Bruce/Caitlyn, what-the-flip-ever, figures out how to remove the Y chromosome from his genetics and DNA, let me know. It'll be a scientific breakthrough! :D

I once mentioned long ago, elsewhere I think, that two kids I grew up around were so "feminine" if they'd dressed a girls no one would have noticed. Funny how they both married and had families of 4+ kids and retained their feminine traits in the process. They also succeeded in business. Just kind and gentle men, nothing to change. Now they were in fact "born that way" and back in the day, that was no big deal. Today, I just do not understand the debates about sexuality. Really. The BRuse/Caitlyn thing is absurd...nothing new but the the publicity. Which is the object IMO.

bagoh20 said...

The Jenner thing itself is, of course, nothing new. Men have been doing that for thousands of years, and occasionally it was even celebrated. What is new is the idea that celebrating it is somehow mandatory.

I am really confused about what makes the left do and say what it does. What makes them embrace obviously dishonest and corrupt people? What makes them support policy and ideas that have proven time and again to be such failures. What makes them abandon proven ideas and principles they once championed. They can be lied to, ripped off, embarrassed, made fools of, have their healthcare, or disposable income seriously compromised, see their policies destroy the very fabric of entire cities, have their basic principles laid bare as genocidal mistakes, and yet still wake up and go at it like it never happened. No self-awareness, no learning, no adjustment other than doubling down and attacking the ones who were right all along.

I give up trying to explain it. They are either evil or just plain stupid. Maybe both.

bagoh20 said...

Just one tiny example: The L.A. city council under pressure from labor unions (who basically own the place) passes a $15 minimum wage. The unions are all over the media for months telling us how evil it is to pay any less. The day after it passes the unions demand an exemption so that they can negotiate wages lower than that for their workers. This kind of thing is nothing new either.

How do you support such people without being either evil or a fool. I can't explain it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Total insanity. The second Obamacare kicked in, waivers for unions and the very insiders who pushed it.

Leland said...

celebrating it is somehow mandatory

Yes. IT's one thing to live and let live, but another to demand that Caitlyn always existed and Bruce never did. Even Wikipedia Minister's of Truth are claiming Caitlyn ran the fastest women's 400m, but I bet the same people are howling at the petition to strip Caitlyn of Bruce's medals.

The thing is, people change their names and identity often. But that change doesn't not obliterate there past. A woman puts up records in High School and College Sports, she gets married, and she decides to take her husband name; her previous records and awards remain in her maiden name. No one demands that the records change to reflect the new married name. Sure, some would note the new married woman is the same that won those previous medals in another name, but none would go back and say "she was the quickest married woman in High School and College", because none of that is true.

Yet we are to believe some woman named Caitlyn Jenner competed in the Men's Decathlon in the 1970's. It didn't happen.

Anonymous said...

With grate power comes negate responsibility

edutcher said...

When guys start looking at naked pics of Bruce (other than Titus) instead of Kate Upton, let me know.

In the meantime, he's still got that Y chromosome.

Michael Haz said...

I do not understand why this Bruce/Caitlyn thing is a thing at all

Current American pop culture demands the acceptance and glorification of all things sexual, no matter how inane, or how dangerous. Just don't allow that old, outdated notion of "right and wrong" enter the conversation, or you will be stigmatized as a hater, a bigot, a [fill in the blank]phobe not fit to engage with the rest of society.

Michael Haz said...

If you want to be considered a radical, a heretic, someone deserving or severe punishment, then stand int eh public square in any liberal city in America and read this aloud.

Methadras said...

Leftism is a contradictory power struggle of dystopian ideas.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you want to be considered a radical, a heretic, someone deserving or severe punishment, then stand in any Catholic Church in America and say something critical of the pope, the papal hierarchy, or its crazy dogmas.

Michael Haz said...

Exactly wrong. Anyone with a small level of curiosity could quickly discern that the Catholic Church has tolerance of those within and without the Church who hold a variet of opinions about dogma.

Let me fix your statement:

If you want to be considered a radical, a heretic, someone deserving or severe punishment, then stand in downtown San Francisco, or Harvard Square, or the offices of Mozilla and say something critical of same sex marriage, gender politics, abortion, euthanasia, Democrat politics, or its crazy dogmas.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So you actually think the RCC is more interested in diversity of opinion, consideration of dissenting viewpoints or a dispassionate look at objective facts than the places and people holding forth on the topics you mention?

Interesting. I'll remember that every time an RCC dogmatist defends the attempted denial of communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, the face-saving false equation of homosexuality with rampantly abusive Church pedophilia, or the assertion that souls exist in stem cells. Or even the outdated intellectual hierarchy of the church itself.

Also, let me know the last time a priest ever thanked you or someone else with whom his Boss told him to disagree for changing his mind on a hotly debated topic of the day. Also, let me know when the Church backs away from the emotional blackmail of telling people that avoiding Hell should be their chief concern and that only by following their orders can they avoid it.

Maybe liberals should just tell you that you're going to hell when you're wrong. There's a possibility you might consider rhetoric like that more convincing.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Didn't the church traditionally label people they relied upon to argue dissents against their positions "Devil's advocates"?

That should tell you everything you need to know about their intellectual self-righteousness and anti-dissent bias in a nutshell.

Michael Haz said...

You have the most remarkably closed mind of anyone on this blog. You know utterly nothing about the topic, but choose to pontificate (pun intended) regardless.

Your act has worn thin. You need to re-tool, invent yet another character, and try harder. The R&B character is worn out. It always does the same thing: drop an insult or two, pretend to know something it doesn't really know much about, insult anyone who disagrees, demean a conservatives or Republicans, and spout a progg talking point, yadda yadda.

How boring.


Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I know exactly what other Catholics who disagreed with their church's many wrong positions have told me. And what they have told me sounds like experiences that were very demeaning, as well as stifling. (Not to mention boring).

I don't do acts. I do honesty. If you chose to align yourself with people, institutions, and ideas that valued honesty, maybe you wouldn't pretend to find entertainment to be the only important value in life.

So, no. There won't be any "reinvention" here - and certainly not at your behest. But perhaps if I grew up with people and authority figures that placed greater emphasis on my identity than on my own honesty and integrity, I'd find that as easy to do as you suggest. Perhaps that sort of thing comes more easily to someone like you, even though you give the impression of being someone who has a harder time discarding bad ideas than Ronald McDonald has of changing shoes. I have a feeling the only thing about yourself you're willing to change every now and then is your underwear. Or maybe a part on your bike. Nope, you certainly don't give any hints of unpredictability there yourself, now, do you?

Leland said...

Hey Ritmo, try going into a Mosque with a picture of Mohammed. Let us know how it goes. Until you do, I'm yawning at the unicorns you conjure up.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I never denied that Muslim religious culture was as authoritarian as it gets. It's obviously the worst. I say that all the time. Granted, they're more inclined to act violently in defense of those outdated and strange beliefs, but that's probably because they're 500 years of progress, civilization and challenge behind the Judeo-Christian West. 500 years ago, the RCC was all about pulling the same violence. Yes, they've been defanged and beaten back militarily, but the intellectual and social repression's still stronger than it is among those who successfully challenged it. I just see this on more levels than you.

Like the alliance between the Vatican and Muslim countries on issues pertaining to birth control and/or women's reproductive freedom? Am I not able to criticize that? I mean, it involves Muzzie tyrants and the Vatican coming together in a repressive way, but I guess I can only criticize the Muzzies for doing that, and not their Vatican co-sponsors. Is that right? They're only wrong in the ways that they say others are wrong, I guess.

Michael Haz said...

Ho hum, Ritmo. Different day, same crap.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's just the kind of closed-minded, incurious, thoughtless response to be expected from you, Haz.

I'm glad I don't have any person or institution ready to applaud me for blindly following or spouting such a simple and unconsidered, uncreative line.

I await your instruction on how I can be a better (and apparently, more entertaining) person. Beyond just thinking less and being more right-wing. Be specific, please!

Thank you.

Hugs -

Me

Michael Haz said...

With that last comment, you have exactly proved my point. Same old same old.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Haz, is this one of the ways you'd encourage me to be more entertaining, less boring?

I'm relying on you, now. Don't let me down!

I need you to instruct me on these things. I require your guidance.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

No, but I'm new!

Look at how ENTERTAINING I can be!

It even gets approval from one of your friends and moral comrades in that very special part of Europe!

We can work this one out, Hazzie! I need your guidance, and moral instruction! Especially in the realm of entertainment!

Don't go against what your leader obviously approves of when it comes to good, decent, wholesome, family-friendly entertainment!

I saw how much he liked it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rbxov7CVi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rbxov7CVi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rbxov7CVi8

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I have a feeling Hazzie liked that even more than me and Joey did.

The only thing missing, was attire in leather biker vests (still hopefully with exposed chests!)

That would be entertaining! And the men are even GROWN! LEGAL! YEAY!!!

Haz, are you sure you don't tag along a cop, an Indian, a fireman, a cowboy and a construction worker when you go riding, merrily along the way?

You know, that's how they found out about Vito.

I'm just saying. Be careful. You don't want to royally piss off your staunchest moral leaders.

Because, hey. I'm relying on you for guidance, and you're relying on them.

It's important to keep the integrity of these chains of moral authority intact and credible.

Leland said...

I never denied that Muslim religious culture was as authoritarian as it gets.

I know you see unicorns everywhere, but I didn't suggested a denial. I'll copy and paste what I wrote again and then continue to do as it says.

Hey Ritmo, try going into a Mosque with a picture of Mohammed. Let us know how it goes. Until you do, I'm yawning at the unicorns you conjure up.