Michel Brown Sr. stands by a memorial for his son on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, MO, Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Ferguson is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 census, the population was 18,527, predominantly black. Ferguson is where BLM really took off. It’s the origin of the “hands up” meme, based on mythic circumstances. Now public safety is a concern in Ferguson because of depolicing. Residents know that the police are unlikely to pull them over, so they flaunt traffic laws, the AP tells us. But that ignores the worst of it. Crime—violent and nonviolent—is much higher after the Ferguson riots than before. Moreover, the demographic pattern is alarming. One in five residents in Ferguson is white, yet only six percent of violent crimes and four percent of property crimes were perpetrated by whites in 2022. No whites are identified as perpetrators of either homicide or robberies. One hundred percent of all homicide victims in Ferguson that year were black.
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, 2022
In 2022, using the St. Louis Post-DispatchHomicide Tracker, the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area, which includes both St. Louis City and St. Louis County, reported at least 360 homicides. This figure places the area among the highest in the United States for homicide rates. The two charts form the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer presented below, St. Louis Police Department and the St. Louis County Police Department, give the reader a sense of the drastic overrepresentation of blacks in homicide. There were a total of 231 homicide victims and 177 perpetrators that year. Whites comprise 77 percent of the population in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area, according to the 2020 census.
St. Louis Police DepartmentSt Louis County Police
Police presence is the single greatest deterrent to crime. The reason crime is up around the nation is explained in part by depolicing (see John Lott’s recent article “The Truth about the Crime Explosion,” in National Review). Public safety is a human right, so the progressive left’s influence over policing policies has made communities much less safe, especially for black people. The United States enjoyed a long period of declining crime rates after the mid-1990s. This was because of expanded police present and mass incarceration. Unfortunately, police and prisons are necessary because of the conditions of black-majority neighborhoods, the result of progressive urban policy, foremost the destruction of the black family, caused by the idling of the black proletariat and public assistance. Democrats have transformed the cities under their control into danger zones. (See America’s Crime Problem and Why Progressives are to Blame.)
From the AP story: “Brown’s death catalyzed massive change in Ferguson. In 2014, every city leader was white in the majority-Black city. Today, the mayor, police chief, city attorney and other leaders are Black. The mostly-white police force of a decade ago now has more officers that are Black than white.” One might wonder why it matters what race the mayor, police chief, city attorney, and most police officers are. The response would be that the majority of the city is black, so the government should reflect this fact. That the crime situation is so much worse now than before is not a consideration. I am not saying that whites would do a better job (if they are progressive whites, then they won’t, as the crime problem in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area attests to); I am questioning a metric of progress based on racial identity and not lower crime rates.
Before concluding this essay, note that “Black” is capitalized throughout the story whereas “white” is not. Have you noticed this trend in reporting? Look for it the next time you read a mainstream news story. I capitalize neither, since neither are proper nouns; they are racial categories. Why would AP capitalize one and not the other? Do you think there is a politics in back of this? As these organizations explain it, “Black” is capitalized to honor it as a specific cultural identity with a shared experiences, heritage, and history among people of African descent. This capitalization trend gained traction with the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter as a way to affirm the dignity and significance of Black identity. “White” is often left lowercase because it is viewed as a racial category rather than a unified cultural identity with the same shared heritage and history.
Editorial guidelines from organizations like the AP have adopted these practices to better reflect the distinct social and political meanings attached to these terms. This is what they claim. But who are organizations like the AP to determine the distinct social and political meanings attached to these terms? I teach race and ethnicity as part of my duties as a sociologist, and I have published numerous articles and essays on the topic (race relations lies at the heart of my dissertation Caste, Class, and Justice: Segregation, Accumulation, and Criminalization in the United States), and I can think of only one reason to reduce white people to a racial category and elevate black people to the status of a significant cultural identity, and that is to reify the myth of the racial hierarchy based on white supremacy and then flip it in the public minds for social justice’s sake. So, yes, it’s political.
“[T]he female category in elite sport has no raison d’être apart from the biological sex differences that lead to sex differences in performance and the gap between the top male and female athletes. The suggestion that we could choose to rationalize the category differently—for instance, on the basis of self-declared gender identity—or that we could make increasingly numerous exceptions in the interests of inclusion (as the IOC seems to have done to allow Khelif and Lin to compete in Paris) has no legs outside of certain progressive enclaves.” —Doriane Coleman, Professor of Law, Duke University, writing for Quillette.
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?” —Winston, from his diary.
“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?” From the 1984 film 1984.
Aside from the obvious truth of point Coleman is making, I am happy to see mention of “certain progressive enclaves.” One of the things the progressive left perceives about itself is that it represents a large proportion of the population. In fact, according to Pew Research, the progressive left makes up only around six percent of the public and seven percent of the electorate in the United States. They are a distinct minority of voters even if we expand the definition (there are self-described liberals who are actually progressives). Another thing the progressive left perceives about itself is its righteousness. Progressives elevate themselves to the position of moral arbiter of justice and morality—asserting as just and moral a system that contradicts the tents of Western Civilization.
Why, then, are progressive left views so amplified? How did such a small group come to make others so fearful that they keep quiet about so many things? Because left progressivism is useful to the power elite who control the sense-making institutions—the administrative state, the culture industry, the educational system, and the mass media. Left progressivism is a major piece of the corporate agenda. Why? At the heart of left progressivism is the postmodernist project to undermine common sense and obviate normal pattern recognition systems—even artificial ones. The gender detection module, essential for reproduction of the species and maintaining safeguarding norms, is the primary target for disordering; if common understanding of something so basic and natural can be disrupted, then the population will be conditioned to accept whatever the Party tells it.
The gender project is the equivalent of the demand O’Brien makes of Winston in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: the falsehood “two and two equals five.” During his struggle session in the Ministry of Love, after insisting on giving the true answer to the number of fingers O’Brien holds up, which is four, Winton finally tells O’Brien what he wants to hear. O’Brien tells Winston that this isn’t good enough. “No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?” Winston again gives the false answer. “You are a slow learner, Winston.” Broken, Winston asks O’Brien for help. “How can I help it?” He pleads. “How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two make four.” O’Brien responds, “Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
“Sometimes, Winston, a man is a woman. Sometimes a woman is a man. Sometimes an individual is both man and woman at once. Sometimes the person is neither of them. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
PBS: “Olympic boxer Imane Khelif says misconceptions about her gender ‘harms human dignity.’” Saying that the criticisms of the inclusion of males in women’s boxing is “something that harms human dignity,” Khelif said in Arabic, “I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects.” He continued: “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
(Note, I use pronouns based on gender, which is a synonym for sex. The male of our species, and every other mammalian species, is referenced in the English language using “he/him” pronouns. The demand that society use pronouns corresponding to the gender an individual prefers to be, rather than using the pronouns that refer to the person’s gender, is a project to rewire our native understanding of gender. See Manipulating Reality by Manipulating Words; Linguistic Programming: A Tool of Tyrants; Neutralizing the Gender-Detection Brain Module. There is no controversy concerning the accurate gendering of other mammals. For example, if one uses “she/her” pronouns in reference to a dog (not a bitch), the owner will likely correct you. Admittedly, I struggle a bit in these cases because it may be the case that these individuals were raised as female. I do sympathize with a person who discovered they are not the gender they thought they were.)
But the question of dignity lies in the opposite direction. Keeping males out of women’s sports may hurt their feelings, but it does not harm their dignity. However, allowing males to compete in women’s sports does harm the dignity of girls and women. You can have sympathy for individuals who suffer from a disorder, and you can accommodate them—as long as doing so does not violate the liberties and rights of others.
In the context of sex-based rights, dignity for girls and women involves recognizing and upholding our respect and their inherent worth by ensuring they live free from discrimination, exploitation, and violence. It encompasses providing them with equal access to meaningful and rewarding opportunities, while also ensuring their voices are heard and valued in decision-making processes. Upholding dignity means acknowledging the contributions of girls and women and fostering an environment where they can thrive without fear of harm or prejudice.
Angela Carini of Italy quits after just 46 seconds in her bout with Imane Khelif of Algeria
Equitable conditions are essential in this regard, as they involve recognizing and addressing the differences between females and males to achieve substantive or true equality. This means acknowledging that, while all individuals deserve equal respect and opportunities, their unique experiences and needs—shaped by biological, cultural, and social factors—require class-based approaches. Such approaches include combating gender-based discrimination and violence. By considering these differences and providing the necessary framework for securing opportunities, the dignity of girls and women is upheld by ensuring everyone has the conditions they need to thrive, reflecting both their specific circumstances and their worth as persons. (See Sacrificing Equity Upon the Altar of Exclusive Inclusivity.)
The practice of allowing males to compete against girls and women in sports violates the sex-based rights that modern societies have instituted to make sure that, in light of the vast differences between female and male bodies, girls and women enjoy equitable conditions in which they may thrive and realize their potential. Sex-segregation where it does not harm girls and women, that is where it does not impede their liberties and rights, is established to ensure that girls and women are not treated as second class citizens in a historically patriarchal world with a natural history of substantial sexual dimorphism, but as equal and full members of society.
Contrary to Khelif’s claim, criticizing the practice of allowing males to trespass upon girls’ and women’s activities is not harmful—it is not bullying—but rather it affirms the demand for and righteousness of human dignity. Indeed, to know one is male, with all the natural advantages that entails, and continue to step into the ring with females suggests an act of bullying. It is to elevate one’s own selfish interests over the collective interests of an entire class of people in a way that violates the principle of fairness in an act of physical domination. In reality, the harm Khelif claims is the harm that critique causes his argument, which is in substance that girls and women have no absolute sex-based rights, which is the argument made when the demand is that trans identifying males or males with DSD conditions should be allowed to compete against girls and women in athletic competition.
The belief that gender identity is an internal sense of one’s gender and that this supposed identity should be allowed to trump the material interests of girls and women is to assert as universal criteria the specific and suspect belief of an ideological system. Objectively, the identity of something is what that thing is in-itself not what it thinks it is (which most things have no capacity to do). Gender identity in the ideological sense is subjective and cannot meet objective criteria. Boxing is physical. It is not imaginary. Saying or believing oneself to be female does not make one female. Femaleness is not a subjective category. It is a natural or biological category. The claim that gender identity in the subjective sense entitles anybody to anything beyond tolerance is identical to the claim that because the child is Muslim, no children at the school shall eat pork.
Khelif declined to answer reporters when asked whether there were tests given other than doping tests. We know that there was. There was a test that determined that Khelif has XY chromosomes. Moreover, the DSD condition in this case, if we accept the claim that this is a DSD case (and photographs seem to indicate that Khelif was raised as a girl), is either of the type that allows for significant natural testosterone production, or androgens were given to produce or enhance male puberty.
Khelif was given an opportunity to appeal the IBA decision but dropped the appeal (the other boxer, Lin Yu-ting, never sought one). This was strategic, as both camps knew it would allow their athletes to compete in the Olympics in the women’s division (they would have never made it into the men’s division). The IOC does not test for gender eligibility (it drop genetic testing decades ago), rather accepting sex designation on passports, which is not a valid objective determination of sex for obvious reasons.
If one believes in equity and fairness, which I do, then all athletes, in addition to subjecting themselves to doping tests, must also subject themselves to tests determining whether they meet sex-based criteria for eligibility based on objective evidence, chromosome test being the most useful since, unlike hormonal tests, karyotyping determines the overall degree of physical advantage an athlete has over other athletes belonging to the specific class in which that athlete seeks to compete. Because of the myriad of advantages males enjoy over women as a class, XY karyotype is disqualifying. These individuals should never have been allowed to compete in the Olympics.
I have compassion for males who were misgendered at birth and raised as females. I have compassion for anybody with a disorder. Khelif recently asserted that he is female and that he will stay female. Perhaps he did not know he was male and it determined to now allow a test change his perception of himself. However, it is not the burden of girls and women to sacrifice their aspirations and put their health and safety at risk because of somebody else’s disorder or situation. Moreover, it violates the ethics of competition to fail to guarantee as best as can be a level playing field for athletes in light of significant group-based differences.
As a society, we have worked very hard to create opportunities for girls and women in athletic competition. We must not go backwards in this area—or any involving girls and women. Girls and women have a right to expect an equitable treatment so that they have the same opportunities as boys and men. Justice demands this.
I do this periodically to help people understand the underpinning of my standpoint. I do it because political thought today is organized by partisan ideological and propagandistic frameworks that confuse terminology and distort the relationships between ideas. The misuse of the word “liberal” to convey progressivism especially irks me, as regular readers of Freedom and Reason well know (and probably wish I would quit complaining). Depictions of populism and nationalism as indicating the presence of authoritarianism and racism are other examples of political-ideological distortions. So I feel the need to clarify matters now and again not only so people will understand me, but also so they will have a reasonable chance at entertaining ideas they may wish to take up and advance or at least defend. Moreover, I do it to clarify matters for myself: Freedom and Reason is a project of sharpening the resolution of my perception.
My political stance reflects a blend of democratic-republicanism, classical liberalism, populism, and nationalism—all hailing from what has traditionally been described as left wing. At its core, my standpoint values the principles of democratic self-governance and individual liberties, emphasizing the importance of a government that is accountable to the people but protective of individual and natural group rights. Examples of natural groups are gender (or sex) and family (child safeguarding, inheritance, and parental rights). These commitments align with classical liberal ideals of free markets, limited government, and personal freedom. These ideals wrapped in a secular humanist ethic focused on self-actualization. My populist inclinations express a desire that our institutions represent the interests and will of the people over again excessive elite and corporate influences that undermine democratic processes and individual liberty. I am skeptical of administrative rule, corporatist arrangements, and technocratic control.
Nationalism in my view emphasizes a strong sense of national identity and sovereignty, promoting policies that prioritize the nation’s interests and unity. More than this, it is the view that a people should be governed by the rule of law, with a common culture and language, in a state system with clear separation of powers—executive, judicial, and legislative—preventing the leveraging of the democratic machinery to establish tyrannies of the majority or the minority. It is in the context of a secular nation-states founded on constitutional republicanism (which avoids the problems of parliamentary democracy and technocracy) that we exist as citizens rather than serfs, slaves, or subjects. Together, these elements form a political philosophy that seeks to establish and perpetuate a system of government resistant to corporatist influences, ensuring that governance remains rooted in the values of equality, liberty, and popular sovereignty.
I often refer to myself as a Marxist. I recently wrote about this, but I want to restate my position because I know the term is off-putting. I describe myself as a Marxist in the social scientific sense, which expresses an adherence to Marx’s analytical framework for understanding societal structures and dynamics and historical development. Much like a Darwinist who uses Darwin’s theory to explain natural history, I utilize Marx’s theory to analyze class structures, economic systems, and social relations, as well as a critique of ideology, without necessarily endorsing the political regimes or policies that have historically claimed Marxism as their foundation. Indeed, I am highly critical of societies claiming to be founded on Marxist ideas, declaring that I am not a socialist in the pages of Freedom and Reason. The Marxist approach, which is sometimes referred to as the “materialist conception of history,” or just “historical materialism,” focuses on the critical examination of capitalism, the role of labor, and the interplay between economic base and superstructure in shaping society, while maintaining a distinction from the political implementations seen in places like Cuba or China.
My approach to Marxism offers a distinct advantage by allowing me to critique capitalism while also explaining its developments from a comprehensive analytical-theoretical framework. By utilizing Marx’s analytical framework, I can differentiate between a Marxist critique of capitalism and the realities of societies that claim to be Marxist, thereby critiquing both. This perspective enables me to highlight the incoherence of right-wing attributions of Marxism to corporatism and progressivism, arguing that these are manifestations of corporate statism rather than societies rooted in worker ownership and control over the means of production. This nuanced understanding allows for a more precise critique of contemporary capitalist societies and the various political and economic systems that arise within them.
Marxism in sociology focuses on the analysis of class struggles, and economic systems, and social relations, emphasizing how economic factors and material conditions shape societal structures and historical developments. In contrast, the Durkheimian framework, after Emile Durkheim, from which structural functionalism emerges, views society as a complex system of interrelated parts that work together to maintain stability and social order, emphasizing the importance of social norms, values, and institutions. Symbolic interactionism, stemming from the work of George Herbert Mead, centers on the subjective aspects of social life, focusing on how individuals create and interpret meanings through social interactions and how these meanings shape their actions and societal roles. The Weberian framework, derived from Max Weber’s theories, emphasizes the role of beliefs, ideas, and values in shaping social action and institutions, highlighting the importance of understanding the subjective meanings individuals attach to their actions and the influence of bureaucracy and rationalization in modern society.
Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud
Marx’s and Sigmund Freud’s systems are similar in that both provide comprehensive frameworks for understanding human behavior and societal structures by examining underlying, often hidden forces. I would describe myself as a Freudian thinker on psychological matters (see Erich Fromm’s 1966 Marxism, Psychoanalysis and Reality). Marx’s analysis focuses on economic structures, class relations, and material conditions as the driving forces behind societal dynamics, positing that the economic base shapes the superstructure, including culture, politics, and ideology. Freud, on the other hand, delves into the psyche, exploring how unconscious conflicts and desires influence individual behavior and mental health. Both Marx and Freud emphasize the importance of uncovering these hidden forces—economic exploitation in Marx’s case, repressed desires and unconscious conflicts in Freud’s—to achieve a deeper understanding and potential liberation. Additionally, both theories suggest that individuals are often unaware of the true sources of their behavior and suffering, whether it be false consciousness in Marxism or unconscious repression in Freudian psychoanalysis.
Fun fact: Did you know that Kamala Harris' father, Donald J Harris, was a post-Keynesian & Marxian economist? His research focused on economic inequality, uneven development & how the growth rate of an economy is fundamentally dependent on the class structure of society. pic.twitter.com/490r3uJXWi
There’s nothing wrong with this. Political economy is one of my areas of expertise in my sociology PhD. I had great professors—Asafa Jalata and William Robinson. It was definitely a Marxist program. I was appointed to my present position because of my other expertise, criminology. But my approach is a synthesis of these fields yielding the political economy of crime and punishment. Students get a lot of critical and historical economic thought in my courses, which are organized around the materialist conception of history, which is what Marx called his version of the dialectical method. Donald Harris and I work in the same tradition.
Kamala Harris was born in 1964. She and her mother and sister left her father in 1970. I don’t know how much time they spent together then or after the breakup. It doesn’t appear that Kamala knows the first thing about political economy (or much else, to be blunt about it). However, the tactic of guilt by association is truly a ratty one, in this case on two levels, the first involving the manufacture of significance about happenstance of blood relation (a child does not pick her parents), the second the presumption that one’s status as a Marxist professor is somehow untoward and disqualifying.
On this latter point, the critique of political economy is necessary to avoid ideological glorification of capitalism. Anticommunism has two purposes: first, defending individual liberty against totalitarianism (George Orwell’s cause); second, preventing the delegitimizing of capitalism by claiming that is a just and reformable system (the cause of the progressive). In the second sense, Marxism is not the economic theory of a new mode of production, but rather a critique of the capitalist mode of production. Karl Marx had very little to say about socialism and communism except to criticize those individuals and movements who identified as such.
Here is Marxist economic thought and political project in a nutshell: The dialectical process in concrete history is the working out of internal contradictions elevating the system to a higher unity by resolving contradictions while retaining the superior features of the previous productive modality. This higher unity does not eliminate all contradictions and creates contradictions of its own. This is why there is history. What Marx sought to do was develop critique-as-praxis so that the higher unity might be steered towards greater equality for the masses, who had been proletarianized with the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, with the eventual elimination of class antagonisms that had marked all previous history after primitive communism (the original state of mankind). At the philosophical level, communism was man coming home to himself, since social segmentation is the source of alienation, which involves self-estrangement, and communism is the elimination of class antagonisms.
I agree with Marx here, but because socialism has been a disaster for people, I no longer identify as a one. Moreover, communism from the Marxist standpoint, understood as a classless and stateless social organization (stateless in as much as it eliminates the oppression of the administration of people), has never existed anywhere in human history on the higher technological plane (which capitalism is rapidly raising). Marx didn’t specify communism because he eschewed utopian thinking. I am in agreement with Christopher Hitchens (Orwell’s biographer), who remained a Marxist until his death, that capitalism has more work to do before the conditions will be such that we can think about moving to a different productive modality. After all, Marx himself said that social revolutions don’t occur until the conditions are ripe for it.
Source: How Stuff Works
Marx put it this way in his 1853 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Then, in his 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, on the subject of revolutionary transformation, he writes, “In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.”
Brilliant stuff. This is the materialist conception of history. Here’s the point: “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.” Marx continues: “Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.”
In my view, corporatism is the late stage of capitalist development. But there is no way of knowing how long the end game will last. Things don’t act right when they’re dying, and we certainly see the signs of its death throes in present conditions. We’re in a period of watch and wait—and the darkness of the approaching upheaval is ominous. The global elite know this, and this is why they are steering the economy towards a global neo-feudal order where proletarians are turned into serfs and managed on high-tech estates. They seek these ends to protect their wealth and privilege.
As Michael Parenti told us, the rich has ever wanted on one thing: everything. “There’s only one thing that the ruling circles throughout history have ever wanted—all the wealth, the treasures, and the profitable returns; all the choice lands and forests and game and herds and harvests and mineral deposits and precious metals of the earth; all the productive facilities and gainful inventiveness and technologies; all the control positions of the state and other major institutions; all public supports and subsidies, privileges and immunities; all the protections of the law and none of its constraints; all of the services and comforts and luxuries and advantages of civil society with none of the taxes and none of the costs. Every ruling class in history has wanted only this-all the rewards and none of the burdens.”
Given that they control all the major institutions of modern society, and given the level of disorganization and false consciousness among the proletariat, it is most likely neofeudalism will be our fate. The promise of liberation with the unraveling of the present system will more likely be an even more profound totalitarian system (we already live under conditions of emergent inverted totalitarianism), this time on a world scale.
Orwell warning in Nineteen Eighty-Four is terrifying: “There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” It may be that we live in a cage with a degree of creature comfort to match our lowered expectations. In either case, it will be a state of unfreedom.
The three great republicans of the nineteenth century.
But I want to leave you with hope. Frederick Douglass, one of the three great republicans of the nineteenth century (the others being Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx), noted that “the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Douglass is telling us that the power and extent of tyranny is determined by the level of tolerance and endurance of the oppressed people. Put another way, tyrants can only exert as much control and oppression as the oppressed allow. Douglass’ is alerting us to the agency and potential power of the oppressed. If people who are subjected to tyranny refuse to accept their suffering and actively resist, then they can limit or perhaps even overthrow the tyrant’s power. The endurance of oppression by the people is a measure of the tyrant’s control; when the oppressed reach a breaking point and no longer endure the oppression, they can catalyze change and potentially bring an end to tyranny.
It’s a strange debate we’re having in the United States today about race. It’s as if our sense-making institutions have lost all historical memory about what it means to be black in America. That is exactly what has happened. But it is weird only because the weird ones have assumed power and taken control of the narrative. Have you seen this?
George Stephanopoulos repeatedly presses Rep. Byron Donalds on VP Harris' racial identity in heated exchange | https://t.co/iPXKAFbE8c
Growing up in the 1960s-1970s to parents who were civil rights activists, and then later becoming an expert in race and ethnic relations (my dissertation was on the subject of the political economy of race and many of my articles and courses concern the racial problematic), I learned that to be a black American meant that you were descended from Africans long ago brought to the United States (a very long time ago: the United States abolished the slave trade in 1800, the law taking effect in 1808) to serve as chattel—that “peculiar institution” Republicans abolished in the 1860s at the costs of hundreds of thousands of lives. The descendants of those Africans slaves would later by terrorized by lynch mobs (see Agency and Motive in Lynching and Genocide), and suffer under de jure segregation, abolished in the 1960s despite Democrats filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the Senate (the longest filibuster in US Senate history).
Black Americans were the focus the Civil Rights movement. Affirmative action concerned black Americans in this sense, as well. It was widely understood that an African who immigrated to the United States should not count as an affirmative action hire because the program didn’t fetishize the racial concept but the historical one. After all, race is a social construct. Indeed, Africans who legally immigrate to America typically come from affluent families. They do not descend from those who suffered at the hands of plantation owners, lynch mobs, and Jim Crow—the badges of slavery. They therefore do not need equitable adjustment.
Slaves on the plantation
The same is true of Jamaicans, a remarkably successful immigrant group (in the UK, as well). If one is from Africa or the Caribbean, he is not black in the sense that MLK, Jr., was black. Moreover, many Africans are white, either Arab or European (Elon Musk is African, for example). Being African or African American (naturalized citizens) does not necessarily mean one is black in any sense.
The question of Harris’ racial identity is not an offensive question—at least not the way older observers understand it. (Donald Trump, for example; see The Perils of Racecraft.) It is treated as such because elites don’t want you asking questions about it, and the rank-and-file are ignorant enough of history to be bamboozled. When progressives and the media say that Harris’ racial background is off limits, what they are doing is trying to prevent young people from learning about the history of blackness in America. This is how younger generations are controlled—through the socialization of thought-stopping devices (Orwell warned us about it). The older folks are intimidated by the younger folks very much like they were during Mao’s cultural revolution in the 1960s.
We witnesses the same thing with Obama. Obama’s mother was white. Obama was raised by his white grandparents. He had an African father with whom he had limited interaction. Obama was not black in the historic sense of the term. He moved himself to Chicago and joined the black church to manufacture racial authenticity because he had political aspirations and these were advanced by sporting a black identity (which is why black critics in the day referred to Obama as a “Magical Negro”). Blacks and whites were told they were bigots for suggesting Obama was “not black enough,” even those this was mostly coming from black commentators—white guilt couldn’t wait vote for the man. Elites presented Obama as black because it was politically useful. (See Progressive Hypocrisy and scroll down the paragraph about Alan Keyes.)
Harris does the same thing. When it’s useful to push her Asian ancestry, she does so (San Francisco, for example, where black-Asian relations are notoriously antagonistic). When she needs to be black, however, Harris goes to a record store and buys albums to bolster her racial bona fides (does she even have a record player?). She puts on a stereotypical black accent, which the progressives dutifully rationalize as “code switching,” which is something white people wouldn’t understand.
Who gets to define race in America? The answer to that question is obvious: progressives. They get to define everything. They’ve captured the sense making institutions. They’re the gatekeepers of identity. They and their minions (the army of college students they’ve trained up Saul Alinsky style) get to decide whether you’re a racist. They get to decide what words you can use. What jokes you can tell. They’re the brain police.
This is why a white ABC talking head, George Stephanopoulos, who was a top strategist for the 1992 Clinton campaign (in charge of “bimbo eruptions,” i.e., Clinton’s many rape victims), can scold Byron Donalds, who is for sure a black man, for questioning Harris’ racial identity. You’d think that the rule is that only a black man can ask such a question, but you’d be wrong. Only a progressive can, since a progressive, even a white one (especially a white one), has been given the power to define people as such. Remember when Biden said that if you were a black man who didn’t know whether you were voting for him or Trump then aren’t really black? He was saying the quiet part out loud. Trump is excoriated for simply noting Kamala’s pandering. Biden says black people who don’t vote him aren’t really black. Crickets.
You’re supposed to believe that questioning a person’s racial identity is racist—but only if you’re not progressive. The media shredded Rachel Dolezal for identifying as black because they will tell you who is who is not black. Dolezal is not black. Khelif is not a man. The pattern is obvious. It’s why young progressives come my Facebook profile and show their ass. They believe they alone enjoy the privilege to define things for everybody else because of their political identification. They’re smarter than everybody else not because they know anything (as you can see, they don’t) but because they are progressive. They’re like Islamists: their religion is a formula for truth. Identity = correctness and virtue. This is why you will never hear an actual argument. They don’t know the rules of reasoning because they don’t need to. Universities don’t teach these anymore anyway (I do, but who cares?).
My problem with Dolezal is not that she presents herself as a black woman despite being born to white parents, but that she didn’t descend from black slaves. Had that been the case, even if she appeared white, she could claim to be black. Not an insignificant number of blacks appear white. My students will always wonder aloud in Race and Ethnicity who those white children are in the photographs of freed slaves. It’s possible that Dolezal lived in South Africa as a child, and we know for a fact that from 2002 to 2006 her parents and siblings lived in South Africa as Christian missionaries. So she might claim to be African American in some sense (which is not the same as black). But if it’s wrong to question somebody’s racial identity, then why was Dolezal so viciously attacked? Because it’s only wrong if you’re the wrong person. It depends on who is doing the questioning and whether that person is the right person. The right person is the progressive person. (See The Strange Essentialisms of Identity Politics.)
Remember when the Marxist political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr. (a black man) was attacked for asking why Dolezal couldn’t be black and was destroyed over it but Bruce Jenner could be a woman and given awards? (See “From Jenner to Dolezal: One Trans Good, the Other Not So Much” to learn about this case.) I asked the same question and people got really mad. Richard Dawkins (a white man) asked the same thing and his humanist award was revoked (see Racecraft and Witch Hunts). “It’s not the same thing,” progressives said. Yeah? Why not? “If you don’t understand why these cases are not analogous, you’re transphobe.” Really? Why? “It’s just not.” “Bigot.” These aren’t answers. Sometimes, like a case of Tourettes, the Cluster B comes out and “Go fuck yourself.”
The question of Harris’ racial identity is relevant. Identity is not what people say about themselves but what they are. Most things in the world have no capacity to identify themselves. It’s up to objective observers to identify what the thing is according to valid criteria. The question “what is a woman?” has an answer (this is why Matt Walsh’s documentary “What is a Woman?” is so powerful). A woman is an adult female human. What does female mean? In mammals it means XX karyotypic and large gametes with corresponding reproductive anatomy. There’s a Y present? Then this is not a woman. But the person identifies as a woman. Right, and that person identifies as a lizard. That’s subjective. People think all kinds of things about themselves. Dolezal believes she is black (to this day). But, if we’re rational, we work from objective criteria. What is a black American? There is valid criteria to consult (I showed it to you earlier in this post).
A historical note: the party of the slavocracy, of the Ku Klux Klan, of the people who lynched blacks, the authorities who instituted Jim Crow—that’s the Democratic Party. The progressive movement grew out of this, as did the corporate state progressive administer. This is same party of the modern-day ghetto that engineered the destruction of the black family (over 80 percent of black children in the inner city are born in one-parent households). This is the party who underprotects black neighborhoods, and are therefore responsible for the fact, while black men make up only 6-7 percent of the US population, more than half of all murder victims are black men. Half of all murderers are black men, as well.
As for the Republicans we’re instructed to loathe? They had nothing to do with that. They don’t run blue cities. But they did do these things: they abolished slavery; they organized and administered reconstruction; they voted in overwhelming numbers of end Jim Crow (80 percent of Republican in the House and the Senate). Republicans are the choice of the vast majority of US counties. In those counties, children have fathers and grow up in safe neighborhoods.
If you hear these truths and think “racist,” then you’re a progressive—which means you’re the racist (weird, right?). What you think and say about the world is corporate state programming, which socializes racial thinking to disorganized the working class. It is successful because progressive control the sense making institutions.
People on X have been saying this thing that Trump never laughs. It’s like that thing they say about him mocking a disabled reporter. That wasn’t true. Or the thing about him saying that if he were elected people wouldn’t need to worry about voting any more. He didn’t say that. Nor did he say he would by “dictator on day one.” He never told Americans to inject bleach or drink fish tank cleaner. The “very fine people” line in South Carolina is a myth. So I shared video of him laughing because those videos exist (just like the videos of him doing the spaz routine). Rational people would say, “Oh, okay, I was wrong.” But most people who say these types of things about Trump are never be wrong, so most came back with, “It was just a chuckle, not a laugh.” I’m not going to get into why that is an absurd rationalization, and I’m not exactly sure why Trump deranges people so, but he certainly does (I think it’s because they are manipulated into being deranged by him—and they want to be deranged). However, I had one person say that my video of Trump laughing at least proves he isn’t Jesus, because Jesus never laughed.
I like unique comments, and I vaguely remembered hearing something about Jesus never laughing. So I Googled it and ran across an article by Kevin Considine, a writer for US Catholic magazine, who, in 2022, said, “There is no evidence in scripture to confirm that Jesus laughed. He gets angry, he weeps, he shows affection, he agonizes over his fate. And the Jesus depicted in Revelation definitely lacks a sense of humor.” But Considine says that’s okay because “Jesus is also God, the author of life and master of the banquet. And this is the same Messiah who has friends, goes to dinner parties, and turns water into wine at a wedding.” And there you go. You don’t have to laugh to be a mighty and good fellow. (I like Jesus, even if he wasn’t real, and, if he was real, even if he was a charlatan.)
Happy Jesus
Over on Facebook, where Christians who are also Democrats (I know conservatives don’t think that’s possible) are still determined to rationalize the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, even though they should be troubled by it (not just for producers, directors, and performers mocking their religion but for what their mocking intended), they’re sharing this thing by a Baptist preacher who wants to make sure people know that Jesus would have supper with any of the people who were involved in that obnoxious production. I have seen this thing a few times now. I don’t want to make people upset, and that’s the reason I have moderated my irreligious criticisms over the years, but I will return to form for a moment to remind readers that I am unconvinced that Jesus was an actual person, albeit I am sure that he could not have done the things attributed to him, as these things are impossible, so I have good grounds to reject any accounts of his exploits, and I don’t think if he were real he would have had supper with that crew. (It will also give me an opportunity to represent some of my essays from several years ago when my interest in the topic was more keen. See, e.g., Zoroastrianism in Second Temple Judaism and the Christian Satan.)
I do have reason to think that Paul was a historical figure, and, moreover, reason to believe that the figure of Jesus was the work of Paul for the purposes of establishing a salvation cult (see my December 2017 essay Paul: “The gospel I preach is not of human origin.”) Paul did this work thought a process known as Euhemerization, a technique where a mythological figure is worked into history to make it appear as if he were an actual man (see my December 2019 essay The Trick of Euhemerus). This is opposite of deification, where a great man is made into a god. I agree with Richard Carrier that Jesus was likely based on an entity in Jewish angelology who had roots in ancient Middle Eastern and Persian mythologies (see videos here and here). Whatever we might imagine were Jesus’ views on the spectacle we witnessed last Friday at the Olympics, and the aims of it, it is certainly the case that Paul would have identified it as an instance of God turning people against themselves as a consequence of having wandered well of the righteous path with no desire to find their way back to it. Romans 1, which Paul is widely accepted to have authored, is brutal. At the very least, it is difficult to image that Paul would have broken bread with any of the individuals on that stage on Friday night.
Again, I want to remind readers that I am an atheist. Moreover, I see gays and lesbians as deserving of the same rights that I enjoy. I hold many gay and lesbians dear in my life (I want to be careful and not out anybody) and I have my whole life advocated for their movement (see, e.g., this 2007 essay Marriage, Equal Protection, and the Separation of Church and State). I have no ulterior motive in this essay other than engaging in a moment of critique regarding progressive interpretations of the Christian faith, which are deeply flawed, and revealing of an odd denial coming from that camp. While Jesus may have been an actual person, Jesus meek and mild is not the figure one reads about in the New Testament (see Cleansing the Temple: White Colonizer Jesus vs Brown Jesus Meek and Mild). I think Nietzsche had a point when he suggested that this interpretation turned the doctrines into a slave morality. (If that wasn’t exactly his argument, I will claim it.) If I might make one last point on this, as the myth has it, Jesus did not go to his death because he was a nonviolent man. His rampage in the temple indicated the opposite. Jesus went to the cross because it was his purpose to die and give up the ghost and pour God’s love into the world. But love is not unconditional. Neither testament tells us that. Certainly God’s love is not conditional. Hell is worse than annihilation if you think about it; you wouldn’t be in hell for long before you wished for annihilation. Jesus judged. Or at least Paul did. Often quite harshly. Here’s what I mean:
Romans 1 God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity (verses 18-32):
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
That last line is particularly interesting. It’s not just those whom Christians watched blaspheme God and Son during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics who deserve death according to Paul. Remember, Leviticus 20:13 states: “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.” Paul also believes that those who approve of those who practice them are worthy of “God’s righteous decree.” I not asking Christians to get caught up in scripture per se, but to see scriptures in terms of what they consistently suggest about the faith, which is that it is heterosexist. Of course, it was written a long time ago and attitudes have changed (not everywhere, obviously). But the old and new testaments are the divinely inspired word of God, at least that’s what we’re told, and the latter submits to the person the path to salvation. Given that this is as direct a line there can be between the Christian and his savior, if the savior or his accepted mouthpiece condemns homosexuality, doesn’t the believer put himself above the authority of God’s word? The would suggest that the absolute were the product of man and that its form and content would be negotiable, or at least alterable. (As it turns out, it’s both.)
President Donald Trump recently spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, where he was asked about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The question came from ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott. Trump responded by questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial background and expressed skepticism about DEI initiatives. In watching him answer the question I kept think about the man’s biography, how he was born in 1946 in Queens, New York City, which means that he have had a ringside seat to the Civil Rights Movement, and would surely have understood that at the heart of the struggle was ending de jure racial discrimination and segregation. He would also have an older view on the question of race. In many ways that’s a good thing. Scott was born in 1993, almost thirty years after Jim Crow was overthrown. Her world is DEI.
The Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964 was passed, and subsequent programs like affirmative action designed to address the historical injustices and systemic discrimination faced by black Americans due to the legacy of chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation. These laws and policies (and court decisions, as well) aimed to dismantle legalized racial segregation and discrimination, promote equality, and create opportunities for those who had been systematically marginalized. The CRA of ’64 outlawed discrimination based on race, ended segregation in public places and places of accommodation, and banned employment discrimination. Affirmative action policies followed, aiming to correct the effects of past discrimination by providing better access to education and employment opportunities for underrepresented groups, particularly black Americans. These measures were part of a broader effort to promote racial justice and equality in the United States, recognizing the profound and lasting impact of slavery and segregation on black communities.
In contrast to affirmative action program, DEI is the environment Scott is steeped in as an employee of the super-woke Disney Corporation. DEI is a broader and more holistic approach that encompasses a wider range of initiatives and practices aimed at creating a more equitable environment for all individuals, who are seen in terms of racial and other identities. DEI goes well beyond merely addressing past discrimination to fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging within organizations and society as a whole. Obviously Trump knows what DEI means, but his philosophy does not include DEI programming as a necessary part of his business. He would not have asked for a definition of DEI per se, but rather in what way would DEI explain Kamala Harris’s career path. As is frequently the case with Trump, he found a way to give the mass media soundbite to make him look like he screwed up the answer to the question. It sounds bad, I know, especially when the curator of the interaction is MSNBC; MSNBC’s editors and producers are the masters of making Trump look bad. Here’s the propaganda version of the controversy.
What actually happened? If one practices charity, you can sort it out. Trump touched the poo because they asked him to. I will explain. It’s not fair to assume that saying somebody is a DEI hire is racist (why would it be?), not clean up the assumption, then pivot to, “Will you tell your supporters to stop calling Harris a DEI hire?” That’s not a question, that’s an ask. That’s MSNBC headline. How does one “falsely question” whether somebody is black? That’s a weird way of putting it. Race is a social construct. We conjure race into existence by talking about it and performing it (see Barbara and Karen Fields’ concept of “racecraft”). If MSNBC were charitable, and striving for some semblance of objectivity, would they have reported, in an attempt to answer whether Harris was a DEI hire, clarification for which Trump sought but did not enjoy, the possibility that the President assumed the answer might depend on her ethnic and racial identity. Because it does.
Putting racial classification to one side (that’s the poo), if the ethnicity question were to be answered in any concrete way, it would require determination of ancestry. As Richard Lewontin famously noted, people confuse race for ancestry. While race is a social construct, ancestry is genetically and geographically determined (unless you’re a race realist, in which case they are the same things). A person can think anything about herself, but to whom she is born is a material fact. (Ask Rachel Dolezal.) Unlike race, which is typically associated with phenotypic characteristics, ethnicity refers to a category of people who identify with each other based on shared ancestral, cultural, historical, or social characteristics. This often includes common language, heritage, religion, and traditions. Because humans are culture bearers, they take their culture with them when they move. The culture into which they move modifies their ethnicity as they become assimilated to the new society.
Harris was born in 1964 to a mother of South Asian ancestry (Shyamala Gopalan is a Tamil Indian immigrant, naturalized in America, therefore Asian America) and a father of Afro-Caribbean ancestry (Donald Harris was descended from the white slaveowner Hamilton Brown, who was of Irish descent). Since she was born in America, and neither parent is African, she is not African American. To be African American you have to have been born in Africa, immigrate to the America, and become a naturalized citizen. (An example of a prominent African American is Elon Musk.) What is more, I understand that Harris’ mother is listed as “Caucasian” on Kamala’s birth certificate. How did this happen? Because Indians are, according to racial theory (and factor analysis of the geographic distribution of phenotypic traits suggests this conclusion), Caucasian. (So are Arabs and Persians, by the way). It was 1964, so the physical anthropological classification system was still used in many places.
As noted above, historically, discrimination in America after the CRA of ’64 (affirmative action, DEI), has been focused on addressing the situation of blacks primarily (which would include Hispanic blacks). So, Trump’s response, while obnoxious in isolation and always perilous for a white man, was really an in-artful way of trying to get clarification on what being a DEI hire means in Harris’ case, since he presumed it would depend on whether she was Indian or black, and whether she identifies as either depends on her campaign strategy. Contrary to what the corporate media are saying, there is a record of Harris using one or the other ethnic identity at different times. The question is whether Harris is black is a historical question concerning whether Harris is descended from those of African descent enslaved in the United States. I understand that the word “black” does not appear on Harris’ birth certificate.
We are almost ready to answer the question that worked as the assumption in the reporter’s confrontational ask (it was also a loaded question). Harris is not a DEI hire unless we presume that her Indian and Jamaican heritage puts her in a historically marginalized group in America. The fact that Indians and Jamaicans do very well in the United States (and in the United Kingdom) suggests they are not marginalized communities. Therefore it would follow that if Harris were a DEI hire it would be based on an assumption about her identity. Biden did say he was going to choose a black woman for Vice-President (and for the Supreme Court).
Trump’s problem is that navigating this minefield requires expertise in the areas of anthropology, natural history, and sociology that Trump doesn’t have or is even interested in having. I teach the sociology of race and ethnicity, so I know how difficult this subject can be. The best Trump could have done with the question is to say, “Others are free to say what they say. What I will say is that Republican Party believes in hiring and promoting people based on accomplishment, hard work, initiative, and talents, not on the basis of their racial or ethnic identity.” If you hear that in your head in his voice, it’s a solid response. He would then be standing on principle that he knows some in the room disagree with, but it is still principle. He also gets a message out—if the media reports it. Instead he entered the minefield with no metal detectors. And he stepped in the poo.
Trump likely will have no do-over here. The corporate state media won’t allow it. They thought they got him this time (time will tell), but the moment seems to be fading the more people see that the audience was really enjoying themselves and when the entire thing is watched, one can see how antagonistic the ABC reporter was the Trump. What Trump might have considered doing in the moment, which I suggested at the time, was apologizing—something like, “I was a tired and irritable yesterday and I provided less than an optimal answer to a question put to me, and I regret that. What I should have said was that the Republican Party believes in hiring and promoting people based on accomplishment, hard work, initiative, and talents, not on the basis of their racial or ethnic identity. In America everybody is created equal and enjoys equality under the law. If there is evidence that Harris was hired or promoted on the basis of ethnicity or race, then she is a DEI hire.” This is why he wanted the reporter to define DEI. Responding by simply identifying the terms the acronym stands for is not defining anything. But this is what she did (the clip in context):
MUST WATCH: This clip shows what was probably Trump’s single most unhinged, outrageous, rude and openly racist exchange with a reporter at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. 👀 pic.twitter.com/H7MSSqfUW7
Is this bad for Trump? Yes, mainly because the corporate state media is crucifying him for it and they control the narrative. Racial thinking lies at the heart of the tribal logic of progressivism; there is no charity to be found among journalists, editors, and producers when it comes to Trump, a rich white man. They wait to pounce on the things he says, wrench them out of context, and lay them in the worst light. This is why he should not have accept an invitation to speak at this event (there are other more charitable black audiences he can speak to) and he should probably not debate Kamala Harris, although Fox News has extended an invitation to debate on their network, which Trump has accepted. (How is that is not a losing proposition?) At the same time, as the moment fades into the past, it almost provides a sort of stress inoculation, where the average viewer just expects these Trumpism and begins to focus more on policy and who Harris really is.
We heard calls for Trump to drop out of the race. That is the last thing that should happen. Here’s why. A Kamala Harris presidency will be disastrous for America in much the same way Hillary Clinton would have been disastrous for America. I voted for Clinton in the 2008 primaries in an attempt to deprive Obama of that primary win. This was before Clinton became Secretary of State and I got to see how truly sociopathic she is. At one point during her tenure, I turned to my wife and said, you remember Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, where Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma with psychic abilities—he can touch objects or people and see into their past or future—and he shakes hands with Greg Stillson, an ambitious politician campaigning for a seat in the US House of Representatives, and foresees Stillson instigating a nuclear war? (She said, “No.”) Well, Clinton is the real world Stillson. While Harris brings that authoritarian vibe, she possesses nothing like Clinton’s intellect (which is surprising given that Harris’ mother was a professional scientist and father a professional economist, both with PhDs and university posts). Trump did the nation a great service in 2016 defeating Clinton. And he needs to do the same in 2024. If Trump were to drop out, Harris would win, and America would be in a world of poo. But he doesn’t look like he is. After all, he took a bullet and stood up and rallied the crowd. This dude ain’t quitting.
(Note: I didn’t elaborate the justice question in remarks I first made on Facebook and then adapted to Freedom and Reason in The Ubiquity of Fallacious Reasoning on the Progressive Left, because I was focused on explaining the widespread problem of fallacious thinking among progressives. I am an educator and reflexively see teachable moments. In one thread on Facebook, for example, I applied the Socratic method to bring participants to enlightenment. Unfortunately, this was perceived as manipulative. This is the problem that often lies behind the unwillingness of progressives to participate in rational discussion: progressives (especially the youth) cling to an ideology that privileges artificially constructed classes of sexual minorities over women’s rights, which are organic and rooted in natural history. Readers might consider the present essay as Part Two of Thursday’s essay, although it carries its own title.)
The term “equity” is often misunderstood—or misrepresented, particularly in political discourse. Conservatives, and some progressives (Kamala Harris, for example, who just secured the requisite delegates to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President), tell us that equity is striving for “equality of outcome.” But the actual meaning of the term concerns practices aimed at providing individuals with the opportunities and resources they need to reach their potential, considering their circumstances and the differences between individuals. This is something quite different from seeking equality of outcomes.
Equity involves recognizing that people face different barriers and have different advantages and needs. Equitable practices encompass targeted intervention, policies, and support designed to address those inequalities and provide opportunities tailored to individual and group differences. Equitable policies and practices are an attempt to level the playing field to ensure everyone has a fair chance at participation and success. Crucially, equity doesn’t guarantee participation and success; it attempts to clear the barriers that prevent participation and success. Individuals still need to possess the talents and take the initiative to seek and win success. These are the ethics that propel progress.
The establishment of sex-based rights is arguably the most significant instantiation of equity in this sense. The emergence of sex-based rights in Western society has deep historical roots, beginning with early feminist struggles and the honing of rational scientific thought in the Enlightenment era. The emergence of sex-based rights in America can be traced back to the early feminist movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited sex-based discrimination in education and sports, is the relevant advance for the present discussion. The struggle for equity-based equality more broadly addressed issues such as gender-based violence and reproductive rights violence.
By acknowledging the distinct and profound differences and needs between males and females, sex-based rights aim to ensure equal opportunities and fair treatment for both sexes. Sex-based rights address various areas where females and males different challenges or disadvantages, such as in education, health, and in the workplace. Sex-based rights are also crucial to the need to protect women from violence, of which males are overwhelming the perpetrators. In the United States, for example, more than three-quarters of criminal violence is committed by males; nearly half of the victims of criminal violence are women. For rape, man are perpetrators in nearly 95 percent of offenses, with women representing 90 percent of victims. By implementing policies and protections that specifically consider these differences, such sex-segregated spaces (bathrooms, dressing rooms, locker rooms, prisons, rape and domestic violence shelters) societies can work towards creating conditions where both men and women may be safe and achieve their potential.
FBI 2022
Inclusion is the practice of ensuring that individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities are respected, supported, and welcomed in a community or an organization. It involves creating an environment where everyone feels valued and has equal access to opportunities and resources, regardless of their individual or group characteristics, which requires addressing systemic barriers. Conflicts arise between the progressive doctrine of inclusion and the principle of equity, particularly when individual differences intersect with group or class-based differences.
This tension becomes especially pronounced in the case of gender. For example, allowing male athletes to compete in women’s sports conflicts with the equity principle of ensuring a level playing field for girls and women who face natural disadvantages in durability, endurance, speed, and strength. Indeed, sex-segregation in sports was instituted not only as an instantiation of equity but as a form inclusion: without sports of their own, girls and women could not participate in sports given the vast natural differences between female and male genders. Thus allowing males to compete in women’s sports is an expression of what I am calling “exclusive inclusivity” because it logically ends in women being unable to compete on a level playing field—and because it excludes all males the opportunity to compete against women (a point I will address towards the end of this essay).
Imane Khelif punches Angela Carini during the Women’s 66kg preliminary round match on day six of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
The day before yesterday, in The Ubiquity of Fallacious Reasoning on the Progressive Left I took some time to explain why DSD, or disorders of sexual development (some prefer to say “differences in sexual development”) does not change the argument concerning males in women’s sports. Noting that male athletes in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics have DSD is irrelevant to the problem. To be sure, a male with DSD did not choose to identify as a female as is the case with gender identity, but the DSD male is still a male. He has XY chromosomes and how feminine appeared his reproductive anatomy appears, an XY male with a disorder of sex development (DSD) can never have functioning female gametes (oocytes), which is the universal definition of sex. As I noted in that essay, the appeal to DSD is fallacious thinking, and these informal fallacies occur because either people don’t understand the rules of argumentation (and arrogantly refuse to learn them) or they eschew the rules because doing might would compel them to form the actual argument that refutes their position. Determined to sacrifice equity upon the altar of inclusion, they cannot form such an argument when they also wish to appear committed to science.
At the core of the desire to include males in women’s activities and spaces is a very dark force that I will come to, but before I do, I need to state the obvious: allowing males to compete in women’s sports negates sex-based rights in the most blatant way possible. It undermines an entire class of athletes—disregarding their aspirations, talents, and training—for the sake of a small number of individuals who either identify as the gender they are not nor can ever be or whose sex was misidentified at birth.
At Friday’s press conference, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said, “What I would urge is that we try to take the culture war out of this and actually address the issues and think about the individuals and the people concerned.” Here is asking us to think of the male athletes. “Let’s be very clear here. We are talking about women’s boxing,” Bach said Saturday morning. Indeed. “We have two boxers who were born as woman [sic], been raised as woman, who have passports as a woman, and who have competed for many years as woman. This is legally the definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.” But this is not the scientific definition of a woman. A woman is an adult female human. These are males. The law is irrelevant here. There are many fictions in law. Resort to citing passports is a red herring (same with birth certificates, drivers licenses, etc.). Passports and other personal documents don’t determine sex. Nature determines. Do a cheek swab and get back to us.
USA’s Nikki Hiltz, a female who identifies as the nonsensical gender identity “nonbinary,” but is competing in the women’s class because she couldn’t qualify for a male team, weighed in on the controversy in an Instagram story Friday. She said that “transphobia” (this term is used to smear those who reject the demand to affirm delusional thinking) is “going crazy.” She continued: “Anti-trans rhetoric is anti-woman. These people aren’t ‘protecting women’s sports,’ they are enforcing rigid gender norms and anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into those norms is targeted and vilified.” This is interesting considering what Hiltz said to Runner’s World in June 2023: “Going to the Olympics is such a dream of mine. But it’s also such a dream of mine to take testosterone or grow facial hair or have top surgery, and so I think sometimes I can really resent this sport.” How is taking testosterone, growing facial hair, and having your breasts removed not anti-woman? Hiltz literally wants to go to war with her female body.
Those who work from a conception of inclusion decoupled from equity, this conception an article of faith of the woke neoreligion, tell us that it is unjust to exclude a male from participating in girls and women’s sports because he has been raised a female. They believe—and they must believe this—that it is the responsibility of female athletes to accommodate males with DSD because they were born “ciswomen.” They believe also that it is right for an athletic organization to assume for female athletes the responsibility for and the risk involved with male inclusion in women’s sports. But the role of athletic organizations is to ensure fair competition—which is why, as explained above, sex-segregated sports exists in the first place, an establishment rooted in the ethic of equity, which is in turn based objective sex differences, again rooted in natural history—and to protect the health and safety of all athletes.
Allowing males to compete in female sports, whether those males identify as women or were misgendered at birth, violates the requirement to ensure fair and safe competition, thus treating women inequitably and puts them as risk of harm beyond the dangers already accepted by the sport. It strips women of their right to equitable treatment for the sake of an arbitrary doctrine in what is an ideological standpoint held by a minority but would be unjust even if the majority agreed with the minority. It means that the purpose of equity, which is the inclusion of girls and women in sports, is negated for a conception of inclusion that rests on no valid justice principle, unless one believes it is just for an entire class of human to sacrificed to the needs of a handful of individuals who objectively belong to the other class of humans. And since nobody who makes the argument for “trans” or “intersex” inclusion also agrees that sex-segregation in sports should be abolished—at least nobody I have been arguing with does. Indeed, their arguments are often prefaced with, “I agree that it is unfair for men to compete against women in athletics.” Disclaimer conceals the dark truth of their politics.
This is one of the many problems with DEI. Equity and inclusion are contradictory principles in DEI schemes, with the former potentially grounded in objective fact (but often not in practice as imagined communities are included in the programming) while the latter is a quasi-religious doctrine when asserted beyond material human need. Sex-segregated activities and spaces exist so women can compete on a level-playing field. Because our species is sexually dimorphic, the result of natural history, males and females are not the same. They are different classes, and it is unfair to pit different classes against each other in athletic competition. Therefore, any valid ethic of inclusion would defend equitable arrangements.
The charitable interpretation is that inclusion in the progressive sense demands allowing males into female sports because of a misplaced humanitarian compassion for the individual presumed either to suffer from “gender identity disorder” (recently recoded as “gender dysphoria”) or who suffers from a disorder of sexual development. Humanitarian compassion is misplaced precisely because it includes an individual from another class (even if we grant these individuals class status) at the expense of an entire other (materially indisputable) class, i.e., females, who are an objective and scientifically determinable category to make certain males feel included. But what about girls and women? When the interests and safety of girls and women are sacrificed for the sake of men this is misogyny. To develop policies and practices that violate sex-based rights is an expression of misogyny. In the field of combat sports, it is the most overt form of misogyny. Put bluntly, those who defend the IOC’s inclusion of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting in the Paris 2024 Games, endorse male violence against women.
This is the problem with progressive version of social justice (one of them anyway): it fetishes sexual identity for males—trans identifying, and intersex males are a sacred totem in realm of the woke progressivism—and then seeks to compel an entire class of humans to suffer on account of their religion. It is analogous to the demand that a population observe the rules of Islam; because Muslims don’t eat pork, nobody eats pork. In the case of trans or intersex inclusion, it is an expression of patriarchy desire. Because, as an article of faith, women are those who say they are—including men. Men get to define what a woman is, not science. Indeed, if those advocating for males in women’s sports were honest, they would advocate for the deconstruction of sex-based rights altogether. At present, the exceptions are just rationalizations. The distinction being made in this case is arbitrary. If it is wrong for athletics to exclude males from competition in women’s sports, then why are any males excluded from competing against women? Because they don’t identify as such or because they don’t suffer from a medical condition? That’s discriminatory. One must accept the fiction that trans women are women or that a male with genitalia resembling that of women are women for the scheme to work.
Accommodation is important in creating equitable situations. That’s another form of inclusion that doesn’t violate fairness. If a person has no legs, then wheelchair ramps are installed to make it possible for the individual to enter a building and do his business. This is inclusive equity. But the person with no legs is not entitled to be fitted with mechanical ones that allow him to compete against those with legs in athletic competition. How shall such a situation be managed to ensure fairness? His mechanical legs give him advantage. Do we adjust the device, so he won’t run so fast. How do we determine the metrics for standard limitations? Will it be set at the fastest time? Anything less than that would guarantee that he will lose to the person who is faster. And the upward adjustment will always guarantee that he is the fastest. Should set it at the average? Then he will never win. Should we handicap all the other runners (shades of Harrison Bergeron)?
Citing the importance of inclusivity, Oscar Pistorius, a South African sprinter, who had both of his legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old (he was both with fibular hemimelia, was allowed to compete in in the 2012 Olympic Games using carbon-fiber prosthetic limbs, known as “blades,” which produced remarkable speed and agility (predictably, the press nicknamed him “Blade Runner”). He became the first double-amputee to participate in the Olympics, running in the 400 meters and the 4×400 meters relay. His unfair advantage did not go unnoticed, and his inclusion sparked debates about the fairness of using prosthetic limbs in competition. The fact that he did not win any medals does not change the judgment I am coming to. What if he were to experiment with different composite materials to improve his speed? We won’t have an answer to that question because in 2013 was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, convicted and subsequently found guilty of murder, resulting in a lengthy prison sentence, of which he served nine years and is now living under strict parole conditions at his uncle’s home in Pretoria, South Africa. The unfortunate reality is that his personal circumstances should have excluded Pistorius from participation, and the fact that he did not win any medals doesn’t change that judgment. The rebuttal “Who is to say his blades should be treated as artificial?” asks us to deny the fact that they are artificial—just as queer theory asks us to deny that trans identities are simulations.
Women will never be linebackers in the NFL. In that case, no rule is necessary to keep them from trying because women could never compete at that level. This is the same reality that compels Hiltz to compete against other women. We might consider allowing women to take performance enhancing drugs to match male bodies, but then we’re comprising their health and safety—and compelling them to modify their bodies for men. We don’t even want to incentivize that. Moreover, it is doping. Males will on average always have numerous physical advantages over women. In boxing, a man and a woman at the same weight are not the same. The distribution of fat and muscle on a145lbs man is different from the distribution of fat and muscle on a145lbs woman. As I write in Misogyny Resurgent:
“Physiologically, males tend to have greater muscle mass and a higher percentage of lean body tissue compared to females, who generally have a higher percentage of body fat. This difference in musculature is evident in attributes like upper body strength and punching power, where males typically outperform females. The enhanced musculature in males is linked to higher levels of testosterone, which promotes muscle growth and strength. However, the differences are not reducible to testosterone. Skeletal differences between males and females are pronounced. Males usually have larger and denser bones, contributing to greater overall body strength and support for larger muscles. The male pelvis is narrower and more robust, designed to support heavier loads and facilitate bipedal locomotion. In contrast, the female pelvis is wider and more adapted for childbirth. The center of gravity is different. Facial structural differences are another area of sexual dimorphism, with males generally exhibiting more pronounced brow ridges, a squarer jawline, and larger cheekbones. Again, these features are thought to be associated with greater levels of testosterone during puberty, which influence bone growth and facial morphology.”
Sex-based rights recognize and respect the inherent differences between the sexes, aiming to create a form of equity that acknowledges these distinctions while ensuring fair treatment and opportunities for all. This approach acknowledges that men and women, as a matter of natural history, the objective basis for human rights, are different. Maternity leave policies recognize the unique role of women in childbirth and early child-rearing, providing support that helps balance career and family responsibilities. Similarly, measures against gender-based violence recognize the higher rates of such violence against women and aim to offer specific protections and support systems. By focusing on the unique experiences and requirements of each sex, sex-based rights strive to create a more equitable society where both men and women can achieve their full potential without being disadvantaged by their biological differences.
The view that sex-based rights recognize differences between the sexes and aim to create equity aligns most closely with liberal feminism and difference feminism. Liberal feminism emphasizes the importance of equal rights and opportunities, advocating for legal and policy reforms that address the unique challenges and needs women face, such as reproductive rights and workplace equality. Difference feminism explicitly acknowledges and values the differences between men and women, arguing that these differences should be respected and accommodated within societal structures. This perspective supports the idea that true equality requires differential treatment to ensure that both genders can thrive, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Both forms of feminism share a commitment to fairness and justice, but difference feminism particularly highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing the distinct experiences and contributions of women. When asked what my brand of feminism is, it is this. It always has been.
Is progressivism really even a leftwing standpoint given that it is organic and functional to corporate state power? We will come back to that on another day. Today I want to talk about the problem of informal fallacies, which are being perpetrated in comments to my posts They are murdering reason. I hate to call out folks on this but I think everybody will benefit from understanding the problem of fallacious reasoning given that this style is rampant on the woke progressive side and I want to arm comrades with the technical weapons of reason so they can effective push back against the madness. My critique concerns many people beyond my Facebook threads. So this essay is an expanded version of comments I already made on Facebook.
I want to assure people that fallacious reasoning in many of these case is not because of any intellectual deficits by those engaging in it, but is the consequence of trying to defend irrational beliefs and a perverted sense of justice. Progressives work from party ideology and tribal affiliation and not from reason. Ideology and tribal thinking disorder cognition. People align their arguments with irrational doctrine rather than striving for clear and independent reason. Woke is a neoreligion, and, as I have explained, it comes with all the problems of the old religions, except in the woke case, there’s an additional problem: the claims of queer theory are falsifiable. That these demonstrably false claims continue to prevail in our sense-making institutions is proof of ideological-political capture. This capture is not benign, since policies are generated on the doctrines.
Which is precisely what we have in front of us in the current moment. Today, an Algerian named Imane Khelif dispatched Italy’s Angela Carini in less than a minute in the women’s welterweight preliminary boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, held in Paris, France. Carini’s coach, Emanuele Renzini, said she was warned by many not to fight Khelif, who was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships due to failed gender eligibility tests (he has XY chromosomes). “Many people in Italy tried to call and tell her: ‘Don’t go please: it’s a man, it’s dangerous for you,” Renzini told reporters. Afterwards, Carini said through her tears that she had “never taken a punch like that.”
Algeria’s Imane Khelif, right, defeated, Italy’s Angela Carini in their women’s 66kg preliminary boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics on, Aug. 1, 2024, in Paris, France.
We say a fallacy is “informal” when it arises from the content and context of the argument rather than any structural flaw in logical form. Here’s the form of the fallacy: A person says that “trans identifying” male athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. The rebuttal is that the athlete is, allegedly, a DSD case. DSD is the acronym for ‘disorders of sexual development,” a legit scientific construct. The trick being played here is that DSD cases in women’s sports represent something other than a male identifying as a female. It is an irrelevant point, since DSD males enjoy the same advantages as other males because they are in fact males. You can plainly see in the side-by-side comparison that the athlete who punched the woman in the face today at the Olympics, forcing her to quit in the first minute, is male and in fact tested XY, which is the male karyotype.
The terminology of whether some Olympic athlete is "cis" or "trans" is irrelevant, as these are ideological terms that refer to whether a person's "gender identity" (a pseudoscientific term) aligns or does not align with their "sex assigned at birth."
(If it were the case that this was an XX karyotype who went through male puberty, many of those same advantages would accrue, in which case it would be analogous the doping scandals of the 1970s and 1980s. See Misogyny Resurgent: Atavistic Expressions of a Neoreligion.)
The rebuttal involves a misunderstanding or mischaracterization (which may or may not be intentional) of the original argument and commits an informal fallacy. In this case, the original argument is that male athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. The rebuttal that the athlete in question is a DSD case introduces an irrelevant issue. This misdirection can thus be classified as a “red herring fallacy,” where the rebuttal diverts attention from the operative point by bringing up a different topic. This could also be seen as an irrelevant conclusion (ignoratio elenchi), where the rebuttal fails to address the operative point directly. The rebutter thinks this is a gotcha moment, but this just shows a lack of understanding of the rules of rational argument. Again, entirely expected from those who hold irrational beliefs and don’t care to, or are incapable of doing so, change those beliefs because of ideological commitment and tribal affiliation. Moreover, the rebutter has perpetrated a “straw man fallacy” if the s/he misrepresents the original argument by focusing on an exceptional case. It seems obvious to me that this is also going on, since my posts come in the context of an ongoing critique with a very clear operative point, which is a defense of sex-based rights.
At the risk of sounding immodest, nobody ever attempts to rebut my actual argument. There’s a simple reason for this, at least in this case: there is no rational rebuttal. So, instead, they engage in sophistry, smears to turn people against me (as if I were a bigot), and petitions to have me fired from my job. I am not expressing a persecution complex. I didn’t ask for NBC to run a hit piece on me. And when I was asked to fuel the manufactured controversy, I declined to participate.
We see more sophistry in the criticisms of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, that the critics are wrong because the subject was not (allegedly) really “The Last Supper” but a representation of the Feast of Dionysus. And upon learning that it was “The Last Supper” after all, the fact they made such a big deal about is ignored or rationalized. Here, the argument aims to correct a factual misunderstanding about the ceremony’s subject matter. But this correction commits the straw man fallacy since the original criticisms concerns broader issues of artistic direction, cultural insensitivity, and political-ideological capture. The straw man fallacy is rampant on the progressive left. By focusing only on an alleged misunderstanding of the subject matter, the rebutter misrepresents the broader concerns expressed, thus attacking a weaker version of the argument and avoiding addressing the actual point. This case also involves a red herring fallacy because the “correction” about the Feast of Dionysus diverts attention from the core criticisms of the ceremony. If the main issues raised by the critics is not addressed by the factual correction, the rebuttal becomes a distraction rather than an actual rebuttal. (Moreover, it’s also paradoxical given that postmodernists argue that the intent of the performance doesn’t matter. What matters is how the audience receives the point. That’s the deal with deconstruction and poststructuralism. The work doesn’t belong to the author. It belongs to the audience.)
Here’s what’s going on. Those who raise these objections support the inclusion of male athletes in girl’s and women’s sports—and in other activities and spaces exclusive to women. They will vote for the political party that develops, interprets, and implements laws and politics that have made this a reality. But they don’t want to say that directly because they have enough awareness to hear how misogynistic that sounds. And that’s because it is misogynistic. So they resort to magical thinking and the art of rhetorical bamboozle. They say that these males as “trans,” as if that changes anything. That’s the alchemy I talk about all the time. It’s the belief that magical incantations change—and that simulations can stand in for—realities. It’s the woke religion’s version of transubstantiation. It confuses simulacra with the things the simulacra attempt to represent. When it is pointed out that what is presented as reality is simulation, they get mad, like the magician whose tricks are exposed—or the faith healer found with a receiver in his ear, his wife in the back with a transmitter and a stack of prayer request cards. The trans activities and their allies will pivot under stress and say that the males are DSD, as if the myth of the gender chimera (the hermaphrodite, which they try to make you stop from saying because it’s insulting even though it doesn’t exist anywhere in mammal world) changes the terms of reality of the gender binary (which is dimorphic and immutable).
The belief that men are women and should be treated as such compromises another political commitment: the profession of women’s rights. To say that males should have access to the gender-exclusive activities and spaces of girls and women is to abandon sex-based rights, the core of the feminism. Since one cannot simultaneously be committed to women’s rights and support the violation of those rights by inclusion of males in women’s activities and spaces, the resort to fallacious reasoning Orwell calls “doublethink,” the attempt to hold two contradictory positions in one’s head simultaneously, becomes required, and is sustained in this case because that’s what the Party and the tribe demand.
We see the same catalog of informal fallacies in the controversy surrounding the opening ceremonies (see Supper in the Spectacular Café; Apollo is Crucified and Butch Dines on Dionysus; The Paris Olympics and the War on Western Culture). Here, it was obvious that Dionysus made his appearance at “The Last Supper.” Those who say it wasn’t a sendup of da Vinci scene are committing the red herring fallacy because they need to divert attention from the point of the performance: the subversion “The Last Supper” by the introduction of Dionysus, the Greek god of debauchery and transgression, which is central to queer praxis—by its own lights. This is how gay burlesque became coopted by movement acts and emblematic of queer praxis, and why the targets of this praxis are children and their virtue-signaling parents—and why you will be accused of a made-up offense (“transphobia”) if you simply point that out even while they tell you that’s the point of it all. (This ideology is full of made-up words. “Cis gender” is one of the more obnoxious ones. “But, Andy, all words are made up.” yeah, but not all the things they refer are.)
Knowing that the performance was an instantiation of queer praxis, the desire to distract the public from the point of the performance was guaranteed. And because progressives think they’re the smartest people in room (the superciliousness of this bunch is truly obnoxious), they have to condescend to the mouth breathers out in MAGA land by telling them all about the Feast of Dionysus, as if an orgiastic pagan ritual promoting unbridled sexual ecstasy should concern no one. “Oh, Andy, it was so tame.” Of course it was tame. How could it have televised if it planned to go any further? It’s the Olympics, not PornHub. The point is to reach the audience—and then shame them when they predictably react to what is plainly before them. There’s a word for this that I left out of my Facebook post because I am think ice with that censorious organization. That word is grooming.
Perhaps, the ideological capture of our sense making institutions could not be better illustrated that a propaganda piece literally making sex-based rights a Nazi project in the August issue of The Nation asking, “Why There Are No Trans Women Competing at the Paris Games?” Among others, the magazine spoke with Travers (apparently just Travers), an associate professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University, said that, to quote the magazine’s summary of their views (pronouns “them/they”): “the rules governing male and female sports do more than marginalize trans girls and women at all levels of sports, from elementary school to the Olympics. They also feed a far greater right-wing current in the United States and around the world. Trans athletes are their stalking horse, but their goals extend well beyond that.”
“Female eligibility policies delegitimize trans identities, but that’s not all,” Travers told The Nation. “They have also become instruments to mobilize conservative and fascist movements both in the United States and across the globe. This is part of a process where they are using state power to eliminate all obstacles to the operation of racial capitalism and target people who are racialized, poor, disabled, LGBT, and undocumented.” Travers continues: “In the United States, this is taking the form of eliminating legal protections for all marginalized people as well as the transformation of educational institutions to eradicate critical content, the maintenance of horrific border and immigration systems, and the prioritization of the needs of capital over climate change.”
I would ask Travis if the fascists are in their room right now. They are but I don’t want to commit the ad hominem fallacy. Let us just say that what they said is delusional. But, seriously, this is a what passes for a professor as Simon Fraser? (Please don’t write the administration there and complain. Academic freedom is under enough fire without everybody participating in cancel culture. I am not doxxing this person. It’s in the pages of The Nation. And there are several other media outlets pumping out the same garbage.)
I fear that the madness Travis expresses above, to which progressives will nod their heads in agreement, is not something we can deal with on an intellectual basis. How could you persuade somebody who believes so adamantly that female eligibility policies delegitimize trans identities and therefore the norms safeguarding sex-based rights should be dismantled so men who want to be women can trample upon them? If at my worst I expressed similar sentiments (I have an essay coming on my previous beliefs about the matter of gender ideology), the way out for me was not others talking me out my position. I found my way out of the morass by redoubling my efforts at cogitating on the basis of reason, which means that the spark of enlightenment was still burning inside me. As the saying goes, you cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reason himself into. Moreover, the incentive and disciplinary structures are such that they induce people into believing the most irrational things, which entrenches the problem, since the unreasonable man may never hear the arguments that refute his irrational views—or if he does, either reflex will have him plugging his ears and shutting tight his eyes and chanting the thought-stopping cliches, or he will act in bad faith because of what will happen to him if he doesn’t.
This is a cult, and deprogramming those who have fallen prey to cults cannot occur without violating their cognitive freedom. It’s a real dilemma. We can’t whisk away the folx to remote places and get out their heads what the total institutions of their lives have stuffed into them. We aren’t like them after all. We aren’t authoritarians. But we can retake control over our institutions and leave these people to find hills upon which they can be fools without disturbing the rest of us and trying to get at the little ones. The good news is that this will disorganize their politics and many of them will eventually find their way back into normal society and regain their capacity for reason.
freedom and reason 