Transgenderism is at the epicenter of the most important partisan divide of all: the Honesty Divide.
Some subscribe to the “Noble Lie”. To “might makes right”, “truth is subjective”, “words are power constructs”, and other euphemisms legitimized by the doctrine of “postmodernism”.
On the other side, we have people who understand that truth might be hard to know or disagreed upon, but it nevertheless exists, and its power is not just the power of “consensus”.
These two worldviews generate vastly different outcomes.
People who seek utopia often try to get there by imagining things as they’d like them to be, insisting that’s how things really are, then trying to pass laws to make them that way. But so long as someone is willing to discuss facts and confront reality, I’m willing to engage. Honesty and civility are all I ask.
"Just as many of our social norms now wash away in the hands of people other than those who formed them, our understanding of reality was similarly never bolted down by statute but simply assumed because it was observed."
"However, a norms-based liberal democracy won’t last long in modern Karachi or Mogadishu. They simply have the wrong set of norms. You can set up such a society in London or Boston, but it won’t last long if you invite a lot of people from Karachi or Mogadishu. Nor is this to say that any one group of people can lay claim to civic virtue. Like physical fitness or the ability to speak Japanese, you must invest the time to acquire the gift as well as the time it takes to maintain it. In the case of civic virtue, such work is done by schools, newspapers, books, movies, magazines, shows, music, and all the sundry engines of culturecraft, all of which are profoundly warped leftward in our current culture. And make no mistake, handing our institutions over to people who believe America is a fundamentally evil, white supremacist, colonial hellhole with a slave economy and a rape culture is going to have some predictably negative consequences. So now, for example, we find ourselves having to sort out whether math itself is racist or whether boys can turn into girls by closing their eyes and making a wish. If we keep at it, maybe we’ll be poking around in the dirt before too long."
You are correct, I think. This is primarily a problem of values and norms. It's a cultural issue. It will have to be decided culturally. I don't see any way to get the mainstream back on the tracks of rigor and sense and virtue. It's time to begin making our exit plans, in my opinion.
"Trevor Noah nodding stupidly along" is like the Greek chorus of late night television.
Transgenderism is at the epicenter of the most important partisan divide of all: the Honesty Divide.
Some subscribe to the “Noble Lie”. To “might makes right”, “truth is subjective”, “words are power constructs”, and other euphemisms legitimized by the doctrine of “postmodernism”.
On the other side, we have people who understand that truth might be hard to know or disagreed upon, but it nevertheless exists, and its power is not just the power of “consensus”.
These two worldviews generate vastly different outcomes.
People who seek utopia often try to get there by imagining things as they’d like them to be, insisting that’s how things really are, then trying to pass laws to make them that way. But so long as someone is willing to discuss facts and confront reality, I’m willing to engage. Honesty and civility are all I ask.
"Just as many of our social norms now wash away in the hands of people other than those who formed them, our understanding of reality was similarly never bolted down by statute but simply assumed because it was observed."
"However, a norms-based liberal democracy won’t last long in modern Karachi or Mogadishu. They simply have the wrong set of norms. You can set up such a society in London or Boston, but it won’t last long if you invite a lot of people from Karachi or Mogadishu. Nor is this to say that any one group of people can lay claim to civic virtue. Like physical fitness or the ability to speak Japanese, you must invest the time to acquire the gift as well as the time it takes to maintain it. In the case of civic virtue, such work is done by schools, newspapers, books, movies, magazines, shows, music, and all the sundry engines of culturecraft, all of which are profoundly warped leftward in our current culture. And make no mistake, handing our institutions over to people who believe America is a fundamentally evil, white supremacist, colonial hellhole with a slave economy and a rape culture is going to have some predictably negative consequences. So now, for example, we find ourselves having to sort out whether math itself is racist or whether boys can turn into girls by closing their eyes and making a wish. If we keep at it, maybe we’ll be poking around in the dirt before too long."
You are correct, I think. This is primarily a problem of values and norms. It's a cultural issue. It will have to be decided culturally. I don't see any way to get the mainstream back on the tracks of rigor and sense and virtue. It's time to begin making our exit plans, in my opinion.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-war-on-norms
How DARE you speak truth to power? How DARE you say that a man in a dress cannot be a woman simply because of the dress?
And if you think this "debate" will end just because nine people in black robes say "enough" you haven't been around long enough.