This is a slightly topical post - for once, and I am not setting a precedent (nor am I inviting further topical references in the comments!); because it has been triggered by JK Rowling's rather courageous persistence in making blunt and true public criticisms of the trans extremes of Leftism.
Similar situations are common, and always have been common - I merely reference 'Rowling and trans' because she has neither backed-down nor apologized - and because she is as famous as anybody in the world at present.
Note: I have written extensively about JK Rowling on this blog - because I regard her Harry Potter series as a work of genius in its genre.
It is - of course - proximately A Good Thing for anybody to speak the truth, any truth, in a world of lies; and to do so requires courage.
For this JKR is to be applauded. But...
The mindset of a moderate Leftist like JKR is interesting. She can see clearly that for the trans agenda to enable and excuse (multiple instances of) rape of women is an evil. She can perceive that rape is morally of far greater seriousness than the imposition of lies about sexuality. She is prepared to say so, despite extreme pressure.
But...
JK Rowling makes her criticism from a Feminist perspective; and both the trans agenda and feminism are aspects of Leftism: feminism early, and trans coming more recently.
Nonetheless it is a fact that both feminism and trans share the same political history, have the same ideological roots, and employ the same nature of justification. That is both are utilitarian: both feminism and trans claim to make more people happy, more of the time - both claim to reduce human suffering and diminish injustice.
Yet both lack metaphysical roots, because feminism and leftism are free-floating ethical systems - they assert their goodness, their justice etc; but with no transcendental basis for doing so.
Trans is a plain lie and a value-inversion - and a far more extreme form of Leftism - but both feminism and trans originate in exactly the same mind-set, motivations and assumptions.
JKR has (apparently) not reflected on how it is that such an obviously insane evil as trans has arisen, how it has been internationally been adopted; how trans is supported by all major institutions in government (world and national), finance, corporations, and the mass media.
Trans is now part of employment and criminal laws; and is coercively enforced worldwide - as Rowling is currently experiencing.
How does JKR suppose this situation has arisen? A situation where almost everybody among the Establishment - most of whose opinions she endorses, and whose general assumptions she 'passionately' shares and expounds, and who are (or were) her personal friends and associates - has unified so unanimously around such an extraordinarily wicked lie?
In essence, Rowling (like so many other dissident, 'sensible' Leftists) sees and deplores one or another particular symptom of evil; but shows no serious interest in understanding the underlying cause which has led to this happening.
Quite the opposite - she endorses almost everything about Leftism - except a few specific points where her own 1990s feminism clashes with nearly-everybody-else's 2021 trans-ism.
Rowling is the one who is out of step ideologically - almost everybody else in Leftism has followed the internal oppositional logic of Leftism through to the trans conclusion.
And therefore the net effect of her dissent is to support the Leftist System that creates and sustains exactly the evil she deplores.
Because - where else could the trans agenda possibly come-form - except Leftism? This discernment, this conclusion, is not "rocket surgery": it is about as obvious as anything could be - unless one is self-blinded by exactly that same ideology...
JK Rowling deplores a real and extreme abuse and moral inversion. Well done! However, she argues from Leftism, without apparent awareness that this evil abuse is a direct and logical product of the assumptions of her own Leftist ideology.
Just as feminism grew from opposition to traditional sexual roles - first opposing inequality of opportunity, then inequality of training and experience, then inequality of outcomes... But it did not - could not - stop there.
Feminism soon evolved into denying obvious innate differences in men's and women's nature, disposition, motivations and abilities. And this has been the situation for decades - in all major corporations, institutions, organizations - in government and the media; and apparently Rowling is quite happy with it.
From this feminism's false and dishonest denial of difference between men and women, it was but a short-step - just another short false and dishonest step! - to asserting that men and women were inter-convertible; and crushing anyone who says otherwise... Exactly as the feminist Establishment has, for the past generation-plus, crushed anyone who asserted true-and-obvious functionally significant sex differences.
Leftism is 'progressive': it never stands still, it cannot stand still - because it has no structural basis for standing still.
This is because Leftism is oppositional, critical, subversive - it is not aiming at any particular social end point but at a state of 'permanent revolution'.
Therefore Leftism will always lead to value inversion - that is, to extreme, insane and evil lies - because there is nowhere else for Leftism to go!
Rowling is thus engaged in the futile gesture of trying to stop the cancerous subversions of Leftism at a particular point that rationalizes some specific ethical values which she personally regards as primary.
Implicitly, thereby, JKR operates on the basis that Leftism is the only acceptable and moral ideology.
Unfortunately, but inevitably, that deeply pro-Establishment, pro-System, pro-Left message is what is communicated by JKR's highly-particular act of courageous dissent.
And this pro-Establishment Leftism is precisely why JK Rowling (and other dissident Leftists of her ilk) remain able to dissent; why their dissent is given so much publicity, and is so widely disseminated by the mass media - and why she has not been excluded by The System; as is anyone who denies the assumptions of Leftism is excluded.
Courage is a virtue; but courage on the side of evil and therefore against God's creation is not something that a Christian can endorse.
6 comments:
William Wildblood has left a comment:
Such people as JK Rowling see that one particular fruit is bad but they don't see that the whole tree needs to be chopped down for the poison goes right to the roots. That's where it comes from.
One of the clarifying things about this blog for me is the idea of leftism as a package deal. I hope more and more people will come to see it this way, though J.K.Rowling presumably won't. Questioning the birdemic projections might lead to criticising climate models. Criticising the trans business could change people's minds about feminism. And so on. One risks becoming a full-fledged unpecked knee-refusing pronoun-withholding climate denier!
Bruce I've always understood that there are bona fide cases of gender dysphoria. Ideally we would treat these people with and love and compassion, and try to provide treatment for their delusions rather than indulging and "celebrating" them as the evil Left demands. To be the trans phenomenon represents a diabolical exploitation of people who need intense therapy -- and the Love of Christ.
JK Rowling seems to be one of those 1990s era liberals. What would have been normal and respectable at the time of the publishing of the first Harry Potter book is now seen as reactionary and bigoted. It's scary how far left the establishment has become from even ten years ago. I remember Barack Obama's 2008 campaign that marriage was between one man and one woman. That would be considered far right even for GOP candidates today,
While many still hope to return to the 1990s liberalism, I agree w/ William Wildblood that the whole tree needs to be uprooted. It isn't that much of a leap to deny any biological sex differences to then say that gender itself is a construct. The heart of leftism is egalitarianism. If everybody is to be equal, then individuality is completely erased. Equality is a demonic destruction of creation.
I hope that Ron Tomlinson is correct that more people will begin to question the entire leftist project as some of the cracks begin to show.
@Nova "who need intense therapy" - That is rather jumping ahead and assuming that therapy 'works', which it may not. But the point is that the trans beliefs are a pathology, just as much as the delusions of someone with a diagnosis such as schizophrenia or mania. Whether any particular thing ('treatment', 'therapy') could or should be 'done about' a pathological belief is a secondary and further issues. For me the point is that pathological beliefs cannot coherently be regarded identically with publically shared beliefs - and when they are publicly enforced, incoherence is being forced-into the civilizational structures, which can only be destructive (and, obviously, is).
The public schools are being funded to teach this stuff. Institutional LEFTism is spending money that is worth less by the year because the last budgets never fixed any of the issues of the day. LEFTist International is deliberately destroying children and the original founding nativists of its countries because it has never been able to deliver anything but coddling individuals from reality. Ignorance is always in the majority, which is why democracy has been seen as absurb by even the most brutal of tyrannical individualism.
Children certainly need others of their kind around them to develop as persons, although I would disagree in the strictly annual age segregation that American schools feature as pertains to the introduction of learning. The adults in the room too often have motivations of the basest natures, simply said, nobody earns anything, nobody knows anything, and nobody can be anything without taking from others or sought for as a group. Bless Us.
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