Itâs yet more extraordinary to remember that in the 20 days after this article was published on March 3, we witnessed a screeching media 180 from encouraging âbusiness as usualâ to near-universal calls for lockdown.
Over the period that followed, competing Covid claims and counter-claims were all larded with âexpertsâ and âevidenceâ. Reviewing these now makes one thing clear: Austenâs assessment of TUA remains true. Moral consensus precedes rationalisation. The Covid vibe shift may have been presented as scientific and factual; but what powered it was a chaotic tangle of magical thinking, fear, and the threat of social ostracism. The statement made by epidemiologist Sir Mark Woolhouse to the Covid enquiry captures the social pressures boiling beneath the claimed objectivity: âThe emphasis on consensus and clear messaging,â he said, âplus a sense of not wanting to ârock the boatâ, made it difficult to discuss these issues openly at the time.â
No one likes being ignored, scorned, or shunned. No wonder so many Sensibles fall obediently into line on every TUA. Take TV presenter and quintessential Sensible Kirstie Allsopp, who last year waded vigorously into the what she called âthe trans moral panicâ on the Stonewall side. Her reward was a pat on the back from the Daily Stormer of gender woo, Pink News, for opinions âbacked up by science and factsâ. It’s more accurate, though, to describe her opinions as (at the time) robustly supported by the moral hive-mind that determines and then enforces the Truth Universally Acknowledged.
Here, again, the comparison with Austen is instructive. In Austenâs day, genteel moral consensus-formation happened within a social world of dinners, balls, picnics and other social events. Today, though, itâs been professionalised, via what author Matt Goodwin calls a âNew Eliteâ comprising an âepistemic classâ which dominates institutions such as TV, journalism, museums, charities and academia, and uses their influence to shape the public conversation in line with approved opinions.
And yet, in some respects, nothing has changed. For many of these elite women who, in Austenâs time, would be eyeing one another over their fans at Lady So and Soâs, now work in New Elite industries, many of which are markedly female-dominated. Allsopp is a case in point: her parents are Lady and Baron Hindlip, and she is a Hon., though doesnât usually use the title. She has parlayed old-elite status into National Telly Treasure status, whence she holds forth on moral issues with an unwavering moral certainty Austen would have recognised, and probably lampooned.
“Now the winds have changed, we find Kirstie Allsopp back-pedalling.”
So, now the winds have changed, we find Allsopp also back-pedalling. It was never true, she asserts, that there was âno debateâ on the issue of medical experiments on gender-confused children. Puberty blockers, Kirstie informs us, were bad all along. But we could always talk about it: âit is, and always has been possible to debate these things and those saying there was no debate are wrongâ. All the people (mostly women) unfairly fired or bullied out of jobs, all the grannies punched in Hyde Park by men with special identities, the no-platforming, the intimidation, the threats, and the censorship â that wasnât actually a thing.
Allsopp is the clearest indicator yet that at least where child gender vivisection is concerned, at least some of the grandes dames of Truth Universally Acknowledged may have paused broadcasting a TUA in order to convince themselves, in the light of a new emerging groupthink, that the new consensus is what they believed all along. And because moral consensus precedes its âexpertâ rationalisation, so we also find that those who purport to stand for science and reason are also curiously quiet.
On Sunday, for example, Sex Matters founder Maya Forstater (herself notoriously a victim of the âNo Debateâ consensus Kirstie Allsopp says never existed) called on science communicator and Humanists UK president Adam Rutherford to defend systematic scientific reviews, against the trans activists spreading misinformation about the Cass Review. Did he come out swinging for science and reason over gender ideology? Reader, he flunked it: âItâs not something I know much about.â
Last November, Humanists UK welcomed a Private Membersâ Bill banning âconversion therapyâ â in a formulation that would, in effect, ban anything but the âaffirmationâ approach to gender identity, recently decried by the Cass Review as unsupported by evidence and potentially harmful to children whose sense of self is still developing. Perhaps Rutherford is waiting, as many commentators did during Covid, until it becomes obvious which Truth Universally Acknowledged was always obviously supported by the evidence.
We can hardly blame him. I donât doubt his vaunted commitment to even uncomfortable scientific truth. But if Covid taught us anything, itâs that scientific truth can be â with the best of intentions â somewhat ductile, especially weighed against the risk of ostracism by every desirable dinner-party hostess in medialand. But should those hostesses resume broadcasting their TUA, having agreed that they always believed puberty blockers were bad, perhaps the Rutherfords of our public discourse will feel able to hop back in the trenches on behalf of science, objectivity, and Dr Hilary Cass.
Overall, though, no lessons will be learned. None was learned from Covid, for all that Woolhouse described the lockdown policy bluntly as a âfailureâ. Not even a recent report showing the appalling and preventable harm lockdowns did to a generation of children seems to have prompted much soul-searching among those who advocated loudest for such measures.
And this is because the unhappy inference is that weâre still stuck in the same paradigm: the chattering-class two-step of moral groupthink masquerading as science. Just like Johnson in 2020, weâre still looking to âexpertsâ as a means of outsourcing moral judgement â and as someone to blame when things go wrong. Even Hunt, on whose watch Stonewall helped entrench gender ideology in public health, is now busy describing her âregretâ at having naively âtrusted the expertsâ.
In truth, though, âexpertsâ are a front for the TUA: the chattering-class moral consensus. And this is manufactured by people who care less about being right than looking virtuous. Career moral entrepreneurs such as Hunt; vacuous grandes dames such as Allsopp; âcommunicatorsâ such as Rutherford whose job is to make consensus look sciency. Downstream of their posturing, children were irreversibly harmed. They didnât care; they wanted to look kinder than you. They should not be allowed to forget how wrong they got it.
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SubscribeWell, bravo!!
Managing to make a cogent argument comprising Austen and Hunt is quite a feat.
The TUA is going to be my new… Truth Universally Acknowledged. đ
Joking apart, it is SO true we have learnt nothing from what happened in the last 5 years or so. You would expect us/leaders/mankind to make the same mistakes over and over again, but not in such quick succession.
Super skewer from Mary here; this is like the post-Holocaust denial mechanisms; ‘nobody knew what was happening ‘,’we didn’t really think he was serious’,’I did my best to stand up to it’,’some of my best friends are….’ .etc etc etc
It’s the breakneck speed that’s modern, however; it used to take years for people to slide from one position to the opposite, but now with the Internet, it can take place in seconds. They’ll all be busily cleansing their twitter and email accounts as we speak.
It was far funnier in the old days; when Indira Gandhi was about to be arrested for corruption, she was obliged to grandstand for the TV cameras at the the front door of the official residence while servants shredded government documents in the kitchen with cheese graters.
In lieu of any tangible achievements, the mediocre and malicious have seen an opportunity for coin and cachet in competitive caring. I wonder what next season will bring.
I wonder (and Mary did seem to âalludeâ to this in her essay) how much of this TUA can be attributed to the increasing feminisation (competitive caring) of public life, or is another TUA, that men and women think, and rationalise, in exactly the same way ?
Itâs an important point, usually overlooked. University-educated, middle-class women are far more prone to push for policies which have âcompassionâ as their primary motivation. And university-educated, middle-class men, eager to display their feminist credentials, will generally fall into step with their female co-cohorts.
I remember some prediction years ago that ‘The Future is Feminine ‘ and everyone was overjoyed at closing the door on all that ‘toxic masculinity’.
But as the Buddhists say, we always have 42 problems; they’re just different problems now.
Never mind the fact that Putin, Xi Jinping and the radical Islamists are unaccountably far less inclined to feminise themselves.
42 problems? Now where have I heard that number before? Somehow related to “life, the universe, and everything”. I feel a bit smarter now.
Thereâs truth in this – but on many issues compassion could be claimed by both sides. Itâs more about taking the side of those most easily portrayed as victims – indeed as group victims.
Very few women want to do dirty and dangerous engineering- mining, oil, construction, agriculture, etc so are unaware of the qualities needed to overcome obstacles. Being battered by waves or having to escape collapsing excavations appeals to very few women.
We already know: theyâve coopted the cause of a genocidal people wanting to end the only Jewish state in the world as their âFree Tibetâ moment. (As if there were any comparison between Palestinians and the peaceful Tibetans)
Excellent, well written essay!!! How I have come to hate the phrases âfollow the scienceâ and âscience denier.â They are worthless words used to beat people across the head and crush all debate. The cry bullies who use these words will never be held to account.
The whole point is that ‘following the Science’ isn’t Science: memorising facts, recipes, isn’t Science.
It isn’t Engineering either! đ
Exactly! You donât âfollowâ science, you DO science. Following is for cults. You âfollowâ cults. The Covid Cult, the Transhuman Cult, the Climate Crisis Cult. The CRT Cult.
Yes. But do not forget the antivaxx cult, the zinc-and-vitamin-D cult, the ‘it -is-all-a-conspiracy-for-the-great-replacement’ cult etc. There are the same mechanisms all over. The point is that some of these ‘cults’ fit pretty well with the actual science (like the climate crisis one) and others do not.
BTW, why are Cathode Ray Tubes subject of a cult? đ
Totally agree. People are surely more complex than just fitting into one box. I was unsure about Brexit, but I think that we humans very probably are having a deleterious effect on the climate. I was sceptical about lockdowns & found the govtâs fear campaign appalling, I think that both Palestine and Israel are as bad as each other in this continual hatred of each other, whoever âstartedâ it, and I am on neither side in the current conflict – just horrified at the destruction and human suffering. And I reject as completely anti-reality the notion of self-id & that humans can change sex.
Not everyone fits the clearly defined political strictures of ârightâ & âleftâ. We are large, we contain multitudes.
This is the problem exactly. What is the anti-vaxx cult? By creating this label, you are effectively refusing to acknowledge dissenting opinions. The vast majority of people were not opposed to vaccines, they were opposed to forcing people to take the vaccines, especially young, healthy people. I donât recall anyone saying vitamin D would prevent covid, yet we should have all been taking it because vitamin D boosts your natural immune system.
I do recall people (on Unherd) claiming that you did not need vaccines, let alone lockdown or masks, because natural immunity, with extra Zinc, vitamin D and possibly with Ivermectin was amply enough to keep anyone safe. I also recall people having (what I would call) an exaggerated fear of vaccine side effects, built on (what I would call) some very thin and biased analysis of any data that came to hand, and an unrealistically low expectation of vaccine advantages. Remember, all the ‘this is not a vaccine, this is an untested drug’ people?
The ‘anti-vaxx cult’ is certainly no less real than the ‘COVID Cult’ or the ‘Climate Crisis Cult’ that Amy Harris talks about. And that I accepted, for the sake of argument. I’ll accept that a lot of opinions are made *before* you start analysing the arguments, on both sides of the divides. If you are willing to face up to how much you do not know, and make a realistic analysis of the known data, your opinions are fine. If you start out being certain you are right and cherry-picking data to suit you will never be more than a cult.
Didn’t most of that turn out to be true in the end? Wasn’t Covid an illness that was only dangerous for the elderly and the unwell? Weren’t masks proved to be pointless? Wasn’t the vaccine proved incapable of slowing the spread of the virus? Didn’t cost of us get it once way or another, sometimes more than once in the end, whether “vaccinated” or not? Wasn’t natural immunity after suffering the illness proved to be as effective if not better than vaccine-induced antibody production? Aren’t there now many unanswered (and maybe unanswerable) questions about the possible link between the gene therapy shots and the rise in cancers, heart problems and excess deaths in different societies? We’ll probably never know the exact truth
There is a lot of things we do not know. But there are also a lot of holes in what you say.
If you have a reliable way of determining whether any rise in excess deaths (once it has been proven) is due to people having COVID, getting vaccinated, or the NHS not screening properly for a while, you need to apply for a very large research grant.
Nobody ever proposed that vaccination gave *better* immunity than getting the disease; the point was that vaccination reduced the risk of dying or getting damaged the first time you got it, and slowed down the spread so people got it later. Remember ‘flattening the curve’?
And, just for completeness, your talking about ‘gene therapy’ is exactly the same trick that the trans people use when talking about ‘pregnant men’ etc.
There is more, but this will do. I do not claim that we know particularly clearly what happened, let alone what would have happened. If you know of reliable evidence, please point us to it. If not, you are free to promote any opinion you like, but could you please stop assuming that your bubble opinion is by definition right?
â Nobody ever proposed that vaccination gave *better* immunity than getting the disease; the point was that vaccination reduced the risk of dying or getting damaged the first time you got it, and slowed down the spread so people got it later. Remember âflattening the curveâ?â
No offence, but almost all of this untrue. We were explicitly told the vax was better than natural immunity. We were also told vaccines were the only way to achieve herd immunity, first with 60% vax rates, then 70% and 80%. They said this knowing that Pfizer never even tested for transmission.
I do not remember that claim – and it is so outlandish that I surely would have noticed it. I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘natural immunity’. If you mean that being vaccinated protects you better from future disease than having had the disease, it is not quite impossible but highly unlikely (and would need a lot of evidence). If by ‘natural immunity’ people mean ‘I never had COVID, but my immune system is so strong (and I take so much vitamin D) that I am inherently protected’ then, absolutely, vaccination is a lot better.
Do you have a link, so we know which claim we are discussing?
As for ‘herd immunity’ that (as I guess you know) means that the vulnerable are safe because just about everybody is immune and unable to pass the disease on. Regrettably that seems to be impossible for COVID, because the immunity fades too quickly no matter how you got it. But again, if the goal is to prevent people from getting sick, a strategy that relies on everybody getting the disease sounds rather counterproductive, compared with vaccination.
You donât remember people being forced to get vaccines even though they already had Covid? That the vaccine provided better protection than the natural immunity acquired by having the illness? This was a major issue for 18 months.
I do not, actually. Does not mean it could not have happened. It does sound a little strange. Could you give a link, or maybe some details of place and context, that I could use to find one? I could try to come up with explanations for what might have been behind it, but it would be easier if I understood more precisely what the context was.
Do an internet search for Dr. Fauci explains why COVID-19 vaccines work much better than natural immunity to protect you from the coronavirus
Ah! It is not a question of vaccination providing better protection than previous disease – which would be qï»żuite unexpected, even if it could be true in some special cases. It is a question of previous disease plus vaccination, providing better protection than previous disease alone. Which is really much like saying that vaccination plus a later booster shot gives better protection than vaccination without a later booster shot. Nothing strange there at all – and certainly not about vaccination giving ‘*better* immunity than getting the disease‘. Sorry – I have been a bit thick here, I should have understood that from the wording of your posts.
Thanks for the info, btw.
Without being into the details of COVID immune responses it seems pretty clear that whether you get it from disease or from vaccination, protection is less than 100% and dies away over time. That is not the case for most of the diseases we vaccinate against, at least not to nearly the same extent – which probably distorts our thinking. So vaccinating even those who have had the disease already should, yes, improve their immunity and their protection. Whether the benefit is worth the cost of more vaccinations is of course a legitimate question, but if you think, like me, that vaccination is a normal, low-risk thing that is highly unlikely to be worse to you than catching COVID, the downside of getting vaccinated really should not be that significant.
So, coming back to Jane Hewlands original point, I fully accept that the immunity you get from just getting sick – while partial and temporary – will almost always be better than the immunity you get from just vaccination. It is just that if the goal is to keep you from getting sick, using disease to get immunity kind of defeats the object.
But Dr. Fauciâs statement was amplified into you have to get the vaccine anyway, even if you had Covid. Natural immunity is not good enough.
My point is vaccines were good. Mandates were bad. And the justifications for forcing young, healthy people to get vaxxed were absurd and even dishonest.
Well, having had COVID does not make you immune (whether you call it ‘natural immunity’ or not). And getting an additional vaccination gives improved protection. But the important point here is that vaccination not only protects your own health, but also reduces the risk to others by transmission. Neither effect is perfect, but both are there. So there are two discussions here: One is how the magnitude of the improvement (to yourself or in the risk to others) compares to the cost and risk – whether it is worth it, in short. That is a matter of facts and trade-offs, which could be argued relatively calmly. The other question is philosophical: whether you think it is right to demand that people get vaccinated (or change their behaviour) not to benefit themselves, but to benefit others. Or whether people have an absolute right to determine their own behaviour, whatever the cost to others might be.
I’m afraid many of your points have rather large holes in them. If you were willing to do a little more research you may not feel quite so dogmatic about this.
The Daily Sceptic has a vast archive of material and references from people who have done the work. Who are qualified to have an opinion worth considering. Who do have a different opinion from those who you’re listening to.
As for your claim that no one ever proposed the vaccine offered better protection than getting the illness, I suggest again, you do a little more research. You are in effect doing a bit of “Kirsty” here. You’re making Mary Harringtons’ point for her.
Sorry, but if you know of some good and convincing arguments, link me to the best of them, and I shall try to find the time to look and evaluate them. Instructing me to do a vast amount of research just suggests that you do not have anything convincing to hand. I am not going to do enough research for a bl**dy masters thesis just to check whether a group of people that I have no reason to trust just might have some good evidence.
I’m not your researcher son. Spend some time on the site I mentioned, maybe half an hour. See if you find anything that makes you question your dogmatic position. Or listen to a long form podcast with a well known skeptic. One where you actually get to hear there views, rather than one where you get to here the views of those who you normally listen to. Pick a well known name, a well known skeptic. You may find yourself wanting to read or listen more. You may not. But at least you’ll have tried.
Then at the very least you might be able to articulate the views of those you disagree with rather than just trying to use them as a means to elevate yourself.
You cannot be bothered to argue for your position, so you expect me to do all the work required to prove that you are right. Sounds like “Why I have stopped talking to white people about race” – granddad. Not biting, sorry.
Go to the top of the class, Jane!
There were a lot of opinions out there for sure. Some people I respect questioned the safety of vaccines, but this was only a small strand of people. The vast majority of heretical thinkers were opposed to the mandates, not the vaccines themselves. Even people who questioned the safety of vaccines still believed they helped elderly people and those with compromised health.
Widen your Overton window, Jim. The truth lies outside the space youâre currently looking in!
Of course vitamin D Prevents you getting Coronavirus!! It supports the immune system. And plenty of people were absolutely against the toxic untested drugs marketed as âCovid vaccinesâ. Sorry if you got conned into taking one.
Vitamin D doesnât prevent you from getting Covid. It boosts your immune system. I take 2500 units a day and it doesnât prevent me from getting a cold. I got the double vax because I was 58 years old with heart issues in the family. I wasnât conned. I made a choice with the information available to me at the time. My 22 year old son didnât get the vax and I supported that decision even though he was living at home at the time.
Hurrah! Another troll outted. The antivaxxers are the new anti-smokers – soon to be proved absolutely right. Future generations will look at the practice of âvaccinationâ with the same horror that we look at âblood lettingâ or lobotomy with. Electric shock âtherapyâ anyone?!
It must be nice to know the future – I am unfortunately limited to the present. But you are welcome to join me under my bridge for a cup of river water.
The âtransgenderâ cultâŠ
As soon as someone uses the word ‘denier’ in relation to any topic, I know that they have been captured by ‘groupthink’.
Like Holocaust denier?
Holocaust denial was the original denial, and because it was demonstrably false, it inspired others to attach the word ‘denier’ to anyone who questioned their pet theory, however unverified.
The suffix ‘-phobia’ (used now in ways that bear no relation to its meaning in Greek of ‘fear’ or ‘panic’) is likewise used to smear all sorts of other sentiment through linking them to the ur-phobia, ‘homophobia’. (Which unlike holocaust denial was a dubious concept at best in the first place).
So now we have ludicrous and widely disparate and sometimes frankly stupid usages such as ‘Israelophobia’ (for everything from people who hate Jews and want to sweep them into the Med, down to anyone not 100% in agreement with all Israel policy, ever), ‘transphobia’ (basically people who are skeptical of gender-woo), and Islamophobia (often applied to those angered by blatant and ever-expanding censorship of public discussion or criticism of the less savoury aspects of Islam, though to be fair it’s arguably the only genuine fear among these new coinages – who wouldn’t be fearful of religious zealots carrying a rusty combat knife, or indeed of a baying mob backed by actual terrorists forcing you out of a job for showing a few cartoons?).
You are right on the usage of -phobia, but I think you are wrong on the history of the word. I guess the established modern use was in the meaning of ‘visceral, irrational fear of’, as in claustrophobia, or arachnophobia, which are arguably objective medical conditions. The first extension I can think of would be ‘xenophobia’. That is supposed to be an exaggerated dislike and repulsion without rational justification, but no one is suggesting that people freeze in panic when they see a foreigner. Homophobia, I’d say, came after that, and the new meaning is any dislike or negative reaction which the speaker thinks is wrong and wants to delegitimise.
I donât want to let Allsop and the rest off the hook on this one.
“Educate yourself” and “the right side of history” are two other phrases (usually delivered with impregnable self-righteousness) that I’d gladly never hear again as long as I live.
I find the latter phrase intensely irritating; as if history is somehow imbued with a sense of moral purpose. Also “my lived experience” – is there any other type? and “personal truth” – yet another. It is the language of the anencephalate illiterati.
Yes, may those of us ‘ordinary’ plebs (low social hierarchical standing by comparison) of society who always believed this was an abomination and was ostracized for it – take great delight in watching these ‘elites’ squirm. Nasty, I know, but great never-the-less…… Unfortunately, that glow of delight is marred by a genuine grief at what has been collectively done to so many children. It’s the children I grieve for. That they look to adults for advice and direction, to be so ravaged by a false, dangerous and sadistic violation of human body integrity, to the deranged adult desires of such a few – still beggars belief. I do hope that the doctors who supported and promoted this atrocity get come-comeuppance with being sued by de-transitioners. Noting all the while, that no amount of money can or could compensate for the frankenstien horror of what was willing done to them.
It has been a cruel lesson indeed. It definitely exposed collective apathy and reticence in the face of such horror.
Beautifully written. Again.
I take a slightly different position. I am in no sense a “trans activist”, and am at heart largely ambivalent on the topic. However, I sometimes find myself ostensibly agreeing with their position, because I know it annoys the Christians.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend?
History shows this to bea disastrous policy.
I am happy for history to judge me on it.
It’s more a “sport” kind of thing. Annoying the smug and sanctimonious is my hobby. To provide balance, I also annoy the Green Left about climate change.
Are you under 16?
More like under 12.
Hmmm…not so sure it always does, Martin. There’s an awful lot of overlap between the aims and motivations of the anti-‘TERF’ bigots and the aims and motivations of the worst of the religious bigots. Both tend to be profoundly misogynist/anti-feminist.
They are actually anti-human. Potential mass murderers.
Beings ready to become side by side with Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot
You forgot to include Putin.
Possibly, but I dislike the latter more than the former. Plus, the latter have been around for far longer.
Hunt is a committed Christians. I am about to get off a bus and walk past a church festooned with trans flags. Open your eyes and grow up.
As. Christian I embarrassed we were more bothered about being trendy and accepted than speaking up for the vulnerable.
Remind me when your lot last “spoke up for the vulnerable”.
Not a Catholic Church, I imagine?
Soooo…you’re OK with mutilating kids because it annoys Christians? Christians are also pretty against pedophelia, so….
The term “mutilating kids” is pejorative. It ranks with “murdering babies” when discussing abortion (Hint: I am pro-abortion). If Christians are against paedophilia, why do so many clergymen in Christian churches practise it?
Hospitals are against killing people but sometimes it happens.
Churches are composed of thousands or tens of thousands of individuals some will inevitably do bad things – it doesnât mean they arenât against paedophilia.
Why does the Catholic Church do its level best to cover up the activities of its paedophile priests then?
Haha – itâs not a great reason – but an understandable one. And to be honest, it can be a stimulus to thought, so can be useful even if badly motivated. We need gadflies!
Thank you.
What an odd thing to say. One can hardly pass a CoE church these days whose tower or pulpit is unadorned by some trans flag or rainbow banner. And that ineffable oaf, Welby, seems delighted to prostrate himself at the altar of whichever virtue signalling nonsense is currently the saveur du jour.
I don’t have a particular problem with the Anglicans for that reason. They seem to have abandoned being a “religion” some time ago. Let me know when the Vatican starts displaying rainbow banners, and I’ll find another hobby.
So what you are saying is (to coin a phrase) you know you are a complete plonker, but you enjoy it all the same?
Well, the term “plonker” is pejorative. You are of course entitled to think me one, but I (obviously) don’t think myself one. I have always had a hearty dislike for the smug and holier-than-thou, and let’s face it, that description fits a lot of Christians. As I have previously said, I have much the same reaction towards the Green Left, and their Climate Change Cult.
To take up a position because it annoys a group you dislike is very childish.
Opinion noted, but as I say, I am entitled to a hobby.
sadly it will de facto be the taxpayer getting sued for the Tavistock nonsense, not individual doctors
Somebody called Martin M made a response to this post, and I have been blocked from replying to it. Is anybody else experiencing a similar problem?
Martin M commented:
â I take a slightly different position. I am in no sense a âtrans activistâ, and am at heart largely ambivalent on the topic. However, I sometimes find myself ostensibly agreeing with their position, because I know it annoys the Christians.â
My response was:
âAre you against Christians or Christianity? Christians are always deeply flawed people trying to follow an ideology of perfection and repeatedly failing. The fact that some blame their stunted view of perfection on their ideal should not detract from the substance or meaning of that ideal.â
Unherd bot replied (in Red!) âSorry, responses to unapproved comments are not allowed â
Perhaps Unherd needs to employ a more Unherd robotâŠ
Ah. Fair question. I have a beef with individual Christians only when they try to impose their views on me (and I have a similar beef with anyone who tries that, Christian or otherwise). If they can avoid doing that, I am fine with them (and I have any number of friends who are Christians, and both my parents were Christians also). The Church is a different matter (and when I say “the Church”, I guess I am nowadays mostly referring to the Catholic Church).
And how is the Catholic Church trying to impose themselves? Is your mum insisting you go to mass?
Various members of my family have been Christian, but none have been Catholic (not for the last three generations anyway). The Catholic Church opposes abortion. That alone raises my ire.
I think Martin M is a teenager.
In fact, I am 61 years of age.
I was secretly against trans while I was fanatically supporting it. /sarc
It’s transactivism that was the problem, not trans per se.
Edit: Mary Harrington isn’t “anti-trans” and her article doesn’t refer to those who’re genuinely, as adults, transitioners.
True!
There are no âgenuine transitionersâ. There is only body mutilation and stereotype cross-dressing. No human can have any idea what it is to be the opposite sex. It can only ever be a pale imitation that perhaps assuages a fetishistic idea of âbeing femaleâ. There are worse fetishes, itâs true, but this one has now come out of the bedroom and into schools to indoctrinate and groom children. And it has been found out.
So if a man wants to cross-dress, who cares? Centuries ago men were the peacocks in âgaudy plumageâ anyway, and last century Bowie did it fabulously. But he and they never pretended they were women. It always was simply adornment. The difference is now they want to pretend they actually ARE women.
Surely the answer to even your last sentence is “Who cares?”
Someone needs to tell Martin’s parents he’s up past his bedtime.
Thank you. If the initial ridiculous fallacy of trangenderism had been rejected, than all of this insanity would have been avoided. And thousands of children would never have been mutilated.
Jane’s and yours is the only ridiculous fallacy of “transgenderism ” that exists. You are child abusing imbeciles who variously pretend gender does not exist physically, or, that is always magically perfectly congruent to the sex of a person — although the tissues involved develop on th basis of differing hormonal cues at differing times in the duration of a pregnancy.
There are next to no such “mutilated” children, as the false positive rate for people diagnosed per WPATH standards of care for gender affirming care is below 1%.
Why you and Jane want to force any boys to have breasts and periods and to force any girls to have beards and deep voices is the question.
If it’s genuine, it’s a genuine mental illness which should be treated, not indulged.
Nah, you have to respect diversity….
Outstanding essay. When Mary Harrington is on form, she’s peerless.
She really does have a gift for the written word.
It’s outstandingly written as always, yet totally misguided in her comparisons with covid response. When there is a crisis such as that then a consensus is needed quickly – park for a moment whether the correct decisions were made – if people are dying then there is not the luxury of open debate and enquiry, people had to make tough decisions on the information to hand.
That’s a completely different scenario to the trans debate.
There was NO crisis!
And much public money, +pensions and benefits, was spent planning for such an eventuality, and the plans were thrown away so the sheep could panic.
And it happened across many Western countries: what a coincidence!
âClimate crisisâ is exactly the same playbook.
Don’t be silly Amy, 25 million people died.
Well now I know youâre a troll! People die. They died of pneumonia. They always do. This wasnât a ânovelâ virus. It was discovered in the 1950s and is identical to influenza in every way. I donât interact with trolls so I will take care not to interact with your account again.
Wow.
You deserved that Robbie by descending to calling Amy âsillyâ and cutting off debate
It was novel in that it didnât exist in nature but was instead deliberately manufactured in a Chinese lab with illegal gain-of-function American tax dollars. The panic was driven by world governments and their media to serve two purposes: control the populace and enrich the powerful.
Commenters like Robbie refuse to believe the fact that the WHO conducted Event 201 in October 2019 to war game the exact scenario, and implemented it in January 2020. All this is known. The people responsible knew it from the very beginning (which is why they only put on their silly masks for the cameras).
I donât give a ratâs about idiots who still cling to their Covid fantasies, but I DO care that those who perpetrated this global crime have not been made to pay. I want them tried and prosecuted – at the very least.
So what you’re saying is, you have no interest in debate, you’re happy to stifle opposing voices and you subscribe to a truth universally acknowledged. Curious; I was reading an article about that very thing earlier.
Why debate someone whoâs so obviously blind to facts. Like you.
“What you’re saying is”. No. I was very clear that I don’t give a rat’s about the opinions of those who refuse to acknowledge facts. That’s not “stifling voices”. That’s ignoring them.
At last, someone who has grasped the facts and had the courage to state them. Some people commenting on this site are unbelievably naive about the world they live in. And thank you Mary too for outing the selfish and the cowardly. Spot on once again!
Amy you are a troll yourself! Have you act spoken with anyone suffering with long Covid? You should. It’s rather more than flu. Maybe read something?
Only last month the government / medical council published a new study that there is no such thing as a long Covid! If you have the occasional sneeze or cold it is because the other viruses (include Covid) are still around. Long Covid is an excuse for people not to go back to work. It is also an excuse to claim benefits.
They have ME, obviously, not something made up to cover for government failings.
FoI request, 17,000 died of Covid in the UK. People who had a variety of illnesses died as it does with flu. In 1968/69 , 88,000 died of flu.
Fake news Charles. That’s not how death certificates work. But I suspect you do actually know this.
Now you are talking – dying with or from? In any event, now we know doctors were pressured and some brainwashed into endorsing Covid as the cause of death. These doctors admit it now. Anonymously of course.
People die all the time. No one with half a brain is unaware they attributed every death to Covid even when it wasnât. For crying out loud stop excusing this coordinated catastrophe otherwise it will happen again. Maybe youâd support that, who knows.
Rubbish. Covid killed 7 million – check the WHO data if you care. Also recording errors could be a high as 50% since in many instances anyone who had covid and later died was recorded as have died of covid, so somewhere between 7m and 3.5m. In other news 60m die every year, 14.5% from infectious diseases (excluding covid) – that’s 8.7m – but there are no lockdowns or generalised hysteria for influenza, pneumonia, typhoid etc.
Mary was writing about YOU Robbie.
No Tom, unlike others here I am happy to debate.
According to WHO?
Exactly. A war is a crisis. COVID lasted more than 2.5 years!!!
Perhaps for the first 2-3 weeks at the most, not 2-3 YEARS (and I still see some people going around masked).
Yet here we are 5 years later, with the benefit of hindsight and much debate and enquiry, and there still is no consensus.
There is. Itâs just not mentioned in polite circles because whoâs going to admit to being so wrong? Which is kind of the point if the article.
Well please go ahead and enlighten us.
“Consensus” is a red herring. There never could be consensus about such a thing. There was no consensus in the US about declaring war on Hitler. Or about Prohibition, or the Inter-State Highways or day-light savings time or the best way to tie a bow-line or feed a baby or…
And, in this case, there wasn’t much debate. The panic-stricken classes made sure of that. Just like the global warming story.
And I still see some people going around, sneezing in crowded trains and buses and rarely a handkerchief in sight.
Whenever I see someone wearing a mask OUTDOORS, I feel pity for him/her. The Covid behavioural unit got another victim!
A thought experiment for you: instead of the Covid pandemic happening in 2020, imagine it had happened in 2000. The feasibility of vast numbers of people working from home would not have been possible, and the entire model of lockdown/WFH if possible/furlough etc would be unworkable, because without sufficient numbers of businesses carrying on, no money would be coming in to support helicopter money drops etc. Had the Covid pandemic happened in 2000, do you think the same consensus would have formed?
Good idea. Modern technology clearly made lockdown easier for people to still keep productive and connected. Quarantine is a natural response to such a crisis however and history provides examples going back to the 14th century with government mandates during the bubonic plague. It’s worth noting that whilst quarantine was effective, it was always received negatively by many who considered it a punishment.
One example paper. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22611587/
Quarantine doesnât work for airborne respiratory viruses, and never has. Thatâs why theyâve never been recommended in any pandemic plans. Comparisons with Medieval plagues are meaningless.
People didn’t know what was causing the plague at the time, they knew quarantine worked however. Let’s face it, it’s kind of obvious that not mixing with other people is going to reduce disease spread no matter how it functions. I’m uncertain how one can argue otherwise.
No. Ditto 1968, when there was a coronavirus epidemic that killed 100,000 people and got barely any media coverage at all, much less the panic-stricken hysteria that accompanied COVID.
Before answering the above question, check over how China dealt with the pandemic as compared to, say, South Korea.
The Chinese approach is something which could have been applied in 2000 and if there would have been difficulties doing that in the UK that’s for other reasons than infotech. South Korea, on the other hand, exploited Infotech potential in ways that could in principle have been applied in the UK but weren’t . But by the same token, wouldn’t have been much less available in 2000. Even there.
Very good point!
But there was plenty of time after the first lockdown was imposed to notice (as Prof David Paton did) that infections had peaked: plenty of time to question whether the response was necessary (as Prof Heneghan did); plenty of time to consider or less harmful alternatives to locking us up. (as Prof Gupta did). There was plenty of time to reflect on how we were turning into small minded, bitter finger pointers for whom the sole point of life is to stay alive. But we didnât use it. We used it to shout down dissent. Just as Mary describes it.
Yet there was wide support for the policies that were chosen, including the political opposition.
To look back on Covid two years later and not acknowledge any govt failures is gobsmacking. The pandemic response lasted more than two years. Surely there was time for debate somewhere within that time frame. Trudeau was ruthless in his response to the truckers protests and refused to meet with them. Yet three months later almost all restrictions in Canada were lifted within three months. In three months we went from truckers killing grandma to the end of restrictions.
Ahh you do love creating an entirely new narrative Jim, this one is a beauty, well played.
There is no consensus in the Scientific Method. The facts are repeatable and speak for themselves or they aren’t. This idea of a quick consensus is precisely what the woke Leftists use to force their end justifies the means agenda on the rest of us.
Totally agree. At the start of covid however there were no facts, and no data to base the scientific method on, obviously.
Bullshit. Gain of function research conducted by Eco Health Alliance in the US under the NIH (run by one Dr Anthony Fauci) came to light in 2014. After a period of public outrage to this insanity, the research was quietly outsourced to a lab in Wuhan, where safety protocols where lax, to put it mildly. When COVID-19 broke out worldwide, Fauci and other guilty parties (along with their toadies in the media) pressured and intimidated scientists into discarding the ‘lab leak theory’ substituting the ‘wet market’ narrative to cover their Instrumental role in creating this disaster. And you think these people should have been trusted?
It’s different but it’s still comparable in the way the usual suspects reacted and lined up.
Most importantly she makes us smile? At least for a little bit. Only when we try to join in the conversation ourselves are we unhappy again?
I’d be very happy to have her take up any cause I believed in.
Seconded. My only quibble is that, in all this discussion, there is not enough acknowledgement that this problem of rigid middle class groupthink originates almost entirely in the universities. My acquaintances who are graduates are overwhelmingly more likely to hold the currently orthodox opinion – unsupported by much in the way of factual knowledge or coherent argument – on any topic than those who are not.
Very good point. Iâve noticed that too.
It makes you wonder what education is for.
Enriching the professoriate. Next question.
Enriching some of them, perhaps. Many of them are adjuncts, woefully underemployed and underpaid.
Dreadfully true..!
Have you seen Cass’ recent statements to the Kite Trust?
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/dr-cass-backpedals-from-review-hrt
She is recanting her fraud.
Itâs because ideas and moral positions are signs of social status in the way that taste used to be, and expensive goods still are. These ideas are attractive because they are associated with high status. People donât want to be seen with low status ideas any more than they want to be seen with a cheap handbag.
Itâs also why people resist reason and evidence. Itâs just perceived as a dig at the genuineness of their symbols of status – like pointing out that their expensive handbag isnât actually very good quality.
Interesting idea. I’m sure you’re right.
That and no matter what form of thought may be in fashion, the middle class always has been, currently is, and always will be determined to dictate to the rest of us.
Perhaps we need to continually try engagement of dialogue, to those we care about and are with. Maybe because we see the problem as so big and so widespread that one on one is thought of as futile. I know I do. It can create a kind of apathy if your not careful – the opposite of the extremism we see from the ‘woke’ left extremists. One of my daughters was originally taken with these ideas more so than my other daughter. Through rather ‘rigorous’ conversation several times over, a shift stated to happen. I have personal reasons for being so ‘lets say over enthusiastic’ about this. However, it has changed our relationship for the better. Its actually opened up space. For her as well. Everything runs both ways.
The ‘problem’ is much broader than that, as Mary’s Austen quote shows. You don’t need Unis to produce middle class groupthink, it’s endemic to liberal societies and the way they counterpose agency ( the right to choose) and social position (stakes). As much as social situations vary, there’ll be differences in tastes, calling some ‘rigid dogmas’ is just another snobbery, bound up in the same game one purports to criticise.
There are patterns to political taste formation though. As French sociologists and geographapers have long pointed out, the more that people’s life chances are formed by public and commercial Institutions , the more they can see themselves as ‘free’ individuals. To the extent their supports are ignored they can wrongly imagine that society is fundamentally an aggregate of individuals (the Thatcher a d Trans delusion). Whereas those whose chances rely on the more visible supports of family and community generalise those conditions in their notions of ‘self evident truths’ about freedom and responsibility.
While there are bound to be differences of perspective between those thus differently situated, neither can claim to offer an adequate basis for knowledge, let alone governance. Enabling both groups to move beyond projecting their ‘certainties’ , rather than merely asserting one over the other,is the key to achieving viable political hegemony. Viable because it’s sustainable, unlike that which has prevailed in Britain for the last fifteen years.
.
Hugh Bryant is right in saying that groupthink is (nowadays) transmitted in the universities – but how did this come about? IMHO the fundamental problem is managerialism: the universities are now controlled by a managerial class who encourage half-educated students to undermine those academics who promote critical thinking – and this has spread throughout the western world, nearly destroying the legacy of the enlightenment. Any academic who wants to keep his/her job must be extremely careful not to fall foul of this unspoken conspiracy.
Most universities arenât universities – they are expensive FE colleges.
“Full sheepskin, half education” has become the norm.
M Muggeridge was the The Guardian reporter in the USSR in the early 1930s. When he reported the famine he was sacked. G B Shaw visited the USSR and said he had never eaten so well.
Thatâs because the universities are for the most part the Colleges of FE of the 70s or 80s
Jesus Christ! It’s a bloody longwinded way of defining “received wisdom”
An excellent piece of Austen criticism too.
I have no doubt Harrington will be conspicuously silent about Cass’ current statements.
âvacuous grandes dames such as Allsoppâ
And yet, the vacuous seem to control the narrative, regardless of how vacuous they are.
âProgressiveâ women in politics and the media live and breathe in-group consensus and disavow absolute truth.
Worse still, some of these women you describe actually know the absolute truth and cognitive dissonance makes their lives a misery.
Even on location location location, she had honed to a fine art her ability to patronise the little people. And she was a dab hand at home-made Christmas decorations. She should stick to that.
The usual anti-trans hatred that we have come to expect multiple times a day from Unherd. These ceaseless attacks on the most vulnerable members of society are sickening.
And the teenage writing style is utterly turgid. ChatGPT would be better.
The usual handful of informal fallacies and the stroppy “It’s not fair” teenage writing style we have come to expect from the intellectually challenged “Champagne Socialist”.
If Champagne Socialist is a troll, as many suspect, they are not very good at it unless their aim is to get as many downvotes as possible with the fewest words.
It’s long been speculated that it’s the musings of a member of the Unherd team, intended as clickbait.
My money is on Giles Fraser.
It’s all a matter of perspective. If this discussion were occurring on the Guardian website, CS would be getting the upvotes, and you would be getting the downvotes (I know, because I comment on both).
I think you are misinterpreting MH and certainly underestimating her. See my comment. Her piece is about the social mechanisms around âtruthâ and âtruthâ change far more than it is about the trans issue specifically. The latter is just the most pertinent and recent example.
That’s all way over CS’s head, I’m afraid.
the most vulnerable members of society
You really think these fat men with blue hair are ‘ the most vulnerable members of society’? Children are the most vulnerable members of society. You shouldn’t endorse their abuse.
BTW: Why does everything you write read like you copied and pasted it from somewhere else?
Children are the most vulnerable members of society. You shouldnât endorse their abuse.
Maybe you should take that up with the Catholic Church.
Overly simplified for her audience but wrapped in a veneer of Groupthink – just a different Groupthink to that she rages against.
Cass report exists because there wasn’t a consensus. It didn’t just emerge out of the ether. Conflating the gender debate with the dilemmas faced during early Pandemic a neat bit of red meat for her fan-club.
Where Author just plays to virtual signalling gallery on the Right is her faux concern for the impact on children. Where’s her article about the increase in childhood poverty, the crisis in school funding, teacher shortages or even, given the focus on a clinical service, the atrocious position of CAMHs services nationwide which partly contributed to GiDs awful overreach? Nought is there, and because that would require a different consideration of the public realm.
Of course she and others are correct that GiDs made some terrible mistakes and recognition by those who supported is needed. As is accountability from the decision makers. Let us hope she’s as demanding on a whole range of other public policy failures.
Mary Harrington pushes all your buttons JW, just as many fallacies in your reply as “Champagne Socialist”
Point one out AR and I’ll then respond back.
By introducing a strawman and an ad hominem, which you appear to do on every one of Mary’s articles.
“Let us hope sheâs as demanding on a whole range of other public policy failures”. Mary has, a good example being mass immigration. A (repeated) public policy failure that you fail to acknowledge in any meaningful way.
Mass immigration, whatever that means, isn’t a Policy. The Govt has made explicit decisions on Visa’s for specific industries, for those fleeing Ukraine, Hong Kong etc, but also failed to do much about overstaying Visa’s because hasn’t pushed forward on ID cards or enforcement. Your consistent problem is you rage about it but offer nothing on what you’d then do instead. Mary not dissimilar. I think legal, as well obviously as illegal, too high. ID cards and proper investment in key sectors to wean off overseas labour key, but it’ll take time and the Right has wasted 14yrs with slogans and dishonesty. Having supporters who believe simpleton solutions doesn’t help them of course.
As regards the issue of child mental health and GiDs, noticeable you ducked away from pointing out a fallacy for me to comment on. Come on give me something so we can debate the actual points in the Article.
Phew, took you long enough… were you hoping I’d forgotten đ
You wanted an example of Mary’s criticism of other public policy (that’s your red herring/strawman) and I gave you one, it’s just not one that you wanted to hear. It is public policy introduced by the Blair and Brown governments and has probably been the most damaging public policy in the last 30 years. It’s one that you regularly deflect from (as your comment above, with the usual cliches).
You obviously don’t like Mary’s articles but offer other next to nothing as a thoughtful argument against any of them (begging the question), you can’t even mention her name but are quite happy to insult her and her readers (that’s your ad hominem). Better sort out that rage of yours JW, it’s blinding you to your bias :-).
Mary did not conflate the TUA trans issue with Covid measures, she used both as examples of a “Truth Universally Acknowledged”. You were putting words in her mouth
I was responding to these specific (false) issues in your comment.
We can’t debate JW because you are not very good at it. Sophistry is not debate; projection, dissembling, fallacies, bait & switch and obfuscation are the techniques sophists use.
Do better
Apols for delay HB. Was at work.
Back on the everything is down to Blair mantra I see, forgetting yet again that’s 16 years ago.
As regards the Authors TUA – that’s just a hook to make likes of yourself grasp at the confirmatory bias and conspiracy twaddle affirmation. She has to make a living though so I can see why she will play to gallery.
Of course if such a thing as TUA existed then the Cass Report wouldn’t exist either. It’s the fundamental problem with her contention.
Sophistry is all you have JW and you’re not very good at that either.
Point to Andrew, in regards to strawman assertion.
JW swung and missed the return, choosing not to address the strawman, instead just characterizing the TUA as a “hook to make the likes of yourself grasp at confirmatory bias…”, which is close to an ad hominem and definitely a redirection away from the strawman question by substituting a new derogation.
Except CS’s tend to disappear. It’s a pity in one way as it’d be a good memento of the crazy things people used to say.
Mary wrote an article on Abigail Schrierâs Bad therapy book. That covers mental health in children. Which pretty much sums up that to build resilience there should be less focus on mental health because the crisis weâre facing is of our own making through unnecessary preventative mental health care, starting in schools. This also links to a lack of teachers, after helping to create these little narcissistic monsters, schools no longer wish to deal with them.
I actually bought and agree with c90% of Schrier book. However worth remembering it’s much more US centric where ‘therapy’ more part of the culture. Still some that is transferable though.
The issue is how you then turn some of the trend around, unless it’s just about a feelgood Groupthink rant. Good CAMHs can also tell parents, and the child, there is nothing fundamentally wrong and prevent an over-medicalised approach. It can also stop parents heading down fee paying quackery. And as regards the GiDs issue these are complex cases where a broader assessment was essential yet absent and unobtainable.
Your last comment though shows some prejudice – it’s ‘all the fault of the child’ end of the spectrum. Other than denying access to some services what do you and the Author suggest? Now if the Author much stronger on Jonathan Haidht’s policy suggestions I’d have more time for her contentions here. But she’s full of critique and little construction.
At no point have I said itâs all the fault of the child. However, regardless of how the child has been raised and educated, they canât go through life using the argument âitâs not my fault, itâs how I was raised and educatedâ. It stops being an excuse once youâre old enough to start taking responsibility for yourself. You find that many of these young people are self aware and happy to make bank on their inability to take responsibility and as long as bleeding hearts adults are willing to keep accepting responsibility on their behalf, they will continue to do so. The road to H3ll is paved with good intentions.
I agree we all have ‘agency’ LS, esp when adults. At what age do you deem someone now old enough? Is a 12yr able to have the insight that owning a smart phone and being on social media alot may have consequences for their health and well being? Or is that a parental decision? Just one example.
Yes, there is a fascinating battle in the air over agency versus social conditioning. The truth is a complex mixture – we are certainly in part programmed by our social context, but if one denies agency in order to avoid responsibility, there’s no pathway out.
This mirrors the conflict wherein some philosophers believe that there is no free will and everything is deterministic – and at the same time that we must act as if there were free will or bad things will happen.
In the political sphere, it seems to me that most of the “everybody is just a product of their environment” side’s motivation is not to find the most effective path towards a better world, but to avoid “blaming the victim”. That is, it’s most fundamentally about placing blame in ways that don’t feel uncompassionate, not about seeking real world functionality.
To the degree that this “blame society, not people” approach does try to improve the world versus make oneself feel more compassionate, they often gravitate towards totalitarianism – they must control every detail of social conditioning so as to produce the good kind of automaton rather than the bad kind – both having no real agency, but the former having the prescribed progressive beliefs and reflexes.
Totally agree – whilst this is typically a Harrington essay, it could only be received so positively on this site or Conservative Woman.
So argue against it than say “I don’t like it”.
I did, my comment has been suppressed yet again.
Fair enough
This is pretty extreme whataboutery even by your standards jw. Be graceful and admit you’ve been wrong about this issue as about so much else.
Perhaps a bit unfair to Mary, she can only write on so many topics, but bang on in pointing out that in addition to the various TUAs there are also TTNOCAs of equal or even greater importance which get no attention. That is Truths That No One Cares About!
“Cass report exists because there wasnât a consensus. It didnât just emerge out of the ether.” <– There is a consensus, the UK Establishment and Cass Report in particular are far out of step with it. That consensus exists for reason — because the measured physical, biological facts support solely that consensus.
Apparently, Cass herself is out of step with her own report.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/dr-cass-backpedals-from-review-hrt
The consensus is that 1) gender is biological and formed in the womb, and it is unchangeable after birth 2) that sometimes and as often as 1 time in 150, a person is born with their sex having developed incongruently to their gender such that they perceive it, 3) that about 1 in 450 people will seek medical transition to change their apparent sex and gender 4) that such efforts will culminate in a transgender population — if supported in such an effort in their youth — has no notable unhappiness about doing so and is as likely to be mentally fit as anyone is, 5) the false positive rate for gender dysphoria with consequent medical transition is under 1% if the current standard of care, which are gender affirming, are followed.
The UK having socialist medicine where frankly patients are a cost and politicians are the customer, underfunded GiDs drastically. There should have been no 5 years waits and there should have been a lot more of gender affirming care.
Very interesting and insightful.
TUA is a handy idea and it’s existence stems from the failure of education, especially higher education. Higher education is about showing people how much they do not know. I like to say, for example, that I don’t know much more about mathematics than most people don’t know.
The opposite seems to be the case. When people can accept as a TUA that men can become women and vice versa and, worse, to attack those who fail to acknowledge this, I believe this reflects the arrogance of those with letters after their names but no learning.
It helps – or doesn’t help, depending on your position in the argument – that a lot of higher education degrees these days are explicitly intended to produce people both unwilling and unable to think rationally, and instead to become adept in ersatz rationalising and dishonest debate, with the intention that they are good at winning arguments politically. Politics itself of course has always rewarded people with such skills, what’s new is that academia is deliberately serving politics instead of being institutionally distinct.
Austen-tacious evisceration at its finest.
Experts and media-blobbies: you’ve been Harringtoned.
Excellent. One of Britain’s new breed of writers and analysts cutting clear paths through forests of bullshit.
âŠâŠ..and the Scottish government âdoublesâ down, because, for the Scottish government, itâs âallâ about virtue signalling (Oh ! And looking better/superior than the âhatedâ English).
It’s also deflection, I think. After so many years of SNP rule, Scotland is in a catastrophic state socially. Education, crime, healthcare – nothing much works.
Gosh ! âUnheardâ is really living up to its name. Someone on the editorial team is up bright and early, with their censors black pen. Or, maybe they just donât like to hear criticism of Scotlandâs âcaring, sharing, virtuous, better than Englandâ government ?
I enjoyed this dissection of the defects of some of societyâs leaders.
It is, however, only half the story. The problem is as much about those who follow blindly or acquiesce indifferently to the nonsense presented as the those who first pronounce the nonsense.
I spent most of the 2003-15 period away from British society and was startled by the change. Instead of a delight in argument my old friends seemed to have become conformists desperate not to say anything controversial. I felt like Rip van Rinkle only waking up in East Germany in 1970 not New England in 1790. Like frogs being boiled slowly they seemed not to have noticed the change.
Jonathan Haidt has emphasised the impact of social media since 2009 and there is obviously something in that but I think there are other factors also at work.
It seems that today debate on many issues is confined mostly to the retired, the self employed and the economically marginalised. The middle class, if in employment, appears to be a largely debate free zone. This may be in part the natural consequence of increasing job insecurity which encourages the extreme caution which can be exploited by entrepreneurial ideologues such as the Stonewall leadership and their American backers. It is noticeable that the BBC became monolithically progressive only after its employees were put on short term contracts.
Another factor is that schools increasingly teach rote conformity to safe answers to exam questions rather than how to think effectively. Universities cannot be surprised if their new students persist in seeking new orthodoxies that they can safely embrace.
No doubt there are also other factors explaining the craven conformity of so many.
If our system breeds slaves then it is inevitable that nonsense will be left unchallenged.
Fortunately, I see signs of a reaction. I think many want to see a revival in debate and in the critical examination of ideas and policies. Twitter is being replaced by Podcasts, polling suggests that teenagers – especially boys – are rebelling and even journalists are relearning the lesson that they can build careers by attacking instead of supporting the excesses of the consensus. Add a bit of job security and we might see âa hundred flowers bloomâ. Who knows? Maybe we on UnHerd with our enthusiasm for amiable debate – and not as previously believed the more censorious and deluded progressives – are the avant garde.
It seems to be to do with the dominance of HR and the feminist agenda+legislation that empowers it. Been there, suffered under that. There are certain things at work that if you say (let alone debate!), you will upset some women, and they are precious things who must be kept on board at all costs. If that means firing anyone who says things that are true then, well, better that than hurting the diversity numbers you so badly need to stay on the right side of the “equalities” regulators.
Basic issue is that debate doesn’t seem to be something most women enjoy much, they find it intimidating, whereas men will often go at it like crazy and then still be friends afterwards.
Yes – debate didnât just become dangerous with the trans issue.
I find that an extremely sexist view. I have always enjoyed debate and know plenty of other women who do, as well as plenty of men who will avoid it.
Yes it’s a sexist view. You might be surprised by how sexist young men are becoming over time. We’ve had very different experiences from you, or possibly are using the word debate differently.
After all the trans censorship issue is being driven primarily by women attacking each other isn’t it. How often do you read anything about the women who become men and the threats they pose to male spaces and rights? Never, right? And would you characterise anything that happened so far as “debate” because I wouldn’t.
I think it is probably more to do with the dominance of HR than feminism. There are similarities with McCarthyism which led to 100,000s losing their jobs in a similarly intimidating atmosphere and with similar charges of e.g. guilt by association or having the temerity to oppose the process. In the 1950s HR departments were run by men. I am not sure if HR attracts certain types or working in HR shapes people but there seems to be some association.
(This replaces an earlier comment to the same effect that has been censored for some reason).
I very much like your thinking Alex!
Those in universities like Blair in the late 1960s to 1970s came to power in 1997 and with them came Cultural Marxism which J Callaghan would have scorned. By 1992 all those who had fought in WW2 hd retired and by 1997 , none had done National Service.The reality of the labour party of 1997 was that it was run by people who had only known comfort and security so were unaware where their absurd ideas could lead.
Good point.
Personally, I tend to go with the “Yes, Prime Minister” position.
Hacker: “The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; the Times is read by people who actually do run the country etc”
Then in 1997 Blair got in and Guardian readers really did get to run the country. Since when the country has been, unsurprisingly, an utter disaster.
Yes. And while the public is briefly up in arms can we turn some of this forensic attention to other similar issues such as adhd and the medicalisation of children’s behaviour? The trans issue is a bit of a johnny-come-lately: all the good arguments against the horrors of prescribing pills to restless children were made and won 20+ years ago but the prescriptions continue to rise.
A pill for every ill.
It’s a spell, and it works best on those that don’t believe in spells.
Hilary Cass has done an important job, but you should not need an expert to spend 4 years gathering evidence and writing a report to know that giving children puberty blockers is a terrible thing to do, and should only be considered in the most desperate of circumstances.
Correct, this was known and written about by Isidora Sanger and others years before the Cass Report.
Except in Australia, where our federal Health Minister has declared that the Cass findings do not apply, because Australian gender clinics are already doing the right thing!
And the fact is Cass has herself already repudiated what her report is claimed to be by the gender critical — because gender affirming is the right thing to do.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/dr-cass-backpedals-from-review-hrt