Gender issues- argument from victimhood

 The scenario:

Step 1. Make a generalization about a group that is ideally less than kind.

Step 2. Get eviscerated by the internet

Step 3. Change your name and hide your head in shame.

If you make any negative generalization about women, blacks, gays, Muslims, whatever, normally this is what happens. People, who have images on their profiles with texts like "be kind to others" and whatnot will descend on you like a pack of furies to point out that you cannot and should not generalize in such a way. Which is fair. You really should not. First, because it is morally wrong (you know, it is "-ist", depending on if it is based on race or sex or whatever: racist, sexist, etc.), and it is also stupid because normally real-life evidence does not support it. 

Unless... unless you make remarks about men, especially white men.

Then the scenario will change considerably.

Step 1. Make an insulting generalization about men, depicting women as poor, suffering victims.

Step 2. When someone tries to argue about this, attack their person ("you are the reason we choose the bear" is the newest one, but the good, old "incel" always works)

Step 3. Watch as everyone descends on those people who dare to contradict your bigoted generalization to tear them to shreds. (And they are lucky if it does not impact their employment status...)

This interesting change in outcomes can be seen everywhere. You are absolutely not allowed to make generalizations about, say, Muslims (do try to bring up integration in European culture), while the very same people who label you an Islamophobe will absolutely murder you if you dare to challenge their open misandry. 

The responses normally can be sorted out into these categories:

1. open ad hominem attacks (the above mentioned "you are the reason we choose the bears")

2. how dare you question our experiences? All women are suffering (myself included), and you have no right to question us. Don't dare to mansplain. Especially go away with your statistical evidence. 

3. how dare you give context? (For example, pointing out that domestic violence is not a simplistic "man beats woman" issue.) "Whataboutism", "fragile ego", 'you must be the problem because you are defending abusers', OR, my favorite, "this is a safe space for women's issues, don't bring men's issues into it". But when you do it in a "safe space for men", first of all, you are an incel and a red piller, and then women's issues are immediately brought into the conversation just to show how much worse they have it. Just try it somewhere. Anywhere.

4. Yes, but. Male issues pale in comparison. It is simply not worth talking about them. And Patriarchy hurts men, too. And if you solve women's issues, you solve men's, too.

So yeah. You cannot win, because in the current zeitgeist, women are absolutely oppressed (even though the facts don't actually support this), hence they have the upper hand in the conversation- after all, if you have certified victimhood, you win by default. 

Now this is where I should bring up a sure-fire strategy to win in these conversations, but the fact is you cannot. 

The main problem is that these (mostly) women take an immense amount of glee of bullying people they disagree with into submission, all the while displaying their victimhood status - kind of like the concept of virgin prostitute. Because make no mistake: these people are some of the worst bullies you can find. Ironically, the very same tactic is used against feminists when it comes to trans issues - and they suddenly learn what it means to be bullied in this way, and do not like it very much. And in the case of Kathleen Stock, they demand that men stand by them. Ironic, I guess. 

Especially if it is online, it is best not to engage, because as the saying goes about wrestling with pigs - you both get muddy, and the pig enjoys it (and you cannot win - this is not done on an intellectual level). So however infuriating/sad/worrying it is to read bigoted comments, sometimes open hatred, you cannot do anything. Reporting these comments will do nothing, since, as we already established, these "truths" are universally accepted today. It is just another example of how polarized (and stupid) our society became, where one half of the population is seen as a threat, as something unnecessary, or even as an enemy, essentially by women who probably do not apply the same views to their own male relatives and friends. Nevertheless the "I hate blacks, but you are OK, because I know you" was never a good excuse for racism. Neither is it a good excuse for sexism. Yes, they probably will grow up eventually and realize that men and women mutually need each other, but in the meanwhile these views do an immense amount of damage to young men, to society at large, not to mention these views are propagated to the next batch of young, privileged women enjoying the feeling of victimhood. Or worse, middle aged women blaming all their failures on men. 

Of bears and men

 So obviously men are problem. So much so, that 99.9% women who responded to the question rather have a chance encounter with a bear in a forest than with an unknown man. (Maybe they misunderstood and like hairy, thick, homosexual men?)

Which goes to show two things, really. People, who responded, are stupid. I mean really, fucking stupid. The education system completely failed. Second: it is incredible how polarized our world has become, where facts matter not, feelings trump everything. And if you are a man, and have an opinion, obviously you are dismissing women and their experiences, and should just shut up. Obviously. (Even though it kinda is about you, too. And really, real world evidence and "muh experience" are kind of different things.)

So the first thing.

Bear attacks are rare. True. But why are they rare you may ask. Well, let's see. Bears are rare, so encounters are rare, despite of people hiking and generally living where bears live. About 1% of chance encounters end up in an attack; which is not a lot, admittedly. (There is no actual statistics; I found a couple of estimates and used the lowest one.) But then again: how many men does a woman encounter on a regular basis and how many bears? If you really think you are safer with a bear than with a random man, even just looking at the numbers, you are -as we established already- fucking stupid. Not many people meet a 100 bears in their lifetime, so the chances of getting attacked by one is astronomically low. But if you regularly met hundreds of bears... well, the situation would change. Drastically. Women meet hundreds and thousands of men regularly, and if 1% of those meetings end up in an attack, well, we have an ongoing bloodbath; Khrone would be proud. Let me put this this way: cows kill hundreds of people every year, whereas lions hardly any. Does it mean cows are more dangerous than lions? Seriously? Well, do try to keep the same number of lions as we have cows, and we would see. Statistics without understanding the context means exactly jackshit.

So that's one issue out of the way.

The other thing is we ignored the fact that most violent acts are committed by a fraction of the population. Mostly men, yes, but women are violent, too, which is left out of the discussion interestingly. Also: men are significantly more likely to be victims of random violence than women. The level of fear and the actual threat may not be in balance here, but then again, it never usually is, considering how much people fear serial killers vs how much they fear cigarettes or ultraprocessed food. We are morons when it comes to things we fear. (Further example: fear of commercial flights vs fear of automobiles.) The issue here is more complex than these idiots would like to believe.

Another also important forgotten issue: if we focus on sexual attacks only, well, those are mostly committed by people close to the victim, so again, no cigar there. A random man will be a safer choice than your uncle, for example, just going by the statistics alone. I am sure your uncle is a nice person who would not rape anyone, but statistically he is more likely to rape you than that dude on the tram. Another interesting sidenote: many women would prefer to be dismembered by a bear than to be raped? Really? That is just... wow. I mean you can't be more stupid that this; which just shows how sheltered and privileged these people are. I guess there is nothing for me but to wish them their bear encounter they crave so much. After all, it is all fun and games until the grizzly starts eating you while you are still alive.

And then the second point I want to make.

The amount of glee, bitterness, outright hatred that stems from this victim menality s incredible. Women do seem to have adopted this hostile attitude against one half of humanity as not just something valid, but something to be embraced. Meanwhile, supposedly, they not all are angry lesbians (who, by the way, have the highest incidence of domestic violence) and have day-to-day encounters with their fathers, husbands, sons. I guess they do not count?  And let's not forget. These women are living the cosy, safe, sheltered life of the Western world, not the oppressive Patriarcy of Saudi Arabia, for example. Anyone spouting this idiocy, and stirring up hatred deserves her 1% chance meeting a bear. Young men already face challenges they get absolutely no support for, so this is not helping. The largest cause of death in men under 40 is suicide. They are more dangerous to themselves than to anyone, especially to those angry and misshapen women who dwell in their imaginary victimhood.

This idiocy perfectly shows the problem with victim mentality. Since you are the victim, you are justified to have absolutely no empathy -and outright hostility- towards the evil oppressors, and you are justified in your hatred. It also helps to foster an incredible level of narcisism. You can see this in all the comment sections whenever men's issues come up - women are so incredibly hostile, ready to belittle, to dismiss, it is incredible. You'd wonder how people who are claiming that empathy is important in uderstanding the struggle of others can so easily dismiss others' struggles.  That is until you realize that strong in-group empathy leads to the lack of it against anyone who is in the out-group. This is exactly how racists operate by the way.

And as a closing, I will present you an alternative version of this tik-tok question, which is much more supported by statistics than the fucking bear is. (Mind you this is for demonstrating the idiocy; I do not actually pushing for this.)

Would you be more willing to be alone in a forest with a white man or a black man? As we know, in the US, blacks are overwhelmingly responsible for violent crime, so this is a valid question, no? And if you do not think it is -based on some weird moral qualms about racism being bad and all-, why the fuck do you think the original question is acceptable, which is not even supported by statistics? Sexism is fine when it comes to men?

We have always had female Adeptus Custodes

 Long wall of text which is justified not because of the recent changes regarding the Custodes fraction in Warhammer 40K but because it is indicative of larger cultural trends.

 

So now we have female Custodes in Warhammer 40K. Or rather, we always had. (Quite an Orwellian turn of events, if you think about it.)

The reaction is obviously quite vocal, as is the reaction to the reaction. On one part people are swearing that they will quit the hobby, make dramatic statements, get into flamewars into other people who gloat about this whole thing, and call everyone who are critical of this move an incel.

So why is this a problem, regardless of incels or not? (I am sure there are some sexists in this crowd, but then again, I have not met them. I only saw a bunch of angry nerds, and boy, nerds are people you do not want to piss off.)

There are a  couple of issues; some pertain our real world, and the trends we see, some pertain the sacred, inviolate lore.

So the real world issues.

 

1. Pandering to the DEI crowd

 

Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. There is a small town somewhere in the countryside which is, for any reason, an attractive tourist destination. You have a pub there, which the locals love, and have been going there for decades. You now turn this pub into a club where rave parties are thrown, in the hopes of attracting the tourists with their big money, and tell the locals who grumble about you taking their favorite spot away that they are a bunch of in-bred bigots. (Especially that this happened to other pubs in the area, too.) And then you see your income fall, because –pikachu face- tourists are not as committed to your establishment as the regulars. This happened to countless franchises: Star Wars, Star Trek, Witcher, Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, Marvels, Dr Who, Indiana Jones… and the list is long. Not to mention the computer gaming industry. People who have no real interest in the franchise –and more importantly, no knowledge- demand changes. The franchise is changed, and nobody cares about it any more, since it is fundamentally different from what it was, AND it insults the original customers either directly or indirectly, or the franchise runners do it (or both).

 

One thing that really irks people (and annoys me as well) is the mindless pandering. This is a franchise that is highly nerdy, hence mostly the interest for boys (and boys who grew up to be adult men). Like it or not, nerdy stuff was not sexy back then, and you were an outcast in „normal circles” if you professed your love of Star Wars, Warhammer, whatever. Star Trek was kind of an outlier in this respect, but still – „cool kids” were not into these things. Neither „grown adults”. Fort he people who demand inclusivity for the missing female-base: do try to ask a girl out for a date, and talk to her about wargaming; there is no better way to avoid ever getting laid. Let’s face it: the number of people with large gametes (those would be the menstruators we are talking about) are not exactly drawn to these hobbies. The reason for this –and I am going to be highly controversial here, and probably would be arrested in Scotland for saying this- men and women have different interests when it comes to a hobby. (Among other things.) The fact that women were not in doves in this hobby was not due to the fact that they were chased away; normally women are not reading books about interstellar conflicts of space demons, supersoldiers and god-emperors if they can help it, and they are also not very much inclined to paint little miniatures with which they would play wargames using elaborate rules which require almost an autistic-level of concentration and devotion.

So the hobby is redominantly male, and despite of this, has several fractions that are either mixed, or female-only, just as the books have several incredibly well written female characters. So ”representation” was never an issue. People now are celebrating that finally in Warhammer you have female representation, which kind of shows how little they know about this franchise. (Not to mention the Custodes fraction was significantly nerfed in the same time, so now you can make an argument that the two things are connected… All in all, nobody (who actually was into the hobby) wanted your stupid identity politics in this game, and yet, it was pushed onto the fan base by a small, vocal crowd, who will not make up for the income lost by alienating the fans. This lesson has been taught to Disney, Netflix and other „woke” companies; time will tell if WG will see any monetary reprecussions. (They can always chalk losses up to 3D printing, though; they are resolutely resisting the new technologies, only embracing new, divisive ideologies.)

 

2. The one-sidedness

While this is a wider issue, but in recent decades we see a systematic destruction of male-only spaces, and a constant attempt to change male-oriented products. (Let’s face it; WH40K is a product – it is there to sell plastic toys priced in their weight in gold). And we do not see any similar attempt to „diversify” female-focused ones. Why is it a problem to have a franchise that serves predominantly boys and men who have interest in a weird, grim-dark fantasy setting in space? If you are a woman, and like it, great; play or read or paint. You will be welcomed; nerds are very happy when someone, who does not have a penis, shares their interests. I dare say you will even get marriage proposals in tournaments. But why do you want to twist it to fit your own taste? Why do you have to go in a house and demand that they redecorate the way you want them to? All those who demand that computer gaming, WH40K, Star Wars, etc. be changed to conform a certain ideology–do they demand similar changes in products aimed at women and girls? Of course not. Are they creating wargames, computer games, etc. representing their ideology, rather than demand changes to existing ones? Of course not.

This double standard says a lot, and it also irks people. Make your own damned franchise; don’t destroy others’.

 

3. The usual accusations: fans are toxic.

Well, fuck right off. Nerds, who make up the fan base of comic books, Star Wars, WH40K, etc. are passionate people. They spend an awful lot of time and money on these things because it matters to them, more than it matters to the tourists (you remember the pub above?), or the ideologues who demand these changes. And passions will run high when you change anything, let alone make a change that is so fundamental and ideological, so go to hell with these very predictable accusations of sexism, racism and other isms that have been used to shame fans before, and shut them down (just look up Gamersgate if you don’t believe me). And listen to what Cavill has to say about them.

 

4. The way it was handled

As I said „it was always so” shows a significant similarity to “we have always been at war with Eastasia”. “He who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the future”. Not only that, WG and unofficial channels ban anyone who expresses displeasure of this situation. ’Nuff said.

 

5. „It is not a big thing, why are you so upset?”

Well, if it is not a big thing, why do it at all?

 

Lore issues

1. Many suspects that the whole thing was done to appease two sides: one that demands female space marines, and one that does not. So now both sides –supposed to- have gotten something. (Or it is a first step to introduce female space marines.) Again: why is it a problem to have male-only fractions? Why is it NOT a problem to have female-only fractions? (The ongoing joke about having Misters of Battle now in the Sisters of Battle fractions is very much real.) So someone please explain it to me: why is it a problem to have male-only fractions? Why it is a problem to have male-oriented games?

 

2. Why not female Custodes? For one, they have always been male. Always. Pretending it was not so is idiotic.

Changing the lore here and there is not necessarily bad, and it happened before (and the resistance was always fierce), but this is a tad big even for that, you know. Plus where were they? There are lots of books, artwork, minis, and female custodes had not been seen ever since the creation of the Custodes. So where were they? Making sandwiches for the Emperor? Mopping the Palace floor? Why were Custodes always saying „brother”? Are the terms „broter” and „son” now gender neutral?

 

3. Biology also matters- Custodes are even bigger than Astrates, so imaging to create supersoldiers from women –who, by large are not really good at being large and muscular- instead of using a stock that is already better at it –you know, boys- is stupid. It takes a lot of work to create a person who looks like a male out of a female; so why bother? Not to mention Custodes and space marines are more of weapons rather than persons. They are essentially genderless, just as a sword is genderless. Their point is to fight and die; what residual sexual organ they have is irrelevant. More on this issue: the „brotherhood” between fighting men is very much a real thing, and in this setting, has been exploited by both the Emperor and his primarch sons; I think this is a profound message that  can be taken to the real world as well. Throwing women in this mix is destroying this idea.

 

4. There is always the point of not creating a new species. If you want to create supersoldiers who are genetically modified it makes very good sense not to make male and female versions of it, because no matter what you do, sexual reproduction can happen (you can put in safeguards, but those always fail in the long run in biology), and then you will have a superrace of humans taking over from base line humanity. Not a good idea.

 

5. Plus, if you want to make female Custodes (and space marines) as effective as males, then you have to do away with all their female-specific things, like the female hormone system, skeletal structure, etc etc., effectively turning them into males. Congratulation, now you would not be able to tell the difference anyhow, as you have created a bunch of trans warriors. Boobs, long hair, female facial features, long, shapely legs and the rest of the stuff are out, you know. (Are these people really a mixture of ideologically driven activists and fetish porn consumers? You won’t have sexy space marines, no matter what, you know that, right?)

 

All in all, this is a serious fuckup on behalf of GW. It is a free market, you know; people can take their money to other wargames; they can print minis, pirate books, or even rulebooks – so actions will have consequences; the income can dry up. Publishers will –one day- learn that bringing divisive contemporary politics into their product will drive customers away to other products which do not do that. The comic book industry in the US is losing to Manga; Helldivers is winning over games in which Sweet Baby Inc. put their corrosive touch into; and other wargames –which are also cheaper- will gain serious customer base if this keeps up. They may think they should be pandering to appease the loud online activists, but the tourists, the „normies” will never make up for the lost income caused by alienating fans, and nobody is too big to fail –as Disney is refusing to learn this lesson over and over again. Social activists may be having a field day calling everyone a bigoted sexist incel over this, loudly declaring victory, signalling that incredible virtue, but the fact is that they are either not here as paying customers, and will move over to other franchises to destroy (hence never really were paying customer base to GW), OR they will also lose since their self-professed „favorite hobby” will wither, and they won’t be able to enjoy it much longer. A Pyrric victory over an idiotic ideology. Congratulation; well done.

 

Is there a point when these people stop and think "Am I the racist now?"

 If we judge by the out-roar at the election of a white woman as Miss Zimbabwe, the answer is no.

I mean, first of all, she is African. She is Zimbabwean. Her ancestors have been living there for a long period of time - she is not a "colonizer" any more, than an American Italian whose ancestors arrived in the 19th-20th century, or someone whose parents came over from Cuba in the '70s, is an immigrant. So no. She is part of that country. Denying it because of her skin color or her ancestry is racism. Unless you also agree that black, Asian, whatever people living in Europe can never be Europeans. I am sure a lot of Fascistic people would agree with you. Not sure this is your ideal company, but once you start thinking about progressive identity politics, you will find that there is a great deal of overlap between the two ideology.

Also.

She is a minority, so multiculturalism, representation, whatever should be a good thing. But apparently this is always a one-way street with these people. And in their wallowing of in their own victim-hood, which seems to be the cornerstone of their identity, while they eagerly import American-style identity politics, they simultaneously express the vilest racism directed at this woman. And this is perfectly fine,  which does not cause any cognitive dissonance.

Astonishing.

As a side-note: the fact that most of Africa is a shithole today with appalling living conditions for their inhabitants cannot be blamed on the evil white men any more.

Identity politics - political correctness

 Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -CS Lewis

Star Wars and racism

Well, look at the reactions to an obviously not white guy cosplaying Luke Skywalker.

Why it is important is two-fold.

1. You do not need exact representation for people to see themselves in a character. It is not to say that you should only have white men playing every single role from babies to grannies, but the current forced diversity is patently idiotic and stupid. (Not to mention divisive and counterproductive, but whatever.)

2. Star Wars fans, by large, are NOT racist or sexist. The criticism Rey, Reeva, Rose, and the rest of the newer characters get is not due to racism or sexism. That is not to say a little vocal minority does not have issues -they are shit people, and there are shit people everywhere. Ewan McGregor's rant in a car got that right -although the problem with these virtue signaling messages is that they address a truly small group of people, giving them more prominence than they actually deserve. Oooor -they are used to deflect any and all blame from a shit show and a shit character with accusing anyone who dares to criticize them as racist and sexist trolls. This is part of a well-known strategy you could see in the all-female Ghostbusters, Rings of Power, Star Wars, etc. called fan baiting. 

So, are Star Wars fans, by large, racist and sexist? 

Dunno, let's take a look.

Was Yar Yar Binks was reviled (and poor Ahmed West hated) because the actor was black or because Yar Yar was a terrible character? He did get personal attacks by those already mentioned assholes which are unacceptable -but the fandom also stood behind him and was happy for him in his return role en masse. Did people dislike Reeva's character because she was a black woman, or because it was a shit character?  How were other actors of color treated? Did Pedro Pascal, Billy Dee Williams, Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Carl Weathers, Ming-Na Wen, Temuera Morrison, Gina Carano, Titus Welliver, Michael Lang, Rosario Dawson, John Boyega, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Giancarlo Esposito, etc. etc. needed special treatment from Disney warning them of those horrible, racist, toxic fans like Moses did? 

I guess not. Do they get massive hate on social media by those toxic fans? I guess not.

By the way, why wasn't the criticism of the Book of Boba Fett met with accusations of anti-Maori and anti-Asian racism and sexism? It does not work as well as with black actors, eh? Or maybe it was so bad even they could not bring themselves to do it... Oh, and maybe it is not the fans who are racist, but Disney itself... (Weird turn of events, ain't it?)

So what is it, dear Disney? You know, to keep a franchise alive, it is not enough to bring a crowd into the movie theater. "Casuals" will watch your show, then forget about it, and get to the next Avatar or whatever that comes after. You actually need fans. Fans that you are actively pissing off and alienating in order to please a non-existent mass of potential fans who express their opinions on Twitter quite loudly, but who are actually a minority (just like those racist assholes you use to taint the whole of fandom). They will not bring in revenue for you. They will not buy your Rose action figures, your spinoff books, your computer games, they will not subscribe to your streaming service for your shows. They will wreck this franchise and move onto the next one to destroy.

And one more thing: Star Wars was always inclusive. In fact Star Wars was always the refuge of the outcasts, who were not cool enough for the cool kids, so any and all were invited. Now you are alienating the people who buy your merchandise, your books, your DVD special editions, and the rest -and this will kill your franchise.  

Gwen Stefani and the contradictions of "the Woke"

  So Gwen Stefani said she felt she was Japanese.

Well, weird, but good for her. She feels close to Japanese culture, cudos and all. (I have a strong feeling she does not actually think she is an actual Japanese; she probably meant she feels closest to Japanese culture.)

But this landed her in some serious hot water, too, because apparently your cultural and genetic traits do not allow you to do so. Simply put if you do not have Japanese ancestry, you cannot declare yourself to be one. Cultural appropriation, privileged white woman and whatnot. Fair enough, I guess; you are what you are born to be. It is a bit too strict even for conservatives, but whatever. (Does it mean, for example, that a Chinese person cannot feel himself or herself to be English?)

Yet. Yet, if someone declares himself to be a woman (or herself a man), apparently it is fine. More than fine, it should be celebrated. Even though someone who is genetically a man declaring himself to be a woman did not experience of all the injustices and whatnot that women have to face in this patriarchal, racist society of ours (not to mention genetics, you know).

So which one is it going to be? I still do not understand the selective application of these lofty ideals, but Stefani's case highlights them pretty well. 

Who gets to play what

  Well, this is about actors. It seems that lately even the supposedly smart and wholesome actors fell victim of this trend of wanting only people from a particular identity group play characters who belong to that particular identity group. Tom Hanks said he would not do Philadelphia (but taking this line of thinking further, surely only a HIV positive gay actor would be eligible to play, no?), there were issues of non-Jewish actresses playing Jewish characters, and so on and so forth. In the same time, of course, we have the constant gender and race swapping, which is apparently fine with the very same people. More on that later. 

But what about Spanish actors? Is Banderas forgiven for playing a Mexican guitar player, or is he considered to be white? Where do the lines lie exactly? Can someone, who is bisexual, play a gay character? Can a gender fluid person play a gay character? Isn't the point of being an actor is to, you know, act? I saw a video of Luke Evans saying how proud he is about playing a straight character convincingly. I mean, yeah -this is your job, isn't it? It should not be such a big issue... I do not recall Arnold being proud to play a cyborg, or Benedict Cumberbatch being proud to play a dragon after all. (And the last I checked, he was NOT an actual dragon, either.)

The scary thing about this is that if you just give it one second to think about this idea, it leads to really, really weird (and stupid) places.

So if only gay people can play gay people, if only Jewish people can play Jewish people, and so on and so forth, that means you are forcing everyone into an ever decreasing box. That also means they cannot play any other characters. That means that Jewish people cannot play non-Jewish characters, and like it or not, there are more gay actors, than gay characters on screen -which means they would have severely limited opportunities if you apply this "rule". This only would only benefit those evil white actors who, being the "vanilla favor", could play almost any other character not falling into one of your pet categories. So identity politics -as usual- kind of shoots itself in the foot.

But what really scares me, is the fact that stupidity, like this, is being pushed by people in "high culture". It is being talked about in NYT, WaPo, whatever, as if it was a worthy ideal to live up to. It is one of those "the emperor is naked" cases, and if people can pretend that the simple and obvious flaws do not exist... well, what else are they pretending about? And even scarier yet: do they actually believe this? Is our "intellectual elite" really that limited intellectually? Are they really this stupid?

Rules for thee and not for me - the curious case of casting

  I have two contrasting cases for your consideration.

Exhibit A: Hungarian Opera dares to play Porgy and Bess with an all white cast. HOW DARE THEY DEFY THE AUTHORS' WISHES

Exibit B: A Becket play gets cancelled because the director did not want to defy the author's wishes, and auditioned for an all-male cast. (In an all-male play, but whatever.)

This kind of makes you think, doesn't it? What makes it OK in one case not to respect what the author wanted, but in the same time absolutely not accept when others choose to ignore these wishes in another case?

To make it a bit more interesting: how is an opera house of a Central European country supposed to show Porgy and Bess when the number of black people in the country -not opera singers, simply black people- would probably be just enough to fill up the cast, but even that is not a given? Hm? Are they to be denied of this opera because it is not America? Should they import black singers and teach them Hungarian? Who pays for the differences in wages? (And how would this go down with Trade Unions? And what about the whole progressive sensitivity of importing overpaid, privileged workforce to push out the indigenous, cheap labor? Isn't that a big no-no?) Why is it a problem that they adopted it to "modern audiences"? (It is about refugees in an unnamed country, not blacks in the US.) If it is, why it was NOT a problem when well-established stories are adopted (or rather abused) in a similar way?

And also: should we cancel all Vagina Monologues plays where men are excluded from the casting?

Confusing questions, aren't they, in these confusing times ruled by identity politics?

Or perhaps just a demonstration about how utterly stupid and idiotic the whole ideology is.

Why should we not erect statues of living people?

      Well, in recent years, toppling of statues have been very much at rage -after all, why not judge historical people based on contemporary standards? It makes perfect sense, so off with those long-dead evil white men!

Also, why not erect statues of living people just to show how virtuous we are? For example, Greta Thunberg?

Let's forget about Greta herself - it is not about her per se. But can anyone spot what the problem is with this?

Well, I will help. First, it is very strange that living people get statues. That is just... wrong.

Second, and this is more important: how do you know she will not say or do something tomorrow, next year, two decades from now for which you will want to cancel her immediately? Then what? Are you going to remove her statue immediately? Are statues now just temporary political statements? In this case paper mache would be a better medium.

Hm? Nobody thought about this? Are everyone so involved with identity politics that they can only think of the present? Some sort of goldfish-mentality this is as Yoda would say)

(Bonus questions... Shall we periodically topple statues of everyone because they failed -or will fail- to live up to our future's standards?)

Cancel culture eating itself (The curious case of Hemal Jhaveri)

 There are plenty of reasons to criticize about the "mainstream media" as it is today; it is pandering to the lowest common denominator, it is permeated by ideology, it has becoame an outrage machine, and it essentially killed journalism...

Well, and it is also very happy to silence any voices that go against the cultural zeitgeist -which is mostly a very much leftist, and very much based on identity-politics. BBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, The Guardian, Huffpost... etc. are not interested in journalism any more - these media outlets are only interested in finding facts (or distorting them) that fit their agenda. Which is a problem. A serious one. 

Cancel culture is a part of this -although it is not an exclusive weapon of the Left, it has to be said. But it is a bit bigger problem there, I would argue. Getting banned from Hollywood, like Gina Carano was, or from the "mainstream" if you "misspeak" carries a bit more weight than getting kicked out from a right-wing media outlet.

Anyhow, normally, when something horrendous happens that resembles a terrorist attack, certain people will jump the gun, and usually rush to conclude that it must have been Muslims before the facts are clear. These people are rightly condemned by certain other people (usually from the Left), that they use a tragedy to further their own agenda, and usually this agenda is quite racist.

It is interesting to see, however, that when a mass-shooting happens, these Left-leaning people suddenly forget these -very much laudable- principles, and jump the gun to blame white men before the facts are clear, and the victims are still warm. And there were a lot of them -an issue on which the above mentioned news outlets kept very silent about, and about which right-wing media outlets had a field day of gotcha's. Both are toxic both are unhelpful. (Although you can't blame Fox News for cheering, to be honest. Finally they can point fingers at the evil liberals victimizing them...)

This time a woman actually lost her job because of her racist tweet. What is more, she keeps playing the victim, going on the usual narrative built on privilege and permanent victimhood. (A "mistake", obviously. Ask Gina about mistakes; her tweet was not even that controversial, although, like any tweet making comparisons with anything and Nazi Germany, it was really stupid.) It is worth reading her ramblings trying to justify herself.

What is a hopeful sign, however, is that perhaps the grasp of identity politics on our everyday life is loosening. I don't think she would have been fired even two years ago due to her being a not-white not-male person and this causing considerable anxiety in the senior management. Maybe common sense will slowly sweep back into the public discourse.

Female hunters and how to claim victory over the Patriarchy

 

Apparently women can hunt. Who would have thought? Seriously, here we are, sitting in our male privilege, telling women to go to the kitchen, and boom, a news like this happens.

Damn. It is a good thing that all these popular science portals present it in an easy-to-digest way, already positioned for fitting into the narrative of identity politics so popular nowdays, posted on their facebook pages with short tags, like "sexist scientists". Or with "The idea that men always hunted and women gathered in ancient hunter-gatherer societies is a myth."

Well, of course it is a fucking myth. It is a myth you just made up, because a cursory glance at the academic papers and wikipedia will tell you that the whole issue of sexual division of labor was not viewed in this simplistic, "Patriarchic" manner by all those sexist, white male scientist people. Let's also ignore the fact that present hunter-gatherer societies (you know, what researchers used as the closest available to model how early humans lived) also very much have gender roles present (as the author of the original paper admits). Let's also ignore the fact that it is not actually a clear-cut evidence, and 'a few female hunters' does not equal to the sweeping generalizations even the study's authors are making (which is kind of telling about their findings... somehow I do not believe they can be partial when they say things like this: "Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow ‘natural.’ But it’s now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different — likely more equitable — in our species’ deep hunter-gatherer past". This sounds like some activism mixed with science to me. I would also like to get an explanation how this "genderization" happened in all known stone-age level societies present on this globe.) To be honest, even some common sense thinking would tell you not to expect strict gender roles in a society that is balancing on the edge of survival: whomever can, will hunt. Nobody will tell a female hunter not to hunt when she brings home an elk.

But this, of course is beside the point. Let's ignore the decades-long scientific discussion. What we need is articles showing how we stick it to the Patriarchy, so people who have absolutely no fucking clue what science is can happily share it on their facebook, generate clicks, and, as a side-effect fight the gender wars which are only deepening the fissures in our societies. (Just reading those posts will melt your brain, by the way. People did find a way to inject some anti-European -anty white under a more palpatable name- sentiments there as well if the whole male-female discussion was not enough for you.)

The racist fish

So apparently even the statue of a fish with boobs is racist.
This perfectly fits into the present trend of vandalizing statues of people of old for being something they were not - like our friend, poor Cervantes. And even when the ire of the activists turns on a genuine racist -like Churchill- we still are faced with the fact that they absolutely have no clue who this bird really was, and why he was a racist. (Let's just ignore the fact he did not get a statute for being a racist.)

So we have a wave of statute-toppling by activists who are absurdly ignorant on what they are actually doing in the name of fighting colonization and racism. Poor fish-girl is the low point of this activism, I think - you can't get lower than that I think.
Let's ignore the whole complex issue of colonialism, slavery and whatnot - after all, nuances are not something we like. We want black and white, binary answers.

But this leads to a real slippery slope. Us judging everyone by today's standards means we will have to remove statues and the works of every single person until the last decade or so from public spaces and the public domain. Not to mention twenty years from now everything that survived the purge will be destroyed since it is safe to bet that tomorrow's standards will be different from today's.

Racism and identity politics

This video is an interesting take on the whole diversity issue.
Essentially Peterson argues that even though there are measurable, objective differences between different groups, the differences are realtively small. They are not significant next to the differences between individuals.
Therefore any argument for diversity based race or gender is basically a racist one, because it essentially states that the major differences between a white person and, let's say, and Asian person are determined by their race, and not by their persons. So an Asian person is more alike to all other Asians, a black person to all other blacks, and a man is to all the men in the world. This reduces a person essentially to his or her "group" being race, gender, sexual orientation, age or anything else.
This is obviously racist, and I do agree with his conclusion on this particular point -somewhat. Indeed the whole problem and paradox of identity politics is that it is fundamentally racist.

But then he further argues that the real basis of diversity is the individual. I am not certain I can accept this, however.

Those small differences he mentioned added up do amount to visible/detectable differences between individuals. Peterson makes the mistake of taking these differences on their own, and not looking at their cummulative effect. Taken as a whole, these differences do amount to an overall variation between groups, even though certain members of the groups may indeed be more similar to another person from a different group than to members of their own group.

So no. I do think it is still important to have as many types of people in groups as possible, although it is probably true that it does not necessarily mean that you have to focus on the "emphasised" grouping, like gender or race. While it may seem like a no-brainer that including a black guy in a group of lawyers may add an extra point of view, I would argue that if that token black guy is coming from the same Harvard environment as the rest of his pastry white co-workers, he will not  bring as much diversity of point of view into this group as a white kid for Idaho who attended to community college (or, god forbid, someone from an European country) would. If you include a black guy who is coming from a ghetto, you are getting there, however. But this is the point that Jordan is pressing: just by picking a random feature, and making it into the sole basis of "diversity", you are essentially a racist (if this feature is race), or, indeed sexist (if it is gender).

A narrowed defition of diversity exported to Europe

So apparently Europe has a diversity problem.
(Apologies for the CNN link; I hate these websites which start ad videos without asking. Deplorable.)

So anyhow, apparently we do.

What do you think it might be? The issue with the roma minority? The status of Hungarians in Romania? (Linked because it is NYT - some things have improved since then, some had not.) Is it the any other problems ethnic minorities face in European countries?

But of course not.

It can only be black people. No other minorities are of importance. In fact, there are no other minorities. This stupid, binary view (black/white) is imported from the US, along with its consequences, as we can see in the riots in the UK about the murder of a man in the US (let's not get into it). And yes, nobody claims black people are not disadvantaged in some countries. But the notion of singling out a population just because it is black, regadless how how few of them are actually living there, while leaving all the other minorities (who might be "only" brown, or god forbid, white - we can't have white minorities, after all) completely out, despite of the fact that by large they have been living in Europe since, well, millennia, and they do face problems of their own is simply preposterous.

In this view, a monolithic white Europe is oppressing blacks because this is what diversity means -and not the multitude of smaller and bigger ethnic groups that make up Europe itself. So when the American police murders a black person, let's smack a bobby in the face, shall we?

Sometimes it feels like the inmates are running the asylum. 

It is simple to explain, though. It is popular, it plays on the white guilt on certain people, and it aligns with the agency of certain people who are in a position to drive the public discourse, and can shout down anyone as a racist or alt-right if they object. In short it makes for a convenient way to deflect discussions about real issues, which would really open a big, freaking can of worm in the perfect European project. After all we can't have people going about tearing up this idea of idillic united Europe by pointing out that certain members may act towards their minorities in a way that is going against the fabled European Values we all heard so much about. So we turn a blind eye to real issues to focus on something that is makes for a good headline and makes the majority (e.g. all white people) into a scapegoat. And this way the proponents of the European Project (which is actually a really good one), and the out-of-control progressives (who worship identity politics) are actually digging the grave for both. The former I do deeply regret; the latter not so much.

The circles of identity politics - or whatever are we going to fight against next?

A relatively old case, but an interesting one which demonstrates how identity politics works. It is a simple one: a woman stabbed her boyfriend, and essentially got away with it with a slap on the wrist.

It is, I have to say, probably enraging a few people -after all, the judgement goes against any sense of justice, because the defendant is a woman. (See: women are wonderful effect -no wonder they get reduced sentences for comparable crimes, right?)

So I was holding my breath when I saw the Guardian headline complaining about injustice with the following headline from two years ago: The Lavinia Woodland case exposes equality before the law as a myth… could it be? The Woke of the Woke, the Flagship of Identity Politics actually stood up against a gross injustice, even if it is about a woman, you know, a person who is suppressed by the systemic forces of a Patriarchy? Maybe now we can have a level-headed discussion about sentencing policies that are so ridiculous it is hard to know where to start to describe them? That maybe the Guardian may point out that women are favoured which leads to miscarriages of justice (not in a legal sense, but in a moral one).

Well, fuck no. Of course not.

The Guardian found a different narrative.

Now it is not heroic, abused women in the yokes of the Patriarchy; after all, a woman is now a beneficiary of this Evil System.
Now it is the minority women against the evil white supremacy which puts them into prison.

There is a kernel of truth in this argument. It is undeniable that money and status played a role in this case. In fact, one can argue, it is the only factor that played any role in the judgement. A poor woman (white or non-white) would not have gotten away so easy. And yes, there is racism in the justice system.

However, deliberately staying blind to the larger injustice - the different sentencing standards for different genders- just because it does not fit into our narrative -well, this is the repugnant part of identity politics. A man would have gotten an even harsher sentence poor or not. And your narrative about the poor, abused women -well, very few criminals are criminals because they chose that life based on a school competency test. Your compassion is only reserved for one part of the population, and you do not see any reason why you should extend it to other human beings who are not in your in-group. If it is about men, your in-group is women, if it is about a white woman, your in-group is minority women. Since everything is relative, you can move the goal posts as much as you like -as long as you keep the victim/oppressor narrative. You are warping reality even when what you say is factually true. Because what you do not say matters, too. You can make fake news without uttering a falsehood, as it is demonstrated so well in this case.

So here's an amazing analysis from Reddit about the issues concerning tribalism, the Left and Right.

I'm just gonna post it in full. (It's a tendency of all the "big" media outlets to steal shit from Reddit; at least I'm properly crediting it.)

All I'm saying is if someone does something bad in a protest, that doesn't make the protest bad.

I think you've chosen the wrong argument here. I think what you should say is that the reason for the protest might not be wrong just because it turns violent, as in the position or argument that the protestors are basing their protest on can stand regardless of the protest actions. That could be true.

However, a protest is what happens at it. A protest that turns violent is, by definition, a bad protest. There is a difference behind the position of the protestors and the behaviour of the protestors. Bad behaviour doesn't mean a bad position, true, but the protest itself is the behaviour, not the position. You can hold the position with or without protesting. The behaviour is the protest and the protest is the behaviour.

Being "in the right" or "in the wrong" is also multifaceted. If I tell you that 2+2=5 and you say, no, it's 4, and I disagree, so you punch me in the face, then you are factually correct in your information but morally wrong in your actions on how to convey that information.

Beyond that academic discussion, there is a deeper issue though. Resorting to violence itself tends to come from a few main sources. People who resort to violence generally often can't win the argument on merits and get frustrated, so turn to violence because they truly believe something even if they can't demonstrate it to be true or articulate it. For example, the claims that Milo is a white supremacists, racist, sexist/misogynist, Islamophobic, or otherwise are baseless because there's both no evidence of any of that and there's plenty of evidence he isn't. But, he tends to vehemently criticize the "social justice" left, so they hate him and either tend to shout him down or turn to violence, since they can't win by debating on facts and reasoning. (I say this as somebody who disagrees with much of what Milo has to say in academic terms, but his critics are more wrong than he is.)

Another related reason people turn to violence is they've fallen prey to ingroup/outgroup tribalism, which is perhaps best modeled by Realistic Conflict Theory and best demonstrated in the Robbers Cave Experiment (RCE).

Essentially you can create hatred, vitriol, and violence between groups is two easy steps. Step 1 is to divide people into groups. That can be random as in the RCE, arbitrary such as the eye colour in Jane Elliott's classroom experiment, or essentially any differentiator: political leanings, favorite sports team, religion, nationality, accent, height, PC vs Mac, Android vs iOS, Coke vs Pepsi.

Step 2 is to set the groups in conflict, either via a competition (rewards, punishment, social status, attention, special privileges, etc.) or sparked by group-based insults ("fascist right", "communist left", "criminal blacks", "privileged whites", "terrorist Muslims", etc.).

That's it. Then buy some popcorn and watch it degrade into violence. In the RCE there were fistfights, sabotage, burning of other teams flag, and so on. In Jane Elliott's class, the different groups oppressed each other given the chance.

In addition to the violence and hatred, the groups tend to create in-group social norms arbitrarily and out-group narratives, typically with "us" being saints and righteous and "them" being evil. Both sides tend to rationalize, including rationalizing violence because "they" are evil, and the ends justify the means. Facts be damned.

In the U.S., this tribalist behaviour is clearly demonstrable in the massively partisan division. On top of that, you have the fringe voices becoming the justifications. On the fringe right you have the white supremacists who statistically represent a small rounding error of Trump supporters yet these are who the political left use to smear Trump supporters. On the fringe left you have the "social justice" activists and anarchists who represent only a fraction of the anti-Trump crowd (and/or Clinton supporters), yet this is who the political right use to smear anti-Trump supporters. (Milo is one of them too, who equate SJWs with liberals or anyone left of center, which is where he is very wrong of course.)

It also happens that these are the two groups that instigate Steps 1 and 2 of Realistic Conflict Theory. The fringe bigots on the right group people by traits: skin colour/race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on. They put them in a competition in a hierarchy with the dominant/majority at the top and the marginalized minorities at the bottom, and suggest everybody must conform to the interests of people at the higher end of the hierarchy.

The social justice left also group people by traits: skin colour/race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on. They put them in a competition in a hierarchy with the marginalized minorities at the top and the dominant/majority at the bottom (known as the progressive stack), and suggest everybody must conform to the interests of people at the higher end of the hierarchy. And, they refer to groups having "voices" and treat people based on their grouping. It tends to derive from a form of Marxism of flipping the powers as applied to minority status instead of by peasants vs industrialists.

Voila, both of these fringe groups both contribute to creating hatred between groups. Both contribute to each others existence and power, and both pull the partisan politics to more extremes. And both are very, very wrong. Both commit the fallacy of division, assuming things that apply to the groups as a whole apply to individuals described by those groupings, and both commit the base rate fallacy. The fringe right confuse the fact that "most terrorists are Muslim" (true) with "most Muslims are terrorists" (not true). The fringe left confuse "most privileged people tend to be whites/males" (true) with "most whites/males tend to be privileged" (not true).

The correct answer is for both fringes to stop treating people as being part of a group defined by traits, and instead treat people as individuals who have traits. Treat them by the content of the character (merit), and not the color of their skin (race). This is, in fact, what is written into human rights codes, that all individuals are equal to other individuals and have the right not to be judged based on such traits, except where the trait is the merit of interest itself. It is then violations of that rule that are bigotry, and that applies equally to all people of all races, sexes, gender identities, nationalities, ethnicities, and so on. It's the violation of the principle that matters, not the particular race or group that matters.

So what does this have to do with violence and protests? Protests often turn violent when the protesters are themselves subject to tribalist tendencies; the "us vs them" mentality. This is why right-wing racists turn violent against racial groups and fringe left-wing groups, and why left-wing Marxists tend to turn violent against right-wing groups. It's also why liberals, libertarians, and moderate conservatives don't tend to turn violent, because they are based on common rules for all and equal freedom and equal rights for all, not group against group fighting for power.

So, in that context, a protest turning violent is an indicator that the protestors are not doing so based on taking a reasoned position, but rather are being tribalist. It's not so much your example, "if an anti-fascist protest happens and a protestor punches someone", it's more that the "anti-fascist" protest is very likely wrong that the people they are protesting are fascist at all.