Here's a piece in Quillette about how in Canada kids hockey coaches have to take non-binary gender classes in order to coach ice hockey. One parent said no.
Or whatabout Australian Margaret Court, the greatest woman tennis player of all time? She's in trouble because she thinks that transgenders should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. Oh, by the way, Court is now a Pentecostal minister, and some of her offending comments were made in sermons. You can see the problem with this Guardian headline: "Margaret Court: astounding champion who found God and lost the respect of a nation." The Guardianistas cannot endure the notion that maybe there are other ideas in the world.
Now, it is not that hard for me to fit this onto the Procrustean bed of my reductive Three Peoples theory.
If you are a Gentry or a Creative you think that people are supposed to be creative and that anyone that prevents people being creative is a hater and a bigot and should not be permitted in the public square. One of the more obvious ways of being creative is to step out of traditional sex and "gender" roles, for instance as a feminist or as an LGBT. Since Gentry people believe, as part of their secular religious tenets, that gender creativity is morally a Good Thing then people that promote traditional gender roles are doing a Bad Thing.
But if you are a Commoner or a Responsible you believe that people are supposed to obey the law and follow the rules. That is what traditional Christianity teaches. That is what "Sin" is all about. Expert theologians and prophets, inspired by God, have decided for you what is good and what is bad. Just obey the law and follow the rules and you will go to Heaven. In particular when it comes to sex.
Now, it seems obvious to me that both the Gentry/Creative and the Commoner/Responsible positions on sex are declarations of faith, worked out by the prophets and the philosophers of their faith traditions. There can really be no compromise on this, because each doctrine is one religion's attempt to determine "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything."
Let me reiterate. If you are a Gentry/Creative you probably believe that the whole point of life is to be a creative artist or activist, and you believe it is ridiculous to live a life where you just abide by the rules and roles of your parents. If you are a Commoner/Responsible you probably believe that the rules of the good life are instantiated in your religion and in the tradition of your family. It is unconceivable to step out of that tradition and imagine a life that breaks with the rules and roles you have inherited.
Of course, it would not matter that Gentry people do not understand Commoner people if it weren't for governemnt. There is, you may have noticed, a tendency for religions and governments to join up. Government is force, and the government governs best that governs least. So it really helps government govern if God is on its side.
But what if there are competing religions in the lands governed by a particular government?
Well, our Founders recognized that this could be a problem. So they decreed that there should be a separation of church and state and wrote into the First Amendment that there should be no state establishment of religion. That way people could profess different religions and would not be allowed to impose their religion on the rest of the nation. In the phrase invented by our liberal friends, the government would not be allowed to "legislate morality."
But when the Canadian government requires coaches of children's sports to undergo LGBT sensitivity training the government is legislating morality. It is imposing the religion of the Gentry/Creative class on the rest of the nation.
What, the lefties say? We don't believe in religion. We are past all that. All we are trying to do is establish justice for traditionally marginalized groups.
That, of course, is the great problem of the age. Lefties do not understand that their beliefs are religious beliefs, that they have a god, even if it is not a traditional Axial Age god. And they do not understand that most of what they do is legislating their lefty morality on the rest of us. Or else.
And, on top of that, they are saying that you will believe in our Gentry/Creative class religion and only that religion. All other faiths are superstition and bigotry and hate and will be driven from the public square. In particular the Christian faith of Commoners and Responsibles is not to be endured.
Yes, but, the lefty believers insist. We believe in facts and logic and reality. And these other people are reactionaries and patriarchs and gay-baiters. Are you standing up for haters? You must be a racist, sexist homophobe.
Yes. Well. Every half-baked fool believes that she believes in truth and the other people believe in lies.
I believe that we are all searching for "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything" and because we do not know we have to make it up.
Let me reiterate this. I believe that nobody knows "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything." But every religion and every activist group is claiming that it does.
The beginning of wisdom is to understand that different people will have different understandings of "the meaning of life, the universe and everything."
And as a practical matter it is probably a good idea to let other people practice their faith in peace and not get in their faces. Because there is this nasty thing called religious war. Or, if you prefer, using the argot of the 20th century, ideological war.
And when humans engage in religious or ideological war, millions of humans die. the Nazis declared ideological war on the Jews, and the official word is 6 million Jews dead. The Commies declared war on wreckers and saboteurs and kulaks and rich farmers. The official word is 100 million Russians and Chinese dead.
So I say to the wokerati, stop this nonsense of forcing your creative religion down everyone's throat. Because you chaps are provoking a rebellion, and you won't like what happens if it actually gets going.
Or whatabout Australian Margaret Court, the greatest woman tennis player of all time? She's in trouble because she thinks that transgenders should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. Oh, by the way, Court is now a Pentecostal minister, and some of her offending comments were made in sermons. You can see the problem with this Guardian headline: "Margaret Court: astounding champion who found God and lost the respect of a nation." The Guardianistas cannot endure the notion that maybe there are other ideas in the world.
Now, it is not that hard for me to fit this onto the Procrustean bed of my reductive Three Peoples theory.
If you are a Gentry or a Creative you think that people are supposed to be creative and that anyone that prevents people being creative is a hater and a bigot and should not be permitted in the public square. One of the more obvious ways of being creative is to step out of traditional sex and "gender" roles, for instance as a feminist or as an LGBT. Since Gentry people believe, as part of their secular religious tenets, that gender creativity is morally a Good Thing then people that promote traditional gender roles are doing a Bad Thing.
But if you are a Commoner or a Responsible you believe that people are supposed to obey the law and follow the rules. That is what traditional Christianity teaches. That is what "Sin" is all about. Expert theologians and prophets, inspired by God, have decided for you what is good and what is bad. Just obey the law and follow the rules and you will go to Heaven. In particular when it comes to sex.
Now, it seems obvious to me that both the Gentry/Creative and the Commoner/Responsible positions on sex are declarations of faith, worked out by the prophets and the philosophers of their faith traditions. There can really be no compromise on this, because each doctrine is one religion's attempt to determine "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything."
Let me reiterate. If you are a Gentry/Creative you probably believe that the whole point of life is to be a creative artist or activist, and you believe it is ridiculous to live a life where you just abide by the rules and roles of your parents. If you are a Commoner/Responsible you probably believe that the rules of the good life are instantiated in your religion and in the tradition of your family. It is unconceivable to step out of that tradition and imagine a life that breaks with the rules and roles you have inherited.
Of course, it would not matter that Gentry people do not understand Commoner people if it weren't for governemnt. There is, you may have noticed, a tendency for religions and governments to join up. Government is force, and the government governs best that governs least. So it really helps government govern if God is on its side.
But what if there are competing religions in the lands governed by a particular government?
Well, our Founders recognized that this could be a problem. So they decreed that there should be a separation of church and state and wrote into the First Amendment that there should be no state establishment of religion. That way people could profess different religions and would not be allowed to impose their religion on the rest of the nation. In the phrase invented by our liberal friends, the government would not be allowed to "legislate morality."
But when the Canadian government requires coaches of children's sports to undergo LGBT sensitivity training the government is legislating morality. It is imposing the religion of the Gentry/Creative class on the rest of the nation.
What, the lefties say? We don't believe in religion. We are past all that. All we are trying to do is establish justice for traditionally marginalized groups.
That, of course, is the great problem of the age. Lefties do not understand that their beliefs are religious beliefs, that they have a god, even if it is not a traditional Axial Age god. And they do not understand that most of what they do is legislating their lefty morality on the rest of us. Or else.
And, on top of that, they are saying that you will believe in our Gentry/Creative class religion and only that religion. All other faiths are superstition and bigotry and hate and will be driven from the public square. In particular the Christian faith of Commoners and Responsibles is not to be endured.
Yes, but, the lefty believers insist. We believe in facts and logic and reality. And these other people are reactionaries and patriarchs and gay-baiters. Are you standing up for haters? You must be a racist, sexist homophobe.
Yes. Well. Every half-baked fool believes that she believes in truth and the other people believe in lies.
I believe that we are all searching for "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything" and because we do not know we have to make it up.
Let me reiterate this. I believe that nobody knows "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything." But every religion and every activist group is claiming that it does.
The beginning of wisdom is to understand that different people will have different understandings of "the meaning of life, the universe and everything."
And as a practical matter it is probably a good idea to let other people practice their faith in peace and not get in their faces. Because there is this nasty thing called religious war. Or, if you prefer, using the argot of the 20th century, ideological war.
And when humans engage in religious or ideological war, millions of humans die. the Nazis declared ideological war on the Jews, and the official word is 6 million Jews dead. The Commies declared war on wreckers and saboteurs and kulaks and rich farmers. The official word is 100 million Russians and Chinese dead.
So I say to the wokerati, stop this nonsense of forcing your creative religion down everyone's throat. Because you chaps are provoking a rebellion, and you won't like what happens if it actually gets going.
In the last decade, the probability of a US civil war has gone from inconceivable to conceivable, a big step. The lefties have not reacted well to pushback and, as of now, it's not at all clear what their limits may be, if any.
ReplyDeleteBTW: Having a good time working my way through your online portfolio. You have some original (from my viewpoint anyway) theses that seem to fit.