The phenomenon which Dansky’s experience illustrates, plays out on near every WaPo comment thread though to lesser degrees. Say the secret word(s) but no dropping duck. You don’t get $50 or a wisecrack from Groucho. What you do reliably get, for thought transgression (nee disagreement) is 1) immediate personal attack, irrelevant as that may be to the discussion 2) that personal attack variably claims you to be a terrorist, Nazi, anti-Semite, Trump lover, Putin fellator, bridge camper outer, weather person to be consulted about current temps in Moscow or Beijing, or vodka taster, dim sum addict etc. 3) the accusation of troll, specifically proscribed in the guidelines, tends to follow in Hasbara playbook-like volleys, far too synchronized to be random, often resembling coordinated Lesley Dart-like defense of her clients Harvey “the Pig” and Woody Allen. 4) vile name-calling meant to bully can be expected and outstrips moderating capacity at times. 5) the final strategy entails variable forms of straw man construction, from attacking things you didn’t say but are implied to have done , ranging to ignoring all but one inessential point in an argument and blitzing that. It used to be said there is no better window into the soul than the things people lie about. Now there is no better window into media editorial bias than the overkill in assault on ideas deemed “dangerous”.
You should take satisfaction in knowing that your comment, no matter how innocuous it may appear from your view point, has most likely caused their underoos to bunch up & lodge itself deep into the tender recesses of their undercarriage where it will sit for hours like a fat bloated tick of outrage.
Thank you. I do imagine it does what you suggest. And I imagine those ticks are fighting for space with the pinworms and with the other mascots of US foreign policy.
I ordered Dansky's book after reading this essay. It arrived yesterday, and I read the whole book. It's helped me articulate the problems I've been having with the transgender agenda from a feminist perspective.
I keep asking "what does it mean to be a man trapped in a woman's body and vice versa?" Dansky has clarified my thoughts. My understanding from the feminism of the 70s and 80s was that both women and men can have qualities, interests, skills, etc., that our culture assigns to one gender or the other. A girl can like math and fixing cars. A boy can enjoy sewing and cooking. We don't have to be forced into a stereotype of what it means to be a man or a woman.
It feels like now we're saying the little girl who likes to do boy activities might actually be a boy born in a girl's body. The fact that young children who haven't fully matured emotionally and intellectually might be given drugs and irreversible surgery makes me nervous.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole thing, but, honestly, it doesn't feel like you can ask, because if you even say, "I don't understand," you risk being called a transphobe.
How was the book - do you recommend it? My own daughter lost in the woods of an open mind that is now a hole in her head says to me “I cannot have this conversation.” It is the first time we could not discuss current events.
It's ok. Very short. 130 pages. I felt like she tended to give her conclusions without setting up her arguments in detail. It did help me articulate my discomfort from a feminist point of view. I always ask that question of my son (the only person I feel comfortable talking with this about) - what does it mean to be a woman in a man's body? Is there some woman essence that accidentally got into a man's body at birth? Or are we talking about people who feel like their interests or personality or whatever don't conform to their sex? If it's the latter, then aren't we just talking about the gender roles feminists were questioning in the 70s and turning them into a medical problem?
Two other books that cover this issue from a feminist perspective, which I highly recommend: Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce and Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleeen Stock.
I read this piece some time ago, it's basically the church in the middle ages debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. My first Boss summed up Americans very crudely and simply.."Bullshit baffles brain's!" Homo sapiens can believe anything and it seems that these days, the more education people have, the more fantastical the things they can believe and believe agressively, again like religion in the middle ages. I'm not even confident any more that the current fantastical narratives are put out by the ruling classes to control the lumpenproletariat. I believe that this craziness is a self licking ice cream cone. We, the west as usual led by the USA is devolving into absurdities and irrelevancy as the East rockets ahead. It's not just high speed trains in China; they're not hamstrung by doctrinaire Madness.
You earned your monthly stipend Matt. This helped clarify many things for me and I checked out the womensliberationfront.org as well. The question is always who has the megaphone and why. We know who owns the megaphone but to step by and ask why something is being forced on us is important. Men presenting as women are not women and they may not belong in a men’s prison but they certainly do not belong in a women’s prison. The censorship is becoming the key to knowing when the puppeteers are at work promoting social division and what better way than taking it to the schools, Stand with the real feminists!
I got all the way into my 60s with a rock-hard assumption that I would never witness medieval barbarism, like a beheading. Then came ISIS, who put one on TV, following it up with burning a man to ash in a cage, also in living color. And now we see the return of HERESY tribunals conducted in the pages of prestige media, careers destroyed on purpose to halt the spread of “dangerous thought.” Heresy is back, my friends, a big freaking deal. Things change.
Matt, please, please, please don’t self censor. Reading all all viewpoints is why I pay for sub stack. Hang tough, man!
The phenomenon which Dansky’s experience illustrates, plays out on near every WaPo comment thread though to lesser degrees. Say the secret word(s) but no dropping duck. You don’t get $50 or a wisecrack from Groucho. What you do reliably get, for thought transgression (nee disagreement) is 1) immediate personal attack, irrelevant as that may be to the discussion 2) that personal attack variably claims you to be a terrorist, Nazi, anti-Semite, Trump lover, Putin fellator, bridge camper outer, weather person to be consulted about current temps in Moscow or Beijing, or vodka taster, dim sum addict etc. 3) the accusation of troll, specifically proscribed in the guidelines, tends to follow in Hasbara playbook-like volleys, far too synchronized to be random, often resembling coordinated Lesley Dart-like defense of her clients Harvey “the Pig” and Woody Allen. 4) vile name-calling meant to bully can be expected and outstrips moderating capacity at times. 5) the final strategy entails variable forms of straw man construction, from attacking things you didn’t say but are implied to have done , ranging to ignoring all but one inessential point in an argument and blitzing that. It used to be said there is no better window into the soul than the things people lie about. Now there is no better window into media editorial bias than the overkill in assault on ideas deemed “dangerous”.
You should take satisfaction in knowing that your comment, no matter how innocuous it may appear from your view point, has most likely caused their underoos to bunch up & lodge itself deep into the tender recesses of their undercarriage where it will sit for hours like a fat bloated tick of outrage.
Thank you. I do imagine it does what you suggest. And I imagine those ticks are fighting for space with the pinworms and with the other mascots of US foreign policy.
Worth the laugh it gives me.
Thanks again, Matt.
I ordered Dansky's book after reading this essay. It arrived yesterday, and I read the whole book. It's helped me articulate the problems I've been having with the transgender agenda from a feminist perspective.
I keep asking "what does it mean to be a man trapped in a woman's body and vice versa?" Dansky has clarified my thoughts. My understanding from the feminism of the 70s and 80s was that both women and men can have qualities, interests, skills, etc., that our culture assigns to one gender or the other. A girl can like math and fixing cars. A boy can enjoy sewing and cooking. We don't have to be forced into a stereotype of what it means to be a man or a woman.
It feels like now we're saying the little girl who likes to do boy activities might actually be a boy born in a girl's body. The fact that young children who haven't fully matured emotionally and intellectually might be given drugs and irreversible surgery makes me nervous.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole thing, but, honestly, it doesn't feel like you can ask, because if you even say, "I don't understand," you risk being called a transphobe.
How was the book - do you recommend it? My own daughter lost in the woods of an open mind that is now a hole in her head says to me “I cannot have this conversation.” It is the first time we could not discuss current events.
It's ok. Very short. 130 pages. I felt like she tended to give her conclusions without setting up her arguments in detail. It did help me articulate my discomfort from a feminist point of view. I always ask that question of my son (the only person I feel comfortable talking with this about) - what does it mean to be a woman in a man's body? Is there some woman essence that accidentally got into a man's body at birth? Or are we talking about people who feel like their interests or personality or whatever don't conform to their sex? If it's the latter, then aren't we just talking about the gender roles feminists were questioning in the 70s and turning them into a medical problem?
Two other books that cover this issue from a feminist perspective, which I highly recommend: Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce and Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleeen Stock.
I read this piece some time ago, it's basically the church in the middle ages debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. My first Boss summed up Americans very crudely and simply.."Bullshit baffles brain's!" Homo sapiens can believe anything and it seems that these days, the more education people have, the more fantastical the things they can believe and believe agressively, again like religion in the middle ages. I'm not even confident any more that the current fantastical narratives are put out by the ruling classes to control the lumpenproletariat. I believe that this craziness is a self licking ice cream cone. We, the west as usual led by the USA is devolving into absurdities and irrelevancy as the East rockets ahead. It's not just high speed trains in China; they're not hamstrung by doctrinaire Madness.
DORE ’24 has a nice ring to it !!
Kara has a point. The included linked article written by a woman
caught my attention as the words women and mothers which suggest
female gender, were not used until about nine paragraphs in. Could those
words not be used at the get go instead of people who......? Men are people
are they not?
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/12/1104393549/tampons-are-the-latest-supply-chain-casualty-women-took-notice-months-ago
You earned your monthly stipend Matt. This helped clarify many things for me and I checked out the womensliberationfront.org as well. The question is always who has the megaphone and why. We know who owns the megaphone but to step by and ask why something is being forced on us is important. Men presenting as women are not women and they may not belong in a men’s prison but they certainly do not belong in a women’s prison. The censorship is becoming the key to knowing when the puppeteers are at work promoting social division and what better way than taking it to the schools, Stand with the real feminists!
I got all the way into my 60s with a rock-hard assumption that I would never witness medieval barbarism, like a beheading. Then came ISIS, who put one on TV, following it up with burning a man to ash in a cage, also in living color. And now we see the return of HERESY tribunals conducted in the pages of prestige media, careers destroyed on purpose to halt the spread of “dangerous thought.” Heresy is back, my friends, a big freaking deal. Things change.