A chance remark about J K Rowling being involved in some controversy got me talking with someone recently and they admitted that they knew nothing about the subject, which was trans-gender rights. We didn’t talk long but I said that I would go away and write something which I hope would explain how I have come to my view.
When I started, I soon realised that I needed to use some of the philosophical
and psychological learnings I’ve made over the last few years of study.
So here is my first attempt to look at the situation in that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U2caURO-d4
Above is a
link to a talk by cognitive scientist, Dr John Vervaeke. If you don’t want to
watch it all, watch from 26 mins 30 secs in for a few minutes but here’s a
quote.
“Knowledge
deals with ignorance. Wisdom deals with foolishness. Knowledge & wisdom are
NOT the same thing. You can be very intelligent and very foolish; and there is
no contradiction there at all”.
To be wise,
you have to be able to take multiple perspectives of the thing you are
considering and find, where possible, a meeting point. This takes a real desire
because taking multiple perspectives requires serious effort and can also
require you to take seriously & find value in viewpoints you don’t like or
share.
Single perspective closed-minded tribalism is SO much easier. BUT without
making that effort to look at the problem from multiple perspectives, you can’t
see the bias within the single perspective that you’ve inhabited, often
unthinkingly, or perhaps I should say, unchallenged, for years.
It’s the old saying, ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’.
You can find yourself expending all your efforts merely to rationalise in
knee-jerk reactive fashion, why what you already believe is right, & any
alternative view wrong.
Never stepping back outside the trees to see the wider landscape, the wider perspective,
and genuinely questioning in good faith whether this long-held single
perspectival belief is in reality the best one.
As Plato
pointed out, we are finite beings. We are not gods. We are bound to circumstances
and fate in powerful ways. And if we forget that, we fall into hubris. Hubris (arrogance)
prevents us opening our hearts & minds to seek truth.
So, onto the
specific subject I was asked to explain my thoughts on, the trans-rights issue.
In the same
way that falling feels like flying until you pull the chord on the parachute
and it doesn’t open, so policies that massively change the accepted societal norms,
like the SNP have just passed into law, allowing people of one biological sex
to identify as, and then be treated in every way as if they really
are the opposite biological sex, can feel like a positive change until the
reality of what it actually means in practice hits home.
For example, biological and often physically unaltered men in female sports,
bathrooms, prisons etc will not end well for far too many biological women.
And rest assured, it will be the vulnerable, and particularly women, and
specifically those from the lower socio-economic groups who don’t have the
resources to avoid the problems, who will lose out most.
I suggest that what we see in a governmental policy like this is a
single-perspective ideology filled with god-like hubris. Foolishness.
While I
shouldn’t have to state this, I will, in the hope (probably vain) of preventing
the more hysterical feedback.
I’m with J K Rowling on this issue, whose view can be summarised as: dress how
you like and identify how you like but DO NOT tell other people that they must pretend
biology isn’t real, and that you are reducing or removing their rights in order
to make yourself feel better.
Now, lest
people again jump to the wrong conclusion about my views, wisdom is certainly not
refusing change.
Obviously. How could it be?
Rather, it’s being able to look at an issue from many perspectives and tell which
societal changes will be overall positive to society, and which will be overall
negative, WITHOUT having to risk conducting the experiment in real life to find
out.
Some experiments are simply too dangerous if they go wrong (see Communism &
Fascism but also the Wuhan gain of function lab leak for a contemporary
practical example).
We are too
ready, I believe, to let people off with foolishness if it doesn’t directly
affect us;
We are too ready to let people off with foolishness just to be non-judgemental;
because being non-judgemental is supposedly ‘nice’ and being judgemental
‘nasty’.
But it’s not that simple.
Like all catchy soundbites, it’s yes, BUT……
Speak to a rape victim or the
parent of a child killed by a drunk driver, or the parent of a child being
bullied at school, for example.
Don’t judge? Don’t speak out? Keep silent?
Some things MUST be judged, otherwise we have slavery, chaos, and anarchy.
What are we
saying when we say, ‘oh, we mustn’t judge other people’? We all make
judgements about others every day.
The fact we only think it doesn’t mean we didn’t make the judgement.
Do we think accidental foolish actions or the foolish actions of the
well-meaning, are somehow OK?
So it’s the intention that matters most, not the results of the action?
This feels right on a superficial level but is surely nonsense if you think
more deeply.
Indeed, such an attitude is itself another somewhat self-indulgent foolishness.
The outcome of an action HAS to be the crux of the matter, because some
actions (some foolishnesses) have adverse consequences on others which didn’t
need to happen.
Some actions then lack wisdom, and wisdom should be at the heart of all we do
as much as possible.
In complex
societies like ours, there are questions for which there is – NO - perfect -
answer. And believing that every problem for every group or individual can
always be solved is another foolishness.
And when it
comes down to it, the total acceptance of the trans-activist agenda by the
Scottish government is, I believe, a case in point.
Sometimes, the best we can do will still leave a minority feeling unhappy;
pretending otherwise, which beliefs and policies like this do, is more
foolishness.
Wishful thinking is not wise.
Trying to make one very small group happy by giving them rights the basis for
which are NOT borne out by accepted & proven scientific knowledge? Really?
Trying to make one very small group happy by giving them rights that require you to remove the rights of others? Really?
Boy, you’ve got to tread very carefully doing that.
And the SNP with their Green party coalition partners have rammed this through
with foolish speed.
It is single-perspective ideology and great hubris writ large.
It’s foolishness.
J S Mill
spoke of the tyranny of the majority and certainly, that can lead to bad
results. But even worse is a tyranny of a minority.
At least the majority getting their own way has some natural logic to it.
But we are currently
living through a tyranny of the minority, and not of the minorities you may
immediately think of, but of the elite at the top of society around the world who
feel themselves untouchable in any meaningful way.
The trans-gender activist agenda couldn’t possibly gain the traction it has
without the support of many powerful & influential people.
What you or I think of it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if the elite, the
powerful, the influential in society, didn’t want it.
They are
imposing/allowing/facilitating, society altering policies of which the
trans-agenda is only one (others are, mass immigration, gender theory, critical
race theory, intersectional theory, covid alarmism, climate alarmism and the
like) all hiding behind a claim of safety/of kindness/of tolerance/of inclusivity.
And it’s irrelevant how many of these specific issues you agree or disagree
with, because the gaining of your agreement is totally irrelevant to those
pushing them forward.
Their purpose in turning society upside down is the belief that THEY, the elite
class, the good guys as they see themselves, will still be in charge after
it all goes to hell in a hand cart, and their position in society will be not only
unaffected, but strengthened.
Strengthened by diminishing, if not removing, democracy.
Leaving the wealthy, the influential, the well-positioned a free unconstrained run.
Removing the ability of the majority opinion to change or even influence policy;
that’s what these elites are after.
They are acting from a single perspective and with god-like hubris.
It's foolishness.
So, my
working hypothesis, which seems to fit what is actually happening, (irrespective
of the official narrative), is that they are trying to bring about a global technocratic
dictatorship of the elite class, by destabilising the societal norms of the
liberal democracies, in terms of social behaviour, energy availability, food
availability, travel availability, and finance availability.
It’s these things that the individuals within a democracy rely on to
understand and function independently of the apparatus of the State.
Perhaps I should just say that when I keep saying ‘THEY’, or the 'elite', ‘they’
can be symbolised & embodied by the WEF, which is basically a club of the
most wealthy & influential people; the self-styled elite of global society.
They are
using a host of seemingly unconnected ‘foolishnesses’, to get us all distracted
and arguing, in the hope that we won’t realise that there is a much larger creeping
authoritarian agenda.
We can’t see the wood for all the trees they have us frightened of and bickering
about – and I’ve already given examples of these distracting ‘trees’ (exaggerated
alarmism over climate & covid, wars, energy shortages, cost of living
problems, mass immigration, gender theory, critical race theory etc).
The constant use of fear and division is destabilising society in order to distract
us from noticing the over-arching purpose.
Which is
what?
Well, in my
hypothesis, it looks remarkably like Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.
That was
written in the early 1930s, so of course the details will be different, but the
basis of it seems to be coming to pass, certainly at the high or meta-level.
The population is forced into groups (intersectionality). Groups of greater or
lesser importance, from which it is next to impossible to escape, and the only
people with any real autonomy, and who get to decide everything,
are those in the top elite group.
The WEF members & their wannabe acolytes.
The rules don’t apply to them, rather, they decide the rules that they apply to
everyone else.
We saw this in practical terms when so many people in positions of power &
influence were caught ignoring the Covid rules – rules THEY had put in place or
supported.
And in a wider context, almost daily, we see stories of those with money or
influence getting away with behaviour an ordinary person would not. Of mega-wealthy
unelected people & corporations buying undue influence over governments and
administration of States.
I am
concerned that the WEF ‘group think’, is that representative democracy hasn’t
produced the ‘right’ results (Brexit/Trump); it’s had its chance and
failed; and so must be done away with.
It can’t be said
openly for obvious reasons, so it is being done by stealth.
It’s a REgression
to the time before the franchise was made universal to all adults, when the
elites decided everything and the rest had to simply accept it and know their
place.
That this is in fact a regression back to the historical norm, elites being in
charge and the plebs doing as they’re told, doesn’t make it right or good; and
it certainly isn’t progress, quite the reverse.
The enslavement of humans by other humans has always been the global historical norm, but
few would argue this means we should return to it.
And yet, fundamentally, this is what’s happening with our democracy via the
rapid overturning of key societal norms.
If something
is foolish, it shouldn’t be happening.
It is not in any way wise to look the other way just because the issue
isn’t currently affecting us, or it’s too much effort to fight it, or we
want to tell ourselves what kind tolerant people we are, or the people doing it
convince us they truly believe in it, or they bribe us in some way, or they distract
us by manufacturing lots of ‘trees’ to get us lost among.
Foolishness,
whether accidental or well-meaning or knowingly dangerous, is still foolishness,
and must be identified, called-out and resisted.
Now, this must
NOT be done with hate in our hearts - but it must be done.
That’s
wisdom - but it also takes courage - because those creating all the distracting
foolishnesses - are both very determined - and very powerful.
They’re playing
for high stakes, (the effective rule of the world) and they propagandise, and bend,
break, or simply make new rules, as they deem necessary to win.
Thanks for readinging. By for now.
