{"id":38,"date":"2015-04-28T00:25:30","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T00:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/?p=38"},"modified":"2015-08-03T16:10:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T16:10:20","slug":"a-liberal-laments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/2015\/04\/28\/a-liberal-laments\/","title":{"rendered":"A Liberal Laments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>(Image courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SexyIsntSexist\" target=\"_blank\">Paula Wright<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Straddling the current liberal divide is a precarious pastime. The decision to add one\u2019s voice to almost any debate can be ruinous to both personal and professional relationships. Issues that should be as contentious as discussing one\u2019s favourite colour must now be approached with all the tact of a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n<p>It is no longer possible to just be wrong on any given issue. Expressing a contrary view or uttering the wrong pronoun is neither met with civil disagreement nor polite admonishment. For those on the far left, transgressions of this sort supersede everything else about the guilty party\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the case of transgender porn star Bailey Jay, who expressed <a href=\"http:\/\/transgendertrender.tumblr.com\/post\/88895885223\/zjemptv-so-it-turns-out-bailey-jay-is-a\" target=\"_blank\">the reasonable opinion<\/a> that certain reactionary voices\u00a0within the Trans community have made transgender people appear unstable. Not content to disagree and offer her reasons for doing so, LGBTQ activist Zinnia Jones responded by dismissing Bailey Jay as \u201ca complete asshole,\u201d seemingly oblivious to the irony of her\u00a0reaction (<em>note added below<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The fallout from Mick Nugent\u2019s defence of Richard Dawkins in 2014 is another prominent example of just how maddeningly difficult it is to productively engage with one\u2019s ideological opponents. The long-suffering Nugent\u00a0wasn\u2019t merely admonished for any perceived\u00a0wrongheadedness. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelnugent.com\/2014\/10\/13\/pz-myers-has-failed-five-times-to-justify-his-smear-that-i-am-defending-and-providing-a-haven-for-rapists-on-my-blog\/\" target=\"_blank\">According to PZ Myers<\/a>, he was \u201cdefending and providing a haven for harassers, misogynists, and rapists.\u201d Naturally, Myers was every bit as forthcoming with supporting evidence as he was with a retraction.<\/p>\n<p>I could go on and on with example after example of this bizarre need to demonise one\u2019s opponents, but what would be the point? Purveyors of this style of discourse have insulated themselves from criticism with reference to a catalogue of exculpatory buzzwords and phrases.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019re not disagreeing civilly. You\u2019re tone trolling.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019re not lamenting needlessly adversarial and counter-productive arguments. You\u2019re concern trolling.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019re not offering an opinion. You\u2019re mansplaining.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou don\u2019t really value evidence. You\u2019re just victim blaming.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019re not dancing\/singing\/dressing up. You\u2019re appropriating [insert culture].\u201d (Perhaps said while sporting a bindi, lip-syncing to \u201cFuck tha Police\u201d and boasting a tribal tattoo)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Is this style of discourse working for anyone? Beyond deepening already-profound rifts and alienating would-be allies, what does it achieve? Somewhat embarrassingly, my ex-girlfriend and I were actually forced to avoid certain conversation topics because I would inevitably be on the receiving end of a tirade within uttering a single contrary syllable. Being forced to negotiate an ever-expanding minefield of social interaction is certainly not how I define progress.<\/p>\n<p>I take no pleasure in making this observation, but the notion that conservatives have a monopoly on anti-intellectualism is painfully outdated. There is similar contempt for any evidence that is at odds with far-left narratives. Evolutionary psychology, a vast and diverse field, is often dismissed based on ideological biases. Indeed, simply requesting evidence for certain claims is to betray far-right fanaticism in the eyes of professional umbrage-takers such as\u00a0Amanda Marcotte.<\/p>\n<p>Is this what liberalism has become? Respect for evidence ends where one\u2019s worldview begins? Listen and believe one gender? Do not essentialise, unless you\u2019re referring to straight white males? Innocent until proven guilty, unless it\u2019s a sex crime and the victim is female? Protest the \u201cdamsel in distress\u201d media trope, all the while infantilising women at every possible opportunity? Complain about scantily clad cartoon women on a scientist\u2019s shirt, yet defend the patriarchal horror of conservative Islam in the name of multiculturalism?<\/p>\n<p>The moral, social, political and epistemological confusion\u00a0of the far left is now indistinguishable from a vast Sokalian hoax. At the risk of ignoring the Scottishness of these outrage-junkies, I cannot bring myself to call them liberals. If these people are liberals, then I have somehow become a centrist who doesn\u2019t hold a single conservative political view. I am ordinarily ambivalent towards labels, but I\u2019m just not ready to cede this particular label to left-wing authoritarians.<\/p>\n<p><em>Zinnia Jones has brought to my attention some followup posts in which she provides reasons for her views on Bailey Jay. You can find those posts <a href=\"http:\/\/gender.agency\/post\/86812288710\/chelseapoe-chelseapoe-zjemptv-so-it-turns\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gender.agency\/post\/86765895585\/why-cant-bailey-jay-just-have-her-feelings-about\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. I have also edited out a line that was, on reflection, needlessly insulting and a touch hypocritical given the\u00a0point I was making.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Image courtesy of Paula Wright) Straddling the current liberal divide is a precarious pastime. The decision to add one\u2019s voice&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":39,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-gender","category-secularism","category-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/flyingscotsman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}