“Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.”
Here’s another case, not a million miles away, and maybe more depressing and literally harmful. The Netflix show “Sex Education”
The first two seasons of this are actually decent. Not fully my bag but funny in moments and I like the aim of having frank and honest depictions of sex and sexuality (gay and straight) available in ways that weren’t around when I was growing up, and which are on balance healthy.
But enter season 3, which being broadcast in 2021, of course had to be inclusive. So there had to be two non-binary characters. And here was the take-home message:
1) if you’re a young women who is uncomfortable in her body, *the healthy and proper response is to cause yourself physical pain by binding your breasts in a way that flattens them out of existence*. Rather than your unhappiness with your physical form being something you might want to get professional help for, you should simply accept it as the “true you” and nobody can suggest otherwise (in-universe, the possibility that you are not “trans” but just going through something many other females experience in puberty, and later move on from, and that what you need is loving support about acceptance of your female body, is of course never even considered)
2) if you are a human female who identifies as non-binary but finds themselves physically and emotionally attracted to a human male, the correct response is not to let this blossoming romance take its course and potentially experience love for the first time and achieve a life-changing period of happiness. No! The correct response is to demand that the male come out as “queer”, repeatedly insisting to him that your are “not a girl” (even though you are obviously physically female, and obviously physically attracted to each other). When he realises that he is “not queer” the entire thing must be broken off. The correct response is thus to deny yourself a meaningful human connection and possibly finding acceptance in your physical form, *in favour of what is clearly a political ideology that rejects facts of reality*. Somehow this is supposed to be what sets people free.
This is what now passes for the progressive, forward-thinking hip take on how teenage women should view their emotional and sexual development. After a decent couple of seasons, it’s very hard to view that as anything like progress.
Bravo! Incredibly insightful, diplomatic, and wise (and with good humor!). Your book is just excellent, and you are seriously hitting your stride now that you are unfettered. We need you. You are a gift to this mad era. Thank you.
“Still the left-liberal fantasy of a 1950s Britain persists, propping up its own self-image as coolly rebellious and counter-cultural in the process. As in so many areas, the focus is on breathing life into long-dead political enemies rather than facing newer and more pressing social problems - which saves a lot of energy, because dead enemies are really quite easy to beat.”
In this nutshell, you have disrobed the left’s current political moment— but maybe not just the left. And not, of course, just Britain.
I would add that the newer and more pressing problems are not just ‘social’. We have entered the timeframe predicted 50 years ago in Limits to Growth...a time when things begin to fall apart in so many ways all at once such that societies and governments cannot cope. Pollution including greenhouse gases; shortages of not only fossil fuels but also MANY non renewable substances (see Clugsworth in BLIP) required for the systems and products upon which global industrial civilization now depends; and civil unrest seeking to find someone to blame for something that may be no one in particular’s fault, or someone to fix the unfixable.
I know this may appear to be a digression from the actual topic of your piece, unless the wider topic perhaps includes WHY we are drawn to made-up problems. What purpose does the non-reality serve? My thought is that it may serve as a distraction, not only from more pressing problems, but also from an unfolding predicament that has no solution.
In any case, interesting pronouns and hair are not the revolutionary panacea some take they/them to be.
Very dry, witty take-down of this absurd cultural phenomenon. Also a very serious and important point being made here: that an influential section of society (many artistically/academically/creatively inclined) are sleepwalking into ill-judged attempts to comply with "the right way of doing things" and despite what good intentions they may have, are ending doing a lot of damage. Everyone needs to try to switch on their brains and reading Kathleen is a great way to get the neurons firing again.
Thanks for the glossary giggle, there, Doc. I salute the general thrust of your argument that this is about an ecosystem of (perverse) incentives all pointing naive strivers in one amply-funded direction. I'm sure that does, indeed, account for 90% of the crazy.
However - and it's a big however - there are clear signs that at least one guiding consciousness involved had a very specific agenda quite different to that, and quite possibly opaque to the others involved in the way you outline above. Corisande Pick marks the spot https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/nope on the website section relating to safeguarding.
It is written in a very peculiar way, addressing questions that really won't be uppermost in the minds of any parents, step-parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts or uncles excepting one, rather particular, type. On the topic of precocious knowledge of sexual topics, which would normally prompt open-ended questioning under norms of safeguarding, FSS writes:
*** “A response from the child such as “I saw the Family Sex Show at the Theatre” would be a reasonable response they were not in fact at risk”.
This is a come-hither message to fellow nonces. Whoever is responsible for the above sentence knows *precisely* what an opportunity it is that they're laying on for their chums across the country. I just don't see any other way to read it. Somehow, at some stage in this production's development, it has allowed at least one nonce on-board. Everyone involved should be CRB'd, with some urgency.
Here’s another case, not a million miles away, and maybe more depressing and literally harmful. The Netflix show “Sex Education”
The first two seasons of this are actually decent. Not fully my bag but funny in moments and I like the aim of having frank and honest depictions of sex and sexuality (gay and straight) available in ways that weren’t around when I was growing up, and which are on balance healthy.
But enter season 3, which being broadcast in 2021, of course had to be inclusive. So there had to be two non-binary characters. And here was the take-home message:
1) if you’re a young women who is uncomfortable in her body, *the healthy and proper response is to cause yourself physical pain by binding your breasts in a way that flattens them out of existence*. Rather than your unhappiness with your physical form being something you might want to get professional help for, you should simply accept it as the “true you” and nobody can suggest otherwise (in-universe, the possibility that you are not “trans” but just going through something many other females experience in puberty, and later move on from, and that what you need is loving support about acceptance of your female body, is of course never even considered)
2) if you are a human female who identifies as non-binary but finds themselves physically and emotionally attracted to a human male, the correct response is not to let this blossoming romance take its course and potentially experience love for the first time and achieve a life-changing period of happiness. No! The correct response is to demand that the male come out as “queer”, repeatedly insisting to him that your are “not a girl” (even though you are obviously physically female, and obviously physically attracted to each other). When he realises that he is “not queer” the entire thing must be broken off. The correct response is thus to deny yourself a meaningful human connection and possibly finding acceptance in your physical form, *in favour of what is clearly a political ideology that rejects facts of reality*. Somehow this is supposed to be what sets people free.
This is what now passes for the progressive, forward-thinking hip take on how teenage women should view their emotional and sexual development. After a decent couple of seasons, it’s very hard to view that as anything like progress.
I did not expect your takedown of this squint-and-lip-curl-inducing theatre project to be laugh out loud funny. But it was.
In support of your thesis about the money, I point to Michael Lind’s article on the oligarchy dictating the content of progressive thought. And, apparently, Art. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-end-of-progressive-intellectual-life
How far off the cliff’s ledge will “progressives” venture before they notice the depth of the un-solid space below.
Bravo! Incredibly insightful, diplomatic, and wise (and with good humor!). Your book is just excellent, and you are seriously hitting your stride now that you are unfettered. We need you. You are a gift to this mad era. Thank you.
“Still the left-liberal fantasy of a 1950s Britain persists, propping up its own self-image as coolly rebellious and counter-cultural in the process. As in so many areas, the focus is on breathing life into long-dead political enemies rather than facing newer and more pressing social problems - which saves a lot of energy, because dead enemies are really quite easy to beat.”
In this nutshell, you have disrobed the left’s current political moment— but maybe not just the left. And not, of course, just Britain.
I would add that the newer and more pressing problems are not just ‘social’. We have entered the timeframe predicted 50 years ago in Limits to Growth...a time when things begin to fall apart in so many ways all at once such that societies and governments cannot cope. Pollution including greenhouse gases; shortages of not only fossil fuels but also MANY non renewable substances (see Clugsworth in BLIP) required for the systems and products upon which global industrial civilization now depends; and civil unrest seeking to find someone to blame for something that may be no one in particular’s fault, or someone to fix the unfixable.
I know this may appear to be a digression from the actual topic of your piece, unless the wider topic perhaps includes WHY we are drawn to made-up problems. What purpose does the non-reality serve? My thought is that it may serve as a distraction, not only from more pressing problems, but also from an unfolding predicament that has no solution.
In any case, interesting pronouns and hair are not the revolutionary panacea some take they/them to be.
An excellent article. The students’ loss is our gain.
Very dry, witty take-down of this absurd cultural phenomenon. Also a very serious and important point being made here: that an influential section of society (many artistically/academically/creatively inclined) are sleepwalking into ill-judged attempts to comply with "the right way of doing things" and despite what good intentions they may have, are ending doing a lot of damage. Everyone needs to try to switch on their brains and reading Kathleen is a great way to get the neurons firing again.
Thanks for the glossary giggle, there, Doc. I salute the general thrust of your argument that this is about an ecosystem of (perverse) incentives all pointing naive strivers in one amply-funded direction. I'm sure that does, indeed, account for 90% of the crazy.
However - and it's a big however - there are clear signs that at least one guiding consciousness involved had a very specific agenda quite different to that, and quite possibly opaque to the others involved in the way you outline above. Corisande Pick marks the spot https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/nope on the website section relating to safeguarding.
It is written in a very peculiar way, addressing questions that really won't be uppermost in the minds of any parents, step-parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts or uncles excepting one, rather particular, type. On the topic of precocious knowledge of sexual topics, which would normally prompt open-ended questioning under norms of safeguarding, FSS writes:
*** “A response from the child such as “I saw the Family Sex Show at the Theatre” would be a reasonable response they were not in fact at risk”.
This is a come-hither message to fellow nonces. Whoever is responsible for the above sentence knows *precisely* what an opportunity it is that they're laying on for their chums across the country. I just don't see any other way to read it. Somehow, at some stage in this production's development, it has allowed at least one nonce on-board. Everyone involved should be CRB'd, with some urgency.