Ever since I began my journey into the woke wonderland of woo back in 2016, I have struggled to find meaning in much of it.
Prior to 2016 I was somewhat insulated from, and not much interested in, the wider developments going on, the social ‘progress’ that was being rolled out at breakneck speed unbeknownst to me. I was happy in my bubble delving into arcane scribbles and trying to figure out whether quantum game theory made any sense1.
The surreal events at Yale in 2016 over the critically important issue of Halloween costumes changed my life forever.
All of a sudden, it seemed, I needed a new dictionary. So many words didn’t seem to mean quite what they did before and there were lots of new phrases and bits of jargon.
At a very superficial level much of the terminology made some kind of sense. For example, if society is structured in its laws and systems to favour white people, then the notion of white privilege is not crazy. It’s an interesting concept, but other than being a mere descriptor of the situation, of what use is the idea?
How can the effects of this be (a) observed and (b) quantified? Does the amount of white privilege accrue equally to every mayo monkey2 ? Has this accrual of privilege decreased over time as the racially biased laws have been rewritten to remove that bias? How do we measure it, and how do we know if the things we put in place to combat it are having any effect? If it exists as a real thing then, surely, we should be able to give at least partial answers to these kinds of questions.
I was told various things (by no means a complete list - not even remotely close to being complete)
racism is a combination of prejudice and power
it is not possible for a black person to be racist towards a white person
that all black people own particular hairstyles
that only people from a particular culture have the right to cook food from that culture
that putting dairy foods on school menus is racist
that things like being on time and being polite are examples of whiteness
that I live in a rape culture
that looking at women in a certain way (not defined) constitutes sexual harassment
that words could be violence
that silence could be violence
that some people needed counselling after listening to a lecture
that denying my white fragility is evidence of my white fragility
that the music to Star Wars is racist
that white people should not learn ‘non-white’ languages
that all ‘white’ art is stolen, or appropriated from ‘non-white’ art
that the question isn’t to ask whether some interaction is racist, but to figure out where the racism occurred
that I am taking up the ‘space’ of black people
that the English language is rooted in white supremacy
that cops in the US hunt down, and kill, black kids on their way to school
that maths is a tool of colonialist oppression and that the way maths is currently taught in school is suffused with white supremacy
that indigenous ‘knowledge’ should be taught on a par with science in schools
As I’ve said, this list of crazy isn’t even remotely complete. And I haven’t even addressed the crazy-on-steroids that is the LoonLand of gender dribblings.
This whole basket of baffling bullshit really began to take hold in the media and academia and other institutions and the capture has been almost complete.
Had the world suddenly been transported to the outer reaches of the Nutcase Nebula, or was it just me? Was I finally losing my already tenuous grasp on reality?
My previous ‘colour blind’ attitudes and approach were, all of a sudden, evidence that I was some kind of bigot
. . . and I have always been a fervent supporter of NLM, way before BLM became a thing
Some, including me, have speculated that this confusion, this lack of clarity and, let’s not beat around the bush here - this insanity3 - is entirely deliberate and designed to disrupt, destabilize and demoralize. That’s certainly the explicit intention of some academic ‘post-modern/critical’ theorists. This destabilization and disruption are the explicit goals, for example, of ‘applied’ Queer Theory as its advocates attempt to bring about the ‘queering’ of society.
I’m not quite sure what kind of “utopia” these people envisage, but it probably involves copious quantities of purple and blue hair dye. Financial tip - don’t invest in gold, but in hair dye manufacturers and the producers of nose rings.
The gender fuckwittery is almost a special case in itself. I’ve sort of got my head round what, I think, gender is supposed to mean4, which is the set of stereotypes and expected roles/behaviours that arise from the way society has responded to one’s biological sex.
Although what the ‘stereotypes’ or ‘expected roles’ are for someone who describes themselves as cakegender is anyone’s guess5. There are no ‘stereotypes’ for one of these fantastical new genders that have only been in existence for the last few days. So how does the term ‘gender’ even apply?
And you have to feel a bit sorry for those who are eunuch gendered - there just aren’t the emperors around to serve, these days. You can’t even perpetuate the stereotype if you wanted to.
But even if we forget about the wonderful woo that is the list of all the ‘recognised’ genders and restrict ourselves to the traditional ‘genders’ of man and woman there are some serious problems with the notion. Particularly if you consider that some people claim that merely identifying as a woman is sufficient to place you in the category of ‘woman’.
The only difference between a man and a woman, then, is whatever weird shit is going on in someone’s head. Boobs? Nope, don’t need those. Lippy? Nope, that’s not necessary. Just tell me you’re a woman - that’s it. That’s the only thing that matters.
In other words, if the gender nutters are to be believed, then there’s no substantive difference between the categories of man and woman - they’re effectively interchangeable.
The question has been asked many times - just how the hell did we end up here?
Maybe there’s a parallel with the covid story. Back in the early days of covid some government scientists actually told us the truth. Masks were next to useless, they said, and even Fauci said that asymptomatic transmission has never been a significant driver in the history of respiratory illnesses.
Then the U-turn happened and all of a sudden The Science™ was different to what it had been only days before.
Pretty much the same has happened with all of the ‘woke’ bullshit. People started to believe stuff that only ‘days’ before they would have thought was laughable and a load of bollocks.
Those of us who like to live in a world imbued with meaning and grounded in some sort of reality have found ourselves somewhat beleaguered by the onslaught. The Great Rug of Sanity has been pulled from under our feet.
It’s like walking on eggshells these days, trying not to trigger some fuppin eejit - although we will soon have to stop using the word walk6.
But that’s the superficial level - peel away the surface from all of this weaponized ‘empathy’ and ‘compassion’ that characterizes the ‘woke’ and there’s a dark, totalitarian underbelly.
If you saw the clip of Matt Walsh giving his opinion on trans issues at some official government hearing you’ll know what I mean. He asked the panel members whether they thought a 16 year old could, reasonably, be expected to give consent to the removal of a body part. There was a very long and very uncomfortable silence - followed by a panel member saying “Ve Vill Ask Ze Qvestions”.
OK - he didn’t actually say this in one of those terrible German accents from the war films of six decades ago - but he might as well have done.
At least Matt Walsh was able to give his opinions and those have been seen by lots of other people. But there is still a very significant number of people who think that even raising concerns is ‘hateful’. The totalitarian aspect of this is chilling. You know which side of a ‘struggle session’ some people would have been on if they had lived in Mao’s China.
Shortly after I learned of the ‘Yale’ incident back in 2016 I became aware of the infamous Evergreen College incident. Brett Weinstein, in one of his podcasts about this, described the atmosphere of a faculty meeting in which he asked for evidence of the alleged ‘systemic racism’ on campus. Another faculty member turned round and said to him “Even asking for evidence of racism is racism with a capital R”.
This, then, is the mindset we’re up against - this is what those of us who want individual liberty to be a meaningful thing have to fight against. They want their word to be gospel - the unassailable ‘truth’. Unassailable not because it actually is true, but because they will brook no questions.
One of my big concerns in all of this is what we’re doing to our children - and not just over the whole gender nonsense. We implement a ton of shit in our schools with, superficially, the best of intentions, but later on find that we forgot to think about 2nd and 3rd order effects. Don’t be fooled by any ‘teacher’ who waxes lyrical about how kids ‘get it’ much better than adults. They don’t.
They’re being groomed. Not just to think about sex in a wholly age-inappropriate way as they are in some cases, but they’re being groomed into a world devoid of real meaning.
Beware of child predators
I came to the conclusion of “not much”
My favourite slur to describe white people
According to some universities/institutions the word ‘insane’ is now verboten because it might upset someone who is, actually, insane. Although I suspect they have a few more things to worry about than hurty words on the internet - the pink hyenas walking on their ceiling, for example.
Understanding what they’re trying to say is not synonymous with it meaning anything. The term ‘gender’ is like white privilege - unquantifiable, unmeasurable and subjective.
Lying on a decorative plate and having several candles shoved into you whilst a bunch of obnoxious little brats sing happy birthday, perhaps?
Lecturers in some places can no longer hold walk-in office hours. It might upset someone who can’t walk. Yes, really.
When BLM took over my city, I was THE ONLY PERSON I KNOW who would not swallow it and get behind it. BLM signs still up at many businesses. Everyone in my gaddamn city swallowed it and I lost friends. Little did I know it was just a warmup for the friends and family I would lose by not taking the jabs and not simping for Ukraine. It's quite a thing to realize you do not trust the mentality or the humanity of those around you, that they will bend like grass in the wind to the latest thing. Few stand.
“… that indigenous ‘knowledge’ should be taught on a par with science in schools”
That should be “indigenous knowledges,” plural. I’m pretty sure the singular is racist.
(I won’t even mention the quote marks you put around the word, which are superwhitefragilisticexpialidocious racist.)