How Dare You Not Pretend

In the comments, Mr Muldoon steers us to the latest mental rumblings of Ms Laurie Penny:

Ms Penny is, I think, referring to fellow feminist Julie Bindel, whose review of Laurie’s latest book is not entirely positive, and who chose not to refer to its author as a suddenly ungendered being. But the broader claim is perhaps worth exploring.

I can’t say that my own views on modish pronoun stipulation make me feel “cool and edgy.” If anything, they seem fairly self-evident and unremarkable, not the stuff of obvious scandal or sudden intakes of breath. And I doubt that anyone here is likely to feel “threatened… by the ideas of a more progressive generation.” Though Ms Penny’s tendency to self-flatter – her inevitable trajectory – does catch the eye.

Regarding rudeness, I’m generally polite by default, at least in person, and don’t go out of my way to needlessly put a kink in someone else’s day. I’ve had perfectly civil chats with people who regard themselves as transgender or gender-non-conforming or whatever. Nobody got upset. But what is often being asked – or demanded – is not a small thing, not in its implications.

Taken broadly, we are being asked to affirm, wholesale, a bundle of phenomena that includes not only actual gender dysphoria, whether the result of developmental anomalies or childhood molestation, but also autogynephilia, serious personality disorders, adolescent pretension, and assorted exhibitionist and unsavoury compulsions. The expectation seems to be that we should take these different phenomena, with very different moral connotations, as being one and the same thing, and then defer to them, habitually and uncritically. Which is asking rather more than can readily be agreed to.

We’ve previously noted the ways in which the activism of pronoun stipulators differs from that of other groups with which they are often equated. Someone being gay, for instance, doesn’t generally entail an expectation that the rest of us should pretend that the physical reality we can see is somehow not the case. And unsurprisingly, people may object to being told that they should disregard the obvious and become dishonest on demand, thereby leaving themselves open to any prankster, or bedlamite, or sadistic opportunist in search of leverage.

Some insist that not indulging modish pronouns, including animal pronouns and clown pronouns, and pronouns that can change randomly, several times a day - and being reluctant to indulge any other attendant psychodrama - is a violation of human rights and a basis for severe legal consequences. One might think that coercively eroding the probity of other people, demanding that they lie, and even hallucinate, is a pretty bad thing too. At best, a recipe for grim farce. But there we are. 

Laurie’s own adventures in competitive self-definition have dazzled us before and may reward a second visit.

 

Oh, and here’s a reminder that I now have a Gettr account.

 

Heavens, a button. I wonder what it does. 

Comments

[Trevor]

Lest we forget, she is one of our betters.

If only she would devote herself full-time to mucosal excavation.

[pst314]

If only she would devote herself full-time to mucosal excavation.

Something more in line with her dreams would be better: Agricultural labor battalion in Cuba or some such utopia. After all, why not give her what she wants?

[David]

After all, why not give her what she wants?

But she asks for so little.

[pst314]

But she asks for so little.

With distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people would be free to engage in whatever activities they found most fulfilling and would no longer have to engage in work for which they have neither the temperament nor the aptitude.

My self-determined needs include every penny I ever earned, plus the pleasure of watching Penny and all the other anarcho-communists laboring 12 hours a day in the fields in exchange for what Solzhenitsyn had to survive on in the Gulag.

[Steve E]

But she asks for so little.

A theory/religion that talks a lot about work and labour created by a man who never worked a day in his life; who, instead, chose to leach off his wife and friends. At least little penny is true to her roots.

[WTP]

With distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people would be free to engage in whatever activities they found most fulfilling and would no longer have to engage in work for which they have neither the temperament nor the aptitude.

You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

[pst314]

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Appropriately, Burl Ives was a communist.

[Sam]

Trudeau going into hiding as burly truckers head his way is high comedy in the clown world way. Here's hoping someone in the gleaming beautiful future does a Death of Stalin type account of this whole disaster.

[Steve E]

Trudeau going into hiding as burly truckers head his way is high comedy in the clown world way.

Some wag on another site suggested he went into hiding because he got his period.

The wife and I went to check out the gathering point for the convoy in London, Ontario this morning. The numbers were quite impressive and we didn't stay long enough to see the main convoy.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Appropriately, Burl Ives was a communist.

The song was written by Harry McClintock, also appropriately a Wobbly, and appropriately called "Haywire Mac".

[WTP]

Appropriately, Burl Ives was a communist.

Also, terribly annoying. To my ears anyway. His narration of the Christmas classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" was all fine and good but his version of "Holly, Jolly Christmas" sets my teeth on edge. I think it's the mainly the "kiss 'er once for me" line. But maybe not. His BRCM rendition I do find amusing because I think he really believes it. I remember hearing that song as a child in elementary school or maybe on a children's tv show back then and finding it funny/silly. Not exactly age-appropriate language for children though if you ask me. I specifically remember someone explaining to me or us what the railroad/hobo terms were.

[pst314]

his version of "Holly, Jolly Christmas" sets my teeth on edge

Mine too. Very much.

I remember hearing that song as a child in elementary school

Me too, although I think it was a bowdlerized version. It was one of the songs we sang occasionally in music class. It did strike me as silly, although I had no idea at the time that Ives was a commie.

[pst314]

January 27 is Large Boulder the Size of a Small Boulder Day.

[Sam Duncan]

“The wife and I went to check out the gathering point for the convoy in London, Ontario this morning. The numbers were quite impressive and we didn't stay long enough to see the main convoy.”

I've been watching a few videos and livestreams. It looks huge. There was one guy, coming out of Medicine Hat I think, driving along in the middle of the night, in a Canadian winter, two feet of snow, and in every town he passed the streets were lined with supporters.

It reminds me of the British truckers' fuel protest twenty years ago (eep!), dialled up to an appropriately North American scale.

[Steve E]

It reminds me of the British truckers' fuel protest twenty years ago (eep!), dialled up to an appropriately North American scale.

It's getting almost no coverage by the lame stream media here, except, of course, for the dangerous "right wing" talk that's occuring on line. I haven't seen a single interview of a trucker or a road side supporter on the CBC. Of course, I don't watch the CBC so there's that.

This group raised more money from more individuals that the Prime Minister's party did for the same period of time. Yet it's being dismissed as fringe.

[pst314]

It's getting almost no coverage by the lame stream media here

The Pravda Press. /spit

[Jack Klompus]

Appropriately, Burl Ives was a communist.

He's really good as Big Daddy in the movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

[WTP]

He's really good as Big Daddy in the movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Hadn't seen that in many, many years but I gotta agree there. Though I've forgotten much of that movie because I confuse parts of it with The Long Hot Summer also featuring Paul Newman from the same year. I know Ives acted in a western or two where he had supporting/minor roles. Meh. I don't like that I I've let politics influence my tastes and perspectives in general but it wasn't my idea to make the personal political. I can still ignore the politics of certain actors who are somewhat obviously political, like Sean Penn or Sarah Jessica Parker, possibly because they do show some degree of self-awareness in this regard. And Burl Ives probably fits this, especially as I was too young in the context of his acting career to know or care. I think with Burl, it's really that damn "Holly, Jolly Christmas" thing. But I would respect him much more if I found out that his BRCM bit was done with a wink and a nod to reality.

[Jack Klompus]

Meh. I don't like that I I've let politics influence my tastes.

I've always been that way, too. It's so hard to watch anything with Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn (who I think is incredibly overrated) and other mouthy actors. Same with music. I can't listen to a note of Pearl Jam, not just because I think their music sucks, but because Eddie Vedder is such a putz with lame, pedestrian views he feels like he has to spout. When I heard Beck is a Scientologist it made it really hard to keep taking him seriously although I won't not listen to Miles Davis just because Chick Corea was a lifelong member of the cult. I've always said you really have to separate the personality from the product.

[TomJ]

She's the Danish Defense Minister? The girl who was Sergeant at Arms for the Juniorettes at my high school was more intimidating.

To be fair, it's not the job of the Defence Minister to be intimidating. They are the speak softly part of the operation, the big stick being in uniform. So to speak.

[TomJ]

ON the subject of entertainingly scathing reviews of Das Penny's latest opus...

(I had originally typed "La Penny's", but supposed I ought to use an appropriate definite article...)

[PaulF]

If you want a good film with Burl Ives, and you like westerns, try "Day of the Outlaw", especially if you can find it in HD. It's set in winter, bucketloads of snow, and the cinematography is superb.

[ccscientist]

TomJ: that is one of the most clever and scathing reviews I've ever seen. Hilarious. "Fascism" seems to simply mean conservative (not good). The correct definition is when business aligns with and takes orders from the state--which is where we seem to be headed (almost there) in the US, with corporations voluntarily censoring people for very mild statements, banks refusing to service gun stores or pot shops, banks voluntarily reporting your income to the gov, jan 6 protesters spending months in solitary confinement for a final charge of trespassing, local gov leaning on any business that speaks out or disobeys, parents objecting to curricula being targeted as terrorists (which is the excuse to get the FBI involved of course). It is getting pretty scary.
Penny is again an example of a lesbian presuming to speak for all women. No thanks.

[pst314]

Penny is again an example of a lesbian presuming to speak for all women. No thanks.

I think Penny's primary sexual orientation is not "sex with women" but "bullying innocents".

[Joe Blough]

Ms. Penny fancies herself a unicorn, when in reality she's a donkey with a dildo glued to her head.