How the Far Left Sees Masculine Men

Andrew Sullivan discusses men like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson who don't shy away from being masculine. They are commonly derided by the political Left, including the Woke Left. The title to his article: "Between The World And Men Truckers, Rogan, Peterson and the revolt of masculinity." Here's an excerpt:

No, the left is not calling all masculinity toxic. But they get pretty quiet when you ask for a definition of non-toxic masculinity that doesn’t end up sounding like being a woman. And, no, they’re not explicitly denying that there are biological differences between men and women — they just speak and act on the premise that there aren’t, that boys do not need a different kind of education than girls, that all-male groups are problematic, and that finding a way to direct masculinity to noble ends is somehow enabling the oppression of women, or gay people. The result is that men are subject to left derision, right machismo, and complete cultural derailment.

And that’s where Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson come in. They too, of course, are mocked constantly, demeaned as chauvinists or white supremacists, etc. But what Rogan does is speak and talk the way men do with each other in private, which, in this media era, is a revelation. He doesn’t entertain the woke bromides of gender theory because he’s lived a life, clearly loves being a man as much as Adele says she loves being a woman, and believes, as he once put it, that “bad men are just bad human beings who happen to be men.”

Continue ReadingHow the Far Left Sees Masculine Men

What to Say When You are Asked for your Pronouns

For those of us who understand that sex is a biological term that applies to possums, wolves, elephants and humans, what should we say when asked for our "pronouns"? Colin Wright says we should refuse to answer the question. I think a bare refusal is a bit rude. People asking for pronouns often don't mean any harm, even though they are implicitly asking you to buy into an ideology that conflicts with biology, often without awareness that they are doing this. I agree with Wright that a request for pronouns constitutes stereotyping.

What would I do next time I'm asked? I might respond by saying something like: “Sign me up as a human being who doesn't believe in stereotyping." If that triggers an awkward silence, perhaps I would follow up: "But by all means, I'm not telling anyone else how to respond . . ."

Wright's article appears in the Wall Street Journal. The title is "When Asked ‘What Are Your Pronouns,’ Don’t AnswerA seemingly innocuous question masks a demand for conformity with a regressive set of ideas." Here's an excerpt:

Gender activists believe that being a man or a woman requires embracing stereotypes of masculinity or femininity, respectively, or the different social roles and expectations society imposes on people because of their sex. Planned Parenthood explicitly states that gender identity is “how you feel inside,” defines “gender” as a “a social and legal status, a set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts,” and asserts that “it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex.” . . .

So when someone asks for your pronouns, and you respond with “she/her,” even though you may be communicating the simple fact that you’re female, a gender ideologue would interpret this as an admission that you embrace femininity and the social roles and expectations associated with being female. While women’s-rights movements fought for decades to decouple womanhood from rigid stereotypes and social roles, modern gender ideology has melded them back together. . . .

Let me offer an analogy. [Imagine a] request from the American Federation of Astrologers encouraging everyone to begin conversations with, “Hi, I’m a Sagittarius. What’s your sign?” To respond with your own star sign would be to operate within and signal your tacit agreement with the belief system of astrology.

Here is a free pdf of Colin Wright's article.

Continue ReadingWhat to Say When You are Asked for your Pronouns

Richard Dawkins: Race is on a Spectrum, Sex is “Pretty Damn Binary.”

Richard Dawkins answers the "dangerous" question he asked in April 2021, the question that caused him to be disowned by the American Humanist Association. The title to his article at Areo: "Race Is a Spectrum. Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary."

Were race not a spectrum, Rachel Dolezal’s critics should have spotted that she wasn’t “really” black, simply by taking one look at her. It’s precisely because black Americans are a spectrum that it wasn’t obvious. With negligible exceptions, on the other hand, you can unwaveringly identify a person’s sex at a glance, especially if they remove their clothes. Sex is pretty damn binary.

If I chose to identify as a hippopotamus, you would rightly say I was being ridiculous. The claim is too facetiously at variance with reality. It’s marginally more ridiculous than the Church’s Aristotelian casuistry in identifying the “substance” of blood with wine and body with bread, while the “accidentals” safely remain an alcoholic beverage and a wafer. Not at all ridiculous, however, was James Morris’s choice to identify as a woman and his gruelling and costly transition to Jan Morris. Her explanation, in Conundrum, of how she always felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body is eloquent and moving. It rings agonizingly true and earns our deep sympathy. We rightly address her with feminine pronouns, and treat her as a woman in social interactions. We should do the same with others in her situation, honest and decent people who have wrestled all their lives with the distressing condition known as gender dysphoria.

Sex transition is an arduous revolution—physiological, anatomical, social, personal and familial—not to be undertaken lightly. I doubt that Jan Morris would have had much time for a man who simply flings on a frock and announces, “I am now a woman.” For Dr Morris, it was a ten-year odyssey. Prolonged hormone treatment, drastic surgery, readjustment of social conventions and personal relationships—those who take this plunge earn our deep respect for that very reason. And why is it so onerous and drastic, courageously worthy of such respect? Precisely because sex is so damn binary! Changing sex is a big deal. Changing the race by which you identify is a doddle in comparison, precisely because race is already a continuous spectrum, rendered so by widespread intermarriage over many generations.

Continue ReadingRichard Dawkins: Race is on a Spectrum, Sex is “Pretty Damn Binary.”

Gad Saad’s Homage to the Late Harvard Biologist EO Wilson

I've followed the works of E.O. Wilson for many years, starting with his book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), which I read as a teenager. His recent death is both a great loss and an opportunity to remember his substantial contributions to evolutionary biology.

Gad Saad offers this excellent homage to E.O. Wilson's work. One thing that stood out to me is Saad's coinage of the term "human reticence effect." Here is Saad's explanation of this critically important term (and phenomenon):

The human reticence effect: It's perfectly okay to apply evolutionary principles to explain one million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine species, but if you apply to study one species called humans, well then, you are Himmler and you're a nazi. And so E.O. Wilson, in daring to apply incredibly rigorous and profound evolutionary principles to explain incredible animal behavior, including some very puzzling animal behavior, once he used that framework to apply it to human behavior, then he was a persona non grata which, of course, is exactly what you see 45 years later with evolutionary psychologists. If you apply a principle to study the evolution of mating behavior of the salamander then bruh, you're a great scientist. If you apply the exact same mechanism the same methodology, the same epistemology, to study the evolution of human mating in humans, well then, come on bro that's just faux science. It's "nazi science" it's "pseudoscience." I have written about why people have these emotional and cognitive obstacles to accept the application of evolutionary principles to the study of human behavior in much of my scientific work.

Continue ReadingGad Saad’s Homage to the Late Harvard Biologist EO Wilson

Speaking Truth to Hate

Abigail Schrier recently deliver an impassioned speech to various organizations at Princeton. Her speech included this quote: "You don’t have to be a troll to find yourself in the center of controversy. You need only be two things: effective, and unwilling to back down."

I invite you to read her entire presentation. I responded in the comments:

You've got me thinking, what will I do next time I'm asked to provide my "pronoun"? Perhaps I'll say something like: "To do that would suggest that hundreds of years of biological science got it wrong in fundamental ways. Instead, you are free to assume which one of the two sexes I am." Thank you for your heartfelt essay/speech. Your money quote: "You don’t have to be a troll to find yourself in the center of controversy. You need only be two things: effective, and unwilling to back down." I'm trying to do what you do on a much smaller scale--you take 1,000 times more abuse than me and you seem to be thriving. This seems to prove your statement that speaking the truth to those who hate you is freeing. You, along with a couple dozen other highly visible people who have given themselves permission to speak what they believe, have given me more courage to say "no" whenever the the SJW tribe demands that I confirm that up is down. Thank you for your hard work leading up to your book and ever since. BTW, I am a classical liberal without a political home, yet you speak for me and many others like me. Please don't overlook that. Yours is not a "conservative" position. It is a thoughtful position anchored in reality.

Continue ReadingSpeaking Truth to Hate