Culture: May 2018 Archives

J.J. McCullough's Transgender Compromise Suggestion -- Let's Not | National Review:

Michael Brendan Dougherty rebuts McCullough's tendentious column urging conservative capitulation on transgenderism.

'As I wrote in a recent cover story for NR, the demand to acknowledge someone's "existence" is a slippery bit of a double-talk. I would be an idiot to deny McCullough's existence. But if he said that he were a Camaroonian, rather than a Canadian, would it be his existence that I denied by contradicting him? McCullough goes on to say that we shouldn't be boorish. Okay. Fine. He cautions against, "[e]mbracing open prejudice." Sounds good. But are we allowed to tell the truth?

'I worry we are not, since we are now falsifying even recent history. McCullough refers to other recent changes in attitudes toward sexuality and says they are "not an attitude government has coerced Americans into." Au contraire. The very public firings of dissenters and their virtual economic blacklisting, are very directly inspired by fear of Title VII litigation. The government has merely outsourced thought-policing to corporate HR departments.

'Let me lay down my prediction, here. We are not headed toward some civilized modus vivendi but imminent tragedy. In the future, the current psychological theories and surgical enthusiasms associated with this movement will be regarded with open horror.'

Transgender Debate: Conservatives Can't Compromise the Truth | National Review

David French also responds to McCullough's proposal:

'While I'm utterly opposed to boorish behavior, the use of a pronoun isn't a matter of mere manners. It's a declaration of a fact. I won't call Chelsea Manning "she" for a very simple reason. He's a man.... We're on a dangerous road if we imply that treating a person with "basic human dignity" requires acquiescing to claims we know to be false.

'I don't know any serious social conservative who doesn't believe that a transgender man or woman is entitled to "basic human dignity." No one is claiming that they should be excluded from the blessings of American liberty or deprived of a single privilege or immunity of citizenship.... But that's not the contemporary legal controversy. Current legal battles revolve around the state's effort to force private and public entities to recognize and accommodate transgender identities. The justification for this coercive effort is often the state's alleged interest in preventing so-called "dignitary" harm. Thus, men are granted rights to enter a woman's restroom, even when gender-neutral options are available. Thus, private citizens are forced to use false pronouns. Girls are forced to allow a boy to stay in their room on an overnight school trip, or they're forced to compete against boys in athletic competition.

'But once you grant the premise that a man is, in fact, a woman, don't all these consequences flow directly from that concession? After all, existing nondiscrimination statutes are quite clear in their scope. And judicial precedents are increasingly aligning with this new fiction. To "compromise" on identity (including on pronouns) is to end the dispute.

'In his own response to J.J.'s piece, Michael Brendan Dougherty asks a key question, "[A]re we allowed to tell the truth?" Increasingly, the answer is no. J.J. compares the modern dispute over transgenderism to current and recent fights over homosexuality. The comparison is instructive, but not in the way that he hopes. There has been no "compromise" over homosexuality. Instead, we're locked in brutal legal fights over whether Christian bakers and florists can be compelled to use their artistic talents to celebrate gay weddings. Christian colleges have had to fend off challenges to their accreditation and funding (and the Obama administration raised the possibility of challenging their tax exemptions) for simply upholding basic standards of Christian sexual morality. And in California, the new sexual orthodoxy now threatens even the sale of books that deliver a disfavored message not just on sexual orientation but also on sexual conduct.

'I understand the desire for social peace. Truly I do. The culture wars are exhausting and divisive. But treating every single human being with dignity and respect means not just defending their constitutional liberties and showing them basic human kindness, it also means telling the truth -- even when the truth is hard. Any compromise that requires conservatives to grant the other side's false and harmful premise is no compromise at all.'

Those of us who understand the truth need to speak the truth in love, and to resist the pressure to conform or remain silent, because the lies of the LGBT movement wound, maim, kill, and damn.

The Wisdom of Oscar Hammerstein - WSJ

Peggy Noonan on a long-ago interview with Oscar Hammerstein.

'It's a small thing, a half-hour television interview from 60 years ago, but it struck me this week as a kind of master class in how to be a public figure and how to talk about what matters. In our polarized moment it functions as both template and example.

'In March 1958, the fierce young journalist Mike Wallace... decided to bore in on Oscar Hammerstein II.... Hammerstein was the fabled lyricist and librettist who with composer Richard Rodgers put jewels in the crown of American musical theater--"Oklahoma," "South Pacific," "The King and I," and "Carousel," whose latest Broadway revival is about to open. He was a hero of American culture and a famous success in a nation that worshiped success....

'"I think it's fine that there is a Miss [Ayn] Rand who comes out stoutly for the conservative. I think it's fine that we have all kinds of thinkers in the world. . . . I admit that the majority of writers in this country are on the liberal side."

'But he added, of Rand: "We need her to hold us back, and I think she needs us to pull her forward."...

'Wallace: "The public does rarely get anything but a liberal viewpoint from Hollywood or from television, from Broadway," and the charge can be "safely made that there is a certain intolerance of conservative ideas among liberals."

'Hammerstein, again undefensive: "I think so too."

'What's to be done about it? Nothing, said Hammerstein: "Just be yourself, that's all." If the public likes Miss Rand, "there will be a Miss Rand trend." Let the problem work its way out in a free country....

'Moral modesty and candor are good to see.

'In our public figures, especially our political ones, they are hard to find. I offer Hammerstein's old words as an example--a prompter--of what they sound like.'

Civilisations isn't 'dumbed down' - it's too intellectual | Coffee House

Charles Moore reviews the new "Civlisations" TV series:

"It is quite right to study the differences and similarities between civilisations, but it is a curious feature of the human mind that this is best done if first acquainted thoroughly with a single tradition. Then one has a secure enough sense of a whole to be able to read across. Without this, one is darting here, there and everywhere. The best comparative bit of the series was Schama's account of Turkish and Mughal art interacting with western art of the period (and vice versa). This is because the connections are visible, not contrived. I think the series was doomed by its premise that one has to scour the whole world in order to think about civilisation at all. It is really the other way round: one thinks outwards from one's own smaller space.

"The failures of this brave attempt have made me think of a different way that a television account of civilisation could be constructed. It would try to identify the main components of civilisation and give each one a programme -- language and writing; government and law; industry, trade and money; science and technology; the arts; love and family; institutions and universities; war; above all, religion, the central impulse of all civilisations until, perhaps, our own."

The Secular Benedict Option | The American Conservative

Nicholas Phillips, president of the NYU School of Law Federalist Society, writes:

"For those who aren't religious, the Benedict Option raises as many questions as it answers. We know that the choose-your-own-adventurism at the heart of the progressive project is hollow and alienating, but is there anything comprehensive enough to replace it? ....if we're not doing expressive individualism, what will we do instead?...

"This is the secular Benedict Option. While American society continues to drug itself into a tech-enabled stupor, conservatives must save authentic human connection and experience. It can't be done at the individual level alone: that's too hard. Instead, we need communities full of people that have opted out together.

"Imagine neighborhoods or even whole towns governed by covenantal commitments to refuse social media and virtual reality. Imagine schools in which parents feel no anxiety about refusing their children smartphones because every other parent has signed an identical pledge. Imagine restaurants and public spaces that prohibit device usage. Imagine a great re-norming in which the time we rescue from our screens is spent rediscovering lost arts: craft, conversation, connection."

The state has a terrible secret: it kidnaps our children | Louise Tickle | Opinion | The Guardian

'High court judge Mr Justice Keehan, in a scathing judgment earlier this year at Nottingham family court, revealed that at least 16 children have been "wrongly and abusively" looked after by Herefordshire council, under something called a section 20 arrangement, for "wholly inappropriate" periods of time. For one boy, that was the first nine years of his life after he was born to his 14-year-old mother. For another boy it was eight years, from the age of eight to 16, despite his mother on several occasions withdrawing her consent. Shockingly, at the time of the judgment, 14 children were still being wrongfully looked after by Herefordshire on section 20 arrangements, despite the local authority knowing full well the judge's displeasure.

'These are not court orders. They must be a voluntary agreement, and in legal terms they precisely mirror the situation where the single parent consented (at first) to her friend looking after her boys. For a section 20 to be legal, social workers must be certain they have a parent's informed consent to their child being accommodated by the state. And a parent can withdraw consent at any time, because they keep full parental responsibility. If Mum or Dad wants to turn up at a foster carer's house at midnight without notice and take their child home, they can. No ifs, no buts. But many parents say social workers threaten that if they do, it will mean a trip to court for a care order. There is no surer way to scare the living daylights out of a parent. And so frightened acquiescence - not the same as consent - tends to be the result.'

The Civilization That Soared and Enlivened the World | The American Conservative

This is an excellent summary of the foundations and accomplishments fo Western Civilization. Robert Merry's essay doesn't shy away from Western Civ's dark side, but explains why it is nevertheless worthy of study, celebration, and preservation:

"I like Western Civilization. No, actually I revere it. I think it represents one of the great chapters in human history and a gift not just to the peoples of the West but to many others throughout the world.

"...much of this assault on the Western heritage is really a political maneuver to favor the so-called victim class (anyone whose ancestors suffered at the hands of the West) against the so-called privileged class (those whose ancestors imposed the suffering). It's a brilliant ploy, and it's working in many quarters, particularly on college campuses. But it has little to do with any reasoned interpretation of history.

"So I'm just not going to join the effort to undermine our civilization's cultural identity from within. The West has my respect and devotion. I don't care what anybody says."

Same-Sex Parenting: The Child Maltreatment No One Mentions - Crisis Magazine

"In comparison to children with opposite-sex parents, children in the care of same-sex couples, were: almost twice as likely to have a developmental disability; almost twice as likely to have had medical treatment for an emotional problem and three times as likely to have had medicine prescribed for a psychological condition in the past year before the study; ten times more likely to have been sexually touched by a parent or other adult and four times more likely to have been forced to have sex against their will; less likely, when reaching adolescence, to have romantic relationships or to see themselves in a future relationship involving pregnancy or marriage (which suggests that their situation influences them away from relationships with the opposite sex); twice as likely, when becoming adults, to suffer from depression and four times as likely to consider suicide; more likely to use tobacco and marijuana and to have been arrested and then pled guilty of a crime; and three times more likely to be unemployed, receiving public assistance, or if later married to have had adulterous relationships. By the time women who had grown up in same-sex headed households reached age thirty, they were only half as likely to be married or in a relationship lasting three or more years and only a third as likely to have ever been pregnant....

"An article in Mercator.Net about Sullins's work explains the air-tightness of his research methods and also notes that the mainline social science journals have been strikingly silent about the review procedures used for the harm-denial articles they routinely run.

"Even if further research makes the harm of same-sex parenting indisputable--which, to this social scientist, is virtually so already--don't expect mainstream social science to accept it. Ideology has long-since replaced true scholarship there--they are blind followers masquerading as independent thinkers at the cutting edge."