I’m tired of being lied to by the Left and the Right.

It’s been a rough couple of years for me as I’ve been riding a bit of a roller-coaster when it comes to demarcating my political position and adopting a cognitive frame in which to reasonably process the world.

Talk about unintended veracity.

I come from a academic traditional left background.  My blog started in 2009 and I published a paper (self-published) which I wrote for one of my sociology classes (sociology of the family).  Here is my preface and conclusion from my paper.

“One of the dominant themes of the course was the gendered assumptions our society is based on. Like the Matrix, until you are shown what it is, you really do not understand it. One of the conditions of the paper was that I had to use a pop culture piece to illustrate how heteronormativity works in our culture. I chose the cartoon ‘Family Guy’ because it is a very offensive show and I was sure I would find heteronormative gold when I analyzed a couple of episodes. Sadly, I was correct…

—–

“If “Family Guy” were truly edgy, the so-called deviant vignettes and their radical take on society would be the norm instead of the cutaway gags, but then the show would be unmarketable.  Heteronormative assumptions, like media functions of Chomsky’s model, serve the dominant patriarchal interests.  Therefore, the authors of the show would either bend to the wishes of the institutional will, or they would be out of a job as producers of a cartoon.  In reality “Family Guy” is a safe cartoon from the patriarchal point of view as it amplifies the correct heteronormative assumptions (albeit very crudely) and intensifies the ‘othering’ of competing non-patriarchal based narratives.  Similarly, news that is outside of the dominant acceptable paradigm or boundaries of debate is marginalized or simply ignored by the mass media.  In both cases, the interests of the powerful institutions are served and alternative views are either marginalized or ignored.  Therefore, “Family Guy” as a cartoon may poke fun at heteronormative values, but by its very nature must endorse and propagate an ‘acceptable’ version of the dominant patriarchal norms to continue to be successful in the mass media.”

Oh sweet jebus.  Just look at the conflict theory in action – over a popular cartoon no less.  I received top grade for this paper – I worked hard on ii – but ‘wow wow wow’ the frame I was using was problematic.  Before we get to comparisons, let’s get a few more data points.

Circa 2015 abortion was one of the big topics here at DWR.  This from a post titled The Indomitable Nature of Woman’s Courage.

“The war on women and their rights continues to chug along, it can get depressing having to digest all the misogyny that leaks from the anti-choice, anti-woman side.”

—–

“Trust women.

Oh and a big heart-felt fuck you to so called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ that are always filled to the brim with toxic bullshit. We need you like we need smallpox in the world.”

Did I take the time to really understand the rational behind what Crisis Pregnancy Centres were doing.  Absolutely not.  They were part of the religious right, and the religious right in my cognitive frame were an irredeemable source of EVIL (and patriarchy, we mustn’t forget patriarchy).

The other big topic was Radial Feminism and it was a well worn path through 2014 – 2018.  For instance, my primer on Sex Based Oppression –

[Quoted Material] “As Friedrich Engels made clear, even before feminism’s First Wave, women were historically controlled because we are “a means of production”—without women, there are no heirs, and without heirs, no inherited property and wealth.  Women’s reproductive capacity is why we were colonized as property, just as animals, countries, weapons and land was colonized.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been important at all; any thing we could do (cooking, cleaning, sewing clothes) could have been done as well by men (and in the military, it was).  The reason women were oppressed was to control our REPRODUCTIVE ABILITIES.  This does not mean all women had these abilities, but women were assumed to have them until proven otherwise.  (In many religious traditions, a woman’s “barren” status was the only acceptable reason for divorce.)

There can be no other logical, rational basis for women’s oppression; unless you think men were just being “mean” or something.  No, it was for a very real, profit-centered reason.  Men without families and heirs could not build empires (or even working farms) and without this centralized, religiously-sanctioned consolidation of the family, the state could not have evolved.  The state then effectively empowered men to be women’s keepers until very very recently in human history.  

THIS is the origin of women’s oppression.”

Yep.  The feminist streak here at DWR runs deep and wide – but then a funny little bit of legislation happened in Canada – Bill C-16.  And then the wide feminist river began to narrow into a direct defense of females as a distinct political and social class in society as Bill C-16 codified the unfalsifiable notion of Gender Identity into our Charter of Rights.

“So here we be – enshrining more patriarchal norms into our laws – big surprise right?  This legislation potentially represents a large step backwards for women.

“As unpopular as this fact has become, a man or boy who wishes to identify as a woman or girl, perhaps taking on stereotypically feminine body language, hairstyles, and clothing, is still male. He still has male sex organs, which means girls and women will continue to see him as a threat and feel uncomfortable with his presence in, say, change rooms. Is it now the responsibility of women and girls to leave their own spaces if they feel unsafe? Are teenage girls obligated to overcome material reality lest they be accused of bigotry? Is the onus on women to suddenly forget everything they know and have experienced with regard to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and the male gaze simply because one individual wishes to have access to the female change room? Because one boy claims he “feels like a girl on the inside?” And what does that mean, anyway?”

So which is more important male gender feelings or female safety?  I would like to advocate here for gender neutral washrooms/changing area as the beginning of a compromise in this area.  We still live in a patriarchy and sex segregated facilities are still necessary for the protection and safety of females in our society.  The choice whether to co-mingle with men in washrooms or change rooms should be up to all those involved.”

It was a watershed moment for me.  Gender-magic suddenly, was made a part of our Charter of Rights and the resulting bullshit was quite beyond the pale as female rights, boundaries, and safety continue to be curtailed and rolled back up here in Canada.  It is 2023 now, and push-back against the tide of regressive gender ideology has a reasonable start, but we still have a long way to go as most of our government institutions are thoroughly captured by this insidious ideology.

I’m sorta fed up with the transgender bullshit.  As early as 2021 – this from the post Transgender Ideology Obscures & Enables Male Violence – CTV (Newspeak) News:

“Forget about ‘just wanting to pee’ wedge issue bullshit – this is what we are in for in Canadian society; this is the upside-down, nothing has any meaning, timeline that trans ideology has in store for us.

Do not believe your eyes, but rather what some individual says about who they are. This is where belief in gender-magic takes us, where male violent crime is somehow called ‘female’ violent crime because the violent male has fucking delusions of gender and we need to respect that. 
No.  The word must get out of what is happening here and the bald-faced misogyny that is transgender ideology must be stopped.”

Yeah, the gloves have come off and up till the present it has been a journey that has seen my reject my ideological left leaning beginnings.  The argument can be made that since 2015 the Left has hit the crazy button and, in many cases, simply left former supporters and adherents politically homeless.  The rise of Radical Activist Leftism (queer theory based gender ideology, the misogyny that is Transactivism, BLM, the so called anti-fascists et al.) has left me so cold toward my former home on the left.  So I went looking and much to my chagrin the “Right” isn’t much better.   So started to lean into some of the bugbears the Right chases.  For example, identity politics –

“Identity politics sow division and strife within society.  We need to revisit the idea that we are all Canadians first and foremost.  We come in all different shapes, beliefs, and abilities.  Those differences and the acceptance of our actual diversity is what makes Canada a wonderful place to live and prosper.

Josh Denaas writes at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute about the change in activism over the years and how it has become less about gaining acceptance in society more about demanding to be accommodated regardless of the validity of the claim.

“I’m pleased that in 2023 LGBT people can be themselves in public, and that there is zero tolerance for bullying in schools and workplaces. That said, I’m starting to worry that some LGBT people are becoming the new bullies.”

“People see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear” – signed *EVERYONE* on twitter.  It was late 2018 that I started to lean harder into twitter as a social media outlet., and to be honest, it has had negative effect on my writing here on DWR.  Sparing with others, getting the dopamine hit from winning a successful snipe argument, the format of the short tweet all sap the intentionality and nuance of writing and thinking in complete descriptive thought.  I was necessary though folks; January 2018 was when my marriage went pear-shaped and what I thought was a partnership for life turned out to be a much more temporary experience.  Amiable and all that, but my mental resources available at the time were MUCH more suited to Twitter than the long form essay.  Twitter also has a way to weave a quasi-net of acceptance and understanding to your particular points of view and preferred ideologies, it is rather alluring to be perfectly honest.

The silos present there at first confirmed my left bias, but then led by the likes of James Lindsay and his podcasts from The New Discourses I embarked on a journey to the right, or at least centre-right.

Lindsay, one of the authors of the Grievance Studies Affair, has taken it upon himself to combat the what he describes as the encroachment and capture of our cultural institutions by Cultural Marxist ideologues.  Lindsay has topics ranging from grooming in schools to DEI training to the Sustainable Development Goals.  The picture he assiduously paints is one of a long subtle Communist march through the Western institutions with the goal of overthrowing Western values and unfurling the new collectivist revolution.  He unpacks concepts the Left is based on – and it is an impressive intellectual shortcut, but ultimately a shortcut it is.  The picture you take away from him, despite his charitable efforts (sometimes) is fairly negative view of the evolution of Marxist and how it affects society now.  There is no shortcut around grappling with the texts and thoughts of thinkers (on the right and the left) that have shaped and are shaping our reality.

You listen to him – he’s at his most persuasive when he’s reading a primary source from the other side – whether it be the record of the Combahee River Collective or the works of Paulo Friere or Herbert Marcuse – the work he’s amassed and digested into a reasonable format is impressive.  Impressive enough to build a hollow cognitive frame around… one could say.

On reflection, I think I’ve learned a fair amount about the topics that I had little or vague knowledge about.  What I haven’t done is yet is to formulate a coherent cognitive frame that makes sense of my dual experience of being on the Left (and then having being discarded by the current bullshit activist left) and embracing some of the ideas and notions that are ascribed to the Right.

I need answers.

I’ve read Noam Chomsky’s keystone works on media and media production – Manufacturing Consent.  The well spring of evidence points to a distinct conservative take in the news media.  Yet, the Herbert Marcuse’s thesis of Repressive Tolerance is an artifact in society in which I have witnessed happening.  Did you see all the articles in the media about how they are putting males into female prisons and how dangerous that is for the female prisoners?  No?

Me either.

Not a fucking peep.

Make it all make sense!

You would think that such a infringement on female rights and safety would have our Left media up in arms…  But not a peep.  CBC, The Toronto Star, Counterpunch nothing.  NOTHING.  The bullshit they do run though is the ideological drivel that is being vomited into society by the Activist Left – because somehow male gender feelings outweigh female rights, boundaries, and safety in society (in the name of tolerance, diversity,and inclusion no less).

Where do you find the stories of women fight back and reclaiming their rights, spaces, and sports?  News organizations on the RIGHT.  Stories about Riley Gaines (who was forced to compete against the male Lia Thomas in swimming) appear on Fox News.  The toxicity of gender ideology or really just discussing it has only appeared in the rightward National Post and never in the Left Globe and Mail.  What the actual hell is going on – why is the media I was taught to distrust and malign suddenly become the only avenue of reasonable argument and debate that is allowed in mass communications?  The whole media situation really cooks my noodle :/.

This post is already too long, stay tuned for part two where I go into how I think I should build my new cognitive frame from the current giggly-piggley state of being.