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I asked Grok to evaluate my posts on X and describe where I am on the political spectrum. The AI analysis seems about right. :)
Given a more nuanced analysis of your posts, you appear to straddle a space on the political spectrum that can be described as:
This nuanced position might best be described as right-leaning with libertarian streaks, where you advocate for personal and economic freedoms while also valuing traditional social norms. Your political stance seems to be one that seeks balance between preserving cultural heritage and advocating for minimal government interference in personal and economic life, with a strong undercurrent of populism that challenges the status quo of political discourse.
Having recently gotten into a discussion about the misnamed “Gender Affirming Care” with some of my acquaintances we broached many contentious topics but one point that stuck out was when we got into pronoun territory.
My interlocutor was brought up the idea that the shortening of names – like Stan for Stanley – was a preference and that people were just being polite by referring to the individual as they would like to be referred to.
I stumbled a bit on proposing a counter argument for this point – in hindsight it is fairly straightforward to construct a response.
If a person insists on calling a self proclaimed “Stan”, “Stanley” it might indeed be considered a bit offensive. So how is this different that using she/her pronouns for a male who is under the false notion that he is female?
Well, Stan and Stanly are both terms that are technically correct for the person in question. Is it inconsiderate to ignore their wishes, yes certainly, but here in this free society we don’t have to associate with people who we judge are inconsiderate toward us.
The male expecting people to use “she/her” when to referring to him is a completely different case. Pronouns and preferred names are not in the same category of linguistic use. In English pronouns are sexed, thus males are attributed he/him and females are attributed she/her.
If you hold a set of beliefs that do not comport with reality – that is a male believing that he is somehow a woman (adult human female) – that is perfectly fine. Your personal belief about your reality are of no concern to anyone else in society.
The expectation though of people outside your gender delusion to play along with and be party to your departure from the material reality we all share is not acceptable, especially if you are a person that sees the harm Gender Ideology does to women and society.
Thus, the argument of using a preferred name vs. a pronoun is distinctly a false equivalence as in the first case two real descriptors that accurately represent reality are being offered. In the second case using the “wrong” pronouns is a decision to comport with reality or the decision to ignore the evidence your senses are reporting and submit to someone else’s interpretation of reality – no one is obliged to do so.
Both cases associated with someone is who you perceive to be offensive is not usually not a mandatory experience. Occasionally being offended in society is a part of life and one must learn to deal with it.
Compelling the speech of others is a distinctly authoritarian notion and should not be encouraged in a society that values freedom of thought and expression.
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.
These are the things I want to say to you. The things I want you to truly hear. When I decided to conceive you, I changed my life. I studied. I gave up alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, sugar, processed foods, etc. I exercised, drank lots of water, attended to getting good sleep. You see, I wanted to give you the healthiest foundation possible. And you were born this perfect, achingly beautiful little being. A girl. My girl. I’ve tried to think of ways to refer to my children that don’t use possessive language, but now I realize that’s not helpful. You are my child. And Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, aka ROGD, doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
For the first two years of your life, we co-slept and you nursed. We cuddled through the night in a mother/baby dance that bonded us forever. I rejected all the advice to put you in a crib, to let you “cry it out”, to give you formula. Instead, when you were upset and needed comfort, I put you to my breast. I always came to you when you cried. I knew through instinct that I was your lifeline and you wouldn’t learn to trust if I didn’t respond to your cries. Child development experts would say we became “attached.”
It was hard. I convinced myself I wasn’t cut out to be a stay-at-home-mom. It was easier to think about a career and live the typical lifestyle that those around me had embraced. Dad got laid off, and I went back to work. In my tendency to get absorbed by my career, I became distracted from our bond. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the influences in your life. I saw you spending time on the internet teaching yourself artistic skills, to play instruments, to develop imaginative characters. I saw you and your friends bonding over shared interests like Anime, and…well, Anime. And your preteen angst seemed normal. When you told me you were anxious and depressed, I offered alternative framing and solutions instead of truly listening.
And now here we are. It guts me to know you’re binding the once healthy breasts needed to nurture your own future babies. My heart aches to think you want to have them removed and to take medicine that will sterilize you. I feel deep rage when I think of a culture that has groomed you to believe that your perfect, female form is somehow wrong, and that the self-harm you’re engaged in is somehow manifesting your “authentic self.” I am stunned by how our government, schools, media, and other institutions are fully captured by these misogynistic lies.
But, I have to also say that I am so very grateful. I had no idea our culture was being transformed by these poisonous ideas. That the safeguarding of women and children would be so easily sacrificed for the whims of a few powerful men. You brought this insidious movement into my awareness and now I feel compelled to be a soldier in the fight to stop it.
I also have to say that I understand. Since you opened up this world to me, I see the misogyny I truly didn’t realize existed. I see how scary it must be to imagine inhabiting womanhood. It makes perfect sense that, when given the opportunity, you would choose to opt out of the perceived horrors of being an adult human female in the fucked up world the internet has shown you. I also appreciate the allure of having full control over how you present yourself to the world, to be able to recreate yourself as a less vulnerable being, an avatar to shield your heart. I get it. I still see you. You can’t hide from me, but if you need to keep hiding from everyone else, I understand.
I also think you recognize and are intimidated by, even terrified of, the incredible power of the blossoming woman inside you. These entitled men see that power too. They recognize an elusive and beautiful state of being that their insatiable greed demands they conquer for themselves. It must be intolerable to know that a weak impersonation of womanhood is all they can ever accomplish. And so they’ve convinced themselves and others that they are victims and appeal to the generous nature of the hearts of women. They paint themselves as the “oppressed” because it gets them just a little closer to the experience they covet. These billionaires who throw their might around. They aggressively threaten to rape and kill us because they want us to shut up and stop reminding them they will never be women. Their testosterone shows. We see it. Some of us. Others are trying so hard to be virtuous. To be inclusive. To be good. And they’re so deep in it now, they can’t allow themselves to see what’s really happening. They’ll have to double-down because it will be too painful to realize the devastation that has spread because they allowed themselves to be groomed. Too painful to realize that they’ve participated in the grooming. She/her/hers. He/him/his. Beep/boop/bop.
I will be a soldier in this army. This is what I want to model for you. That womanhood is SO precious that I will fight for it. I will fight for your birthright to it even as you reject it. I will stand against this movement that is calling for the mutilation and sterilization of our children for the lie of “transgender.” I will not be shut up. I will not surrender women’s sports or safe places. I will not rest until the surgeons profiting from cutting healthy breasts off of teenage girls are held accountable. I will call for the dismantling of professional organizations that have shut down scientific inquiry that would illuminate their complicity in this monstrous movement.
I am also grateful for the call back to intentional motherhood. Your pain and your rejection of your female form has reflected back to me the work I still need to do. Nurturing our connection and being an example of a powerful woman who flows through Life’s exhilarating highs and tragic lows with as much grace as possible while also finding pleasure in the mundane. These are my priorities now. It’s a tall order, one that I know I fall far short of. But that’s it too, isn’t it? Modeling being an imperfect human with her own feelings and needs. You inspire me to continue to learn, and practice, and make mistakes, and ask for feedback and get defensive, and then come to believe that I failed you again, and feel the feelings that go with all of that because that’s what life is. It’s ALL OF THAT and so much joy and so much pain, and it’s the most amazing experience when you embrace the richness of it all instead of avoiding life’s intensity. I found ways to hide when I was your age too. Adolescence is precarious for the divergent thinkers; disintegration is inevitable.
Yet, I believe in the foundation I gave you. My therapist reminded me once, “She’s your daughter.” We are enmeshed whether you like it or not. When you harm your otherwise healthy body, it strikes me at such a deep level, it cannot be explained to someone who has not known what it’s like to nurture another human in her womb. I know you need to individuate. I also know our connection is deeper and stronger than the messages coming at you from a broken civilization. I know the intensity of your determination. I recognize strength and courage in you and I trust in your intellect. Will you break free of the cognitive dissonance that’s exhausting you before you “consent” to further harm your body? God, I hope so, but I don’t know. I know you will one day look back and see through all the bullshit and I hope you will not be too hard on yourself. You were a vulnerable teenage girl trying to shield your heart. I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming. I’m sorry I didn’t know you’d need me to teach you and keep reminding you what was always just obvious, basic knowledge throughout time. The difference between a boy and a girl. I’m sorry I didn’t know to protect you from the lies. There’s part of me that is sorry I can’t lie now.
We will both be forged in this fire.
Hey folks,
Reaching the mighty 45 today, and still mostly enjoying life. There is life after separation from one’s partner. It is different, the weird pangs one experiences with the absence of a well worn rituals remind me of what once was. Not really painful anymore the only ones left are the kind of feelings that make you pause for a bit of remembrance and introspection.
We are our past. It’s been a bit of a struggle to get properly contextualize past events. Steps in the process, so I’m told. Only through the passage of time can one frame the traumatic incidents in a more forgiving and positive light. A big thanks to all of you for being a welcome distraction when time in meatspace wasn’t really a hospitable place to be. Know that you’ve helped and I appreciate most everyone who takes the time to share this little corner of the internet with me.
We’ll see if we can get a more indepth this upcoming year and tackle some of the topics that continue to put angry bees in my bonnet. Take care folks, and be well. :)
Have to reshare my current musical labour.
Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis:
And on earth peace, goodwill to all people
Vivaldi captures some of what the tapestry of life is like. The text is celebratory, yet the music is mostly sombre with majestic swells and delicious tension and harmonies if you listen for them. Life isn’t always happy, but rather, complex and should be celebrated as such.
(Edited one this morning, already. If anyone wants to be my copy editor let me know….sheesh. 😊)
The answer for many people, including myself would be: Not Soon Enough!
The usual regrets aside, my descent into critical thinking, strangely enough, started after University as it was only then that I had enough time to really start powering through the books that I had been accumulating while working on my degree. All that stuff that I was ‘responsible’ for learning was still there, but my curiosity led me down the path toward a greater understanding of the mechanics of how our society works. I owe a great deal to Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ronald Wright for fuelling my intellectual growth and move toward a more nuanced understanding of how history and society works and access to a larger context background that helped(s) make sense of world events as they unfolded.
The difference in taking courses before and after my degree was quite startling as learning because you ‘have to’ versus because you ‘want to’.
The challenge now is to continue the journey and start reading again seriously. With the rise of the siren song of social media and video games maintaining an intellectual focus is quite challenging. Getting back into the reading for comprehension and understanding groove is quite difficult. I’m thinking that hitting the University for some courses may be the tonic to this particular problem.
We’ll have to see what’s in the cards and hope to heck there is something interesting to take this upcoming spring/summer. :)
Dress rehearsal tonight, been practising like a mad fool. We have a full line up. Starting with Rheinberger’s lovely Stabat Mater:
Then a Schubert Mass :
Some Mendelssohn:
And some Mozart :
It is going to be a great concert. :)
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…