Thursday 30 May 2019

Competing Minority Rights: And The Loser Is ...

Freedom is great, we're all in favour of freedom.  Trouble is, one person's freedom to do what they want is, errr ...  Then, we're reaching for the *language of priorities*.  And "the language of priorities is the religion of Socialism" (A.Bevan, 1949) - so the lefties have a particular interest in all this, and a particular responsibility to get their ducks in a row.

Of course they routinely duck the issue with an airy all have won, and all must have [taxpayer-funded] prizes.  Not infrequently, unlimited funds would indeed lubricate some instances of friction.  So we just have to scrap Trident (again).  But sometimes it's not a matter of moolah, is it?  Sometimes it's binary and non-financial: which transcendental claim takes precedence over which other?

There are a couple of flashpoints right now where it would be interesting to press these priority-theorists for their answer.

The first is Trans vs Feminists, which has a particularly acute, and utterly bizarre, subset - Trans vs Lesbians, the very essence of reductio ad absurdum.  You can easily find loads of vitriolic reading material on this (though a degree of care is required with your search engine deployment...).

The second is Moslem Activists vs Gays, focussing currently on a school in the Midlands.  Plenty of vitriol in that one, too.  There's a bit of a pattern here, and it's interesting to see who's coming off worse.  (Note: it's not the side dominated by men that are all too ready to offer violence.  Funny that.)

I look forward to a serious leftist adjudication on all this: it will be entertaining to see them confront their illogicalities.  Simply mouthing "more money for everyone" doesn't really cut it this time: these are not materialistic issues, and the left always flounders when attempting to swim away from materialist dry land.  Incidentally, in case anyone thinks I'm being facetious (which I'm sure you don't ...), I genuinely recommend this piece from the Graun, which bravely tackles yet another flashpoint.  It's not wholly satisfactory, but it is at least a leftie trying honourably to square a knotty intellectual circle.  (He doesn't resort to the phrase Christian charity, but that's where he's essentially headed back to, as so many secular moralists have done since the 18th/19th century *Death Of God*.)

For anyone warming to this theme with a mind to pursue some academic treatments, there are some good contributions on Trans vs Feminists from a couple of brave ladies, most notably Kathleen Stock.  The best work I know of on the left comes from two US heavyweights, professors Brian Leiter and Adolph Reed.  They have no truck with lame thinking and are fabulously scathing on the identitarians and their self-appointed, fame-and-fortune-seeking *voices*.  Their solutions are socialist, but their argumentation is lucid and their reasoning is tight.

ND

11 comments:

Raedwald said...

though a degree of care is required with your search engine deployment...

Do not ever, I beg of you, whatever your degree of interest in post-1776 arrangements for the custody of prisoners sentenced to Transporation, ever search for Convict Hulks

I'm still trying to erase the images from my mind.

Anonymous said...

These arguments remind me of the Iran-Iraq War ie it'll be a shame when they stop fighting each other and go back to bothering real people.

Timbo614 said...

Isn't all this a factor in divide and rule/conquer?
While the people are arguing among themselves their eyes aren't on the big stuff!

@Raedwald. Yes I had a complaint/support call from a customer who's young daughter had searched for fluffy kittens. She wasnot happy with the results This was circe 10 years ago so a default safe search may have solved this now ... and indeed it has!

andrew said...


A few hundred years ago if you felt oppressed you could go to the new world.

Nowadays there is nowhere to go.

In this sense I do think the world is changing - the only undiscovered country is between your ears.

E-K said...
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andrew said...

You found the site for dyslexic south african housewives.
Anything you can imagine is out there.

Anonymous said...

What Timbo64 said. Our elites want us worrying about lack of representation of *insert group here* on FT100 boards, not real wages being lower than in 1997.

Remember when TV economy wonks used to be worried about "standard of living"? Now you just hear about GDP.

PS - ND, what do you think of these new Army guidelines?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7082855/British-army-officers-told-soldiers-calling-patriots-extremists.html

Apparently a soldier who considers a politician to be a traitor is now flagged as a potential Extreme Right Winger, to be removed from the service.

‘Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’

E-K said...
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Nick Drew said...

@ what do you think of these new Army guidelines?

mostly, I'm glad they've been published (and revealed) in written form - at least we know what's going on. We may be pretty sure there are far more alarming instructions given to (e.g.) police, local authority workers etc, that somehow never get out in writing: a big challenge for proper investigative journos there

the Army has always had a small but genuine problem on the psychopath / nutter front (which is hardly surprising, given it's a profession of purposeful violence...) - and they do get given arms & ammunition!

in some respects I find it rather difficult to rationalise some of the developments since I left: it started when details began leaking out of the endemic bullying (& worse) @ Deepcut etc. The Army has always been a place of fairly uncompromising basic training (we've all had a kicking from some bastard of a sergeant instructor): but not that Deepcut crap *in my time*. I met plenty of soldiers with a first-hand perspective on Sandhurst (they'd been drivers there, or orderlies of various kinds) and they all said the officers were given a much rougher time in basic training than they had received in their training depots. I calibrated from that and, having no real complaints about my own treatment, I reckoned the depots must have been OK. I never served in a training depot but I'd be fairly confident *in my time* they bore no comparison with Deepcut 1995, meaning that things had gone downhill quite a lot by then

that said, I maintain a lot of military connections, visit various active bases etc, and in other aspects you'd say nothing much has changed in essence, except the big reduction in numbers. Indeed, on the very positive side, the near two-decades of constant action from the Balkans onwards has given us one of the most combat-experienced cadre of officers & NCOs we've had in a very long time, with the sheep pretty effectively sorted from the goats. So I'm rather ambivalent

E-K said...

Nick - For a long while I've been listening to the recruitment adverts for the Army on Absolute Radio. A tearful "your army NEEDS you !" They don't want fighters anymore.

Soldiers were never meant to be policemen.

E-K said...

I'm also bothered that the Remain and the EU establishment knows full well that the guns are on Leave's side and want to change it. Both privates in the army and PCs in the police.