THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING PART III

 

PORNOGRAPHERS AND PRUDES

 

Commenting on the desire to uproot traditional taboos, Edmund Burke stated there are ignorant men who are not foolish enough to take apart their clock but “sufficiently confident to think (they) can safely take to pieces, and put together at (their) pleasure, a moral machine…” far more intricate than an instrument of springs and gears. 

 

Since the 60’s, the left has wanted to obliterate these taboos about sex and gender. In “Marxist Feminism’s Ruined Lives”, Mallory Millett describes her involvement in the creation of the National Organization of Women. They’re kind of a big deal now, and they started their meetings with this chant:

 

"Why are we here today?" she asked.

"To make revolution," they answered.

"What kind of revolution?" she replied.

"The Cultural Revolution," they chanted.

“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?" she demanded.

"By destroying the American family!" they answered.

"How do we destroy the family?" she came back.

"By destroying the American Patriarch," they cried exuberantly.

"And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.

"By taking away his power!"

"How do we do that?"

"By destroying monogamy!" they shouted.

"How can we destroy monogamy?"

 

Their answer left me dumbstruck…, she wrote.

 

"By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!" they resounded.

 

“Geez, Omnipotentblog. Is literally everything a communist plot?” Well, not everything, but the other day, I sat down to eat lunch at home and watched some porn. I thought it was an animated sci fi show on Netflix, but that was apparently a lie. After trying to fast forward through the naughty bits, I gave up and turned it off. Recently, students at Grossmont High School in San Diego staged a near riot over a dress code that banned mid riffs and tank tops. Perhaps they have simply learned that political violence gets results, but any casual observer over 40 who watches TV or sits in coffee shops has surely noticed the swelling number of exposed boobs and lumpy mid riffs, even as waistlines expand. There is a strange feminist notion that to be equal to a man means to be just as horny and freakish. At the same time, actual teenage sex is down. Substantially. One kid told me nobody really parties anymore. Yet, while the college hook-up culture is strong, there is also a Puritan strain of thought among college students and administrators regarding consent that borders on moral panic. Coupled with a culture of victimhood and the fear of “toxic masculinity”, this simultaneous loosening and tightening of sexual mores has served to confuse people and ruin lives. And while the actual evidence behind the perceived epidemic of campus rape is paltry, the true believers fail to understand why some men, pickled in alcohol and teased to the brink of insanity, might be a little too eager to just, you know, “take it.” If, in the throes of passion, women can turn it off like a switch, can’t men? I mean, we’re all the same, aren’t we? Of course—and this is complete speculation—but men raised with self-control, good values, and respect for women are probably less likely to rape, no matter how drunk. Some years ago, I read a piece detailing how a consensual hook-up turned into a “rape” when a woke RA convinced a girl her post-coital guilt meant she really had not given consent. It turned into criminal charges against a confused and traumatized man. Speaking of Puritanism, there has been a strange alliance recently between social conservatives and hardcore feminists against pornography. And though conservatives hate (love, whatever) to say, “We told ya so,” in “Why Sex-Positive Feminism is Falling Out of Fashion,” NY Times’ columnist Michelle Goldberg, without mentioning it, or possibly even realizing it, admits that social conservatives were totally right about sex all along. Her epiphany is that the sexual revolution has brought only exploitation, poverty, and misery to women. But she wants to Make America Rut Again by creating a new “culture of respect.” Sure.

 

GENDER AND SEX

 

During the gay marriage debates over a decade ago, radio host Dennis Prager would often warn the great risk of the left’s arguments about sexual identity was not about marriage, per se, but about gender. He predicted a slippery slope, and now, he appears quite prescient. The left moves from victim group to victim group and now that gays and lesbians appear to be lower on the scale of oppression, transgenders are the victims du jour. Two genders plus confusion has become dozens of genders and sexual identities that have names for any combination of feelings people can describe, even an identity whereby some women can’t have sexual feelings for people they are not emotionally attracted to, which, if memory serves, used to be called “a woman”. What are the results of this? An explosion in the number of people identifying as “nonbinary” or not straight. The landmark Sex in America Survey survey by Laumann et al argued that culture had an enormous influence on sexuality. They pointed to a paucity of homosexuals in rural America and much higher rates in populated urban centers, only a small portion of which was explained by migration. They found the prevalence of homosexuality to be 2-3%. Numerous previous studies suggested about 2% of males and 1% of females. The rates were remarkably stable over decades, but with the massive recent cultural shift, what about now? As of 2021, Gallup estimated the rate to be 5.6%. Rates among older generations remained steady while rates of Millenials have exploded.  

 

Is this a good thing? Not according to data, which shows the problems in these groups as voluminous and severe. And while the left cheers the lopping off of private parts, there is a real thing called “Transition Regret,” compassionately documented by Walt Heyers, a detransitioned male, and 60 Minutes in an interview of people lamenting their permanent mutilations. One woman noted how she got on hormones after “a couple” therapy sessions. She was transitioned and detransitioned in less than a year. Various studies show that 85% of teenagers, if they do not receive encouragement or pressure to transition, will resolve their gender identity issues. Tellingly, the gold standard of guidance regarding surgical transition used to be the Harry Benjamin Standards, established in 1979 with the understanding that surgery was a radical, irreversible action. They recommended that a person should live fully as the other gender for at least a year before starting hormones. The standards also recommended “…extensive exploration of psychological, family and social issues…Identity beliefs in adolescents may become firmly held and strongly expressed, giving a false impression of irreversibility; more fluidity may return at a later stage. For these reasons, irreversible physical interventions should be delayed as long as is clinically appropriate.” The problem with the new gender ideology is that these standards have been ignored because, who are we to tell someone their feelings aren’t real? There are signs the tide is turning, however. Sweden’s renowned Karolinska Institute, after reviewing the literature, banned transition among teenagers outside of approved studies. And the UK High Court recently evaluated the scientific evidence for transitioning teenagers, determining the evidence suggested hormonal transition is still experimental and should not be allowed for children under 16, given their lack of maturity and inability to give informed consent. Contrast this with California’s  AB 1184, which gives children as young as 12 control of their medical and psychiatric records and bans health insurance companies from notifying parents of “sensitive” treatments such as abortions and surgical gender transitions. The staggering rates of suicide and general misery among both pre and post-transition transgenders should give them pause, but it doesn’t. The revolution must go on.

 

Next week: A proper discussion of church, men who ride mopeds, and Cheeto dust.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING PART II

 

"It was impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything in nature and human experience was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving…No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things…It was time for me now, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with the conservatives…all those respectable old blockheads who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, kept a death grip on one or two ideas which had not come into vogue since yesterday morning."

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Mosses from an Old Manse”

 

The breakdown of the breakdown continues…

 

THE SELF-HATRED OF ELITES

 

In Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart,” he describes Western elites living industrious lives of Protestant asceticism while pouring scorn on the very idea the poor should do the same. George W. Bush called this “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Former spy for the Soviets, Whittaker Chambers, said that in America, it is the rich, who are the communists, not the workers, and the algal bloom of Marxist thought has produced a parallel guilt over their own success. To expiate this guilt, they remove Western Civilization from educational curriculums, and dismiss the history of modernity itself as the study of old, racist white men. Even the corporate world has embraced this self-flagellation. However, actual policies that would pull them from their perches are mysteriously absent. One tenet of Critical Race Theory is that whatever policies are passed to help oppressed minorities, they always end in maintaining elites’ exalted status. Seems kinda true. Murray’s solution for the ever-widening bifurcation of America is for elites to simply “preach what they practice.”

  

INSTITUTIONAL THUGGERY

 

Partly due to the influence of Antonio Gramsci, the American left has engaged in a long march through the institutions. Leftism dominates Education, Journalism, Hollywood, Music, banking and finance, Big Tech, and increasingly, the military. The American Medical Association is now inserting overtly Marxist language into their literature. The fusion of government and corporations is the cornerstone of fascism. Yet, while they weep and gnash their teeth about the specter of right wing fascism, Democrats and corporations are practically sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. As much of our elite class banishes intellectual diversity from its ranks, increasingly pressuring its members into a pseudo-Marxist Borg, what have they done with their power? They censor news, cancel accounts, shadow ban, manipulate information, destroy businesses through litigation and protest, and coordinate with the government to run a Ministry of Information-like regime to purge traditionalists from society. The Biden administration admitted recently to flagging “misinformation” for Facebook to censor. California and other officials have been caught as well. Ben Shapiro, in “Our Authoritarian Moment”, describes how an intransigent minority bullies the complacent majority, creating a tipping point of submission. While conservatives find the idea disgusting, his solution is for the reasonable majority to start implementing the same nasty techniques of boycott and cancellation.

 

“Acknowledge your privilege, Captain.”

 

DECLINING TRUST IN INSTUTIONS

 

Lo, the conspiracy nuts will always be with us, but if you have never read about QAnon, you might be surprised just how unhinged they really are. Dr. Fauci is the son of Mother Teresa, who was a child sex trafficker, you see. Despite our ever-present paranoiacs, true social capital is dwindling. The Pew research graphic below shows a meaningful drop in institutional trust over the last 20 years.

 

 

The sharp divide politically is especially troubling, with a 45% divide regarding police and a 19% and 29% divide for TV journalism and newspapers. The worst category is Republicans’ mistrust of the media, which is somewhere in the Marianas Trench at 7%. The presidency is more politicized than ever. There are always suspicions by partisans when their candidate loses, but the “Not my President” phenomenon is growing. When Bush defeated Gore in 2000, and the Supreme Court discussed hanging chads and other ballot minutiae, only 18% of Democrats thought the outcome was fair. A full 30% thought the election was stolen. 37% percent of Democrats said Bush stole Ohio in 2004. 36 percent of Republicans felt cheated in 2012. After 2016, 52% of Democrats believed Russia hacked voting machines. However, weeks after the 2020 election, despite media and many establishment Republicans saying there was no evidence, up to 30% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans thought the election was stolen. Without rehashing the voluminous complaints both petty and significant, there was something different about this one. This tweet heard round the world (worth reading) outlined the many reasons for Republicans’ complete mistrust even before the election. For one, Democrats’ rage over Trump resulted in, to make a very long story short, the federal government using sexed-up oppositional research from the DNC to lie to judges so they could spy on Trump and initiate a years-long investigation they knew was total horse crap after one year. Former high-level government officials would testify to congress the government had no evidence of Russian Collusion, and days later, would go on TV to proclaim smoking gun evidence would come out aaany day now. And after the media’s corrupt lynching of the Covington High School boys and Judge Kavanaugh, Republican’s eyes were practically twitching. Then came the long list of 2020 election chicanery in partisan counties in swing states, including blatantly illegal “emergency” changes due to Covid. TIME magazine ran “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” The article was celebratory in tone, but in it were shocking admissions causing the right to call it a secret cabal to steal the election. Was the election stolen? I don’t know. With all the outright fraud that was alleged, where’s the beef? Evidence has not materialized. But the other improprieties might have made a difference. We’ll probably never know. Not content with just a win, Democrats framed the Jan 6^th riots as an insurrection, worse than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. This is complete twaddle, of course, and it puts Republicans’ belief that Democrats will do literally anything to get power at a fever pitch. And then came Covid. With the constant diet of terror and lies fed to us, is it any wonder how vaccines, which are safe IMO, got so unforgivably politicized?

 

HISTORICAL IGNORANCE

 

Embracing the Marxism of Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt school, leftists understand that to transform the nation, our connection to our history must be severed. The 1619 Project is only the most obvious and clumsy example of this intentional perversion of history. The great irony is the Progressive view history by definition: It is an important guide on what to dismiss. It is a pick axe for undermining the foundation. Progressivism, by definition, is contempt for the old, crusty ideas of old, crusty people. To the conservative, history is an antidote to all kinds of error, and I can’t help but think a mandatory course of American History that is simply true and honest, would end this revolution in a short time. What is the proper view of American history? I believe former slave Frederick Douglass, in his famous 4^th of July speech, has it right. Savage in his attack on America for accepting slavery, in the end, he proclaims his faith in and love for the Constitution. Confident in the eventual end of slavery, he defied critics to find a single pro-slavery clause in it, declaring that no soil on earth was more fertile for equality and change than America’s. William McClay wrote of British historian Herbert Butterfield, who railed against Lord Acton’s approach to the past, “that makes its meaning and its lessons subservient to the demands of the present and to the present’s reigning idea of what constitutes ‘progress.’” Butterfield felt such historical writing “was likely to be simplistic and one-sided, reducible to white hats and black hats.” The complexity of history shows the men of history to be suspiciously like the men of today, full of brilliance and greatness and sin and folly. However, to rustle the cattle into greener pastures, utopian levelers like Hanna Nikole-Jones must break off bits of the past until they get the shape they like.

 

Next week, I dive into some of the social elements of America’s decline.