Now we’re Cotton Mather
Oh good grief. I thought I was going to leave the subject for today but then I saw this piece at Inside Higher Ed, fatuously titled Taking Trans Lives Seriously. Because what, there are all these people making a big joke of trans lives? Are we supposed to take trans lives more seriously than any other kinds of lives? (Of course; stupid question.)
It is not permissible to debate in some academic parlor game the lives of people who are oppressed and murdered, writes Mark Lance.
“Some academic parlor game” says a professor of philosophy at Georgetown. Anyway people aren’t “debating the lives” of trans people in the way he wants us to think: debating whether they deserve to live or not. That’s a cheap, manipulative move which ought to be beneath a philosopher.
In 1702, the New England Puritan Cotton Mather produced a theological/philosophical reflection on the nature of the American continent and its inhabitants. He asserted that the heathen savages that Europeans had met here were probably put here by the devil, likely lacked souls, were more akin to beasts than humans and absolutely must be at least converted, and if not, removed (i.e. killed).
Oh, good opening – he’s going to say that’s what gender critical philosophers are doing, i.e. saying trans people should be killed. Nothing hyperbolic or unfair about that.
[A]t the dawn of the 18th century, as a mass influx of Europeans are launching one of the largest campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide in human history, these remarks are violence. They are an endorsement of genocide and played a very real role in facilitating it.
Recently, a small but highly visible group of scholars has taken to arguing against the growing acceptance of the gender self-identifications of trans people — insisting that trans women are really men, trans men really women, trans lesbians really heterosexual men and so forth — and often explicitly presenting these arguments as support for legal efforts to restrict trans folks’ access to public spaces.
Sure enough, that’s what he’s saying. Gender critical feminists are like Cotton Mather, and are endorsing and playing a role in facilitating genocide against trans people. Don’t be shy, professor. He’s not a trendy young woke philosopher, either, but a grown adult. Also, that bullshit about “support for legal efforts to restrict trans folks’* access to public spaces” – that sounds as if gc feminists want a blanket rule expelling trans people in general from public spaces in general. That’s incredibly dishonest. The issue is whether women are required to “include” trans women in all spaces reserved for women, and women do have a right to have opinions on that without being accused of facilitating genocide or advocating apartheid.
*”folks” yet again – it’s always “folks” – it’s a tell.
I do not suggest that the current situation around TE“RF” philosophers is as grim as the genocide of Native Americans.
He says, having just done exactly that.
Obviously, there are differences of quantity, and some of content, between what happened to Native Americans in the 1700s and what’s occurring in academe today.
What?? There are some differences of content? But it’s still pretty close to what happened to Native Americans in the 18th century? That’s just deranged (and defamatory).
But when trans folks are systematically reviled, mocked and disempowered; when they are disproportionately harassed by police, arrested and brutalized — both on the street and in custody — and when there are active campaigns or existing laws in many countries to deny them basic human rights, one cannot merely have a polite discussion about the nature of gender and sex. To produce arguments, in this context — that trans women are not women, or trans lesbians are not lesbians — is not just a view we can easily reject as confused and offensive. It is complicity with systemic violence and active encouragement of oppression.
So we have to just shut up, and wax J Yaniv’s balls, and nod approvingly when Morgane Oger gets funding taken away from Vancouver Rape Relief, and applaud when boys win girls’ races. Yes sir yes sir, anything you say sir, it’s not your rights being taken away but you’re the boss so yes sir, yes sir.
And to write pompous open letters about efforts to combat such complicity without mentioning any of the relevant context, to write as if this is simply an abstract question of academic freedom, to pretend that the cisgendered deniers of trans rights are the real victims because others criticize them is not nearly far enough from our hypothetical reaction to Cotton Mather.
But we’re not “deniers of trans rights.” We don’t want to take any rights away from trans people. We also don’t want trans people to take away our rights, and the reality is that a few trans women have made some major dents in our rights.
It is difficult for me to see how highly educated, highly intelligent people can fail to see these obvious points. Perhaps they do, or perhaps something more complicated or more sinister is going on. I don’t know, or really care, what is behind it. But everyone who cares about the current victims of social and institutional bigotry needs to denounce it.
It is not permissible to debate the lives of people who are oppressed and murdered. Those who treat this like an intellectual game should not be engaged with. They should be told to [unprintable here] — just as I hope we would respond to Cotton Mather. Every time.
I find that breathtaking.
Let me propose something to the good doctor. The Native Americans were here before the western settlers, and were forced to accept white people in spaces that were once their own. Eventually, they were pushed into tiny spaces reserved for the small amount of Native Americans who survived all the efforts at eradication. They do mix and interact with the white races, but are not treated equivalently in jobs or housing or other things. The white citizens begrudge them their spaces, and often propose ways to push them off even those tiny spaces.
The women were here before the transwomen. They were pushed out of most of the spaces, which were reserved predominantly for men. They have some spaces that are reserved just for them, because they are in danger from the dominant male citizens if they interact too closely in certain activities. They do mix and interact with the males, but are not treated equivalently in jobs or housing or other things. The males begrudge them their spaces, and often propose ways to push them off even those tiny spaces.
So which one is more like Cotton Mather? Us? Or the trans activists?
Exceptional analogy, Iknklast.
This guy is a lunatic. He beats Strangio’s melodrama by a mile. So much projection and paranoia. I’m embarrassed reading it.
I’m clarifying this kind of ‘mirroring’ rhetoric in my own mind by just thinking ‘cui bono?’ White people oppress Black people, and people of other ‘races’, including Native Americans–because we get their labour, and steal their stuff. Men oppress women–because they get our labour, and steal our ideas, creativity and emotional energy. ‘Cis’ people oppress trans people (or more specifically, women oppress trans women)–because–?? Seriously, how does it benefit us? What do we get from them?
My response (waiting for approval from IHE):
Here he sets out that speech against native americans is violence…
And here he cashes in on that premise. Disagreeing with trans theory is violence.
From a philosophy professor.
Speech can, heavily dependent on language used and context, be incitement to violence (listen much of what emanates from the mouth of the current president of the United States of America).
What it cannot be is violence itself.
Is it just me or are all or most of the trans people insisting on encroaching on women’s spaces as well as all of the anti-feminist “trans lobbyists” white middle-class dudes?
This piece is the long form version of one of those memes featuring a glittery anime character brandishing a gun, saying “Shut the fuck up TERF.”
But Lady M, he needs these bad statistics to use as a cudgel against TERFS! He’s a Good Guy; they’re Witches! You’re disarming him in the face of the enemy! You’ve eaten his banana; how does he defend himself against pointed sticks?! Why, it’s VIOLENCE, ACTUAL VIOLENCE RIGHT HERE IN THIS THREAD!!!!
How long before we’re told that TERFs=Zionists?
Plucking unrelated strings of indignation is Trumpish in its shallowness.
What a disgusting human being he is.
I’m pretty sure that all my college philosophy professors would have given that piece an F. Even the grad students would’ve failed it.
Nullius, I’m afraid at least one of my college philosophy professors would give it an A. Sad.
That is indeed quite sad. Most of my philosophy professors were definitely of the Analytic tradition, so that may have something to do with it. My only Continental class was Kierkegaard, and that was enough for me to toss the whole of Continental philosophy in a fire. He reads like a parody of poor philosophy.
I mean … That’s just … I have to think that he was intentionally trolling, and everyone thought he was profound on the basis that they couldn’t understand what he was saying. Reading the existentialists really makes you understand why GE Moore and Bertrand Russell were willing to blow the whole of philosophy up and start over.
Nullius, my graduate level philosophy classes were in Environmental Philosophy, and the entire department was inescapably woke. They were so woke that they felt it totally appropriate to explain how the writer of an article explaining that Buddhism doesn’t mean what Westerners think it means clearly didn’t understand Buddhism – the writer being the Dalai Lama. They were firm believers that all non-Westerners were good and all non-Western ideas should be instituted, while the west has never had a good idea in its life. Any and everything that promoted that worldview was good; anything else was bad. (Which is why it’s astonishing that they decided to rebuke the Dalai Lama for getting Buddhism ‘wrong’ against Western ideas.)