Be more like Him
A variation on the Whig theory of history:
“The younger generations are always right” is the foundational belief and claim here. But is that true? Plenty of younger generations (it’s not clear how many Maugham thinks there are) belong to neo-Nazi groups, white power groups, Islamist groups, Brexit groups, pro-Trump groups.
And more generally and abstractly, what about the fact that people have time to learn more as they get older? What about the accumulation of experience and knowledge and information over time? Doesn’t that count for something? Of course that’s only as good as it is – one can accumulate bad information as well as good, but still, it’s not strictly a one-way process of becoming ever stupider and more wrong as one ages.
Ah yes. If you are a man, be sure to discount the views of that pesky stupid woman who lives with you and gets stuck with all the domestic work. What the hell does she know?! Bitch.
Ah yes, listening and learning, which he is so good at…unless it’s women talking. Also notice that his list of the ways his tribe is privileged doesn’t include “male.”
Really? And yet how many times have we heard ‘Trans-X are X, end of? It can’t be that sodding complex if it can be explained in so few words.
It’s simple when they explain it to us, it’s hugely complex when we reject the explanation. That’s fair!
And even on the left wing, it’s simply not the case that every idea that young lefties have championed has eventually won out in the court of public opinion and come to be received as correct. Perhaps these aren’t the best examples, and maybe they were fringe ones to begin with, but I recall a lot of feminists in my youth as lobbying for things like the use of terms like “womyn” and “herstory,” which have never really caught on (a fate I suspect that “Latinx” is experiencing right now), or substantive policies like “not just equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value, where a government commission shall decide if, e.g., nurses should make as much computer programmers.” Of course, plenty of feminist ideas did “catch on” and are perceived as generally uncontroversial today. But the idea that one can just subcontract one’s own judgment to the young because they’ll be proven right in 20 ways is pretty dubious.
Apparently the correct answer to that question is “Okay, Boomer”.
Seriously, though, it appears that the younger generation believes that no one knew anything until they came along. I will admit, that is normal with younger generations; we certainly were that way when we were younger (well, not all of us, but in general). The difference is that the older generation did not automatically assume we were right if they disagreed with us.
That’s the weird thing I see these days: how many older people are willing to accept that they know nothing, that their experience has counted for nothing, and bow down to the loudest and most obnoxious of the younger generation. And to lecture other older people on how they don’t know anything, either.
And once again, he equates trans and racism. Always have to throw in that “white”, don’t you? Never mind that many of the trans activists have grown up WHITE, MALE, MIDDLE-CLASS. They don’t have privilege, no not they, because…trans. Magic trans words.
And they know better than women what it means to be a woman, apparently.
Just to illustrate that for even the most obnoxious people there are good things one can say about them (with the obvious exception of the orange loser and the people around him), I note that Jolyon Maugham appears to be a good guy in some respects. He’s not keen on Boris Johnson and Brexit, for a start, and, more specifically, his “cases include defending the rights of British expatriates in Europe”, in other words people like me. Whether that’s enough to compensate for his trans activism, on the other hand, is another matter.
See, ACB, that’s part of the problem. A lot of the trans activists agree with us on a number of issues, making them on the “right” side. I think that’s one reason they get so much traction on the left. They are seen as genuinely progressive, so theirs must be a progressive cause…hop on board. Especially since it has wrapped itself in the rainbow flag.
As for feminists? Well, we’re on the same side of the same issues, too, but there seems to be a push among TRAs to insist we are regressive Trump voters who eat little children for breakfast. Because everyone must be all or nothing in this modern, upside down world. No room for nuance or differences of opinion on key issues.
“It’s simple when they explain it to us, it’s hugely complex when we reject the explanation. That’s fair!”
This has to be y quote of the week!
Brian, #7: not only quote of the week but yet another parallel of the trans movement with religion.