Interesting interview with Tim Minchin in today's Guardian:
I’ve been accused of drifting right. But, it’s like, hold on! I’ve spent my entire career criticising illogic. I feel like I’m still doing that, except that the religion I now see a problem with is identity fundamentalism. I feel like that is more damaging than monotheism. I don’t think my values have changed.”
Whoever does think their values have changed? From inside our own heads, it always looks as if the scenery is shifting, not us. I sketch out for Minchin my theory about political righteousness. Liberals, long used to the comfortable high of supposing they were on the right side of history, got addicted to that drug, and are now suffering the effects of its withdrawal. Younger liberals might just have cut off their supply.
Everything has been said but not everybody has said it, so I'll take a turn, as this article touches on some things that I've been kicking around.
Re: History
As US military adventurism draws on the soft glow of WWII, a lot of trans activism appeals to the success of the gay rights movement. People who repeat trans slogans often warn others about being on the "wrong side of history." Just as Saddam Hussein was "the next Hitler," nobody wants to be the next Chamberlain. After all, when gay teenagers reported having verboten sexual desires, their feelings were dismissed as, "Just a phase," "Social contagion" fueled by "the homosexual agenda," which was financed by "Hollywood weirdos" (today the en vogue slur is "groomers"). It's difficult for people to thread the needle and consistently show up on the correct side of history, especially when there's almost always strength in numbers. The most effective opponents of trans lunacy are trans people, gay people, and feminists (such as JK Rowling).
I recently heard a conservative critic describe "Wokism" as a religion that prioritizes a person's feelings over objective evidence. He went on to make the usual biological/scientific distinction between females and males, and then compare trans people to schizophrenics when it comes to "disordered" delusions. While we might patronizingly say we believe schizophrenics believe they hear voices, they're not actually hearing anything out in the world, so it's counterproductive -- and offensive -- to go along with the untruth. Except we do often go along with these untruths, at least in the form of established religion.
I have some holy roller neighbors who wanted to commemorate one year their son has been in heaven. The mother called it his "heavenly" birthday. When I described the upcoming celebration to people in my circles, they gave the desired reaction: eye-rolls. The clip-art invitation said that I was part of a "select" group to enjoy the backyard barbecue. The son died in his early thirties; he lived with his parents because he struggled with alcoholism, which eventually killed him.
At the party, which was Thursday, I saw t-shirts advertising Black Rifle Coffee, someone who was apparently saved in the year 2014, and a non-ironic bald eagle against the words "We the People." The mother talked about how her sister recently had a dream of the deceased in heaven working with Jesus to build his mama a glass house (naturally, it's a mansion). We gathered TWICE to hold hands and bow our heads. After doing holding hands once, I wasn't keen on doing it again, but I was pressured by a lanky teenager who said, "I don't bite." Of course, I succumbed. Believing in supernatural sky wizards is even more profoundly mistaken than trans-anything. Naturally, we have all kinds of accommodations for irrational religious people. It's also a lot more normal for people to be religious than thoroughly non-religious.
For religious people, it's almost always easy to condemn homosexuality. I've never wanted to have sex with a dude (except for that one time). Men are gross. Resisting pre-marital sex, however, is a major challenge. For younger people born in a particular cultural milieu, it's relatively easy to repeat what they've learned. It takes older people more time to get the latest cultural software updates. I had a militant, screechy, annoying trans student who would not accept such excuses for the olds. They said they could show me TikTok videos of grandparents who pay for their grandchild's top surgery. Do these grandparents pay for the surgery largely because they've seen the error of their ways or because they
love their grandchildren? I couldn't help but think of Republicans who say their grandfather came to this country with just $5 in their pocket and a dream. In other words, the stereotypical student activist has a very right-wing, pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps take.
While science might advance one funeral at a time, acceptance of homosexuality was probably not driven so much by awakening to the irrational discrimination based on orientation (which is not unlike discriminating on the basis of sex, race, country of origin, etc.). It's nice to imagine the "expanding circle" or the "escalator of reason," and I think those ideas are operating in the background, but it's a generational process. As the trans debate wears on,
fewer people agree there are more than two genders, which might suggest the escalator of reason does not take activists to the places they want to go.
