The Family Policy Institute has released a new video. This time the reporter asks American college students a very basic question: "Is there a difference in your mind between men and women?" The answers are mostly the familiar liberal ones: that there aren't any differences, except for some that have been socially constructed that shouldn't be there. Some of the students claim to have difficulty knowing whether people are male or female.
One girl responds to the question "How do you tell the difference between men and women?" with the answer "By what people think they are." Others respond that it isn't necessary to tell whether someone is a man or a woman.
The students themselves are so obviously male and female that it's like watching a comedy sketch.
It's interesting how these students are smart enough to understand the ideology and articulate it, but not smart enough to think independently, not even when the ideology is making them look foolish.
"...It's interesting how these students are smart enough to understand the ideology and articulate it, but not smart enough to think independently..."
ReplyDeleteThat's because Leftist ideology and rote-thinking has replaced actual education, independent thought, and the practice of free and unbiased discussion in the modern American education system. Independent thinking and free and unbiased discussion is anathema to the present-day American Marxist/Leftist idea of "education" (as well as public discourse). ANY criticism of Marxist/Leftist versions of "freedom" or "rights" is shouted down with screams of "bigotry", "racism", "homophobia", etc. There is no discussion of dissenting views with the Leftist orthodoxy, only forced silencing and acceptance.
As seen from their ruthlessness with dissenters or and disagreement with their ideas, Marxists/Leftists -- as they have ALWAYS done when they have gained political power -- would react with prison sentences, "reeducation" camps', and death squads for their opponents, if they could only legally do it in this country.
As seen from the biased and anti-Western, anti-male actions of students in colleges (such as "understanding" and articulating ideology instead of thinking independently), this is the result -- not a 'bug' -- of the Marxist/Leftist "progressive" takeover of our education system, legal system, and government.
There is NO acceptance of criticism of or disagreement allowed with the Marxist/Leftist ideas of "rights" and "freedom" -- ultimately, the Leftist action towards dissenters will be prison, "reeducation", or death. The history of Leftist 'movements of freedom' has ALWAYS shown this.
ReplyDeleteScary. USSR part 2.
Diversity means everyone MUST think alike about 'diversity'.
You can see the hamster wheels spinning--- they know the truth, and they know what the HAVE to say.
You really can see the hamster wheels spinning - especially with the young women. There are moments where they are discombobulated - where they are forced momentarily to confront their own beliefs. The other thing that is so odd about the young women is that at the very same time they are denying sex distinctions, they are clearly attempting to present themselves attractively as women. If they really believed that you can make up your own sex identity; that traditional identities are oppressive; that the concepts of man and woman are unnecessary - then why would they all focus on their sexual attractiveness as women?
Delete"In light of all the conversation about 'gender' and 'identity'"; if every image and reference and memory of the mythical unicorn vanished, would unicorns still exist? Or, would people laugh or puzzle at the sight of a horse with a cone-shaped party-hat stuck to his forehead? Remove "gender" - (even just the word) and the myth - from these young minds stuffed-full-of-crap, and watch them struggle even more to make sense out of nonsense. Even the interviewer is caught up in the nonsense.
ReplyDeleteConsidering another to be a "genderless" person does have a proper context, as in socializing in everyday encounters. As an early Gen-Xer raised in a default liberal (not doctrinaire liberal) environment, this feels natural to me. Would I necessarily consider another's gender or sexuality before other attributes? Back then neither "side" was making a big deal about the subject. But that is very different than paving the whole thing over and positing that gender recognition has no inherent meaning in life. Same with race-- important, obviously, but not always germane.
ReplyDeleteIt would be good to have some follow-up questions for these students, like "Is gender identification important when you decide who to date?"
I very much doubt that one can socially encounter a member of the opposite sex as if this property does not matter. One might believe one does, but this is not the same thing. From my own experience in university, we all liked to consider our class as a group of equals, with our sex irrelevant. Of course, there were lots of pair-bonding, as this illusion of sexlessness quickly went out the window when natural instinct inevitably asserted itself!
DeleteLeadpb, I agree that there are contexts in which the sexed nature of a person is less relevant, e.g. in some professional contexts. Usually, though, we are very much aware that we are dealing with a man or a woman. Even in non-romantic social contexts, we have this awareness and it influences how we approach a person, how we speak to them, what we are looking for from the interaction, how they impress themselves on us, how we judge them as a person and how we judge their behaviour and so on.
DeleteWe're all "genderless", in every context. What we are not, is sexless. When I see a person, I immediately notice which sex they are. If puzzled, I take a second, closer look. It matters to me, because I don't speak to men and women, or to boys and girls like they're all the same. I respect their different attributes, because they are germane.
DeleteIf I meet up with a unicorn in the forest, it is not germane or important to me to know if it is a mare, a filly, a stallion, a colt, or a gelding. I know that unicorns are not real. I know that only male and female horses are real.
Recognition of a unicorn has inherent meaning only in the life of the person who sees one.
Mark,
DeleteI do not disagree with what you say here. I did not mean to suggest that sex or gender would not be considered at all in such a context. But a lively meeting of the minds, for instance, can put gender or sex awareness in second place in my experience. Just how de-emphasized these aspects of self are depends on many individual factors, one of the obvious ones being physical attractiveness.
At the other end of the spectrum, people who are overtly sexualized can be disruptive in those same social situations where sex is of lesser importance. These types try to bring the dynamic of sex into the spotlight even when other priorities should get more attention. Women have complained about this for ages and even men sometimes, especially when it comes to unwanted flirting by homosexual men. Could these considerations be one reason that "gender issues" are so confused today?
If you see an SJW unicorn, you can safely assume that it's a gelding.
DeleteBut a lively meeting of the minds, for instance, can put gender or sex awareness in second place in my experience.
DeleteThat hasn't been my experience. Male and female brains are so radically different that you can't carry on a conversation with someone for more than a few minutes without being keenly aware that you're talking either to a man or to a woman.
"not smart enough to think independently"
ReplyDeleteThey are smart enough to identify Crimethink and activate Crimestop before the Crimethink can even become explicit. I think this is why elite Universities/colleges tend to have more PC than the lower tier ones - IQ 110 and IQ 125 students can both see that the Emperor has no Clothes, but it takes IQ 125 to disregard the evidence of their lying eyes.
Simon, interesting. My assumption is that higher IQ people would be better able to think for themselves. But, as you point out, the effect of higher IQ might instead be a greater intellectual self-discipline in holding to ideologies. A greater intellectualism in the service of an abstract philosophy.
DeleteThe risk is that unless one binds one's ontological worldview in something concrete and real that the greater one's ability to abstract the further will one find oneself from reality and the less likely will one be to be aware of it.
Deletethe effect of higher IQ might instead be a greater intellectual self-discipline in holding to ideologies
DeleteDidn't someone once say that some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual would believe them?
dfordoom, that's about right, isn't it? And it's the same thing - intellectuals are understandably more self-disciplined in holding to abstract intellectual principles. Problem is that these principles need to be subtle and complex to really come to grasp with the "order of reality" but the modernist push is toward the very opposite, i.e. toward a heavily abstracted system based on one (or a few) very straightforward principles from which everything else can be logically derived. It leads to absurdities because the one principle can't hold a complex reality together, but intellectuals would rather hold consistently to the principle than to let reality correct it.
DeleteMichael Leahy, your last comment is very well put.
Deletebut intellectuals would rather hold consistently to the principle than to let reality correct it.
DeleteSupposedly high IQ people and those with the benefit of a university "education" also seem to be remarkably prone to wishful thinking. They believe crazy things because they desperately want to believe them. The idea that a world without borders would be a world of universal peace and brotherhood and prosperity sounds so beautiful and utopian that surely it must be true!
It may be another result of the feminising of our culture. Men have traditionally judged the truth or falsehood of things based on whether they are logically true or not whereas women judge things based on whether they are emotionally satisfying or not.