dovetailing
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User ID: 2225
dovetailing
2d ago
My theory is that the "right side of history" narrative (and its close cousins, casting being progressive as just being a "decent human being" and denigrating opposition as "retrograde" or "reactionary") is so ubiquitous because the progressive left is deeply confused about whether it believes in moral realism, and so adopts an inconsistent (but very effective) posture on moral questions.
On these big social questions, there are, at root, three reasons for acting:
- You are a moral realist and believe that X is right/wrong as a fundamental fact about reality. (How do you know? Maybe you believe God -- who knows such things -- said so; maybe you believe you have a direct apprehension of the truth; maybe it is a logical consequence of other things that are in the first two categories.) You act because you think it is right, period.
- You have a preference that you want to fulfill, and think that you and those who share it have the power -- or can obtain the power -- to enforce it. You act out of pure preference and power.
- You just want to go along to get along. You don't have an independent reason to act, so you don't act independently -- maybe you stay out of it, or maybe you join a cause you think will imminently win (or is most of your social circle) so that people will like you.
"The right side of history" tries to have it all three ways while not committing enough to any of them to expose weakness there.
Straightforward moral realism is a problem for the progressive left (at least in its modern incarnation; past movements vary) for two reasons. First, because most of its thought leaders are not moral realists, and many of the rest would reject moral realism if the question were put to them (though they may implicitly act as if they believed in it). Second, because the natural response to "It is a moral law of the universe that [insert progressive cause here] is good" is to say: "And how do you know? I'm pretty sure I've always heard that God said the opposite, my intuitions disagree, and anyway you just got done telling me that you don't believe in hearing from God, so why should I believe you?"
Straightforward appeals to power or preference are not persuasive -- at least not unless you already have the power and just want to compel, not "win hearts and minds".
And finally, appealing to people's "go along to get along" instincts is tough unless you can offer social proof that either your cause already dominates, or soon will. (It works wonders when you can, though -- see what happened to gay marriage.)
Enter "the right side of history". It appeals to moral realist intuitions and persuasive force, while not actually committing anyone to staking out an actual claim about ground truth morality. It can be a threat based on present or claimed future power without being explicit about it. It appeals to "go along to get along" without having to actually produce the goods in terms of current social influence.
Time will tell (ha) about whether the rhetorical strategy will continue to be effective, but I expect that, absent major ideological realignment, it will continue to be used in one form or another.
dovetailing
9d ago
Who the hell wants to ban porn?
Quite a few people, actually. Even on the ACX survey (not a demographic known for its social conservatism) over a quarter of respondents said that they would wave a magic wand to end pornography permanently if offered the choice. Now making something magically disappear is not quite the same as banning it for a number of reasons, but the sentiment is much the same.
You might be confused because of all those statistics indicating that 90%+ of men have used porn. Past, or even current, porn use is not inconsistent with wanting it to not exist. People don't have perfect self-control, after all, and it is Well Known that people have diminished judgement and self-control under... relevant circumstances. Many people are quite capable of disapproving even of their own vices, and think that it's bad to have widely available temptations for them and others to succumb to them.
I am almost certain that banning internet porn is part of the intention of laws like these, not an accidental consequence. For the state of Texas (and for other states with similar laws) this is the system Working As Intended.
dovetailing
11d ago
This seems to come up as an explanation a lot, but I don't think it really holds water. We don't have a huge number of people who are experts in pushdown automata or computational complexity or type theory, but can't code. For the most part, the people who didn't learn to code in school also didn't learn any of the theory either.
dovetailing
12d ago
I don't think this is disagreement with my above post? (I mean, I do disagree on a value-level with the transhumanism, but that's another kettle of fish and not relevant here.)
Maybe I wasn't totally clear -- I was saying that your confusion about apparently normal men saying "it could have been me" mostly boils down to the fact that you can't empathize with those people on the subject because most of them have AGP. Despite the stereotype, most such people are normal men in almost all other respects except having, or at one point having had, a recurring desire to be female, and a lot of them are horrified that someone just like them could be ushered down what they see as a self-destructive path.
dovetailing
12d ago
I think I mostly agree with you, but I do want to emphasize that
some of these men will choose to undergo transition
is not the only difference in outcome between the "pro-trans" and "trans naive" environments being discussed.
Having the ready-made answers, social encouragement, etc. on offer can not just affect what sorts of actionable options they have available, but also the trajectory of the desires themselves.
As an example let's take the POV of a teenage boy with autogynephilia. Our protagonist finds that he has a recurring desire to be female. Sometimes (maybe most of the time, maybe not) this desire and fantasy is associated with sexual arousal. This is confusing and weird, what is he to make of this?
In an environment without the "trans" meme and social encouragement thereof, this remains a private quirk and fantasy. He knows that he can no more become female than he can become a bird or acquire superpowers (random side note: was Animorphs especially appealing to boys with autogynephilia? I strongly suspect so...). Maybe it wanes naturally over the course of years, or maybe his desire is an inner demon that he struggles with from time to time, or maybe it's just a recurring fantasy his whole life which he occasionally indulges in -- depending on the strength of his desire and his attitude toward it. A lot of things are possible, but probably he lives life as a normal man and most things are fine. (Of course there is the chance that he develops some delusions based on his desires and fantasies -- especially if they are unusually strong or he indulges them unusually much -- but this is not a very likely outcome.)
In an environment where the "trans" meme is present and positively reinforced, he is encouraged to interpret his desires as evidence (or even proof) of identity as a "trans girl". A ready-made, positive-valence identity that fits his experience, at a time when he's naturally (like most teens) going to be confused about his identity and place in the world? It's like catnip. He starts thinking of himself as trans. He talks about it on the internet. Maybe he tells his best friends and they affirm it, or maybe his new best friends are the people who affirm it. He indulges his fantasy, because it's just part of who he is. Maybe he even encourages it, as its presence is proof of his new identity. His ways of thinking of himself get solidified: "I am a trans girl": now each of his desires and every trait that is not stereotypically male is proof of that. He develops a female persona and acts it out; maybe he really believes the propaganda that, deep down, he is a girl, not just wants to be one. Now his identity is all bound up in this: he becomes more and more unsatisfied with the stubborn truth that he is not, in fact, a girl; that his body is stubbornly male. As an adult, maybe he does try to force his fantasy to become reality with hormones and surgery (of course this doesn't actually work, but maybe if he is lucky he can convince himself it does) -- or maybe he just ends up with a weird self-identification and way more unhappy with his life than if he'd never gone down that path.
Regardless of whether our protagonist ultimately undergoes medical transition, his whole life can be dramatically impacted by this difference in his environment.
dovetailing
12d ago
I wouldn't expect you to be able to empathize with it, any more than... well... with people who want to have sex with men.
I can't be certain, but I strongly suspect that the vast majority of men saying this have at least a touch of autogynephilia. The sense of "it could have been me" is less "I, as a perfectly ordinary man, could have become socially hypnotized into wanting to be a women" and more "What if that part of me that already -- at least somewhat -- wanted to be a woman had been socially encouraged, been amplified, been given a (positive-valence) identity category; what if I'd been encouraged to indulge in this, been offered "specialness" and affirmation and a ready-made memeplex, all when I was young and socially and emotionally vulnerable? Then I could see myself having gone down that path."
It's so common because some degree of autogynephilia is probably about as common as homosexuality among men. (I remember -- I think it was in Men Trapped in Men's Bodies? -- seeing a reported study estimate of 1-3% of men for erotic cross-dressing alone, and that's almost certainly a substantial underestimate of the fraction of men with any amount of AGP.)
dovetailing
18d ago
The explanation you are looking for is "great circles". Your flight probably took close to the shortest route.
Roti Prata is delicious. Go to a hawker center get some.
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