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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Are The Global Elites Coordinating to Push LGBT Acceptance And Gender Theory?

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Last week @2rafa posted her comment about WEF conspiracy theories, concluding that the WEF is a mundane organization, pushing mostly boring neoliberal status quo stuff, to the extent they push anything at all. This post isn't necessarily a direct response to that thesis, but might be an interesting contrast to it.

I am a proud Deranged Conspiracy Theorist. It's a relatively new state of affairs for me, but some time ago I've tried the tinfoil hat on, and it seems to fit. This means when the WEF is in session, I browse their livestreams and videos, and if something catches my eye, I watch the whole thing. So when I saw the video titled Beyond the Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQI+ Rights, I knew I had to watch it.

It's a discussion panel featuring a diverse cast of LGBT (well, L and G as far as I can tell) speakers from around the world. We have

Ben Fajzullin, an Australian journalist currently working for the German Deutsche Welle

• Fahd Jamaleddine, a “global shaper” from Lebanon

Sarah Kate Ellis from GLAAD

Tirana Hassan from Human Rights Watch

Sharon Marcil from the Boston Consulting Group

This is in no particular order, to the extent there are themes in this discussion, they're rotated through the conversation, so going over it chronologically doesn't make a lot of sense.

The goal of the panel is to discuss success stories of the LGBT(QI+) community, and best practices on how to implement “this type of thinking”. They start off by bringing up how last year there were still 80 countries with sodomy laws on the books, and now we're down to 70. A reasonable point to start, if there's a steelman case for the global elites coordinating to push LGBT acceptance and gender theory, that would be it.

Would I have no objection if this was where the whole thing ended? I'm not sure, maybe @DaseIndustriesLtd made singletons sound too scary for me, maybe I watched too much Star Trek as a kid, and the idea of the Prime Directive ended up influencing me a bit too much, or maybe I just have an irrational fear of my elites betraying me for membership in a global club? Hard to say. During the Q&A someone in the audience brings up an example and example from the other side:

we can trace directly the sources the resourcing for homophobia in Ghana straight line to the U.S churches

I don't want to be Americanized by Evangelicals any more than I want to be Americanized by Progressives, so I find it just as wrong as Davos-aligned orgs going around the world and spreading their ideas. The only way I could hold my nose, and tolerate it, is if one side was clearly winning, and this was the only way of preserving some viewpoint diversity.

Either way, while the goal ending sodomy laws is something I agree with, Davos panels on how to accomplish that make me uncomfortable.

Singapore is one of the most recent examples that [has] decriminalized [being gay]. It's taking the legislation off the books but at the same time Singapore fortified the rules around same-sex marriage and so you know it's not always a win; and they did that because they were playing to the more conservative base which was agreeing to decriminalization.

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

Later they make a point that this isn't something limited to the non-developed countries:

Marriage equality laws, all of these issues, are actually becoming signs of modernity. They are becoming signs of democracies and countries which respect rights for everyone, but we're seeing also that this has become a new battleground, and in particular this isn't something that happens in certain parts of the world and not others. Even in Europe we see Hungary and Poland who have really been using LGBT rights as a battleground, essentially to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society, and the government using it to put themselves up as some sort of hero of protector of family values.

Originally they name drop Poland and Hungary, so it might sound like they are focusing on marriage laws, but “using LGBT rights as a battleground to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society” is a fully generalized argument. Later on they describe the US in similar terms:

May I just say one thing on that, because that is a Battleground that we're facing in the United States right now. It's really tough, I'll be honest with you, they're putting it under parental rights. I'm a parent I'm married to a woman and I have two kids, so they're talking about some parental rights, and they're excluding us, and they're targeting us, and they're banning books at a rate that we've never seen before. They're conflating these conversations about bodily autonomy and trans youth, and it's a really tough moment right now in education in the United States. I'm absolutely sure it's being exported globally this kind of framework that they've come up with, that's been really effective over the past year. They're legislating against it as well.

This is Sarah Kate Ellis describing the state of the controversy in the US. Everything you've heard about trans women in sports, placement in prison based on self-ID, concerns about the standards for diagnosing dysphoria in kids, the reversibility of puberty blockers, and their side effects, minimal ages for surgeries, eunuch fetishists promoting their fetish via WPATH, schools hiding children transitioning from their parents, Drag Queen Story Hour, and putting Queer Theory in school material have been reduced to the above paragraph, and it's made clear these stances are being deliberately pushed back on.

Someone seeing the WEF as boring and benign should also meditate on how despite gathering people from all over the world, they somehow seem confident no one in the audience is going to give them any push-back. They're not worried an American might say “you've misrepresented everything that's been happening in our country”, let alone that someone from a more conservative part of the world might proudly assert their values.

And of course, the part where she says ***they*** are exporting their framework globally, as she's sitting at Davos, talking to an international audience of some of the most powerful people in the world, is just... *Chef's Kiss* (there will be more of those).

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

I am confused by this paragraph. Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal? I'm not really seeing how there is an "explicit" "we'll get you next time" either. They're mentioning that they think its progress that Singapore has legalized sodomy but wished Singapore had gone farther and legalized gay marriage, or at least not added a constitutional amendment against it. Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries? On a panel dedicated to discussing exactly those kinds of rule and policy changes in other countries?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy. As best I can tell there is no external actor coercing them to go one way or the other, it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country. Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity? Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal?

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries?

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country

They explicitly talk about coordinating to change sentiments within countries as well. This is something they should not be allowed to do, in my opinion.

Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity?

The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.

Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Mostly yes. Especially if it involves conspiring to use corporations, NGOs, the country's own youth, infiltrating their media, in order to "convince" those countries to change their laws.

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

This is just silly; no political compromise has the right to endure eternally simply because at one time it was made; was the admittance of California to the union wrong because it overturned the compromise of 1820? Were Republicans wrong for trying to overturn the 1850 compromise?

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

Except one's food or sexual habits are basically unimportant; politics is not. I have nothing wrong with Evangelicals trying to effect a change in attitude in foreign countries; I disagree with the content of their arguments, but I don't question their right to spread their views wherever they might wish to.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

While I'm not some ultra-hawk, on pragmatic grounds, foreign and international groups have every right to put their nose where they like; if something is wrong, it doesn't diminish one's right to intervene to rectify that wrong because it's happening somewhere else.

The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.

This verges on being something of a truism; in practice they are sovereign countries and they can do what they like, that doesn't mean they should or that international organisations or individuals shouldn't attempt to prevent other countries enacting a particular policy.

This is just silly; no political compromise has the right to endure eternally simply because at one time it was made

I never said it has to be eternal, but it's incorrect to call it a compromise, if you're already plotting how to abolish it before the ink is even dry on the law that was passed.

The other question is that whether do people from other countries have a right to poke their nose into it. I hold that no.

was the admittance of California to the union wrong because it overturned the compromise of 1820

Putting the word "California" next to the word "wrong" is just a set up for me to say "yes" no matter what the sentence is about. More seriously - don't know. Would have to read up on it.

Except one's food or sexual habits are basically unimportant; politics is not.

I'm pretty sure sex is important to the people having it, and food is important to the people eating it. It should be unimportant to their neighbors, and if their neighbors somehow find it important, then they're creeps. Same applies to countries' politics.

While I'm not some ultra-hawk, on pragmatic grounds, foreign and international groups have every right to put their nose where they like; if something is wrong

There are cases where something very wrong is happening where you could get me to agree, but mostly I think this is wrong.

I never said it has to be eternal, but it's incorrect to call it a compromise, if you're already plotting how to abolish it before the ink is even dry on the law that was passed.

I think this argument misstates what a compromise really is. By comprising on an issue, one is not implicitly accepting a middle course as the right thing to do, rather one is simply attempting to secure the maximum feasible progress which very often will not be all of what one wants to happen, and should more change towards one's position become feasible, of course that's going to be pursued.

That's just politics, and the point of my 1820 compromise analogy. Essentially the 1820 compromise was devised to ensure an equal balance of free and slave states, thus ensuring neither faction could control the Senate; but of course once the northern states secured sufficient power to overturn that and admit California as a free state without also creating another slave state, they did so, and the south would have done the same had they had the ability.

I'm pretty sure sex is important to the people having it, and food is important to the people eating it. It should be unimportant to their neighbors, and if their neighbors somehow find it important, then they're creeps. Same applies to countries' politics.

The other key difference though is that where one's culinary and sexual habits only concern one or two individuals and have no real impact on anyone else, and so there is no real cause for a neighbour to interfere. However, in the case of LGBT rights international observers/organisations are not trying to dictate Singaporean's habits but stop one set of Singaporeans dictating the habits of another set of Singaporeans. So the apt analogy is not someone trying to stop a neighbour having sex, but someone trying to stop their neighbour trying to stop another neighbour from having sex, if that's makes sense.

It's very possible for compromises to become ossified wisdom, though. The US Constitution was formed upon a compromise piled on compromise (between slave and free states, between small and big states, strong central government and weak central government advocates etc.), and while some of those compromises were overturned or altered, others have stayed and become state wisdom.

Or, to take an example from Finnish history, during the language strife of 1800s, the strongest Finnish-language advocates advocated for a position called "one nation, one language" (ie. Finland's Swedish-speaking minority should be assimilated to the Finnish majority), the strongest Swedish-language advocates advocated for a position called "two nations, two languages" (The Swedish-speakers constituted a separate and superior nation to Asiatic Finns), and the compromise position "one nation, two languages" (both Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers were equally Finnish) then became established state wisdom and has remained such to this day.