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Post 20

Monday, November 9, 2015 - 11:46amSanction this postReply
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it's not about who get's to go to which restroom - it's about who can sue you for denying them access to said room ... basing that on sex/gender is as ridiculous as imposing a 'skirt-inspection' in front of every restroom ... if someone behaves as the majority of restroom-users expects them to behave in a particular restroom no one will cry foul - if I go into a girls room to ogle girls with their pants (or worse: makeup) down I can assure you there are much better places - plus I as a lesbian would have to use the men's room :D

of course if you want to sue me for using the wrong room then there's an abundance of lawyers who'll get you damages in the millions based on such laws :P

 

I stand by my observation: bathroom rules and publicity stunts are poor excuses to tear down laws as the one New York proposes - we have a similar law here in Germany if I recall (don't remember the details) with the purpose of protecting pre-operative or non-operative transsexuals - it's about legal rights and individual protection, not about bathrooms and fame - hospitals, prisons, child adoption, marriage, taxes, that's what these laws are for, though I'd argue that some are completely obsolete and the state should have no say in many of those areas ... if some crazies get their nose bent out of shape because they don't want girls in their all-male domain get a reality-check - we're already there ... using these laws, or worse genetics, biology, evolution, to gain some money or moral 'high-ground' is just a poor excuse ... just like accusing transsexuals/transgenders of 'mixing up fantasy and reality' - I can assure George Reisman, no trans person would go through all that hassle just to live in a make-believe world - of course there's the crazies, but you have those in every field of conflicting opinions

(what was that about Jehova's witnesses being allowed to refuse medical treatment yet they can force uncertain medical procedures on my mother who's currently in hospital with a heart-attack and I have to protect her from doctors and the state? talk about some serious irony)

 

let me finish with another anecdote: during a 'short-hair' spree I went to a bank to get a larger sum of money I could not get from the machine - the teller asked for ID which at the time still had the 'long-hair' picture - she refused to give me the money I urgently needed ... since then I keep my normal ID (Personal-Ausweis - sort of like your driving license) with shorn head picture and my passport with long hair picture - depending on the phase in my life, or sometimes only on my clothing/behaviour I have to be very careful which ID I carry around with me ;)

minor issue (just like restrooms and rags) but try doing without that money when you really really need it ...

 

PS: just reread that last final jab at delusional trans-crazies ... and it really got me going again all over ... eeeaaaaassssyyyyy ....

"So long as they do not initiate the use of force, they should be free to come and go as they please. But by the same token, no one should ever be threatened with the use of physical force merely for refusing to support their delusions or for contradicting them. That threat of physical force is what is coming out of New York City's Board of Health."

sheesh - talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater - no-one threatens poor George with incarceration if he does not immediately recognize me as female, lesbian, trans, whatever-looney-of-the-day mood just struck me ... when children on the street read me as 'incorrect' gender than the one I'm currently presenting and their parents correct them, then I go out of my way to correct the parents and explain to that child, that it's observation was totally correct - it's amazing how clear children can still see sexes without that hassle of sex, money and (social/legal) law ... what that law does mean (what little I have garnered from news about it) is that all those feeling threatened by unfixed gender-roles cannot sue me for not conforming to their illusion of sex/gender! That my children are not taken away because I live a gender that does not conform to my prescribed sex. That I do not get sued for indecency for using the wrong bathroom. That I ... oh just stop here ... Bill and George and 90% of the world will never lose that uneasy feeling of 'not-knowing' - as for the crazies: check your own 'restrooms' what loonies are running loose there first before you kick trans persons to the loony bin...

if that New York law does indeed propose what George Reisman fears (being bowed to and titled 'your majesty' if he crosses my path) then I withdraw my observation - I have not read that law, nor am I a lawyer to understand it's legal subtleties - protection of trans persons however is too serious an issue to throw it out with the crazies

 

just to finish on a humorous note: while on project in Ghent (Belgium) a few years ago I came across a demonstration of women 'urinating' in the streets

Wildplassen

it was indeed about the use of public toilets for women in Ghent where the city had built shiny new steel toilets for men (the high urinal version only) with half-enclosures and none for women, arguing that we girls have to sit down and sit-down-toilets are more expensive, requiring full enclosures, and pose hygiene problems (irony of ironies) - adding injury to insult, urinating on the streets ('wildplassen') is fined with 60 Euros

so I guess it is about restrooms - happy wildplassen :D



Post 21

Monday, November 9, 2015 - 11:49amSanction this postReply
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Most people don't realize how much of the controversy we see in America regarding LGBT issues is an offshoot of Critical Theory which is from The Frankfurt School of philosophy/sociology which came to the US in about 1935.  Political Correctness, Diversity, Black Studies, Women's Studies, and a number of other approaches to radically transforming our culture are from this source.

 

In the 1920's a European Marxist, who supported the idea of democratic socialism as opposed to violent revolution, was very frustrated that socialism was taking so long to be adopted.  He decided that killing off Capitalism wasn't happening because it was, in effect, held in place by other sets of beliefs in the existing culture: things like religion (Christianity, in particular), sexual mores, the family structure, traditions, etc.  And with that belief, we saw the birth of Cultural Marxism - the belief that until the existing sets of beliefs and traditions prevalent in the culture could be killed off, there was no way to destroy Capitaliism and introduce socialism in its place.

 

He, and a few other prominent academics who supported democratic socialism joined with him at the University in Frankfurt, Germany.  Their theories became known as The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.  With the rise of Hitler, they decided it prudent to move and ended up at Columbia University in New York.  (They, and their ideas, were still known as The Frankfurt School).  The Critical Theory is their primary development and has become a mainstay of many of the variants at work in radically transforming the culture.

 

Note that each of the different issues usually has valid and just core.  Feminism started with equal rights under the law and with being seen as human beings.  The same is true of ending racism.  But whether the issue is gender or race the resulting Progressive movement blows right past equal rights under the law and starts clamoring for 'social justice' and is couched in a way that is an attack on the whole of a given cultural tradition.  (Trojan Horse issues - made to look like justice on the outside, but about control on the inside).  The real end isn't what is visible on the surface, it is about creating division for identity politics and creating cultural vacuums to open room for centralized control by an elite.
-----------

 

On another note, I'm reminded of when I was in Belgium many years ago.  I headed for the bathroom in a new mall, still under contruction in some parts.  I found what I was pretty sure was a men's room and stuck my head inside - seeing the urinals I decided I was in the right place.  I was doing my business when I heard someone come in and it was a woman.  At that point it was too late stop what I was doing, and continued with the business in hand (no pun intended).  Later I learned that unisex bathrooms were common in Belgium.  I agree with Vera that as far as bathroom rules go, there seems to be no reason to make laws or to get all upset over who is using the toilets or urinals.  And I agree with George Reisman that private property and not government decrees are the way to go.

 

As far as birth certificates or other documents are concerned.... Maybe they should be treated like Marriage Licenses should be treated.  Something that the government has no business doing.  Where we need some kind of identification I'm sure the private market can handle that just fine - look at credit ratings.  The market place would determine what the function and precision and certainty of identification was needed, and the market place would also handle the other side of the transaction by providing the different levels of precision and trustworthiness needed.



Post 22

Monday, November 9, 2015 - 2:53pmSanction this postReply
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Considering how much the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has changed over many decades, can any of us truly know who is "sane" or "insane"?

 

Bill, I would be curious to know your armchair psychiatrist take on the "sanity" of someone like Bruce Jenner who is basically treated as "sane" by the psychiatric establishment, to wit:

 

APA Revises Manual: Being Transgender Is No Longer A Mental Disorder

 

You wrote in Post 0, "I'd say that he's simply a gender dysphoric feminized man," but that seems based on the recent change in the DSM, so would you have used the old DSM diagnosis had this happened in prior years?

 

Would you say anything at all about it had you been raised in a world where this phenomenon had been routine for centuries before your birth?

 

Steve, how would this square against the influence of the Frankfurt School, i.e. if those persons had not penetrated American academia in the early 20th century, how would the psychiatric field differ today in these kinds of diagnoses?

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 11/09, 3:14pm)



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Post 23

Monday, November 9, 2015 - 4:59pmSanction this postReply
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Luke,

 

I'm familiar with the DSM III through the DSM IV but not the lastest (the DSM V).  And those changes I'm familiar with come from different sources or influences.  Some of the changes appear to be financially motivated.  That is, when something is given an ICD or DSM code, then they can be billed for.  There were lobbyists for clinics that taught math to undersperforming students who wanted a diagnosis of math dyslexia so that they could advertise treatments covered by insurance.  Other changes came from a better understanding of the subject matter (advances in research, more people who know what they are talking about chiming in.  And changes because time showed a better way to describe or to categorize disorders.)  Some good changes, some not so good.

 

You said "sane" or "insane."  But that isn't a good categorization of the DSM.  It attempts to discuss "disorders" and they include disorders that are not "insane" - like sufferring from a depression following the death of someone you love.  Or mild anxiety, like a young person that is shy enough to inhibit his or her social functioning.  A disorder is just something, like the flu is in medicine, that is seen as leaving a person somewhat below par in their mental/emotional life.  Only a small portion of the disorders include a complete break with reality (insanity) - like having hallucinations, for example, or being out of rational control.
------------------------

 

Today's academia is so strongly influenced by all of the many variants of Critical Theory, and all of social sciences are so infected that it is hard to untangle.  The funny thing is that Marxism in its earlier days strongly aligned with Freudian theories (way back then, in Europe, it was seen as 'scientific').  But one can find influence later on, here in the states, of the far left speaking from the base of Behavioralism as explanations of why modern man is "alienated" ("Alienation" in orthdox Marxist terms has a special meaning that isn't psychological).  There have been other influences that have moved psychology away from a view of man as possessing volition, and man as capable of cognition (not just instinct or conditioned responses) and we see those in the different philosophies that have been influential in academia (Postmodernists who are often also comfortable with Critical Theory, some of the German Idealists, American Pragmatists, Existentialists, etc.)

 

That was a good question, sorry I don't have a more concise answer.  It is all very muddled together in the soocial sciences and hard to follow the individual intellectual 'gene lines' - at least partly because so much of what is there is emotionalism disguised as reasoned approaches, and because there is often a bit of a hidden agenda at work as well. 

 

My take on Critical Theory is that it is the academic conveyance of the non-idea of 'kill the old views' and that is never conveyed in clear terms.  It has to be conveyed by inuendo, attitude, body language and intonation in the lecture halls.  And it is spread not just from university to university, but from subject area to subject area (history, English Lit., Sociology, etc.)  And that it moves like it was on tracks when it comes to adopting a sense of life that is anti-hero, and, in a word, snarky.  And always portrayed as 'this is this way those of us who are cool and in on the know' are.  It is a presentation that seems to shape itself to imply that those who question or resist will be ridiculed and driven from the herd.



Post 24

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 5:00amSanction this postReply
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Steve wrote (with my emphasis added):

Only a small portion of the disorders include a complete break with reality (insanity) - like having hallucinations, for example, or being out of rational control.

In the interest of playing devil's advocate, if I wanted to argue that "gender dysphoria" is in fact a complete break with the reality of one's given sex, a hallucination that one is in fact of the opposite sex, and indicates the client being out of rational control of his own mind and body, how would a psychiatrist corroborate or refute that argument?

 

I can easily imagine (hallucinate?) a dissent within the psychiatric community making such an argument though I am not immersed in that field well enough to know if it is there now.

 

Because it is a statistical manual, I have to wonder what objective standards (if any) exist outside the DSM to which psychiatrists can point as "real" or "not real" when evaluating clients for their adherence to reality or departure from reality, especially in regards to religious precepts or even scientific notions outside the mainstream.  Semmelweis (1818-1865) and his ideas on medical hygiene come to mind on the latter.  Per Wikipedia:

Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his wife, believed he was losing his mind, and in 1865 he was committed to an asylum. In an ironic twist of fate, he died there of septicaemia only 14 days later, possibly as the result of being severely beaten by guards. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, offering a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis's findings. He is considered a pioneer of antiseptic procedures.

 Too often "insanity" is abused as a convenient label to silence dissenters and outliers.

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 11/10, 8:43am)



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Post 25

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 12:02pmSanction this postReply
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Luke,

The word "insane" is usually reserved for a person who isn't able to function on their own, someone who needs constant care and attention.  If a person has a hallucination because they took LSD they wouldn't be thought of a "insane" - mostly because it is temporary.  But if someone had those hallucinations constantly - weren't able to connect with reality at all - that would commonly be seen as a state of insanity.  The psychological community doesn't really have an agreed upon definition - but they tend to use the word as meaning a state where the person hasn't sufficient grasp of reality to function.  The DSM has no such category and no definition for "insane" and the APA only lists the legal definition of "insanity."

 

Gender dysporia is that state of being unhappy with one's physical gender.  That isn't a hallucination.  That person know what sex they are physically, they just don't like that.  Hallucinations are a break with reality at the perceptual level - it is seeing something that isn't there, or hearing something where there wasn't a sound.  If that is a sustained condition it is clearly a very serious state.  Transgender people "feel" like they are the opposite sex from their genitals - a feeling, not a hallucination.  You can see that since they are unhappy about their physical sex, and that isn't a hallucination, that they aren't out of rational control.  On a less exotic scale, you can imagine a person who feels like they really are a slim person stuck in a body that is 20 or 30 pounds overweight.  They look in the mirror and they see the fat and they don't like the fat (they are dysphoric about that), and they don't hallucinate a visual image of a skinny person.  If we took this to more of an extreme we can imagine such a person seeking cosmetic surgery to have the fat removed.  And the surgeon should be seeing if the person is unrealistic in their expectations before agreeing to the surgery.  Do they think that it will make their life perfect?  If so, a surgeon would send them for some therapy first (but they aren't insane - maybe just neurotic).
-----------------

 

Because it is a statistical manual, I have to wonder what objective standards (if any) exist outside the DSM to which psychiatrists can point as "real" or "not real" when evaluating clients for their adherence to reality or departure from reality, especially in regards to religious precepts or even scientific notions outside the mainstream. 

 

There was a brilliant idea behind the DSM.  Remember that at one time, not so long ago, there were as many as 400 different theoretical orientations.  Each one saying it was the best model for understanding the human mind.  Freudian, Jungian, Existentialist, Behavioralist, Cognitivist, etc.  And each one with its own set of therapuetic techniques.  The idea behind the DSM was to get an agreement among a majority of good practitioners on the symptoms of disorders.  That is, what would you see that would be common to all depressions of a kind?  What symptoms would be common to all clients who report panic attacks?  What symptoms would distinguish a narcissistic personality from all others?  They specifically left out any theory on the psychological model, and the theoretical description related to the cause, and they left out any description of treatment.  They left all of that out because there was no way to get agreement.  But they could get a high degree of agreement on clusters of symptoms and the name to associate with them.  Symptoms are observable and can be objectively described.  That makes it possible to have a name for a set of symptoms and thereby gather information on change, on treatment effectiveness, statistics, etc.  A bridge between all the different theoretical orientations.
----------------------------

 

If you're interested here is some more info on the DSM (DSM III and IV - I'm not crazy about the V).

 

It is Multi-axial: That is, they divide the complete diagnosis up into 5 axis (important dimensions that can relate to the diagnois)

 

Axis I: Clinical Syndromes: This is the heart of the diagnosis, like schizphrenia or a phobia or major depression. 

 

Axis II: Developmental Disorders and Personality Disorders  (these are the background, if they exist, against which an Axis I disorder might be at work.  For example someone might have a sociopathic personality disorder (Axis II) ever since they were a child, but they are in a hospital for severe substance abuse (which would be the Axis I diagnosis).  Axis II are almost always from childhood and of one of two kinds: personality disorders, and developmental disorders.

 

Axis III: Physical Conditions.  These are included if they play an important role in creating or exacerbating Axis I or II disorders.  It gives a more complete picture of the client's situation (when a physical condition applies).

 

Axis IV: Severity of Psychosocial Stressors.  This is just an indicator of the degree of stress the person feels relating to their personal life or career.  The therapist is looking for any major events like loss of a job, divorce, death in the family, etc.  Stressors can cause or exacerbate Axis I or II conditions.

 

Axis V: Highest Level of Functioning.  It is important to have a sense of how well the person is functioning.  Are they doing well in their career or work life or school?  How are they doing in their relationships?  This is important to know because some diagnosis would be totally inappropriate for a person who is high functioning.  And if a person is functioning at a very low level, that is an important clue when looking at different diagnosis.
--------

 

Next, the diagnosis are divided up into related categories like mood disorders, sexual disorders and dysfunctions, sleep disorders, substance related disorders, etc.

 

Then in most of those categories, there are a number of Axis I disorders.  For example, Mood Disorders include Bipolar disorder, Major Depressive disorder, and a couple of others.

 

Under Major Depressive Disorder you get diagnostic criteria like this:
  Must exhibit 5 or more of the following 9 symptoms:
   A) Must report a depressed mood that occurs every day and for nearly the entire day.
   B) Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all activities every day, for nearly the entire day.
   C) Significant weight gain or weight loss not part of an intended diet (5% change in wieght in a month or less)
   D) Insomnia or hypersomnia
   E) Psychomotor agitation or retardation (observable by others)
   F) Fatigue or loss of energy
   G) Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
   H) Diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness
   I) Recurrent thoughts of death.
(I've summarized these to a degree.  And there are about 4 pages that describe each of key items above - i.e., what they look like to the therapist.)

 

Then it has differential diagnosis tips to help separate out normal bereavement, mistaking dementia in older clients from depression, ADHD, a depressive cycle that is actually part of a Bipolar disorder, depressed mood caused by physiological effect of a drug or substance or withdrawl, etc.  This is like a medical doctor being told by a patient that they are having headaches and the doctor needing to rule out brain tumors, trauma induced brain injury, meningitus, allegies, stress, etc.

 

The whole section on Major Depressive Disorder is about 7 and a half page in length.  The parts I haven't shown are the very rich and detailed descriptions of how the different symptoms appear to the therapist.  (E.g., "Individuals with major depressive disorder often present with tearfulness, irritability, brooding, obsessive rumination, anxiety, phobias, excessive worry over health, and complaints of..." and so forth.)

 

Mostly, the DSM helps a therapist look more closely at everything being presented, think about what they are seeing more clearly, and avoid making a mistake in understanding what they are seeing.  No therapist would want to start helping a person they thought to be depressed when that person should be referred to a medical doctor for treatment of a serious medical problem that was causing a few depression-like symptoms.



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Post 26

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 2:19pmSanction this postReply
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Thank you, Steve, for taking the time to post a very informative response.



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Post 27

Sunday, November 15, 2015 - 11:28amSanction this postReply
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Steve has penned two thoughtful comments. Both are worth some cogitation and analysis. This paragraph from the first of the last two comments caught my eye:

 

Today's academia is so strongly influenced by all of the many variants of Critical Theory, and all of social sciences are so infected that it is hard to untangle.  The funny thing is that Marxism in its earlier days strongly aligned with Freudian theories (way back then, in Europe, it was seen as 'scientific').  But one can find influence later on, here in the states, of the far left speaking from the base of Behavioralism as explanations of why modern man is "alienated" ("Alienation" in orthdox Marxist terms has a special meaning that isn't psychological).  There have been other influences that have moved psychology away from a view of man as possessing volition, and man as capable of cognition (not just instinct or conditioned responses) and we see those in the different philosophies that have been influential in academia (Postmodernists who are often also comfortable with Critical Theory, some of the German Idealists, American Pragmatists, Existentialists, etc.)

 

I am an anti-fan of Critical Theory as it has infected otherwise rigorous disciplines or fields of study. My best female friend did a later-in-life PhD, majoring in History, and the result was a complete disdain for presumptions of knowledge. Not a measured, methodological skepticism about truth and fact claims -- or the difficulties of gaining knowledge -- but a position that suggests all 'truths' are contingent, socially-produced, of little objectivity.  There was along the way many opportunities for me to observe what actual 'critical' thinking my friend showed day to day.  I was then acquainted with contemporary fronds and fiddleheads burgeoning from the infected disciplines. 

 

Steve, you stress a slightly different point of weakness in disciplines infected with Critical Theory than I do.  I am most 'Objectivish' in relation to the ability of human beings to pursue and gain reliable knowledge.  I value strongly protracted work of reasoning, subject to the filter of scientific 'error-checking.  I value the 'push-back' on so-called postmodern thinking such as the great touchstone book by Levitt and Gross,  "Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science," which came at the height of the "Science Wars." Other works that helped inform me about the scope of infection were "Fashionable Nonsense," by Sokal and Bricmont, and the output of the worthies at the CSI (publisher of Skeptical Inquirer). See, especially, The Reality of Reality.

 

With regard to Steve's note on American Pragmatism, there is a gulf between the infected (say, Richard Rorty) and the clear-thinking.  I recommend to you the work of my favourite living philosopher, Susan Haack. She has a stupendous intellect and a thorough brief.  You might be acquainted with one of her more recent books, the fabulous "Defending Science - within Reason: Between Scientism And Cynicism." For a sample of her kind of thinking -- not shot through with jargon or inanities -- see the great short essay she wrote for Skeptical Inquirer, Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism

 

I have some more considered remarks on this thread, but would like to first note the question I asked of Bill -- knowing that there are intersex and ambiguously-gendered children born every month, what would you as a parent do if your child was one, if your child exhibited any of the ambiguities of development that I listed above in my first comment? (the first thing I would do would be to understand the particular case of my child: is it XXY, is it some other known syndrome, is the syndrome likely to fuck with normal adolescent sexual development?

 

-- what I took home from the Jenner transgender hoopla was that Bruce struggled for a long, long time to be honest about his gender 'dysphoria.'  Feeling trapped in the wrong body  may be 'sick' and demented to some, but I believe the struggle was lifelong and 'real.'  I have great empathy for the person now referred to as Caitlyn. 

 

And one last interesting/gross note -- who has heard of 'facial feminization surgery'? 

 

(Edited by William Scott Scherk on 11/15, 12:34pm)



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Post 28

Sunday, November 15, 2015 - 12:02pmSanction this postReply
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Mr. Scherk, I salute your highly valuable posts in this thread!

 

Well-informed, well-reasoned, civil, and thought-provoking!



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Post 29

Sunday, November 15, 2015 - 4:40pmSanction this postReply
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William Scott,

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I was looking into the intellectual roots of Progressivism - poking about in the political geneology of today's Progressive movement.  I had uncovered some basic precursors in the post-millenial piety movement in the late 1800's, and later in the Progressive Era which came along with the socialist influence of the labor movement at the time.   But it wasn't till I looked at the influence of Saul Alinsky that I felt I was getting closer to understanding modern Progressivism.  Even then it still felt like there was a large gap in my grasp of what led from that early ancestory to what I am seeing from the far left today.  Too many commonalities in today's far left that don't seem to have an intellectual source - until I started looking at Cultural Marxism and the concept of attacking anything in the existing culture as a way of clearing a 'space' for socialism.  It was the view of Cultural Marxism (coming from from the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory) and acting as a theoretical foundation that let me feel that my understanding of Progressivism is beginning to feel whole.  (Note: There re those on the left who have labled "Cultural Marxism" a conspiracy theory.)

 

As a side note, I was astounded at the incestuous and fecund explosion of the ideas throughout the academic system.  These professors move about like traveling bards... but fast!  One semester at this university and the next at another -and they are aided by the internet with emails, blogs, papers, and forums.  They have more titles, grants, special study activities, published papers and conferences than I ever would have imagined.  The degree to which the academy is able to reproduce itself with a high fidelity to its ideas is considerable.  They have significant control over faculty hiring, the promotion of their grad students, and what they teach.  They are steady in their movement towards increased radicalization, and steady in the spread from one discipline to the infecting of another.

 

I'm still working on my understanding of the philosophies that are drawn on to support the different aspects of Progressivism.  In that area, I thank you for the suggested those readings on postmodernism (I've downloaded the papers you recommended, and put the books into my Amazon wishlist).

 

I'm still looking for some specific sources of the drive to keep end-goals secret.  Much (nearly all) of modern progressivism is made of fake outer goals - disguising the actual goal (the drive for power and control).  Being able to tell near-constant lies and still maintain a pretense of morality is supported by Saul Alinsky's "The ends justifies the means" but I'd like to find a better lock on where the explicit "Rules for Radicals" type of instruction to  keep the political "ends" secret.  Is it just implied with a nod and wink or given explicit sanction in writing somewhere?



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Post 30

Sunday, November 15, 2015 - 4:50pmSanction this postReply
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William Scott recommended a paper by Susan Haack (Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism ). 

 

Right away I suspected I'd like her when she quoted Jacques Barzun at the top of the paper, "That is preposterous which puts the last first and the first last. . . . Valuing knowledge, we preposterize the idea and say . . . everybody shall produce written research in order to live, and it shall be decreed a knowledge explosion."

 

Towards the end of this fairly short paper she quotes Ruth Bleier: "...there must be an irreducible . . . distortion or biasing of knowledge production simply because science is a social activity performed by human beings in a specific cultural . . . context.” 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, that is an application of Critical Theory.  Arising from Marxism which holds that all activities will be biased by being performed by humans in a specific cultural context.  It is a peculiar attack on epistemology that also shifts all things towards society and away from the individual.  Hello the Borg.  This claim goes on to say that there is a feminist perspective on all things: philosophy of science, ethics, politics, epistemology, and on and on... and that men can work and write in these areas but only to promote or support the writings of women or to provide them with material support. 

 

This of course is just nonsense on stilts.  But it is a mistake to attack these guiding 'principles' head-on because the real aim is probably invisible to even the women most deeply involved in this movement.  The real aim is to radically alter the relationship of women to all things as it is held in the current culture.  Again, I'm talking about Cultural Marxism which intends to shred all those different collections of inter-related beliefs in the culture to make room for a new culture.  It isn't about right or wrong, true of false, of value or not.  It is about a new culture based upon collectivism. 

 

And it turns out that one of the greatest strengths of this movement (Marxism, modern feminism, Cultural Marxism, Progressivism - take your pick) is that its proponents are self-infected in the university, and can become powerful advocates of the stated aims (social justice, income inequality, women's equality, climate change, etc.) and do so without necessarily knowing that they are actually cogs in the machinery of the larger movements.  Don't mistake me, this isn't a conspiracy.  It is a kind of self-perpetuating, generational, intellectual evolution of a set of ideas and ways of holding and proposing and supporting those ideas where the nature of the ideas favors this kind of propogation over generations.  Each of the idea-sets is like a kind of Trojan horse that uses any number of the students in a generation as a carrier to leverage them out to a yet wider audience and into the next generation without any of the 'carriers' knowing that they carried anything other than the outer message.



Post 31

Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 12:54pmSanction this postReply
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No one has yet mentioned the sheer illogic and nonsense being injected into our national conversations, and the minds of our children, by the logical next step of all this gender reassignment we're seeing these days: "daddies" using their eggs to have babies and "mommies" using their sperm to make the babies. I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not joking. Read this story about Jason now "Bianca" Bowser (the "mommy" with the sperm) and Nichole now "Nick" Bowser (the "daddy" with the eggs). Read it and weep. Meet the Bowsers - transgender parents raising sons (ABC News)

 

Yes, I know, someone will trot out Aristotle's elucidation of the Law of Contradiction and point out that there is not really a contradiction here. "Nick" being a "daddy" and an egg-donor and baby-incubator is not at odds with the facts of reality, and neither is "Bianca" being a "mommy" and a sperm-donor. But somehow, I think that if he had heard about this possibility, Aristotle's head would have exploded. Maybe Ayn Rand's, too. Mine has done several 360's...

 

REB



Post 32

Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 1:54pmSanction this postReply
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Roger,

 

What I think has received too little attention is the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory at Columbia and the massive effect they've had on the culture.  For those not familiar with this, it is a product of a 1923 European, Marxist professor and some collegues who decided that the reason that Socialism wasn't as widely adopted as they thought it should be was that there were various belief systems and traditions that had loosely knitted together over the centuries and that filled all the niches in Western culture and they had to be killed because they all meshed, even if very loosely, with Capitalism.  Until they were gone, they decided, there would be no way to kill Capitalism and thereby democratically install socialism (which was their goal).  They specifically wanted to kill traditions in general, and more specifically, family attachments, sexual mores, Christianity, etiquette, race relations, etc. Unhook the young from not just the ideas of the past, but all of the connections to any other way of thinking or being.  Along the way they have evolved a form of rhetoric that uses more sophisticated fallacies than our society is used to, and combined them with ridicule and 'attitude' to drive the propoganda.

 

I like the term "Cultural Marxism" far better than "Critical Theory."

 

They left Franfurt, Germany in 1933 due to the rise of Hitler, and ended up in Columbia University in New York by 1935.  (Still called the The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory) They have generated things like Gender Studies, the different Ethnic Studies, Political Correctness, and have woven in the deconstruction and post-modernism while spreading with great rapidity through the American university system (especially the Ivy league schools), and branching out into other disciplines as well - not just revisionist history, sociology, political science, and economics. 

 

It is a form of intellectual anarchy that is pursued as if each different academic discipline were discovering new principles in their area - and each of them had the effect of using ridicule and anti-concepts to turn an area of the culture upside down and shred it.  And it is often, but not always targetting political reform.  It is the home to "Social Justice" (imported and updated from Marxism) and other anti-concepts like "diversity" - the practitioners don't even have to grasp its origonal intent.  It feeds, informs, and drives the practice of Progressivism.  It seems to fit a kind of psychology and style of rhetoric.  It can be emotionalized for revolutionaries or nuanced-to-death for academics who want a modern version of angels on the head of a pin.  It suits angry young adults excited by rebellion, and smug would-be elites.  It works well with Climate Change and it all comes together as a new way for collectivism to flow forth from the Ivy league elites.  As it takes hold of a demographic share - fitting itself into the culture inplace of the pieces that were displaced - it also knits together loosely and becomes much like a new religion.  It uses pseudo-science to generate what is really just a new blind faith.

 

If you mention any of this in many academic circles, it gets labeled "conspiracy theory" - but it isn't a conspiracy, it is an activist driven, ideological movement where most of the adherents just don't see all the links and commonalities or history.  Nor would they agree with the basic principles that are implied and are held in common.



Post 33

Monday, December 21, 2015 - 10:44pmSanction this postReply
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What I'd like to see is a "deconstruction" of the Post-Modernists. If it's already been done, please somebody send me a link or book title!



Post 34

Saturday, January 9, 2016 - 3:59pmSanction this postReply
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Stephen R. C. Hicks has a book titled Explaining Postmodernism...



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