The end of Shared Reality

Today (22/12/22) shared reality has ended as it will become law in Scotland that women can include both males (example in video) and females. So if a woman gets raped by a male she could have to end up addressing him as ‘her’ when facing him in court, and the rape crime would be recorded as a crime by a woman. That is not a reality I identify with.

This bill has no majority support in Scotland but Nicola Sturgeon has said it doesn’t matter as her ambition is to make the world a better place. She wants to create a socially just world by giving a tiny minority rights over and domination of half of the population. I guess she’s never been raped or abused by a man otherwise she wouldn’t have done this.

Everyone can be an adult human female now, literally become a woman, no questions asked, after 3 months, so you’ll be able to listen to people like Robyn telling you about her womanhood and her female lived experience. We are all sisters now.

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Now that I’m coming to the end of my year of investigating totalitarianism, the result is pretty much that YES, there is some weird illiberal neo-puritanism going on, which must be the result of Covid, which seems to have led to a mass psychosis and delusion in the West, resulting in the loss of reality. Society certainly seems to be disintegrating quite rapidly and becoming more tribal. This law here is the nail in the coffin for shared reality and democracy, as it is ideology-led and not based on majority opinion. I can accept the law, but it’s not progress (quite the opposite), and not my general direction of travel. I don’t identify with it, it’s not my kind of thing. I’m opting out.

So I reckon the Metaverse, ChatGPT, and other tools are arriving just in time, and next year (2023) I think I’ll turn my attention to opting in or, creating my own reality (as the shared institution-based democratic one is gone now).

RIP, shared reality. It was good while it lasted.

The post-Christian era has arrived (or: Back to the Dark Ages)

Christianity is now a minority religion in England and we are heading back to the dark ages, or more accurately: the post-truth age. In Scotland sex no longer exists as a distinct category defined in law and women no longer have sex-based rights. This based on postmodern theory that considers sex an artificial construct, where bodies don’t matter as they only exist in language.

While reality is denied and objectivity is replaced by subjectivity of lived experience of different activist groups amplified by social media, society is becoming both more atomised and tribalised. Public spaces are becoming less safe. People are getting ruder. With a Nietzschean type of hyper-individualism where feelings and identity rules supreme on the one hand, and intolerant groupthink on the other, there is less overlap and dialogue both between individuals and different interest groups. We live in a highly polarised world. People identify into tribes with people who are like them and don’t mix with or talk to anyone else.

Add to that late stage capitalism where activist passions are exploited and social justice is big business (trans industry, DEI industry) helping millions of lonely, desperate humans feel good about themselves in an apocalyptic world. This is what the post-Christian era looks like – women with Turkey Teeth, girls with top surgery, transwomen, incels, demisexuals, and blackpillers.

What will replace Christianity? Either hyper-nationalism, or woke progressivism. Both these movements are feelings based and tap emotions, much like Christianity. Woke progressivism (sometimes called illiberal progressivism, or new puritanism) is quite strong in its belief in its own purity, so much so that it makes it more dangerous, fervent and totalitarian. It’s like choosing between Nazi Germany (right-wing totalitarianism) or East Germany under the Stasi (left-wing totalitarianism). The Devil or Satan.

Back to the Dark Ages!

New Model Army – Purity

(I was at this concert in 1996)

The rains move in eastwards, in waves of succession
Drawing lines of grey across the sky
With history just as close as a hand on the shoulder
In hunger and impatience we cry
The battle against corruption rages in each corner
There must be something better, something pure
And the call it is answered from the caves to the cities
Come the dealers of Salvation on Earth
We’ve seen the restless children at the head of the columns
Come to purify the future with the arrogance of youth
Nothing is as cruel as the righteousness of innocents
With automatic weapons and a gospel of the truth

Ch: Revolution for ever, succession of the seasons
Within the blood of Nature, all raised to rot and die
This purity is a lie
Now immaculate conception in sterilised laboratories
How the vanity goes on
Or in the message of the preacher with his morals and obsessions
The wars that we wage upon ourselves
Purity is a virtue, purity is an angel
Purity is for madmen to make fools of us all
So forgive yourself my friend, all this will soon be over
What happened here tonight is nothing at all

Ch: Revolution for ever . . .
I will always see Brendan at that broken down piano
His fingers thick and red, shaking on the keys
Battered by the years of alcohol and working
Still playing with the faith that never leaves
So sit us down, buy us a drink, tell us a good story
Sing us a song we know to be true
I don’t give a damn that I never will be worthy
Fear is the only enemy that I still know

Gender is on a spectrum

I studied Judith Butler in the 90s – I had a copy of Bodies that Matter and also read Gender Trouble. Though I hadn’t read her work since then and didn’t realise she was now a ‘they / them’. I could get used to those pronouns, just like I can get used to Mx. What I get confused over, is whether someone like Eddie Izzard is now a woman, and the practicalities of what spaces they have access to. It’s almost like we need gender-neutral toilets and changing facilities ALONGSIDE those for male and female. Then Eddie Izzard could go there.

I might have mentioned this before but in German job ads, I have sometimes seen m/f/d, where ‘d’ is for ‘divers’ (I think anyway). So the non-binary and trans could go into the third category to all intents and purposes, including legal. Because if social gender supersedes sex then non-binary eventually should also be legally recognised.

Alternatively, you could go back to biological categories for pragmatic reasons (m/f toilets etc.), while society becomes more permissive towards transvestism (socially presenting as a different gender but each having distinct sex-based rights).

Wishing excruciating pain on a 96-year old dying woman

Three days ago, an American professor wrote quite a nasty tweet about Queen Elizabeth II, who died on the same day (8 Sept 22).

Why? This is not nice. I appreciate it’s ‘just Twitter’ but this type of thing just fans the flames and creates more anger (I’m not surprised The Guardian recently observed the start of a backlash against anti-racism).

Is this what comes after decolonisation? Violence against colonisers? You burn our statues, then you burn us? Hate begets hate begets hate.

All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.

Discourse, social coercion, and totalitarianism

The weaponisation of language to force through a new reality by literally inscribing it in discourse is nothing new. I should say I am quite liberal here – I welcome the new ‘Mx’ that I recently saw as an option on a form, for non-binary people (I believe gender is on a spectrum but there are two biological sexes). Feminists in the 70s claimed ‘Ms’ so that women could represent their unmarried social status, and so ‘Mx’ could fulfil a social identity need where this is important to the person’s identity (of how they want to be addressed in social situations; I’m presuming here that ‘Mx’ goes along with ‘they / them’, it’s not my area of expertise).

That however is different from a full-scale discursive encoding that takes place when lobby groups such as Stonewall ‘walk through the institutions’ to push their agendas (for example the removal of the word woman from the NHS landing page on ovarian cancer to be trans-inclusive increasing barriers to understanding for women whose first language is not English, who may not understand the phrase ‘anyone with ovaries’ used instead of the simple word ‘women’ (that exists in all languages).

That sort of thing (Stonewall and similar groups’ social coercion) can leave you bitter – the discrimination against the most powerless women in society, in the real world, and at large scale (see also, gyms and bathrooms, and many women’s needs for decency in those areas in order to feel comfortable). This is not social progress at its own pace, and negotiated in a democratic society. It’s social coercion through language, with the intent of forcing a different reality, one that is more hostile towards some women, especially those without power.

The increasing discursive undermining of (women’s) identities and self-worth is also present in a recent survey I filled about my oral health, for a new dentist. Behavioural manipulation through language was intentionally built in. As part of the survey, I was first primed to feel bad about my wrinkles and skin (p. 2), before being offered a solution (p. 3), and then primed again to manipulate me towards the desired action, while making me feel in charge (p. 4). Again, this kind of thing is disgusting to me, because it intentionally feeds off (women’s) anxiety over their looks / smile to upsell a procedure. And that’s from a NHS dentist – but I guess the NHS need to increasingly operate like businesses, much like Universities, and it is no longer really about the common good. We are now always made to feel bad, or guilty, while language offering solutions is increasingly kinder, and more loving. A winning combination!