23 Comments

"She acknowledges her position as a straight, white, married, Christian, suburban mom influences her perspective on life without suggesting that her opponent’s race, gender, or religion is relevant to the conversation." What makes her identities relevant if her opponents are not?

Expand full comment
author

This is a great question and made me reflect quite a bit. I think the difference is that the various aspects of your own identity, how they interact, and to what extent each is pertinent to a specific conversation, is extremely personal. I’m also a straight white suburban mom who was raised Christian (well, Catholic), and I wouldn’t want anyone else making assumptions about what that means for me in any given situation. None of us like having someone else use our core identity traits as a weapon against us in a disagreement.

Expand full comment

Yes, I think that's all true. What I didn't like about the way she used her identity was as a laundry list that seemed pretty disconnected from the substance of her remarks except for the Christian part. So by naming those other identities, it felt to me like a performative wokeness ritual which tends to perpetuate the naming of identities as a valid and integral part of any discourse. But overall, I thought she did a great job under very difficult circumstances.

Expand full comment
author

Fair point!

Expand full comment

For one thing, she was challenging the right, (the ones who called her a groomer) by pointing out that she is a member of their tribe, but that she thinks differently from them; for example, that being a Christian has more to do with soup kitchens than signalling some kind of extreme right identity. This may also have been an invitation or reminder to return to Christianity's basic principles.

She may also have been pushing back against the ultra-Woke who would deny her a voice because she's not one of the oppressed. (This latter is an impulse of mine: no way am I going to quit thinking for myself or abjure my cultural heritage just because it's currently under a blanket condemnation, so I'll enumerate some of my life circumstances out of defiance.)

Expand full comment

You wrote this in 3 hours? Very impressive!

Expand full comment
author

I mean, I’ve been writing parts of it in my head for 6 months, but fingers on keyboard, yes!

Expand full comment

>"she decisively declares none of us (of any age or race) should feel personal guilt for slavery or the actions of those in the past, as we obviously had no control over them"

Let's be clear that the DiAngelo crowd also explicitly says that there is no need to feel guilty about that, or about being white and therefore by definition racist. What they suggest is only that you should take the same actions that you might if you did feel guilty, and that you should be held morally and perhaps operationally accountable if you do not take the proper actions.

In other words, it's a guilt trip which pretends not to be a guilt trip. Actually, in most guilt trips the end goal is not to make you feel guilty per se, the goal is to try to get you to do what someone wants by threatening to make you guilty IF you do not comply - the goal is compliance, guilt it just the alternative.

So I have become wary of statements like the quote above - until I can discover whether the offered release from guilt is conditional on compliance to some dictum.

Expand full comment

The guilt tripping is what got me started on examining Critical Race Theory and its ideological descendants. Most of us have been struggling honestly with these issues all our lives so it was infuriating for "the youngsters" to condemn us for essentially living our lives in the river of culture into which we stepped.

Expand full comment

I feel sorry for those young people who take on the guilt trip. There are anecdotes of school exercises where white kids apologize to Black kids for the oppression their people have inflicted on the latter. Imagine being brought up to feel guilty and undeserving every time something positive happens for you - graduating, getting a job or house, enjoying a vacation - because you don't really deserve it.

In psychology there is something called "in-group preference", which refers to the difference between tested positive associations with one's own group and with other groups. Almost all groups (defined by race, sex, religion, whatever) tend to have a net positive in-group preference. The one exception I've seen is white liberals, who have a negative in-group preference, similar in degree to most groups' positive in-group preference but in the other direction. Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and conservative whites have positive in-group preference (tho the latter, conservative whites, has the smallest of these).

I want to help lift up all groups in society, not bring down whites by making them feel a reheated version of Original Sin, guilty from birth for something they did not do. I want to reduce stigma, self-hate and prejudice - not selectively increase it.

Expand full comment

Absolutely - There's also the whole thing about cognitive distortion: learning to combat that kind of thinking is a major tool against depression, but now we have a popular ideology that seems to be based on a set of cognitive distortions, and they indeed seem to be making the people who believe them miserable.

Expand full comment

If by any chance you have not yet read "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff, I think you would like it. (You probably are aware of it, but just in case).

As a lifelong progressive liberal, I've been dismayed by what I perceive as a swerve in recent years into a dogmatic ideological approach on the left, which is more about reinforcing a narrative of moral superiority as the path to ending oppression than about seeking objective truth and a pragmatic path to a better world. My values have not changed much, but the tribe I was in has changed a lot. And I don't find the other tribe to be a better choice, so I'm more hanging out in a more nuanced issue-by-issue evidence-based space, which there is no major party courting.

Expand full comment

Re "viral": that youtube clip has a hundred thousand views. It was posted by the PBS News Hour youtube channel, which has 3 million subscribers. There may be other versions of it out there, but this does not seem like a very impressive number.

I haven't watched it. I don't see why it matters.

Parents who don't want their kids introduced to gender ideology in grade school are not motivated by "hate". (And yes this is happening: google "gingerbread person").

Parents who don't want their kids taught they are inherently oppressors/oppressed because of their skin color are not motivated by "hate".

If Carville thinks merely denouncing "hate" is an effective political tactic, then he is sadly mistaken.

I am a 66-year-old lifelong Democrat who, going forward, will not vote for anyone who supports the Equality Act (which legally bans all spaces, places, and events restricted to biological women or men only).

I also do not cast meaningless third-party votes.

So I will mostly be voting Republican.

Mr. Carville may want to take note of that. I doubt I am the only Democrat who feels this way.

Expand full comment
author

Yeah, so, part of writing something more quickly is I don’t get to spend as much time anticipating counterpoints in advance! I did mean to offer the caveat that I don’t know anything about McMorrow outside of this video and I don’t know the language of the bill being considered in Michigan. My views on bills like it, and LGBT issues generally, are complex- maybe that will be my next post. I gave McMorrow the benefit of the doubt that she was specifically referring to Theis’ email as hateful. I agree that parents who support bills like the one in Florida are largely not motivated by hatred. I also believe parents who oppose these bills are also not motivated by being sexual predators. I’m saddened and honestly worried about the lack of constructive conversation on these issues, made all but impossible by the worsening mutual animosity on both sides.

Expand full comment
author

Oh I also meant to include the caveat that something can still “go viral” by only appealing to the extreme left or right, especially on Twitter. It doesn’t mean it has broad appeal. But I do think she avoided the biggest pitfalls of progressives today, and she was willing to speak out against some of the sacred cows.

Expand full comment

You may want to consider watching it before making judgments about what this state rep is speaking on. "Virality" statistics should have nothing to do with whether or not someone is viewed as making an effective argument, because effectiveness (and honesty, and passion) does not come from amount of likes or views. And that said, the tweet of her speech currently has 251k likes...

It sounds like you have a knee-jerk tendency to want to shut out arguments that you may potentially dislike, which is behavior that both the extremist far-right and the woke far-left seem to particularly relish and consider as righteous, rather than as tunnel-visioned. Denouncing examples of "hate" may not be an effective political tactic, but it is what people need to do when fighting evil. What Lana Theiss did to Mallory McMorrow (specifically calling her a groomer and a person who sexualizes kindergartners, as a way to raise funds) is, to me at least, a pretty good example of evil. But you go on ahead and handwave it aside.

Expand full comment

Here is the actual text of the original fundraiser message from Lana Theis, which I managed to unearth from some tweets condemning it:

"Our children are under assault in our schools - the last place we should be worried about them

• Gender-bending indoctrination, confusing them about their identities

• Exposure to inappropriate sexual content, stealing their innocence

• Race-based education Critical Race Theory - pitting children against each other

These are the people we are up against. Progressive social media trolls like Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they can't teach can't groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year olds are responsible for slavery. They believe that we, as parents, do not have the right to help our children navigate their adolescence or their education. These enlightened elites believe our rights end at the curb of the school drop-off and we must surrender to the wisdom of teacher unions, trans activists, and the education bureaucracy."

Which, in point of actual fact, clear to anyone who can parse English grammar, does NOT accuse McMorrow of grooming. Which I was pretty sure would turn out to be the case before I looked.

And I am on the side of Theis. I DO NOT want my kids taught about the "gingerbread person" in school.

So if McMorrow wants to talk about ACTUAL SCHOOL CURRICULA, which Theis did in her fundraiser message, then bring it.

Meanwhile, save the speeches about how wonderful you are for having a mom who took you to soup kitchens as a kid. (Yes, I watched it.) I don't care.

Expand full comment

Your quote literally includes the phrase "Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they can't teach can't groom and sexualize kindergarteners"... I mean, that is an actual, straightforward accusation. It literally says that McMorrow is outraged because she, and people like her, "can't groom and sexualize kindergartners." This accusation was in a fundraising email. Sent out on Easter Sunday. How is this not landing for you?

I think it is that tunnel vision coming into play. This is an issue that creates a lot of emotion for you, and many others, and tunnel vision is often a result of such escalated states of emotion. I get it though, the topic of children always gets people emotional. Personally, I'd have a big problem too if "gingerbread person" was taught to my kindergartner. Possibly for different reasons though. As an old-fashioned progressive, I think the Genderbread graphic engages in a completely repulsive gender essentialism when it comes feminine and masculine behaviors, appearances, and norms. A tomboyish girl or an effeminate boy should never be given the message that the way they act or look means that they may not be expressing themselves as a girl or a boy. I mean, I thought those battles were already won a long while ago, but now the Left seems to be taking on the mantle of "girls must act this way and boys must act that way."

I am glad that you did actually watch the video. Regardless of your contemptuous "I don't care" at least your contempt for her comes after you gave the video a chance.

Expand full comment

You may find this hard to believe, but my reasons for opposing the "gingerbread person" are exactly the same as yours. I too am an old-fashioned (and old!) progressive. I completely agree with everything you say about this.

And so I am opposed to it. I find what's being taught in schools today utterly appalling. I want it to stop.

So I don't care if McMorrow is outraged. I want her to tell me what she believes about school curricula. If she (as I fully expect) supports teaching gender and race essentialism, then I am against her politically. Period, end of story.

What today's Democrats like McMorrow do not understand is how crucial this issue is to so many of us.

I raised a daughter and fought gender stereotypes all the way. And when I was a little boy myself, long ago, I liked to play Barbies with the neighbor girl. I even wanted my own Barbie, but somehow knew not to ask for one. Today the gender essentialists would declare that I was actually a trans girl and give me puberty blockers and mutilating surgery.

No thank you.

If McMorrow or any other Democrat wants to debate these issues, instead of just screaming "hate!", please do.

Expand full comment
Apr 23, 2022·edited Apr 23, 2022Liked by Marie Kennedy

I am really happy to learn that we share the same rationale for detesting that infernal Gingerbullshit. And coming from a fellow progressive! Of course I believe it.

Don't even get me started on misuse of puberty blockers. This is a very real issue for my circle of friends (as is the idea of social contagion), all of who are parents. And all old-fashioned progressives as well. I'll add in race essentialism as well, which is something I despise as a progressive and is something that is now embraced by many who falsely call themselves progressive. "Falsely" because essentialism is not progressive, it's the opposite!

I'm calling this a win for reasonable discussion, despite our disagreement over McMorrow. I'm all about finding the commonalities, brother.

Expand full comment

"Of course, my immediate reaction at the time was, “Shit, what a great blog name- ‘The Woke Detox Center’!”"

And my immediate reaction was that he was merely wrong. There was a lot of campaign mileage had out of the Loudon county school board, but the fact of that matter is that overall turnout on the right, in particular rural turnout, went way way way up. You could argue that those voters were motivated by being part of the anti-woke army, but there are plenty of reasons for them to come, including the simple fact that Trump lost and said voters watch way too much Fox News. I know this because I live here (there).

"3. Recognized the inherent, irrevocable human dignity that we all possess sets us all as equals, regardless of our group identifiers, our beliefs, or our mastery of obscure concepts.

4. Were entirely ready to abandon all prior beliefs and convictions in order to start again."

Since I already believed three, why would I need four?

"Single-minded obsession with matters of identity group-based power imbalances at the expense of all other matters of concern (like roads, healthcare, or democratic norms themselves)"

I've never had that problem.

elm

weird country

Expand full comment
author

I mean, sounds like you were/are less wokety-woke than I was? I really struggled with 4, and doubted my ability to do 3 to the extent I was wildly over/undercompensating in how I perceived or interacted with people based on my perception of their race/ideological stance. I guess I could have swapped 3 and 4 but I didn’t trust my availability to do 4 until I’d reassured myself I was able to do 3.

Expand full comment

Welcome back! I appreciated that this read, to me, as a kind of reintroduction post to your value system.

Expand full comment