The Lies That Blind or Why Humans are in Fact Bipedal

 

The Lies That Blind or Why Humans are in Fact Bipedal

by Stephen W. Houghton II

It is not a pleasant task to criticize the reasoning of someone who you significantly agree with. What classical liberal could want to argue with an argument that ends, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,” especially when he teaches at your alma mater.

However, the truth is that in his book The Lies that Bind, Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah uses a form of reasoning regarding sex that is inappropriate, both ignoring the generation and applicability of generalities and showing a lack of interest in teleological reasoning. This leads him to a conclusion equivalent to: “humans are not bipedal.”

In his section, “Women, Man, Other,” Dr Appiah writes “The vast majority of human bodies can be recognized as belonging to one of two biological kinds. Simply examining the genitalia .. will generally allow you to see that some one is biologically male .. or biologically female.” He then explains how generally the effects of the Y chromosome transform the undifferentiated gonads into testis as opposed to ovaries in most cases. This is all true, but he then proceeds to, as the kids say, problematize the situation.

He points out rightly that while virtually all humans are born with either XX or XY chromosomes, this is not always the case. There are several different anomalies where in the individual has either only one X chromosome, or at least one X chromosome and a variable number of other X or Y chromosomes. Other examples include instances of chimerism where two fertilized ova fuse in utero forming a single individual and cases where for various reasons individuals develop primary sex characteristics (sex organs) not aligned with their genotype.

However, as Dr Appiah implicitly concedes, none of these conditions occur at a frequency greater than one in five hundred individuals and most at rates above (often well above) one in two thousand. In the most extreme cases they have been diagnosed in less than a score of individuals in a population exceeding 8 billion. To illustrate why it is inappropriate to use such cases to draw the general conclusion that sex is not binary, let us turn to another instance of human abnormality.

To mirror his argument, The vast majority of human bodies can be recognized as having two legs. However, that is not always the case, congenital amputation and other anomalies can result in people born without one or more legs. Further due to accident or other post-natal events people can lose one or more legs. It is therefore inappropriate to conclude that humans are bipedal.

It is important to acknowledge that in a formal logical sense both of these arguments are in some sense correct. The statement all A have B is disproven if you can show even one instance when A does not have B.

The reason this is not dispositive however is that Dr. Appiah does not trouble himself with defining concepts such as sex, male, female, etc., except by loose example. A good definition of sex would be the two forms that humans, all other mammals and many other animals and plants can be divided into on the bases of their reproductive functions.

          This is a good definition in part because it points squarely at the end or as The Philosopher would say, the telos of sex, that is reproduction. Sex is an evolved mechanism for the mixing of genes in the course of reproduction in multicellular organisms.

Males are those individuals who are, were, or will be able to produce small gametes (sperm). Females are those individuals who are, were, or will be able to produce large gametes (ova). That is gamete production is the definitive characteristic of sex differentiation.

However, in humans and many other animals there are other primary and secondary sexual characteristics that tend to be highly correlated with gamete production. For example, the primary sexual characteristics in males include testicles in a scrotum, a penis, van deferens, etc. Female primary sexual characteristics include a uterus, fallopian tubes, a vagina, etc. Secondary sexual characteristics include breasts, facial hair, body size etc. There are also differences between the sexes in the average rate of various personality traits.  

These characteristics are correlated to sex, presumably because they are necessary or useful for reproduction. This combination of characteristics is what we typically think of as maleness or femaleness. However, that does not mean that primary and secondary sex characteristics are always congruent with gamete production. For example, though on average men are larger than women, this is not always the case. In fact, the distribution of many traits among men and women form two overlapping bell curves.

It is for this reason that many people have come to believe that “sex is a spectrum,” because the distribution of secondary sex characteristics is spectrum like though with a bimodal distribution. There are two problems with the spectrum approach, first, it is a form of definition by non-essentials. Second it overlooks the fact that there is not one spectrum, but two, one of males and one of females. That is males can be placed along a spectrum from those with more male typical secondary sex traits to those with fewer, and the same with females. However, while the distribution of secondary sex traits overlap, they are separate spectrums.

This point can be demonstrated by the fact that the spectrums do not overlap with individuals who can produce both sperm and ova as would be the case if there was one spectrum. Instead, they overlap with individuals who are sterile, that is who are congenitally unable to produce sperm or ova or are unable to deposit or receive the opposite gametes, even if they can produce them, as in the case of individuals who suffer from Aphallia (males who are born without a penis). That is individuals who do not have reproductive capacity.

Those who look at the same variation and see not a spectrum, but more than two sexes are also in error. Since the end of sex is reproduction, sex must be defined in terms of reproductive function. Males produce sperm and females, ova that is what distinguishes them.  Unless there is a third (or fourth) type of gamete, there is not a third (or fourth) sex, there is not. Some might argue that intersex people (those with incongruous genitalia) are a third sex, but intersex people are either reproductively male, reproductively female, or sterile. The sterile are not a sex because, sex is about reproductive function, which sterile people by definition do not have.

So, despite the impression given in his book, sex is clearer, more in line with people’s intuitions and binary.

Having discussed sex, Dr Appiah then turns abruptly to describing gender, without, at first, defining it. He discusses several groups that vary from the conventional Western notions of men and women. He then defines gender as “the whole set of ideas about what women and men will be like and about how they should behave.”

While this is not a wrong definition it is not a great one either. A better one would be that gender is how language and society deal with the fact of sex. It is a better definition because it points to the fact that gender is about how societies deal with a critical reality, one that determines if they can reproduce. It also helps explain why though societies differ to some extent in how they deal with sex, there are many commonalities.

This is because while as discussed above there is variation in how sex is expressed, there are regularities in average traits that will express themselves in social norms. It is not an accident that men tend to be predominate in professions that require strength. Nor is it an arbitrary social convention that women tend to predominate in the so-called caring professions.  Indeed, given that humans are mammals it would be strange if the latter were not the case.

Thus, gender systems, almost inevitably take account of the innate average traits of males and females. The most important of these is the one that is universal, the ability of women to conceive and bare children. The support and protection of the resulting mother child dyad is a feature of the gender systems of all successful societies.

This usually takes the form of binding the father and mother together in an economic, social, and genetic alliance, usually a dyad, that in our society is called a marriage. While polygyny and polyandry do exist, they are the exception, not the rule.

Polyandry virtually always is the result of an extreme climate that requires the labor of more than one man to support the household. The co-husbands are almost always brothers because this ensures that the resulting children are at least all the nephews of all the co-husbands or more likely either nephews or progeny of all co- husbands. This is an example of the fact that this whole discussion is, if you will pardon the expression, pregnant with the implications of evolution by natural selection.   

          While polygyny is a wide spread norm, fulfilling as it does one of the advantages from the female evolutionary prospective of the utility of male children, the ability to produce a larger number of grandchildren than a female child and from the male perspective more sex and offspring, in practice most marriages in successful polygynous societies are monogamous. That is the union of one male and one female and a family of them and their children and grandchildren.

This is likely the consequence of, given the birth of equal numbers of male and female offspring, the fact that polygyny outside the elite would result in large numbers of males unable to find a mate. Since males in most mammalian species are more given to physical competition and conflict to find mates, leaving a large number of them without one would lead to social instability. The exception would be in pre-state societies where male death due to war makes wide spread polygyny feasible.  

          While strictly monogamous societies are less common than polygynous ones in the sense that of 1,231 societies that have been studied only 186 are monogamous, however they have tended to be very successful. Rome, a serially monogamous society for example ruled the whole Mediterranean basin for centuries. Great Britian, a much more strictly monogamous society conquered about a quarter of the land area of the globe. This is presumably a result of the benefit of such social arrangements: the elite investing in economically productive endeavors rather than additional wives, a reduction in social instability from more men being able to find partners, fewer women being forced into prostitution to sate the lust of unmarried men etc.

          There are other marriage patterns than these but they are much less frequent and can be left for later discussion. But social norms around gender are not limited to social recognition of parentage and the obligations arising therefrom. They nearly universally result in a gendered division of labor.

          In these systems it is extremely common for women to take on labor that can be performed while supervising and nurturing young children. This has been a constant across different basic economic patterns

          For example, our hunter gatherer ancestors and indeed cultures that pursue that lifestyle today, almost exclusively send men away from the settlement or camp to hunt while women undertake activities like gathering or processing that are more compatible with child minding.

In agricultural societies a not dissimilar pattern occurs where the more distant labor like sheepherding and some field labor is performed mostly or exclusively by men, while women raise chickens, garden within the curtilage, and process food and clothing where they can keep an eye on the children.

          None of this means that all or even any existing gender system is completely justified, it is to point to the fact that gender and gender norms arises out of biological facts. As liberals, we are to oppose the imposition of such norms by state force, and to help those of unconventional traits to find a path to happiness. But we are not called upon to battle with reality. We are to regard gender norms as training wheels that help most, but not all people. 

          Turning to the various instances of gender non-conforming groups that Dr Appiah discusses. While a liberal society must make a place for individuals who have unconventional traits, they cannot be at the center of society or social analysis. Just as medieval monasteries fulfilled an important function in preserving classical learning through troubled times and the Shakers provided care to orphans in America for centuries, neither could survive without the reproducing society around them, so to any community that does not produce children.

That does not mean that such communities don’t have rights and they may be socially beneficial, but insofar as they are sterile and thus dependent for their continued existence on the wider reproducing community, they cannot be central. In the current rhetoric, heteronormativity is to be centered, not decentered. Nor does that apply only to gay people, lifelong bachelors such as this writer and spinsters can’t be the center either. Which doesn’t mean we can’t be useful adjuncts to society and have fulfilling lives in our own way.

          The last point I want to address is the title of Dr Appiah’s book, The Lies that Bind. While it is true that many social realities can be somewhat arbitrary, that does not make them less real. To say that Christianity exists and Christians have a common belief system is not to say that every member thereof even knows every word of the Nicaean Creed much less that they understand the words in exactly the same way. Some facts are fuzzier than others, but social facts are still real.

          As an American I have my doubts about the utility of the British peerage system, but it is a fact of reality that, because of British law regarding the decent of titles of nobility, Dr. Appiah is not the Baron Parmoor, but that his second cousin Seddon Crips is. That is not a lie, but a truth. If it binds or divides is another matter.

          Does any of this matter? If philosophy is the love of wisdom, then truth always matters. In this day it must be added, to paraphrase Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

A Time for Truth

 

            Many honorable people on the left and on the right have been fighting to oppose the creeping threat of critical social justice (a.ka. wokeism, hereinafter CSJ), the evil fruits of which have long been apparent. However, they are hampered by not seeing the root and true nature of the evil. I have been ruminating on this for some time and probably should have spoken earlier, but one does not like to think ill of others. However, the hour is late and it is a time for truth.

            First, look to the moral core of CSJ, an idea of social justice that is more than making the organs of the state just. This idea holds in essence that until all of the injustices of the past are corrected, a society is morally rotten. There are several problems with this which include that: not all past injustices are known, the effects of known injustices are often not clear, that this makes for an unending excuse for the ruling class to commit present injustices by state power in the name of social justice, etc.

But more importantly, look to its effects if taken seriously. To illustrate this point let me recall a counter argument I used to jokingly use when someone would start to talk about some historical injustice committed by Christians towards Muslims. “Ok, I admit that there have been historical injustices against Muslims, but when do we get Constantinople back?” If one was serious about social justice, that is what one would advocate for, that not only Constantinople, but the rest of Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, and the whole southern coast of the Mediterranean which were historically part of Christendom be turned over to Christians. Then having caused that disruption you would have to figure out how the Christians had got the land and undo that injustice, etc.    

In other words, the fundamental problem with social justice is that it is an essentially revanchist ideology that encourages the remembrance of past grievances and cheers on the righteous struggle to reverse them.

            Second, Critical Theory is a system for the reification of race, sex, etc. while denying they have physical reality. Of course, it is true that races and sexes really exist not only biologically but socially, but that does not mean that all members of a race or sex are the same or that their race or sex are the essence of their identity. But Critical theory argues that they are. They state that the essence of blackness, womanhood, and queerness are oppression and the essence of whiteness, manhood, and heterosexuality are oppression. CSJ argues that in fact the only reason for the existence of these categories is oppression and that though this arose spontaneously, its perpetuation is done with malice aforethought.

In other words, CSJ essentializes race, sex, orientation etc. and encourages hatred between these groups. That is to speak plainly, it encourages racism, sexism etc.

Third, virtually all intellectual advocates of CDJ are socialists, but a strange sort of socialists who want to coop managerial capitalism.

Fourth, because of its roots in social justice, the only reality that CSJ allows not to be deconstructed is the reality of oppression and suffering. The problem with this is that, it is horrible to teach that the only reality is suffering, it is bad for people’s phycology, it makes them less happy and more angry. An anger that is easily exploited for evil ends.

Fifth, it encourages a social policy of shaming of people on the basis of the categories it reifies. It encourages pride or shame on the basis of race. It uses essentially Maoist struggle sessions and two minutes of hate against those who are members of alleged “oppressor” categories. If this sounds familiar it is because these are totalitarian methods of social control used by fascists and communists alike.  

            Sixth, CSJ advocates openly advocate for state discrimination on the bases of race, sex, etc. While mild versions of this for limited periods may be acceptable for certain repertory purposes, it is clear that CSJ advocates mean for this to be a long-term project that will not end until all the injustices of the past real and imagined are cured. Whatever they may claim people like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi are not anti-racists, nor are they as their compromising critics assert “reverse racists’ or neo racists, they are just plain racists.

            So, in sum, Critical Social Justice is a revanchist, racist, sexist, economically statist ideology that valorizes suffering, encourages public shaming on the basis of what it claims are immutable characteristics, uses totalitarian methods of social control and advocates for discrimination on the basis of race and sex. If this sounds alarmingly like fascism, that is because it is.

            Therefore, it is not surprising that for example, it has a pluralist epistemology. That is, CSJ holds that since that since suffering is the only true reality, that those who suffer have special knowledge closed to those who have not suffered. This is reminiscent of Nazis who spoke of different “logics” such as “British, Jewish, Middle Class Logic” versus “German Logic” etc.

            Likewise, it is no accident that CSJ, like fascism and revolutionary socialism, considers liberalism to be its most deadly enemy. This is because liberalism even when applied by flawed humans is based on the principal of individualism and reason which CSJ rejects as tools of oppression.  

            Further it is no accident that CSJ is opposed to free speech, after all if language is not a tool for communicating ideas that maybe evaluated by individuals in light of reason and evidence, but a tool of power by which false consciousness is foisted on the oppressed, then why not limit it to halt oppression. Weather that oppression is of the German “Volk” by the machinations of “Judo Bolshevism,” of the Working Class by the Capitalists, Kulaks etc., or of Gay Trans People of Color, by Cis Het White Males, is irrelevant. Once one has rejected reasoned debate as a means of settling differences, force is the only thing left.

            Similarly, like revolutionary socialists, who while keen on the benefits of industrialization, were unwilling to permit inquiry into topics that might undermine Marxism-Leninism, so to CSJ, is willing to refer to science when it seems to support their cause, as with implicit bias tests. But they ignore or suppress research that shows their premises are wrong. Again, this is not a case of opportunism, but a reflection of their belief that science is just another discourse of power. Therefore, free inquiry must in their view be suppressed when it conflicts with CSJ theory. 

            Likewise, CSJ is opposed to due process of law because in their view it is only a tool of oppression. After all, if as they claim our society is fundamentally corrupt, so to are its organs such as the courts and our eight-hundred-year-old tradition of growing due process of law. These are just shields that the privileged use to their benefit.

            Nor is it surprising that CSJ has serious antisemitism problem. If as CSJ insists, intelligence, wealth, etc. are all products of white supremacy, it follows that oppressed groups cannot display what society considers intelligence and success. But since Jewish people are clearly a historically oppressed group and do display high intelligence and wealth, their very existence is a threat to CSJ and it is no wonder that this triggers antisemitism among many of its devotees.

            Nor are Jewish people the only minority group, that does not fit the CSJ narrative. Both east and south Asians do not fit neatly into this idea. Nor are all or even most members of: ethnic minority groups, the female sex, gay folk or other minorities, support CSJ. In part this is explained away by CSJ as false consciousness. However, in other cases where the experience of an ethic group such as Asians too strongly contradicts CSJ, then they must impute bad motives to them. Just as the Soviet Communists called those poorer peasants who opposed the collectivization of agriculture “Kulak Henchmen”, so to CSJ has a derogatory term for those among “oppressed groups” who oppose them “White Adjacent.”

            It is time for us all to face the rather distressing fact that our universities have, partly unwittingly, incubated an ideology that has the essential features of fascism: revanchism, racism, sexism, statist economics, the valorization of suffering, and totalitarian methods of social control. This movement has many other characteristics of fascism: anti-liberalism, opposition to free speech and open inquiry, opposition to due process of the laws, antisemitism, and racial hierarchies.

            What is to be done about this dangerous ideology? The first thing to do is to name it. The purpose of concepts is to allow us to think clearly. As Churchill once said “euphemism, is a euphemism, for lie.” The hour is late and speaking in timid euphemism is the path to defeat. But we should not fall into the trap of adopting the tactics of our enemy.

            While fascism is a horrifying ideology, most of the proponents of CSJ don’t know that they are complicit in a fascist ideology and shaming is a method we should largely leave to our opponents. That is name CSJ as fascism but don’t shame it adherents.

We need to educate them to the degree possible, though their pluralist epistemology largely insulates them from critical thinking. However, the best way to try and educate them, is through public debate where were we can demonstrate the nature of CSJ to a wider audience.  

            While we should work to remove CSJ from our public schools and its use in anti-racism training, but we should not of course forbid its discussion. As I indicated above, it needs to be debated and can not stand up to rational debate.

            If you are in a position to influence whether a school or corporation uses CSJ training you need to take a stand.

            In sum, we need to as CSJ people say, “do the work,” first to educate ourselves in the way that our information flow is being manipulated by CSJ narratives and the true meaning of the ideology and second to be brave, stand up and speak the truth. 

The Revolution of 1215?

The Revolution of 1215?

The Editor

The Motto of this journal states that its purpose is, “Defending the revolutions of 1215, 1688, 1776, and 1865 from ‘progressive’ counter revolution.” The revolution of 1215 it refers to is the sealing of Magna Carta and the events surrounding it. What one might ask has this to do with the American republic? The answer is pointed to by the first seal of independent Massachusetts, which depicts a colonist with a sword in one hand and a copy of Magna Carta in the other.

            This is because, when the Baron’s revolted under the leadership of Archbishop Stephen Langton against John Lackland a.k.a. bad King John, they set off a series of events that culminated in, on the one hand, the tradition of common law rights and on the other, with the creation of parliament. This did not happen all at once of course, but because under the Great Charter, the king could not tax except for traditional feudal dues, without the consent of the barons, parliaments were called regularly starting in 1236.

From the beginning a number of knights were sometimes called along with the barons. In 1265 representatives of the towns were called for the first time. Starting in 1295 it became regular for the commons to be called along with the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, for as King Edward I wrote in his summons, "what touches all, should be approved of all, and it is also clear that common dangers should be met by measures agreed upon in common." It was at this parliament that it became the practice that the King would first tend to grievances before parliament would give money. In 1327, parliament was the venue in which Edward II was deposed and Edward III was hailed as king. In 1332 the knights and representatives of the towns meet together as separate house from the Lords. In 1376 parliament impeached some of the king’s ministers for the first time. The post of Speaker of the House of Commons was established formally in 1377.

            I could go on but the point is that since about 1295 England has been a self-governing community with strong elements of democracy that have increased over time. At the same time a series of English constitutional documents built on the legal rights enumerated in Magna Charta.

            The Great Charter itself guaranties a number of important rights including, most famously article 30. “No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” But that is by no means all: article 2 and 3 are a restriction on inheritance taxes; article 8 guaranties widows the right not to be remarried without their consent; articles 28, 30 and 31 protect the people from the deprivation of their property without payment.

            These are rights also protected in our bill of rights, article 6 of which protects trial by jury and Article 5 which protects against government seizure of property without compensation.

We often think that no taxation without representation is an American idea, but article 12 states, “No scutage not aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom.” Article 14 says that “for obtaining the common counsel of the kingdom and the assessing of an aid or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters. Nor was this all to the sole interest of the nobles for the King also promised in article 15 that he would not, “grant to anyone license to take an aid from his own free tenants, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter; and on each of these occasions there shall be levied only a reasonable aid.” That is it restricted the robles power to tax as well.

            The point of all this is that the foundations of the American project go back far before the Declaration of Independence in 1776 or even the Glorious revolution of 1688. To understand our founding documents fully it is necessary to understand the history behind them. This is especially true of the more undefined provisions of the bill of rights such as the 9^th Amendment, which is only an “Ink Blot” if one does not know the history of our people.

The Old Republic, Vol. 1 No. 2

From now on, you can support The Old Republic by buying it on Amazon! Here is the link to the first issue containing material already posted on the blog. https://www.amazon.com/Old-Republic-Traditional-American-Politics-ebook/dp/B07PP8CS2X/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=The+Old+Republic+a+journal+of+traditional+american+politics&qid=1566564906&s=gateway&sr=8-2

The new second addition is here. https://www.amazon.com/Old-Republic-Traditional-American-Politics-ebook/dp/B07WS2M4ZM/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Old+Republic+a+journal+of+traditional+american+politics&qid=1566564906&s=gateway&sr=8-1

The essays in this addition will be posted on the blog over next few months.

The Old

R e p u b l i c

Defending the revolutions of 1215, 1688, 1776, and 1865 from “progressive” counter revolution

A Journal of Traditional American Politics                             Summer 2019, Vol.1 No.2

The Revolution of 1215?..............................................................................page 2

Economics……… The Case for the Platinum Standard……………….…..page 4

Law………If we wanted simple and effective financial regulation…........page 5

Reform………..…….A Balanced Budget Amendment………...……………page 8

Foreign Policy………….….. After Brexit Q&A………….           …………..page 10

Space..A Corporate & Political Structure for the Colonization of Mars…page 13

The Green New Deal is not Green

The Green New Deal is not Green

By Stephen W. Houghton II

            What ever one thinks of the “social justice” and “welfare” provisions of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, as a program to reduce carbon emissions it is totally inadequate.

            Those who are worried about climate change cannot be expected to be taken seriously if they allow their own prejudices to influence what they claim to be emergency legislation. A program to reduce carbon emissions that does not include the words “nuclear fission” cannot claim to be based on science. 

            The plain fact is that wind and earth based solar power are inadequate for base line power generation. Until such time as nuclear fusion can be made work, if it even can be, hydroelectric and nuclear fission are the key to a low or zero emissions electric supply. That is not to say that wind and solar have no place in energy generation, especially if paired with something like hydro energy storage, but that place will be relatively small at least in the near term.

            That Ms. Ocasio-Cortez cannot even mention fission indicates that she, and a significant portion of the environmental movement, is not serious about climate change. Paired with her proposal to ration car and air travel, this suggests that she is driven by a fundamentally Malthusian mentality.

            This is made even clearer by the omission of the words “space industrialization” from her proposal. Consider that the energy output of the sun every second is 678,000 times the amount of power humanity uses in a year. In space, there are no clouds to block the light so it can be used for base line power generation.

            Further, space mining will provide nearly unlimited amounts of metals and other elements that can be used to create orbital habitats many thousands of times the area of earth for us and the rest of the biosphere to inhabit. But more importantly in this context, it can be used to create solar shades that could block part of the sun light not used for photosynthesis, thus lowering global temperature.  

            Since the value of the hundred most valuable known asteroids is believed to exceed $10 quadrillion, more than a hundred times annual world GDP, the probability that asteroid mining will not begin in the next two decades is essentially zero.

            Some might reasonably ask why we should spend money to build sun shades instead of just reducing carbon emissions. The answer is that first, space industrialization will make us all richer and second that they will have to be built eventually anyway as the increasing solar output over the next few hundred million years will render the earth uninhabitable without them. The only question is will we build sun shades as a wealthy space faring society or a poor society crippled by excessive regulation.

            Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and a part of the environmental movement seem to have not noticed that Elion Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the developers of other reusable launch systems have solved climate change as a long term problem. Now all we have to do is not cripple the space industry and use nuclear fission to mitigate the possible damage from carbon dioxide emissions. But we will not do either, if those posing as the champions of the environment will not face the facts.

             Hopefully I am misjudging Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and she will take the above as friendly criticism and adopt her plan accordingly. If she does she will be attacked by the “sustainability” cult, it is a cult since it denies the second law of thermodynamics, for heresy. But if she believes that global warming is as serious a problem as she states, then that will be a small price to pay.

Multiculturalism the Enabler of Fascism

Advocates of multiculturalism like to pretend they are the vanguard of liberalism. In fact, in both ideology and effect, they are the enablers of fascism.
They put forward the doctrine that all cultures are equal and that to criticize another culture is racist. That the aforementioned doctrine is in fact racist is something they are seemingly blind to.

Multiculturalism racist? Why yes. The idea that all cultures are equal and your culture is good for you and my culture is good for me and that no one can say one is better than the other is based on a racial deterministic view of culture. That is to say that multiculturalists believe that people have a culture in the same way that people have blue eyes or black skin or red hair. Thus from the multiculturalist point of view, to judge one culture superior to another, is to judge one group of people superior to another.

This was the same view held by the Nazis. They believed that national socialism was true for Germans. They were willing to admit it might not be true for all people. But it was true for them and that was all that was important to them. They differed from the multiculturalists in believing that the German “volk” was superior to all other races.

All the multiculturalists have done with the Nazi theory is to declare that no one culture is better than another. This is so, they say, because no one can move outside of one’s own culture to evaluate other cultures objectively because culture is not a chosen form of behavior, but deterministic.

However it is unclear why if one is unable to judge other cultures one should care for them or consider them of any value what so ever, never mind of equal value. This is exactly what the Nazis did, they held that critiques of their ideas using logic were invalid because it was Jewish-British-Middle Class logic and all they were interested in was “German logic.”

The problem is that if, like the multiculturalists, one rejects the use of reason as a means of relations between people of different cultures, there is nothing left to regulate the relations between cultures, but brute force. It is exactly this that the Nazis argued. Since, according to the Nazis, there was nothing but German logic and French logic, there is nothing to do about conflicts of interest but fight. Of course that is what the Nazis did do. They fought and killed without mercy or reason.

In essence the multiculturalists follow the Nazis up to these last two steps and then flinch from the logical conclusion of their own ideas. That they do draw back from murder and genocide is of course to their credit, but the problem is that they spread one of the basic ideas of fascism.

Now let’s turn to the logical effects of multiculturalism even setting aside for a moment its logical extreme.

Since according to multiculturalism, all cultures are of equal value, it follows that if one culture embraces individual rights, democracy and capitalism, and another perpetual jihad, honor killings, female genital mutilation, and wife beating, one culture is not to be preferred over the other.

In other words the primary effect of multiculturalism is to morally disarm the good and morally arm the evil.

Now let us turn to the effects of multiculturalism as it effects the situation in Europe today with regards to the struggle between Western Civilization and Islamic Civilization.

First of all it should be noted that the idea that this must be an all or nothing struggle with no learning on either side is itself an artifact of multiculturalism. There may in fact be good points that Western Civilization could gain from Islamic Civilization, its high value on hospitality for example. Likewise, Islamic civilization could gain an increased respect for the value of reason, individual rights, and democracy.

However, as long as the multicultural idea is predominant no such mutual learning is likely to take place. If French rudeness is of equal value with Islamic ideas of hospitality then why should the French change their ways. Likewise if Islamic female genital mutilation is of equal value with Western equal rights for women, why should Muslims change theirs?

Of course Western Civilization and Islamic Civilization are not of equal value. By comparison Islamic Civilization is barbaric. However this is the one conclusion that multiculturalists feel they must deny. They are in fact frantic to deny it, because they believe, due to the internal logic of multiculturalism, that the only alternative to declaring blind equality is a race war.

Thus anyone who points out that Western Civilization is superior to Islamic Civilization as it now exists, is labeled a racist by the multiculturalists. It is important to understand that this is both a tactic in that having rejected reason the multiculturalists can only resort to name calling or force and it is a reflection of the interior state of the multiculturalists.

By accepting the racial determination of ideas the multiculturalists has put himself in a trap where the only two alternatives are supine surrender to inferior cultures and fascist genocide. The liberal alternative of education and assimilation of the people from the more backward culture is blanked out of their minds by the false alternatives of their racial determinism.

Since most cultures, to be even marginally successful, must consider themselves to be of value and most consider themselves of superior value to other cultures, the multiculturalists declaration that for example Islam is of equal value with Western Civilization is not meet with joy by those the multiculturalists are pandering to.

The pandering is in fact seen as both an insult and an invitation to aggression. Consider that the militant Islamic believes wrongly that his culture is superior. He is met with the insult that his culture is no better than Western Civilization and then observes that this supposedly equal civilization believes that it is of no more value than any civilization however backward. The Islamist both feels insulted and believes that any action he takes to revenge the insult will be meet with passivity.

The natural result is what we have seen over the past two decades in Europe, increasing sectarian violence by Muslims. The first victims of this violence are those from their own culture. Women primarily are increasing abused as it becomes clear that the host culture will not protect them. Next the people who were once part of that culture but have rejected it become the victims of the totalitarian impulses of the Islamists. Then groups that have been traditionally the enemies of Muslims and whose toleration by Western Civilization is recent or incomplete, such as Jews and Gays come under attack. Finally, as the supine surrender of the multiculturalists becomes obvious, the majority population itself comes under attack. The multiculturalists of course try and ignore this escalating cycle of violence.

Because the idea of fascist genocide is so terrible, the multiculturalists understandably, given their premise, cling violently to their wrongheaded ideology, even as events make the need for action plain. They tend to deny that any problem exists. If they control the media they will tend to down play the aggression of the violent group. They will even lie and suppress evidence that contradicts their fervent hope that all is well. If they control the state they will tend to use its power to keep the question of civilizational conflict from coming to the fore. They may even pass laws making cultural criticisms illegal. Though they thought themselves the vanguard of liberalism, they find themselves suppressing free speech in the name of fighting racism, real and imagined.

Thus the multicultural European elite demonize relatively moderate parties that want to take steps to limit the conflict between the native population and the Muslim immigrants. Absurd slippery slope arguments are made that equate reasonable restrictions on immigration with the first step of genocide.
It is important again to realize that as with the hysterical charges of racism, these slippery slope arguments are both tactical and a reflection of the inter beliefs of the multiculturalists.

However the hysterical charges of racism and the absurd slippery slope arguments will have the opposite of their intended effect. They will weaken the forces of liberalism instead of strengthening them.

In fact the multiculturalists will start to find that, just as social democrats were unable in many cases to fight off the contending forces of communism and fascism in the thirties that the center will not hold.

The center will tend not to hold because of three factors. The first is that the multiculturalists have demonized the only force, liberalism that could have saved them. The second factor is that multiculturalists are in fact ideologically abetting fascism. The more wide spread is the belief in multiculturalism, the more wide spread is one of the tenants of fascism. The last reason the center will tend not to hold is that the same moral emptiness that keeps the multiculturalists from fighting the Islamists effectively, will keep them from fighting the fascists in the majority population effectively.

In fact the multiculturalists’ dirty secret, which they hide even from themselves, is that they, to the extent that they do want to stave off Islamic domination, think that the fascists have the right, indeed the only idea, of how to win.

Thus while at present the multiculturalists will tend to demonize the forces of liberal moderation such as the List Pim Fortuyn, the United Kingdom Independence Party, and the Danish Peoples Party, equating them with fascism. In the longer term however they will likely tend towards fascism themselves.

In fact there are as far as I can see only five possible courses forward for Europe.

The best outcome that can be hoped for is that the forces of liberalism will make a massive recovery of their moral strength in the next few years and begin a massive program of education, assimilation, and the enforcement of western values as embodied in the criminal law of their countries to protect the women, children and non violent portions of their immigrant Muslim communities.

The second best scenario is that such a recovery of liberal moral strength, but not until a civil war is inevitable. Then they will have to fight the reactionary forces of radical Islam while simultaneously restraining the fascists among the native population. This will to put it mildly be difficult, especially since both groups of fascists will be trying to provoke atrocities.

Depressingly the third best out come that can be projected is that a liberal revival halts total Islamic victory and Europe ends up like Lebanon as a patchwork of hostile ethnic enclaves.

The fourth and fifth outcomes are frankly unspeakable, either fascist or Islamic victory.

Now since Europe, the EU’s propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding, is not unified, different outcomes could occur in different countries.

However it is important to realize that Europe has several strikes against it in resisting both fascism and Islamism. First the European Union has no unifying history or ideology that could be used to acculturate the Muslim population and immigrants. Second the closest thing it does have to such an ideology is transnational democratic socialism which has become heavily impregnated with or is identical with multiculturalism, which is the problem. Third, while the European idea is insufficient to be an acculturating force, it maybe powerful enough to constrain the real nationalism of Europe’s actual nations thus weakening one of the potential forces of moderation.

Given the riots in Paris, it maybe to late to avoid civil war, however it may not be. It is certainly not to late to avoid balkanization or fascist or islamist victory. However Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians and all others who reject the poison of multiculturalism must rally to enforce the protection of individual rights for every citizen and deny special privileges for the forces of Islamic reaction.

I believe that Europe is still strong enough to save itself from the forces of multiculturalism, Islamism and fascism, but time is running out.

The Parable of Naweristan

                In Central Asia, there is the land of Naweristan. It is inhabited by two tribes or ethnic groups the Azari and the Bakahari. The Azari make up a little less than 51 percent of the population and Bakahari a little more than 49 percent.

                Since Naweristan is electoral democracy, the Azari are naturally in a position to control the government, especially since they are more likely to register to vote than the Bakahari and thus make up 53.6% of the voters. It is thus not surprising that in many instances the law favors Azari in disputes with Bakaharri. One indication of this imbalance is that Bakahari make up 93 percent of the prison population.

                Naweristan society also tends to favor Azari. They own more than 60 percent of the country’s wealth.   By convention, an Azari may assault a Bakahari without consequence as long as no permanent damage is done, this is in fact a stock scene in Naweri comedy, but the reverse is not true. Azari make up 60 percent of college graduates, they earn more than 58 percent of masters degrees and more than 51 percent of doctorates. Azari are widely and traditionally considered by Naweri the epitome of moral goodness and rectitude, while Bakahari are considered violent and brutish.

                Bakahari fill the most dangerous jobs in Naweristan society suffering more than 90 percent of the work place fatalities. The combat arms of the Naweristan Army are made up almost exclusively of Bakahari who represent 88 percent of combat fatalities. The Bakahari have an average lifespan five years shorter than Azari. It is perhaps not surprising that Bakahari make up more than 75% of suicides in Naweristan.

                Which of these groups would you consider oppressed?

                Now consider, that disturbingly there is a growing ideology, rooted in the traditional view of Azari as caring and Bakahari as brutish, that holds that Naweristan is a society in which the Azari are oppressed. That Naweristan is a Bakahariarchy in which the needs of Bakahari are prioritized over the needs of the Azari, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. The latest move by this Azari supremacist movement is to openly consider the testimony of Azari of more probative value than that of Bukahari. This is being called “listening to Azari.”

                Now let us drop the pretense that I am talking about anything other than men and women in the United States, so that I can admit that this only tells part of the story, but it does show that anyone who thinks we live in a patriarchy is delusional.