E-Pluribus | April 17, 2024
Who's afraid of gender (debate)?; building Democracy; and in defense of stereotyping.
A round-up of the latest and best musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Holly Lawford-Smith: Double Standards in the Gender Debate
Censorship for thee and not me is an undertone in debates of many controversial subjects and Holly Lawford-Smith at Quillette says the gender debate is no different. Lawford-Smith reviews a new book (she is not impressed) and finds the author guilty of the very things she tries to pin on her opponents.
There is much talk in the book [Who’s Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler] of the global right-wing’s attempted censorship of ‘gender’—where this means feminist speech, lesbian and gay education, sex education, and education about trans issues. Butler says that “Those who defend censorship, who make allegations of ideology under the rubric of ‘woke,’ are interested in maintaining doctrinal control in education, very often allying with parental rights over public education.” She is concerned that faculty are being fired for teaching “woke” subjects; bemoans the existence of restrictions “on what can be taught and who can teach it”; condemns bills that attempt to bar schools and public libraries from offering books on ‘gender’ subjects including “the theme of ‘homosexuality’”; laments the bans on drag performances; and more. Butler writes: “The harm censorship does is justified by the imagined harm it seeks to stop. This means that if education is to remain free of ideological control of the kind that censorship represents, we will have to educate ourselves about the ways that censorship works and the fear it seeks to stoke, so that we can dismantle the phantasm it creates, and even reverse the harm that it is now doing.”
But is Butler against censorship per se—or only against the censorship of ‘gender’-related topics, as the right understands them? If it’s the latter, then she’s not upholding the ideal of free expression at all, she’s just invoking it in order to get what she wants politically, which is the protection of ‘gender’ from the apparent right-wing threat. (This is similar to the hypocrisy of people who are all for free speech when it’s their speech that is under threat but are happy to call for opinions they disagree with to be censored.) If Butler were against censorship altogether, we might expect her to comment on all the censorship that has been going on by those on her own side, of gender-critical ideas and research. All the tactics she objects to when they are used by the right against the left have also been used by the left against what she classes as the right (i.e. ‘TERFs’). I know, because I have been one of the left’s targets—my academic publisher has been urged to stop the publication of my gender-critical books, and there have been protests (which have included vandalism) on my campus against my philosophy course on feminism from a gender-critical perspective.
I do not believe for a minute that Butler is unaware of the censorship of gender-critical research by gender identity activists. In a footnote to Chapter 5, she shows that she is aware of the Gender Critical Research Network at the Open University; that institution’s antagonism towards the network led Jo Phoenix to take the university to court for constructive dismissal—a case she won. Despite her protestations, Butler is clearly not opposed to censorship at all—she is merely opposed to what she views as the censorship of the ‘good’ side by the ‘evil’ one. And she thinks she knows which is which.
Butler is aggrieved that her opponents aren’t reading more work in gender studies, given that these opponents criticize gender studies and in some countries have even moved to close gender studies departments. She writes, “Reading is not just a pastime or a luxury, but a precondition of democratic life, one of the practices that keep debate and disagreement grounded, focused, and productive.” So far, so true. She speculates that “the anti-gender advocates are largely committed to not reading critically because they imagine that reading would expose them—or subjugate them—to a doctrine to which they have, from the start, levied objections.” She even says that “To read in an academic way, much less critically, is to concede that there may be other views than those either found in scripture or propounded by religious leaders.” It does not seem to occur to her that this analysis might just as easily apply to the readers of her own earlier books, like Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter (1993).
[. . .]
In short: Who’s Afraid of Gender? is not just poorly argued. Butler also persistently misdescribes the people and views she attempts to criticize, and her carelessness with citations would be unacceptable in an undergraduate essay. And, as if this mess wasn’t bad enough, it comes with a dollop of plagiarism on top.
Read the whole thing.
Timothy Sandefur: The Architect of Democracy
We usually thinking of the founding fathers as the architects of democracy, but Timothy Sandefur at Discourse Magazine is using the term architect literally. The name Louis H. Sullivan might not be on everyone’s lips, but anyone who admires the skyline of any big city owes him a debt. In this piece, Sandefur writes of how Sullivan wanted his buildings to do more than just give people places to live and work, but also to reflect the ideals of his country.
It was 100 years ago tomorrow that Louis H. Sullivan, “father of the skyscraper,” died at the age of 67, lonely, bankrupt and alcoholic, in a broom closet at a Chicago hotel that he had converted into a living space. It’s one of art history’s great tragedies. Sullivan had been the creative force behind some of America’s loveliest structures—the Chicago Auditorium Building, Manhattan’s Bayard-Condict Building, the Guaranty Building in Buffalo—and mentor to the nation’s greatest builder, Frank Lloyd Wright. But as architectural fashions turned away from the style Sullivan pioneered—later known as the Prairie Style—toward buildings based on German, French and Roman models, Sullivan had refused to compromise. Commissions disappeared, and Sullivan became a relic, living on handouts from friends.
[. . .]
Taking inspiration from his favorite poet, Walt Whitman (Sullivan would even publish his own Whitmanesque free-verse poetry), [Louis H. Sullivan] aimed for an architecture that would celebrate “Democracy,” a word he usually capitalized, and that to him meant “the immense growth in power of constructive imagination…the lifting of the eyelids of the World.” Sullivan defined Democracy as individualism multiplied by millions. As he put it in his idiosyncratic way: “[The] Ego—the “I am”—the unique—[is] the most precious of man’s powers, their source and summation…. It is the free spirit…the sign and symbol of man’s immense Integrity—the “I am that I am”…. It is this spiritual integrity that defines him human, that points true to his high moral power…. Our dream shall be of a civilization founded upon ideas thrillingly sane, a civilization, a social fabric squarely resting on man’s quality of virtue as a human being; created by man, the real, in the image of his fruitful powers of beneficence; created in the likeness of his aspirant emotions, in response to the power and glory of his true imagination, the power of his intelligence, his ability to inquire, to do, to make new situations befitting his needs. A civilization that shall reflect man sound to the core and kindly in the exercise of his will to choose aright. A civilization that shall be the living voice, the spring song, the saga of the power of his Ego to banish fear and fate, and in the courage of adventure and mastership to shape his destiny…. The living idea of man, the free spirit, master of his powers, shall find its form-image in a civilization which shall set forth the highest craftsmanship, the artistry of living joyously in stable equilibrium.”
[. . .]
[Louis H.] Sullivan was one of the greatest of American artists. Dedicated, like his hero Whitman, to voicing the ideals of a vibrant dawn of freedom, it’s no coincidence that, just as Whitman’s poetry rejoiced at the bustling modern world of tradesmen, mechanics, “houses of business of the ship-merchants and money-brokers,” so Sullivan’s American art would be focused primarily on commercial structures—office buildings and banks—which served as the cultural and civic engines of the “thrillingly sane” civilization Sullivan wanted to honor. “By concentrating his artistic force on as public and as now commonplace an entity as the commercial skyscraper,” writes literary scholar Kevin Murphy, “Sullivan was elevating the purpose of commercial building to that of monumental architecture, that is, to the level of an architecture which seeks to embody the aspirations of a people and to inspire that public with its own best image of itself.”
Read it all.
Glenn Loury & John McWhorter: When Is Racial Stereotyping Acceptable?
Never ones to shy away from controversial topics, Glenn Loury & John McWhorter recently discussed when, if ever, racial stereotyping is OK, or at least understandable. The two conclude that, however strongly we might want reality to match our ideals, we simply have to live in the world of reality.
[Glenn Loury & John McWhorter] discuss when it’s acceptable to apply statistical information and lived experience about racial disparities in violent behavior to real-life situations. Knowing that young black men in urban areas commit violent crimes in disproportionate numbers, are we justified in regarding all young black men as potential threats? Or does is that mere racial stereotyping that leads us to treat individuals in an unjust way?
GLENN LOURY: [question from listener] On the general topic of racism, is it ever acceptable to apply general stats regarding violent crime among and between the races to our personal lives? For example, I believe you both have expressed that due to the current crime rates, it's perfectly rational to fear groups of young black men in downtown Chicago. And if that is acceptable, then when is the application of stats not acceptable? How would you define a truly racist act or belief?
Okay, I'll start off in responding to that question by saying, yes, it is sometimes acceptable to apply general stats regarding violent crime between and among the races to our personal lives. That's simply common sense. If I know that the offending population in a particular city at a particular point in time is vastly disproportionately black, and I see a group of black youngsters at 1:00 a.m. when I've come out of the club and I'm staggering to my car, and I see a group of white youngsters, and I regard the first as more menacing than the second, that's a protective inference that I'm making that I don't see how you could possibly regard as a morally inappropriate reflex.
And yes, it is a stereotype. Yes, stereotyping is a part of social life. We all do it in one circumstance or another. The fact that it's based upon race, it shouldn't be the end of my inquiry. I should pay attention to other facts about the situation that I'm attending to. But to ignore the racial disparity in the background, it seems to me, is asking way too much.
Now, is it asking too much of a police officer that he override the instinctual reflex to take on board racial statistics when he's deciding who to stop for a traffic violation? What about a professor who knows that the Asian kids in his classroom have gotten very high grades in the past? Should he pay more attention to the Asian kid’s question or give a greater latitude to the paper that he's grading that comes in from an Asian kid? Of course not. That would be, in my view, violative of basic principles.
But to tell me that I don't cross the street? Again, race is not the only thing, but race would be a part of it. To tell me that I don't cross the street when I feel threatened, I shouldn't feel threatened, I think that's asking way too much of people. I think the instinct to do that is deeply ingrained in our social behavior because that kind of information can be very valuable and make the difference of life and death in certain situations. And no, I don't believe it's racist to be afraid of a group of black teenagers on the streets of downtown Chicago at 11:00 p.m. No, I don't think that's crazy or racist, for that matter.
The question is, if they were white, would I not be afraid? And the answer is, in my case, probably I would not be as afraid. I'm going to just acknowledge that.
[. . .]
JOHN MCWHORTER: I agree with everything you said. I would just add that all of that is fact that cannot be escaped and a kind of stereotyping that must be pardoned. Because it's stereotyping, sometimes it is going to go wrong. Sometimes you are going to have a generalization that's going to turn out to be all wrong because stereotypes may have a basis in fact, but still they are stereotypes. That is a tough one.
And so for example, I'll openly admit: New York City. This is my city now for 22 years, and the subway is a fascinating place to observe all sorts of things going on, including how race lays out. And I've been riding that train most days of my life, for now a quarter century.
I would say that when somebody busts into the car from one end, which you're not supposed to do, but if somebody busts in, if I look up wondering who that person is and what might be coming, I will openly admit that if the person coming is some white guy—which it almost never is—then my thought is, whatever. He's desperate for a seat. If it's a black guy, there's a part of me that thinks, is the black guy going to be asking for money? Is the black guy going to start break dancing and accidentally maybe kick somebody in the head and say menacing things to the people in the car along the lines of “we need your positive energy,” but practically saying it with a frown, as if setting themselves up as adversaries of society who we owe money and attention? Frankly, that's a routine that the black break dancer guys do.
Now, often, it's a black guy who's just like the hypothetical white one. He just wants a seat. But I must admit that when they come, and especially if it's two, there's a part of me that thinks what's it going to be or is this person going to start yelling at people or something like that. Because the sad truth is—I'm sure it's happened, but I'm part of the statistics—I've never encountered a white guy on the New York subway yelling in people's faces and making people that uncomfortable. And I've certainly never encountered an Asian one or a South Asian one. A Latino one, occasionally. I'm probably forgetting one time, but that is the black guy.
Now there are reasons for that, sure. You're not gonna tell me I'm stereotyping. It's just fact, based on a quarter-century of living the life. So yeah, it's inevitable. That's just the way it goes.
Read it all here.
Around Twitter (X)
Jacob Mchangama of The Future of Free Speech says the European model on free speech is not all it’s cracked up to be:
The Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon on satire:
And finally, via Jeff Jacoby, who knew vocabulary could be so dangerous?