“While you might initially think anarchists might be a bit more about personal freedom and bodily autonomy than the rest in America, it’s actually quite the opposite.”
No, I would not have thought anything else initially about American self-proclaimed “anarchists”. I don’t think they really know what the word means. They just like to wear black, break things, and harass people. They really love the idea of using force to coerce people into doing what they want. Which is the polar opposite of anarchy.
The “anarchist” label is just like a sports team mascot. It’s a brand. They are no more actual anarchists than the players on the Chicago Bulls are actual bulls.
Thanks for the comments on sexuality in Europe. I think that your misgivings relate to your arguments in past posts about how U.S. categories regarding race colonize Europe.
Americans are remarkably quick to categorize people racially--think of all of those earnest posts on Facebook about the brownness of Jesus. (That same sympathy for brownness seldom extends to genuine sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause.)
It is done visually. Yikes.
Just as U.S. racial categories, besides being inaccurate and toxic, don't fit Europe, U.S. sexual categories, which are often deeply puritanical, don't fit Europe.
In the Mediterranean basin, the idea of "transgender" doesn't apply so much as the ancient category of hermaphrodism (a union) does. The concept of "trans"-anything fits U.S. ideas of redemption and journeys. But in the Mediterranean world, one has an archetype of two of the most popular gods, joined. (See Two-Spirits as a metaphor.)
Queerness (and queer is a word that is never going to lose its sting no matter how many academic conferences use it) and nonbinary as a description of one's sexual persona (to use a term from the dreaded Camille Paglia, whom you should read), are U.S. categories. And puritanical.
And nonstarters? They lack that certain je ne sais quoi that leads to sensuality.
As a disciple of Colette, who is sometimes described as "queer," I can only assue you that you should read her. And it will become evident right away that the category "queerness" doesn't apply to her. She had bigger ideas of sentimental education.
As one of those Left public intellectuals smeared as a Trumpist, conspiracy theorist, fascist, white supremecist, and anti-Semite, and disappeared from the left sites that used to publish me, as a result of my Covid dissent and criticism of big pharma and big tech, the surveillance state and medical totalitarianism, etc., I very much appreciate this article. Left is no longer left. Those who call themselves that are, to a large degree, merely an identity grouping rallying under the Woke banner.
Rhyd, thanks for featuring the Permanent Pandemic essay and what it highlights. From a British perspective, it is a relief to see this kind of critique finally reaching the mainstream - I'm one of those who's watched with growing horror as the Left - my 'tribe' all my adult life - inverted or dumped its core values, apparently almost overnight. This includes close friends, members of my former community (I left the country), all the institutions I counted on, and the Labour movement/party who have consistently called for harsher, longer measures. The very long lockdowns in Britain were tolerated and welcomed by those in a certain social class who didn't seem to be able or willing to think outside their own interests while passing them off as for the common good. I still haven't come to terms with all this, although I AM clear that I'm no longer part of that group and can only really describe the different values I uphold as 'human'. Not sure where we go from here, but somehow, somehow, the task ahead involves reminding our formerly liberal societies of the basics of human flourishing.
Great article and great links too, Paul Mason is a real piece of work. He had a boner for years over the Arab Spring as the phrase goes, the core subject of his silly little book Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere. He relates there, for instance, with feigned surprise how a "protestor" he ran into in London mere days previously turned up again in Cairo. Small world huh.
I have also noticed the rebranding of transvestites and drag queens as transgender--to the point that using the older, and IMO, more nuanced terminology is treated as hate speech by some. My ex-husband was a client of the Stanford Sex reassignment project in the 1970s so I was madly reading everything on the topic and hanging out with some of the other clients and so forth. At that time transvestitism was labeled a fetish if the person derived sexual excitement from the practice and it could range from wearing undergarments of the other sex under one's ordinary clothing to fully dressing and going out in public with the intent of "passing." Many, maybe most, transvestites of this type were heterosexual men. Drag OTH was a performance--sometimes but not always professional--no one really expected a 6'2" drag queen in 4-inch heels, wig and 6 o'clock shadow showing through by the end of the night to be taken for a RG (real girl). The transsexual clients at Stanford, on the other hand, were given lessons in grooming, dressing, speaking and moving in a ladylike fashion so that they would be accepted as women during their transition. That was the reality and vocabulary of the time and trying to revise history to match today's different understanding is insulting to the lived reality. This change in definitions and vocabulary also ties into the concerns of older lesbians that today's "baby butches" and tomboys are being convinced by social media and Wokeness that they are really transmen.
On the COVID front, are you aware that John Michael Greer has an ongoing series of COVID forums on his dreamwidth Ecosophia blog? He opens the topic about once a week. Many people asking questions, giving personal tales of vaccine reactions, and alternative treatments. Readership is international so complaints about Canada, Australia and other nation's governments as well as US.
As a herbalist I got to watch my community get completely broken by this. All off a sudden the ancient and honored practice of healing, based on the foundation of meeting an individual exactly where they were at in regards to their well being was replaced by a new directive and the commensurate public shaming. Unless you promoted blanket vaccination and mask wearing you were inherently insane and obviously one of the “non scientific” ie bat shit crazy woo woo herbalists who bring the whole profession down. In a community that recognized expertise in the field by peer review of practice over educational qualifications, in a community where the most thorough scientific minds still confessed to plant communication, this was devastating. And not surprising. Stephan h Bruner had just gotten cancelled (as well as a public face book burning of his books, by a board member of the American herbalist guild, one of those classic I’m so liberal I’m a fascist moves that is a trade mark of woke politics), ironically for warning us all of woke politics.
It was devastating as up until then we had been navigating Covid in a very open source and close manner, sharing freely what herbal protocols were effective and why and how. Very effective and with a true experience of camaraderie. Then along with public policy came the thought police and It became decisive with one side extremely vocal and the other side shut down and underground. Essentially anyone who thought that constitution and context might be considered when trying to advise a client around their Covid health choices disappeared.
Personally I don’t think that people factor in the amount of hidden money is in play here. The transgender phenomenon has a massive amount of mainstream financing making sure that folks are steered to a lifelong medical subscription.
Preying on the consumer has become very formatted and an easy pattern to spot
In hindsight, how badly everything was bungled is astounding. China went from pretending it didn't exist to complete lock down. Government officials spoke authoritatively in the US: no need to mask, fomites are the mechanism of transmission! No, wait, everyone mask, but only use cloth masks! You could go on and on. Of course, all of those authoritative pronouncements were made with scant evidence.
Public health professionals should have been forthcoming: this could be bad, but we just don't know what this is going to look like long-term. We think everyone should behave with an abundance of caution, here are conservative recommendations. And as additional data points on CFR & IFR became available, treatments become available, vaccines become available...everything should have been ramping down. Instead, you had things like NYC officials insisting that someone who drives a delivery van and never comes within 10 feet of another person needs to be vaccinated to do their job (even though they had been forced to do that same job throughout the most uncertain times of the pandemic with zero protection anyway). Or you have people looking at the Shanghai lock downs now and wishing they could do that here.
Some of my organizer friends who go back to the Seattle protests in the late 90’s are firmly convinced that black-bloc groups have always been infiltrated/facilitated by US government agents provocateur.
“While you might initially think anarchists might be a bit more about personal freedom and bodily autonomy than the rest in America, it’s actually quite the opposite.”
No, I would not have thought anything else initially about American self-proclaimed “anarchists”. I don’t think they really know what the word means. They just like to wear black, break things, and harass people. They really love the idea of using force to coerce people into doing what they want. Which is the polar opposite of anarchy.
The “anarchist” label is just like a sports team mascot. It’s a brand. They are no more actual anarchists than the players on the Chicago Bulls are actual bulls.
Thanks for the comments on sexuality in Europe. I think that your misgivings relate to your arguments in past posts about how U.S. categories regarding race colonize Europe.
Americans are remarkably quick to categorize people racially--think of all of those earnest posts on Facebook about the brownness of Jesus. (That same sympathy for brownness seldom extends to genuine sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause.)
It is done visually. Yikes.
Just as U.S. racial categories, besides being inaccurate and toxic, don't fit Europe, U.S. sexual categories, which are often deeply puritanical, don't fit Europe.
In the Mediterranean basin, the idea of "transgender" doesn't apply so much as the ancient category of hermaphrodism (a union) does. The concept of "trans"-anything fits U.S. ideas of redemption and journeys. But in the Mediterranean world, one has an archetype of two of the most popular gods, joined. (See Two-Spirits as a metaphor.)
Queerness (and queer is a word that is never going to lose its sting no matter how many academic conferences use it) and nonbinary as a description of one's sexual persona (to use a term from the dreaded Camille Paglia, whom you should read), are U.S. categories. And puritanical.
And nonstarters? They lack that certain je ne sais quoi that leads to sensuality.
As a disciple of Colette, who is sometimes described as "queer," I can only assue you that you should read her. And it will become evident right away that the category "queerness" doesn't apply to her. She had bigger ideas of sentimental education.
As one of those Left public intellectuals smeared as a Trumpist, conspiracy theorist, fascist, white supremecist, and anti-Semite, and disappeared from the left sites that used to publish me, as a result of my Covid dissent and criticism of big pharma and big tech, the surveillance state and medical totalitarianism, etc., I very much appreciate this article. Left is no longer left. Those who call themselves that are, to a large degree, merely an identity grouping rallying under the Woke banner.
Rhyd, thanks for featuring the Permanent Pandemic essay and what it highlights. From a British perspective, it is a relief to see this kind of critique finally reaching the mainstream - I'm one of those who's watched with growing horror as the Left - my 'tribe' all my adult life - inverted or dumped its core values, apparently almost overnight. This includes close friends, members of my former community (I left the country), all the institutions I counted on, and the Labour movement/party who have consistently called for harsher, longer measures. The very long lockdowns in Britain were tolerated and welcomed by those in a certain social class who didn't seem to be able or willing to think outside their own interests while passing them off as for the common good. I still haven't come to terms with all this, although I AM clear that I'm no longer part of that group and can only really describe the different values I uphold as 'human'. Not sure where we go from here, but somehow, somehow, the task ahead involves reminding our formerly liberal societies of the basics of human flourishing.
Great article and great links too, Paul Mason is a real piece of work. He had a boner for years over the Arab Spring as the phrase goes, the core subject of his silly little book Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere. He relates there, for instance, with feigned surprise how a "protestor" he ran into in London mere days previously turned up again in Cairo. Small world huh.
I have also noticed the rebranding of transvestites and drag queens as transgender--to the point that using the older, and IMO, more nuanced terminology is treated as hate speech by some. My ex-husband was a client of the Stanford Sex reassignment project in the 1970s so I was madly reading everything on the topic and hanging out with some of the other clients and so forth. At that time transvestitism was labeled a fetish if the person derived sexual excitement from the practice and it could range from wearing undergarments of the other sex under one's ordinary clothing to fully dressing and going out in public with the intent of "passing." Many, maybe most, transvestites of this type were heterosexual men. Drag OTH was a performance--sometimes but not always professional--no one really expected a 6'2" drag queen in 4-inch heels, wig and 6 o'clock shadow showing through by the end of the night to be taken for a RG (real girl). The transsexual clients at Stanford, on the other hand, were given lessons in grooming, dressing, speaking and moving in a ladylike fashion so that they would be accepted as women during their transition. That was the reality and vocabulary of the time and trying to revise history to match today's different understanding is insulting to the lived reality. This change in definitions and vocabulary also ties into the concerns of older lesbians that today's "baby butches" and tomboys are being convinced by social media and Wokeness that they are really transmen.
On the COVID front, are you aware that John Michael Greer has an ongoing series of COVID forums on his dreamwidth Ecosophia blog? He opens the topic about once a week. Many people asking questions, giving personal tales of vaccine reactions, and alternative treatments. Readership is international so complaints about Canada, Australia and other nation's governments as well as US.
As a herbalist I got to watch my community get completely broken by this. All off a sudden the ancient and honored practice of healing, based on the foundation of meeting an individual exactly where they were at in regards to their well being was replaced by a new directive and the commensurate public shaming. Unless you promoted blanket vaccination and mask wearing you were inherently insane and obviously one of the “non scientific” ie bat shit crazy woo woo herbalists who bring the whole profession down. In a community that recognized expertise in the field by peer review of practice over educational qualifications, in a community where the most thorough scientific minds still confessed to plant communication, this was devastating. And not surprising. Stephan h Bruner had just gotten cancelled (as well as a public face book burning of his books, by a board member of the American herbalist guild, one of those classic I’m so liberal I’m a fascist moves that is a trade mark of woke politics), ironically for warning us all of woke politics.
It was devastating as up until then we had been navigating Covid in a very open source and close manner, sharing freely what herbal protocols were effective and why and how. Very effective and with a true experience of camaraderie. Then along with public policy came the thought police and It became decisive with one side extremely vocal and the other side shut down and underground. Essentially anyone who thought that constitution and context might be considered when trying to advise a client around their Covid health choices disappeared.
Personally I don’t think that people factor in the amount of hidden money is in play here. The transgender phenomenon has a massive amount of mainstream financing making sure that folks are steered to a lifelong medical subscription.
Preying on the consumer has become very formatted and an easy pattern to spot
In hindsight, how badly everything was bungled is astounding. China went from pretending it didn't exist to complete lock down. Government officials spoke authoritatively in the US: no need to mask, fomites are the mechanism of transmission! No, wait, everyone mask, but only use cloth masks! You could go on and on. Of course, all of those authoritative pronouncements were made with scant evidence.
Public health professionals should have been forthcoming: this could be bad, but we just don't know what this is going to look like long-term. We think everyone should behave with an abundance of caution, here are conservative recommendations. And as additional data points on CFR & IFR became available, treatments become available, vaccines become available...everything should have been ramping down. Instead, you had things like NYC officials insisting that someone who drives a delivery van and never comes within 10 feet of another person needs to be vaccinated to do their job (even though they had been forced to do that same job throughout the most uncertain times of the pandemic with zero protection anyway). Or you have people looking at the Shanghai lock downs now and wishing they could do that here.
Some of my organizer friends who go back to the Seattle protests in the late 90’s are firmly convinced that black-bloc groups have always been infiltrated/facilitated by US government agents provocateur.