From Melanie Phillips:
The knee-jerk bullying, victim-group sectarianism and repudiation of reason itself over transgenderism defy belief. The Times (£) reports that a lesbian Labour party women’s officer was allegedly subjected to months of harassment as a “Terf” — a derogatory term for “trans exclusionary radical feminist” – because she took issue with aspects of transgenderism.
Intimidation by transgender activists, in the laughable cause of promoting greater tolerance and inclusivity, has suddenly become the new norm. Examples – such as the Christian maths teacher who was suspended for addressing as a girl a female pupil who identifies as a boy – are coming thick and fast.
As has been noted elswhere, however, the really extraordinary aspect of all this is the way in which the establishment – Conservative government ministers, schools, universities, the Church of England – are meekly falling into line with the hallucinatory requirement, enforced by coercion, character assassination and social ostracism against anyone who dares resist, that we deny the fact that we belong to the sex into which we were born.
The reason for this existential collapse is that the relativist west has so heavily bought into the belief that reality is merely what we decide it to be. Ours has become a culture of radical subjectivity in which there is no such thing as objective truth. Everything is instead a matter of opinion and individual perception.
Feelings trump facts every time. No-one’s lifestyle is to be considered wrong or inferior to anyone else’s. No judgment is to be permitted, except for the judgment that judgmentalism is wrong. What is right for me is what is right. What I declare something to be is what it is. I feel, therefore I am.
"Everything is instead a matter of opinion and individual perception."
ReplyDeleteTrue but incomplete: certain opinions are permissible and therefore elevated beyond the level of truth. Contrary opinions are not only wrong but criminal.
Yes. That's an important point.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeletecertain opinions are permissible and therefore elevated beyond the level of truth. Contrary opinions are not only wrong but criminal.
Wish that I'd typed that in! So true.