Category: Signal and Noise

“Hate” is a Crutch

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I am confident that people who know me in real life will tell you that, while I exhibit at least the usual complement of flaws, odd quirks, and irritating peccadilloes, being hateful is not numbered among them. That’s probably because I’ve been fortunate, and can’t think of anyone who has seriously wronged me or wronged someone I love. Hate simply isn’t an emotion I experience, and the word is not one I use.

I would like to believe that this is true of most people — that they don’t really feel hate much, if at all — and that the word is simply too casually used.

Certainly it is overused. It has become a convenience for some to label a difference of opinion as an expression of hate. This hurts everyone, simultaneously undermining the language, denigrating the person or group so labeled, and forestalling any possibility of discussion and understanding.

We can disagree about even important matters without hate being a factor. We can favor open borders or controlled borders, high minimum wages or no minimum wages, legal same-sex marriage or only traditional marriage, socialism or free markets, free abortion or no abortion — any of these extremes or anything in-between. We can vote Democrat or Republican, have Bernie stickers on our cars or wear Make America Great Again hats, embrace a rainbow of sexual promiscuity or prudishly advocate abstinence, fully accept the apocalyptic claims of the global warming alarmists or be skeptical of their science or the policies they advocate, be an enthusiastic supporter of the trans movement or think it’s a bunch of faddish nonsense, oppose the private ownership of guns or be a pro-gun fanatic in favor of no regulation at all.

None of these positions requires that someone be hateful, and it’s small-minded, presumptuous, and rude behavior to ascribe hate to someone simply because he or she disagrees with your position on these issues — or, indeed, on the vast majority of issues.

I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t hate: how much of your life you want to devote to hating is your business, not mine. I’m saying you shouldn’t accuse other people of hating based on something as superficial as their opinions on topics about which you happen to think differently.

By far, most of the claims of “hate” I hear and read suggest more to me about the person making the claim than about the ostensibly hateful object of the accusation. I think it most often reveals that the accuser is shallow, lacks self-awareness and empathy, is uncharitable, and/or cynically uses the ugly label to silence people whose arguments he or she is unwilling or unable to engage.

Too readily smearing others as “haters” seems itself almost… well, it certainly isn’t an act of love.

Let’s Talk About [Trans] Sex

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Male and Female

Humans are mammals and, like all mammals, propagate the species through a process known as sexual reproduction. Each human is of one of two sexes, male or female, and the sex of any given human is readily and unambiguously identifiable at birth based on obvious anatomical distinctions.

[I’ll say this once and then not mention it again: this is a discussion of normal humans. Just as one can say that humans are born with two arms and two legs, one can say that humans are born as one or the other of two sexes. A small number of humans are born without the normal number of arms or legs, and a small number are anatomically ambiguous as regards sex. But normal humans, and that’s the vast majority of humans, are as described.]

There are distinctive physiological characteristics associated with male and female humans. Males tend to be larger and stronger than females; only females can give birth to offspring; males tend to be more aggressive than females. These are traits that humans have in common with many other mammals, and derive from biology, from the effects of various hormones on the male and female bodies during development.

Males and females play distinctly different roles in reproduction. In particular, the physiological investments made by males and females is quite different: for males, reproduction has essentially no cost associated with it; for females, reproduction is costly both in terms of time and physical investment. It follows that the mating strategies of males and females will likely differ: because reproduction for them is inexpensive, males will seek to reproduce as often as practical and with a wide variety of females; females, for whom reproduction is costly, will of necessity reproduce less frequently, and will tend to be more selective in their choice of mates. This will inevitably lead to different and characteristic behavioral patterns for the sexes.

Beyond those characteristics attributable to physiology and evolutionary pressure, there are additional sexual traits that may be essentially random, not readily explained by biology. These so-called cultural distinctions may, unlike differences rooted in biology, vary from culture to culture and change over time.

There is a constellation of traits which we associate with sex. Those which we associate primarily with males are referred to as masculine traits; those associated primarily with females are referred to as feminine traits. While the sex of any given person is either male or female, the degree to which the person exhibits qualities considered masculine or feminine may vary quite a lot.

A male who exhibits qualities normally associated with femininity is still a male: no matter how feminine he may seem, he does not ovulate, and he can not give birth. Similarly, a female, no matter how masculine, remains a female: she does not produce sperm and can not fertilize an egg.

Gender Diversity and Trans Movements

Gender diversity is the idea that there are more than two sexual states for humans. Gender diversity attempts to assert a quasi-sexual dimension, “gender,” independent of, and not constrained by, biological reality. Humans are male or female, distinctions rooted in biology: other so-called genders are expressions of whim, fantasy, confusion, or sincere but mistaken belief in non-existent human variety.

The trans movement asserts that humans can change their sex, either through pure volition (whim), or as a result of drugs and surgery. In fact, people can alter, to some extent, the degree to which they express typical masculine and feminine traits, but they can not change their sex: males remain males; females remain females.

Identity Versus Quality

Both the gender diversity movement and the trans movement are sexual identity movements. That is, both are founded on the assertion that one can claim a sexual identity, and that making the claim is itself sufficient to assume the identity — and, importantly, that no challenge to the legitimacy of the claim is possible. In that sense, such claims are metaphysical, untestable, divorced from biological reality, divorced from qualities of masculinity and femininity.

It is important for these movements that they make claims of identity, and not of qualities. Claims of masculine and feminine qualities can be evaluated objectively. Claims of identity are essentially legal or political claims which, if left unchallenged, grant individuals status which their inherent qualities might preclude.

To pick a topical example: a man who declares himself to be a woman, and who is then given the same status as a woman and so allowed to compete against women in athletic events, will have an enormous advantage, because he possesses essential masculine qualities of bone size and density, connective tissue, muscular development, etc.

False claims of sexual identity — men claiming to be women, women claiming to be men, anyone claiming to be neither man nor woman — should be rejected. If we wish to accommodate claims of special status based on measurable physical traits, on objective qualities of masculinity and femininity, that is a different issue. But false claims of sexual identity are a way of assuming a status predicated on sexual qualities while precluding any evaluation of those qualities. This will inevitably lead to problems, including the kind of athletic cheating currently in the news, and to needless confusion and ambiguity.

Marching and Talking, Actions and Words

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My friend Susan Quinn wrote a post recently suggesting a Men’s and Women’s March as a way of re-acknowledging the differences between men and women and re-asserting support for a more traditional understanding of our respective roles. I commented on it, and rained on her parade more than I probably should have, since there’s absolutely nothing wrong with showing support for traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity — shoot, that’s a pet topic of mine. I let my general lack of enthusiasm for public events, and my suspicion that the press would be able to spin such an event in a way that makes it counter-productive, color my comments, and perhaps too much.

There’s room for all kinds of action, all kinds of ways of reaching people with a message. I’m a cantankerous old crank who doesn’t like joining things, but if this inspires you, by all means pursue it. We need everyone contributing in the way he or she feels is best. Go out, make a joyful noise, and spread the word. It’s a worthy cause, and I wish you well.

But that conversation got me thinking about the cultural clash between right and left, conservative and radical, and about the most productive way to meet our cultural opposition in the battle for ideas. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, that the left avoids debate and the discussion of ideas whenever possible. The left is most often about theater, about waving a sign and coining a slogan and drowning out the conversation.

The left thrives in environments where ideas flow in one direction: universities, the press, television, entertainment, protests and mass events. That makes sense: a lot of the left’s ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny and won’t survive a thoughtful challenge; many of their proponents barely understand their own ideas and can’t defend them. Cold facts and figures are not as important as feelings — and in particular as the strong feelings of anger, resentment, outrage, and fear.

Rallies are good for building moral, and sometimes they actually educate people. I was involved in the TEA Party movement in its early days, and I thought the rallies were uplifting and productive. The March for Life is a beautiful and inspirational event, and I applaud the many thousands who take part.

But I think we should focus our greatest attention on confronting the left in the realm of ideas. They own the protest space; they enjoy clashes and confrontation and the noise that silences their critics. That’s what they do best — indeed, it’s all they do well. They excel at loud and meaningless action, and the appearance of righteousness they think it gives them.

We own the battlefield of ideas, where substance matters more than slogans. Most of us step on to the battlefield every single day, and have opportunities to speak up — calmly, thoughtfully, politely — and present a new perspective, perhaps change a mind. We’re all competing for the same minds. We have the advantage that we can actually engage those minds in thoughtful conversation, and impress them with our reasonableness. We should press that advantage at every opportunity.

Fractal Pointillism and Random Thoughts

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More than half a century ago Andy Warhol posited that in the future we’d each get our fifteen minutes of fame. Andy never anticipated Moore’s law and the relentless increasing density of electronic circuitry, and so couldn’t imagine a future in which the sum of codified human knowledge and experience could circle the globe during that fifteen minutes. (Incidentally, Moore’s law predates Warhol’s dictum by a few years.)

More to the point, Andy never anticipated Twitter, social media, and the relentless shortening of attention and cheapening of discourse.

We’ve all seen pointillism, those pictures made of tiny dots that, up close, resemble nothing, but that are clear and vivid from a distance. We live in a pointillistic information space now, except that every dot is its own little microcosm of absorbing detail: fractal pointillism. We can obsess about one dot until the next catches our eye and we jump to that; we need never step back and look at the broader picture.

I think it leads to foolishness, to the very definition of foolishness, the combination of confidence and ignorance. We know so much about such little things, as our need for novelty and mental stimulation is met by ever more trivial events and people.

Stepping back, I wonder if we are at two inflection points.

I don’t have data, merely an impression, but it does feel like criticism of President Trump has changed in character over the past few months. It no longer seems that stories of chaos in the White House and his fundamental instability and incompetence dominate the criticism. Increasingly, criticism of this President feels like criticism of other Republican Presidents, which from the left takes the form of hyperbole and anger and accusations of reactionary excess. I admit that I don’t watch the news and so don’t know what his most strident foes are saying, but we all swim in the pop-cultural sea and it’s hard not to absorb some of it. Anyway, if Trump is becoming more of a mainstream Republican President in the eyes of his opponents on the left, that’s probably a good thing.

The other item is the press. I think it has finally lost the benefit of the doubt, and will find its influence diminished in the post-Trump political world. The willingness of previously respectable institutions to surrender any pretense of objectivity, however false and shallow it was, and become transparent organs of the Democratic Party will not be forgotten and, I suspect, can not easily be reversed — not when you consider the influence the new, ready to be triggered young employees have on every institution that makes the mistake of hiring them.

I think Trump is getting more normal and the press is getting more marginal. These things are probably not unrelated.

Party of the Falling Sky

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A crisis may be a terrible thing to waste, but the unfortunate truth — unfortunate, that is, for those in need of a crisis — is that crises aren’t all that common. Sure, each individual life has its complexity and challenges, its microcosmic crises. But the nation as a whole chugs along pretty well, with people and businesses managing to adapt to changing circumstances, and most of us getting along without major conflict.

That’s not a convenient truth if you want to galvanize the masses, to drag them out into the street and into the polling places, where they can vent their righteous fury by electing your candidate. For that, you really do need a crisis, something that will make their blood boil.

The law no longer distinguishes between black and white. A few institutions, notably our universities, give special preferences to non-white non-Asian people, but those are the exceptions: in America, skin color does not matter, as a matter of law. We’ve had a black President, any number of high-ranking black officials, black Senators and Congressmen, and a plethora of black stars, sports figures, entrepreneurs, writers, journalists, etc., etc. Non-white people are everywhere in our society and our government: by any reasonable measure, ours is a color-blind nation.

That’s good, and as it should be — unless, that is, the goal is to harness the outrage of offended minorities to achieve electoral success. If that is the goal, reality isn’t your friend: best to gin up some racial animosity, and try to paint a plausible picture of widespread oppression. It turns out that isn’t as hard as one might think, if a lazy and compliant press, and a lazy and unaccountable academia, give their full support to the effort. With their help, a demonstrably inclusive and tolerant country, a nation that self-consciously avoids even the appearance of discrimination, will embrace the fiction that racism remains a daily scourge. And that is all it takes to guarantee the turnout on election day.

Or consider the matter of what is euphemistically referred to as “women’s reproductive health,” because no one really likes the word “abortion.” In America, abortion is legal everywhere thanks to a Supreme Court ruling. Absent that ruling, it would still be legal almost everywhere: few states would ban it outright, and some would — as New York recently demonstrated — go out of their way to embrace its legality. Where you think America stands on the issue depends almost entirely on which questions you ask and how you phrase them. Most Americans, I think, are in favor of some degree of legal abortion; most Americans are opposed to unchecked abortion into the third trimester.

But you wouldn’t know that from the way the issue is talked about in the mainstream press and late night television. From that, you’d think that there was a crisis looming, that women were about to be returned to the dark ages when abortion was illegal and women were property. Even absent Roe v. Wade, there is no reason to believe that a woman could not legally terminate a pregnancy if she wished. But in lieu of a thoughtful discussion of the pros and cons of terminating pregnancies at various stages of gestation, we get the spectacle of women in “handmaid” outfits warning us that a crushing theocracy is right around the corner. Selling that fiction, and the resentment and panic it inspires, is good for business — if your business is getting people to vote for your party.

And then there’s the matter of freedom of speech. Our Constitution guarantees everyone the right to speak and write freely, and it’s a right we should guard jealously. One would think, if one listened only to the preening, grandstanding pomposities of the mainstream media, that this freedom was created specifically for those in the journalistic field, and that it was in dire threat of being extinguished by those in power. Neither is true: the freedom to express oneself is everyone’s right, no more guaranteed to journalists than to you and me; and Americans have never been more free to express themselves, nor more capable of doing so, than we are right now.

Freedom of expression is not under assault, even if our mainstream media demonstrates on a daily basis how incompetent, dishonest, and biased it is. Even awful press is protected, and so they have nothing to fear. Criticism, legitimate and otherwise, is not restriction; no one has reduced the freedom of our news agencies to misreport and distort the news. (We haven’t even restricted the freedom of our major social media and search platforms to filter and suppress content that doesn’t agree with their own biases.)

But a non-crisis doesn’t rouse the mob, so let’s pretend that the First Amendment is as much under assault as, say, the Second. Let’s pretend that the endless stream of late night comedy routines that dutifully mock the administration are an exhibition of bravery in the face of near-certain censure — rather than lazy and unimaginative exercises in preaching to the choir. Let’s pretend that, absent any evidence and despite considerable evidence to the contrary, our most precious freedom is precariously balanced on the edge of an electoral knife, and only a vote for the right party can save it. And let’s see if voters are dumb thoughtless enough to ignore the fact that every single comic they hear is telling them the same things — and none of them have been silenced by the powers that be.

Race, abortion, free speech. There are no crises. But convincing people that these things are in danger is necessary to a party that uses fear and grievance to maintain its hold on a gullible electorate.

The sky isn’t falling. I would think it’s a sad, desperate way to live, believing that it is.

[At Least] Two Americas

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In one America, people are online and informed. Whether they’re well and accurately informed is another matter entirely: journalistic standards appear to be all but nonexistent, and social media and the internet in general are a swirling maelstrom of confirmation bias and venomous hostility. Left-wing opinion writers masquerade as dispassionate reporters; radicals dominate our universities; and activists of every stripe parade across the country’s stage with their claims of increasingly implausible grievances.

In this America, the anger and the outrage and the offense are ubiquitous, inescapable: no claim is too outlandish, no evidence too inadequate, to render it unworthy of reporting — if the right (i.e., right) ox is gored. This is an angry, divided America.

The other America is substantially larger, and substantially less informed about the offense du jour. Sure, that America knows the President is a monster: that truth is in the air and water by now, along with the certain knowledge that he is a Russian… something… bent on repealing the First Amendment. Everyone knows, thanks to media saturation and pop-cultural osmosis, that these things must be true. But, honestly, it’s such a bore, the way some people go on endlessly about it, the way it creeps into their Facebook feeds and dominates late-night television.

This America knows it’s divided. How can it not — it hears it every day. People in this America figure, sensibly enough, that somewhere out there a civil war must be raging. It isn’t here, not where they live. Where they live, everyone seems to get along pretty well: there are no masked antifa freedom-fighters breaking shop windows, no loudmouth activists shouting down dangerously conservative speakers, no riots of any sort. People just go on living, earning and spending money, changing jobs (which is a lot easier than it used to be, by the way), raising their kids, and watching blockbuster super-hero movies.

The country is in a civil war, this America is told. Hard to believe, its people think — but they made the mistake of popping onto Twitter once, so they know the mayhem and bloodshed is real.

On the other hand, they think, Friends is on Netflix, and — peaking out the front window into the empty streets — things seem peaceful enough. And the kids are upstairs sleeping…. Maybe, it sometimes occurs to people in this America, they aren’t the crazy ones.

Signal and Noise: The Border Wall

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The English language is a wonderfully powerful and expressive tool — if it’s used competently and honestly.

So let’s see if we can talk competently and honestly about the border wall.

As I write this, the government is partially shut down. The point of contention is the so-called border wall: specifically, the President and the Democrats are at loggerheads over funding for any portion of a wall. The President insists that he will not sign a spending bill that does not include at least some funding for a wall — the precise amount changes — while the Democrats (who control the House where funding bills must originate) are adamant that no funding will be forthcoming.

Do we need a border wall? No. We can manage border security through a variety of means; a physical barrier is merely one component, and arguably an optional one, of our border security infrastructure.

Can we afford a border wall? Of course. That is, to the extent that our profligate government can afford anything, it can afford the tiny fraction of a single percent of the government’s annual expenditures that the President has requested.

Would it be illegal, immoral, cruel, or otherwise monstrous to build a border wall? No. People use walls and fences all the time to secure areas from illegal and unwanted entry. In fact, the argument can easily be made that a border wall would be a particularly humane way of discouraging illegal immigration, in that it would reduce armed encounters between border enforcement and illegal immigrants, and discourage vulnerable people from setting off across inhospitable land in the company of vicious and exploitative “guides.”

Would it be ineffective at controlling illegal entry? Well, it wouldn’t be sufficient, in and of itself, but it would certainly make the process of entering the country illegally more difficult, make securing the border easier and safer, and communicate to would-be immigrants our resolve to police our border and discourage illegal entry. Whether it is the most cost-effective way of doing those things is debatable, but it seems clear that it would have those effects.

Is a border wall an expression of racism? That’s a challenging allegation to defend: I know it is false in my case — I want to stop all illegal immigration, regardless of race — but it’s probably true for some small number of proponents. But pretty much everything, we are told, is an expression of racism. We have to raise the standards, demand more evidence, if we’re going to entertain that idea. I see little evidence that America is a racist nation, and considerable evidence to the contrary.

So why not build a border wall? What is the thoughtful, serious, honest argument against it?

I think there are two reasons. First, there is a vocal, active minority on the left that is offended by the idea that America has a right, never mind an obligation, to regulate the influx of foreigners onto our soil. I think this minority is sufficiently outspoken and politically active as to command the loyalty of Democratic lawmakers. I think those lawmakers therefore believe that they can not be seen as having compromised, in any way, with those who oppose unfettered immigration.

Secondly, I think the matter of a border wall has become, understandably, identified with the current President, and there is substantial pressure on the left (and in some corners of the ersatz right) against allowing any administration victories in what is a signature issue.

In summary, I think the right wants a border wall for the reason the left does not: because it says something about America and America’s right and duty to defend what our country represents against the unchecked influx of alien ideas and customs. The right wants a symbol that we take that right and duty seriously. The left wants no such symbol, because it denies us that right and rejects that duty.