DQSH

The other day, I learnt that Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) has come to my city. It is a capitol city, but a modest one.

Aside from the overt, in-your-face spectacle of a male drag-queen dressed as a female caricature reading stories often about drag queens or LGBT issues to very young children in a public library, there is also the churning cognitive dissonance.

For some reason we are expected to believe: a) that we live in an over-sexualised culture, and b) that there is nothing sexual about Drag Queen Story Hour.

We are told: DQSH is innocent. It is performative art. It is no different than having clowns.

The natural response is: OK, so why not have clowns?

The reply is: because children are encouraged to have positive queer role-models in their lives.

So, this isn't like clowns, at all. Clowns are merely for entertainment, not role-modelling; and certainly not for the formation of personal identity (sexual, gender or otherwise). Additionally, if there is any sexuality, at all, involved in these events, those who promote should be forced to reckon with that and choke on any defense they utter.

Such defenses of DQSH result in cognitive dissonance and often there is ad homimem that falls upon those who criticise it. When opponents point out the obvious sexualised nature of these events, they are told that there is nothing sexual about it, and that, in fact, it is the opponent of DQSH who is sexualising DQSH. None of these are healthy reactions, and both are the consequence of a desperate attempt to maintain ideological stability.

There is the visceral concern people have towards child sexual abuse - and there have been some cases of known and convicted abusers finding their way into DQSH events. These pose practical issues that have to be brought to the forefront of any DQSH proposal.

There is also another concern, and perhaps one that is more amenable to DQSH's supporters: by celebrating queerness/transgenderism/non-binary as valid gender/sexual identities, libraries, schools and the parents involved are promoting a body/mind disconnect which may very well bring about the dysphoric states that they should be trying to prevent.

Gaslighting and Cultural Dysphoria

In early February, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) posted the video ad, below:

It asks at the outset: 'What it Truly Scandinavian?' The answer: 'Absolutely nothing'. 

What follows is a montage of stereotypically Scandinavian-looking people being told by a disembodied woman's voice as well as various people of colour that numerous stereotypical Scandinavian things aren't 'Scandinavian' at all. From Swedish meatballs and windmills, to bicycles and democracy: none of these are 'truly Scandinavian', but what is are the people from around the world who immigrate to Scandinavia.

There is a lot more than could be said about this video as it is chock-full of all sorts of interesting choices that betray its purpose, but that is another set of issues.

What is interesting is the logic of this message.

To my mind, it is asking the viewer to hold two conflicting notions in your mind at the same time.

1) The things that come to Scandinavia from other countries are not Scandinavian, but also:

2) The people who come to Scandinavia from other countries are Scandinavian.

In fact, there is a bit more to (2): not only are those who come to Scandinavia from other countries just as Scandinavian as native-born Scandinavians, these foreigners, in fact, are what make Scandinavia 'Scandinavian'. As the video states, 'In a way, Scandinavia was brought 'here''. 

I smell a double-standard, perhaps a provocation, and such things introduce all sorts of problems. 

What are we to say about India or Nigeria, Morocco or Turkey? They were colonised (several times in some cases), and have been stamped with that past. 

How does this standard work for left-wing causes? For instance, what claim do the indigenous peoples of North America have to their traditional lands and lifeways under this rubric? What right to they have to conserve their identity and traditions? They're just behind the times, and need to get with the program. Finally: is any country truly itself?

No. This is only meant to be applied uni-directionally: towards Western nations. 

This isn't even the first video of this kind this year: just after the UK withdrew from the EU via the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the BBC had a video in its children's TV series, 'Horrible Histories', that argued that 'British Things' aren't really British. It used the same logic as the SAS ad. 

What is the purpose of such videos? 

I suppose one is supposed to take solace in the ad’s message: we are all one human family that has exchanged artifacts and practices that, indeed, demonstrate our interconnected and shared humanity. 

But is one really to buy into this when, in fact, one’s own heritage is being diminished? I see this ad as an example of gas-lighting: its a psychological manipulation that is meant to sow the seeds of doubt in a targeted group, making its members question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes such as low self-esteem. (We even see evidence of this in some of the portrayals of folks in the ad.)

What the message really is, is that there is no national identity outside of the country’s immigration policy. Nothing to separate one from an other, and no conflicts outside of the competitive networks of brand loyalties. 

I think that we should reject this wholeheartedly. National identity and its meaning shouldn't be left, or even given to the dictates and whims of capital or government. It is retained via old and inherited sentiments of belonging and tradition, and cultivated through consideration and practice with others who share in it. It is not imported, bought, or signed into existence on a piece of paper. It is isn't universal or borderless. There are particularities, there are sides. It is personal, rooted, and deeply normative.

We are attached to particular things because we need to belong to something… We can’t belong to something abstract. We do not keep the cathedrals just because they’re beautiful, but also because they are part of our past. We want the past to be present among us. We don’t want to be cut off from it. We rejoice in our contact with the culture of our past.  We value our particular past in the respectful way that we value any past culture, but [also] in a more personal way. We want to be part of [the] 'partnership…between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born'. (G.A Cohen, A Truth in conservatism: Rescuing conservatism from the Conservatives)

We ought to celebrate and cultivate our national identities, and repudiate the frauds. 

Virginia Gun Rally, Elite Narratives, and Framing

Despite some media itching for violence, the Virginia Gun Rally has finished without incident. 

Antifa groups apparently chose not to show up, and perhaps this shows that Antifa is an integral ingredient in the violence we see in street protests. 

It was good to see that there wasn't any violence at the protest - despite there being roughly 22,000 people present, with many being armed. All it could have taken was one idiot, and the whole thing could have been a bloody, self-defeating disaster. But there wasn't. Not one.

Whereas some on the alt-right/white nationalists will get punished and/or arrested for edgy memes and banter or even downright offensive speech (which is still Constitutionally protected), Antifa can engage in doxxing, harassment campaigns, and unprovoked physical violence against innocent, though perhaps disagreeable, bystanders and counter-protesters.

Although the alt-right/white nationalists are deemed to be extremists who are prone to violence and threats, I can't think of an instance where the presence of Antifa hasn't led to violence, let alone increased the likelihood of violence; and though it often takes two to tango and those who tussle with them are responsible for doing so, Antifa is an agitating force that seemingly operates with little consequence.

I wonder if the non-violent conclusion to this pro-Second Amendment Rally, coupled with the lack of Antifa will get people thinking about Antifa's role and responsibility in fomenting agitation and aggression. 

That said, there are other things to be gleaned from this protest: the pitiful obeisance some interviewees showed to the media was on full display. We were treated to clips of individuals desperately trying to convince the interviewer that the rally wasn't racist; that gun rights are gay rights; and that minorities need guns too in order to protect themselves from oppression. 

Here's the thing folks: there is nothing you can say that will make your enemies NOT think it is racist or homophobic or transphobic or bigoted in someway, and so flying your LGBT Gadsden Flag looks desperate. No one will believe you when you say 'Gun Rights are Trans Rights' - they'd be more likely to think that your trying to pull a fast one on them by smuggling in your bigotry under the guise of tolerance. 

The media doesn't call you 'racist' because they think you are racist, even if they do. They call you racist so the debate becomes about racism instead of whatever cause you are working for. It deflects from the issue at hand and forces you to spend the time to wipe off the filth that has been smeared on you. 

This is something that is a bit different from my standard view of things. Typically, I think it is flawed to view politics as one team versus another, and that a win for your team is a zero-sum game for your opponent. Winning isn't necessarily about your team coming out on top: winning is about getting your ideas to prevail. So, when we see LGBT folks and Blacks and Latinos protesting in favour of the Second Amendment, that looks like pro-Second Amendment ideas spreading into communities that help form the Progressive Coalition (which is pretty much anyone who isn't a straight white male). 

Those folks can certainly join the protest, and their presence does trip up the standard narrative being woven by the media. However, one has to be wary of how elite narratives of white supremacy, racism, homophobia, and the like can be used to re-frame an issue and hijack a movement of protest that has a very specific goal. 

In short, the media isn't the friend of those at those protests: no matter how many check-boxes on the Oppression Bingo chart they can knock off. Getting your ideas to prevail within the media won't work if you, as an enemy of the media, start to express ideas and attitudes that the media promotes. They make you look like you are caving to their narrative by buying into their premises, and falling for their framing.  

This rally was about an inalienable right to bear arms in the United States. Virginia was a test case to see how quickly that right can be eroded. Luckily the protest didn't give any ammo to those wishing to secure its demise - though perhaps they'll just plow through with it anyway.

When looking into the face of your enemy, and when faced with propping up elite narratives:

Just say 'no'. 

Divine Hiddenness & the Problem of Evil

When presented with the problem of evil – whether natural or moral – the theist can present several responses. One common response is the appeal to Divine Reasons. If atheist A says to believer B, ‘hey, if God is so good, then why is there so much evil in the world?’ B could reply, ‘well, God could have His reasons that us, as mere mortals, cannot fathom.’ This reply dates back to at least the Book of Job when Job reaps his whirlwind and God rebukes Job’s cries for a justification for his profound suffering. In that story God states, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ – thereby contrasting human ignorance and weakness to Divine wisdom and omnipotence.

So, the problem is this: we experience and witness seemingly unjustified evils. A traditional example is a faun being caught in a naturally occurring forest fire, getting horribly burned, suffering agonisingly for days only to die alone the woods (E1), or a 15-year old girl in Pakistan getting shot in the head just because she went to school (E2).

Now, E1 and E2 both seem unjustified if anything is and so either E1 and E2 i) count as evidence against the existence of God, or ii) they do not.

A committed theist wouldn't easily accept (i), and thus (ii) is more likely to be accepted.

If (ii) is accepted, then it's because either because a) they are not unjustified, or b) they are not evil.

Starting with (b) first: that is a fairly unbiteable bullet. There are numerous reasons why we try to prevent such things from occurring precisely because we think them evil. If one states that killing an innocent child is not evil, then one must provide a reason for it, which is precisely what the theist is supposed to do in this case.

For a), it is presumably because God would not allow an unjustified evil and so there must be a justifying reason for it. But what reason could there be for allowing E1, E2 …. En? We have searched and not found. In fact, with regards to natural evils (like earth quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and forest fires) we find that they are caused by the very mechanics of the world we live in. So, even if there is no Divine plan, the evils are an inevitable result of the workings of the world. 

Now, the belieber B can say, ‘hey, just because we haven’t found any does not mean that they don’t exist’. True, and this takes us to the issue of Divine Hiddenness. Perhaps God has reasons that we cannot detect or know, and to my mind, the real issue is that such undetectability would render our moral judgement completely moot.

For instance, on this position, I cannot conclude that the 2004 Indian Tsunami was evil because maybe God had reasons for allowing it. Ditto for the Holocaust or Rwandan genocide because God could have a reason that I cannot know for allowing it in the service of some greater good. Pick any evil thing and perhaps there is a reason out there that God has that we can never know about. This really is just stating (b): that these evils are not really evil. It also seems like special pleading because this is not how we act in our lives.

Weapons of the Woke

There has been a spate of robberies in Winnipeg Liquor Marts.  Winnipeg Police say there are 10-20 liquor store robberies per day.

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, the provincial purveyor and distributor of alcohol in Manitoba, said that despite efforts implemented in March to curb the crimes, the rate of thefts and robberies at liquor stores in Winnipeg is 'as high as it's ever been.'

People are obviously concerned. Theft and violence ought not be tolerated, and the increasing rate of the two has led to some serious discussions about public safety. This has also led some to accuse those of engaging in such discussion of.... yes. Bigotry.

Enter magazine called Canadian Dimension, 'the longest-standing voice of the left in Canada', with an article rife with tactical moral excoriation regarding the increase in liquor store robberies.

At the outset the reader is treated with a dire picture:

Winnipeg’s media outlets are salivating at the chance to create a moral panic over alleged liquor store thefts. Nearly non-stop headlines regale readers with seemingly horrific stories of brutal crimes: an old man has his hand slashed while trying to prevent a robbery, guns and pepper spray are wielded, and businesses face the 'darkest time in Winnipeg history.'

The situation is troublesome; escalating to a degree that has prompted people take photos and videos of thefts to be posted on social media. There have even been shoppers who have engaged in citizen's arrests: apprehending thieves through physical force until the police arrive.

Personally, I understand the motives of these citizens. I can see how they'd be pissed off at the idea that such belligerent and dangerous behaviour can be seen as the 'new normal' and wish to take matters into their own hands. It may not be the most prudent decision: after all, the thieves could be armed with knives or other weapons, and the risk of physical injury is real, but more often than not, the people who are engaging in the theft are half-in-the-bag themselves - as is evidenced by numerous videos.

The author of the article has a different take on the matter. According to him, 'camoed shoppers  [who] tackle suspects to the ground in a sort of bizarre and unprompted citizen’s arrests to protect bottles of liquor... [are] living out latent fantasies of racist conquest.'

To describe this as poor psychology and poor history would be an understatement. Painting these vigilantes as some illogical, quasi-militaristic, racist force whose goal is to protect liquor and carry on a resentful, vicious and 'unprompted' White Man's burden is altogether ridiculous and beneath contempt. Though, somehow, predictable.

You see, the thieves are Indigenous - not 100% of them, but enough are to warrant this racialised assessment by our author - and given this fact of the indigeneity of the culprits, the rubric for moral assessment gets all skewed since, as we're told by progressives, oppressed people cannot be held to the same standards as the rest of the moral community. To do so is to impose Western moral standards that overlook the centuries-long struggle of subaltern peoples in North America against white supremacist imperialism... or something.

Well, talk about projection. If camoed white men are persisting in racial conquest of bygone years, then what are the Indigenous thieves doing? Resisting white supremacy by engaging in low-scale, race-based class conflict? 'You steal our land, we steal your booze'? After all, violence of the under classes is often minimised or justified as responses to oppression and poverty.

What we require is a principled demarcation between acts of spontaneous defiance and political resistance, and we're not given one here. In fact, the author states that:

Staff will be best protected when these thefts are understood in the broader sociopolitical context of poverty, housing crises, and colonization, with responses geared to promoting empathy and reducing harms rather than escalating them with state violence. [italics added]

First off, no one is trying to protect the booze, per se. The employees cannot apprehend thieves for safety reasons, as well as legal ones, and thieves know this. Hence the targeting of these stores. I think that vigilantes are fed up with what they perceive as this 'new normal' and wish to intervene. This is theft, after all, and theft is a crime. As crime increases, the sense of public safety diminishes.

Secondly, what exactly does this author mean when he states that 'staff will be best protected when these thefts are understood in the broader sociopolitical context...'? Does this mean that staff would be better off if they were to interpret these thefts and robberies not as what they are - spontaneous acts of deviance - but as what this author wants them to be - permissible acts of political resistance?

I wonder what righteous cause these thieves have intended for the bottles of booze they steal once they get them to a safe place. Selling them on the black market, drinking them before going back for more, or perhaps sharing the spoils with family and friends? I don't know but I'm sure it will help the cause...

One point that stood out to me in this article was the argumentation presented in order to minimise the problem of theft.

We're treated to another gem:

What is completely ignored in all of this is basic facts. Journalists have sensationalized these robberies to the point of parody, systematically refusing to interview anyone with an evidence-based perspective on the situation. The public has been provided little information about whether the number of alleged robberies, totaling 10 to 20 per day according to the police, is particularly unusual for retail stores in general, or why it justifies the commitment of enormous financial resources to counter.

So what's 10-20 robberies? Is that really a problem or is it par for the course? C'mon guys. We need to put this into perspective. Not only do we need to keep things in perspective, we need to consider that lack of credible evidence for the cases, as well as the motivations for perpetuating inflated narratives.

OK. Let's see how they like this reasoning applied to some project they care about: campus sexual assault.

What is completely ignored in all of this is basic facts. Journalists have sensationalized these sexual assaults to the point of parody, systematically refusing to interview anyone with an evidence-based perspective on the situation. The public has been provided little information about whether the number of sexual assaults, totaling 1 in 5 women per year, according to the police, is particularly unusual for university campuses in general, or why it justifies the commitment of enormous financial resources to counter.

Doesn't sound too good. Does it?

There are obvious differences between the two examples, one being that the robberies are documented on camera, be the camera a liquor store CCTV camera feed or a cell phone video recording. A crucial issue regarding campus sexual assaults is ambiguity. It is often a 'he said, she said' scenario, or it is not reported, or it is reported much later after the event and often there is no evidence. Certainly there isn't video evidence.

There is also a similarity between the two: the concern is about safety. The problem with these thefts isn't that products are being stolen, it is the the very real threat to individual and public safety that they imply. In fact, there have been instances of pepper spray, and machetes, as well as guns or hammers, being wielded by would-be robbers.

Now, one can anticipate a response: 'most instances of theft/robbery, though threatening are not violent, and the likelihood of violence increases when bystanders try to intervene. Don't be a hero. Don't risk your life for a bottle of booze.'

This smacks of the charge of 'victim blaming' that we hear from people who decry the advice given to young women on college campuses: don't get drunk, stay with friends, do not accept drinks from strangers, don't go to a stranger's home/dorm room. In short, don't put yourself in a compromising or vulnerable position. This isn't bad advice, but it seems to be inconsistently applied.

The article also talks about entrenched racism towards Indigenous people and increased securitisation, as well as a need for increased harm reduction, education and ending austerity, but nowhere does it talk about the threat to safety that these thefts embody. 

This rhetoric is akin to the argumentation laid out against the recent implementation of security and screening at the Millennium Library in downtown Winnipeg. If you want to get in, you will be searched. This is seen as a discriminatory act that marginalises the already-marginalised members of the community, and subjects the vulnerable to dehumanising treatment.

I think it is a detriment to all who want to enter the library, but the need for safety is clear. We cannot have people shooting drugs and having sex in a public building where children read and play on the ground level floor. Are you advocates missing that point? What could the unintended consequences be? What cost are you willing to pay for the implementation of your recommendations for community outreach? What consequences are you willing to accept?

I think it necessary to extend an olive branch, though. The poor should not be demonised, or dehumanised, nor should they be romanticised. They certainly shouldn't be treated as though they are beyond moral evaluation which includes praise as well as condemnation. One should also be aware of the appropriateness of such evaluations and be aware of the self-congratulatory forms that exist on either end. 

That said, I understand what these advocates are saying. They have a position akin to the early post-9/11 arguments about how safety and security shouldn't trump individual liberty, and that we need to be a community and help each other without falling down the rabbit hole of endless suspicion, but I don't believe them. They are the same people who harp on about white supremacy, Nazism, racism, fascism, and the like. They foment discord, suspicion, and guilt. It is hard to tell if such people care about principles - they certainly don't apply them consistently. Their principles are situational: they'll wait to see the race and/or sex of those involved before they bestow judgement, and side with the member of the group deemed to be more inherently oppressed. Using their overly-educated verbiage to undermine peoples' common sense and concerns whilst twisting them to their own esoteric and abstract morality that is rooted in historical oppression, ressentiment, and utopianism. Such are the weapons of the woke. This breeds inconsistency, at best, and distrust, at worst.

In the article's final paragraph we're told: 

If journalists and politicians really care about dangers facing Winnipeggers, they would turn their attention to a lack of public housing, pedestrian deaths, and police violence itself. And if money is their primary concern, they could pay some mind to the province’s appalling low minimum wage, the fact a single family in Manitoba owns $6.6 billion in wealth, or the ever-increasing police budget that diverts funding away from public transit and community services. Until then, we can only conclude the media are consciously peddling in racist and classist fear mongering for clicks and votes.

Again we can see the big issues being found in the smaller contexts. The problem isn't theft: its poverty. The poverty comes from a lack of public housing, and wealth inequality. The pathologies expressed in belligerent acts of lower class deviance are but symptoms of larger structures that we, in some way, are responsible for.

In short, until the author's particular set of demands are met, in a way that he see fit, he'll continue to judge you to be racist and classist fear mongers. That is what this is about: demands. Not anything else.

Trudeau, 'Cancel Culture', and Speech

Professor of Philosophy a the University of Toronto, Mark Kingwell, has written an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. In it he focuses on the recent Justin Trudeau black-and-brown face scandals, as well as some instances of US comedians getting axed from their jobs for making crude, politically incorrect jokes.

Kingwell criticises the multiple instances wherein the young Trudeau rather extravagantly painted his face (and most of his body) black or brown in order to appear in costume as some person of colour or other. In the piece, Kingwell states that Trudeau's decisions were 'bad, perhaps despicable...'

Personally, I don't care about these scandals. To my mind, they were exercises of poor judgement, but they weren't 'insensitive' or 'racist' let alone 'despicable'. They were imprudent decisions made by a young man who lacked the maturity to see how his actions could be judged. But even that seems to go too far: how could a 29 year-old Trudeau possibly know that his over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall Aladdin costume would cause so much 'hurt' and strife a decade hence? There is a whiggishness to the moral condemnation Kingwell and others have thrown at Trudeau that isn't warranted.

I think Trudeau probably dressed to impress - to go above-and-beyond in a cartoonish fashion and upstage people around him. He did it for attention and to hog the spot light. Retrospectively, he is also a hypocrite, and that is his worst offense, in this case.

Kingwell then ties this to the issue of 'Cancel Culture' - the phenomenon of boycotting someone who expressed questionable, problematic, or unpopular opinions, or has behaved in a way that is perceived to be either offensive or problematic called out on social media is 'canceled'. This is often accompanied by public shaming across social media.

The first instance I recall of this phenomenon was in 2014 when a twenty-three-year-old Asian writer and activist named Suey Park, attempted to start a campaign to get Steven Colbert booted from his show.

The catalyst: a joke...

The joke: a tweet...

“I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever”

This was intended to be a satirical analog to the Washington Redskins' team owner's announcement of the 'Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation' - which was a tepid attempt at trying to appease the public outcry against the team name 'Redskins' which had been deemed offensive and insensitive to North American Indians in the United States.

Park saw Colbert's joke as yet another example of the dominant white male zeitgeist poking fun at the US Asian community and immigrants. The joke went totally over her head. She took it to be callous, and wished to have Colbert punished. Luckily for Colbert, the public wasn't buying it and he was able to maintain his program.

To Kingwell, 'cancel culture' is right-wing code for 'political correctness'. Well, it may or not be right wing code (though I fail to see the 'code' as it seems obvious enough to me) but that in no way delegitimizes the concerns - unless you take 'right wing' to be, in and of itself, delegitimizing. Also, what else is one to call this form of social sanctioning and policing of disapproved speech other than political correctness?

That said, Kingwell provides no argument for why 'cancel culture' is permissible or a desirable mechanism for social policing. He just asserts that those who oppose it are '...just wrong. Wrong. Period'.

Well, consider that settled. QED.

He does follow up with the trope that actions have consequences, and that folks who get mobbed via the cancel culture had it coming.

Some people, lamenting the new vigilance over what public figures say and do, wonder if there is no statute of limitations on bad behaviour. “Sheesh, guys, it was 2001! I was a kid!” In 2001, Justin Trudeau was 29 years old. Shane Gillis was 30 when he recorded the now-infamous podcast. “But I’m a comedian who takes risks.” Again, no. It’s not being overly sensitive or too social-justice warrior or “millennial” to respond: “Sorry, no free pass on that one, now or ever.”

This isn't overly sensitive and social-justice warrior-y, is it? We have our moral essentialism about categories of social groups as conceived via the progressive stack, and we're going to publicly condemn and shame those who transgress the orthodoxy. And if you don't like it. Tough. You are just wrong.

Sure. Nothing SJW about that.

I wonder what kind of consequences Kingwell would suggest happen to Trudeau. After all, those comedians can lose their jobs because of un-PC statements. So, what should happen to Trudeau? Should he step down? Or should he be called out, be allowed to apologise and move forward? If the latter, why isn't that afforded to the others? Perhaps it is because he supports Trudeau's politics, and doesn't much care for the edgy comedy, and so Trudeau can be given more leniency whilst the comedians can be cast to the wind. But that seems totally arbitrary and capricious.

Our liberal traditions of the politics of power requires that the burden of justification of restraint be laid upon the person calling for the restraint. Mob justice doesn't change this, and adding numbers to the mob doesn't justify calls for restraint.

Restriction on speech/expression ought to be limited, and if they are to be enacted, they ought to be exact and clear. For my money, there are three criteria for the warranted restriction of speech/expression.

Restriction on speech is warranted if and only if:

1) The restriction of speech causes less harm than the speech being restricted,

2) The restriction of speech is effective (it targets what it aims to restrict without collateral damage), and;

3) The harm caused by the speech is substantive (degrades form or function) and not mere offense.

I also think that such restrictions have to be intelligible, justifiable or acceptable, in some way, to those upon whom the restrictions are being laid - albeit in some idealised form.

(3) is the main sticking point in our current zeitgeist. There are slogans such as 'Silence is Violence' as well as 'Hate Speech is Violence'. We have this bizarre misinterpretation of speech acts such that certain types of speech is violence and unacceptable, but punching 'Nazis' is permissible or encouraged. 

We need to be able to distinguish between harm and offense - this was an understood distinction that has since been muddied, for various reasons, and now we have idiosyncratic phenomenological responses to words and ideas motivating punishment and censure instead of argument and appeals to public reason.

The lack of clarity regarding the distinction between what is distasteful and what is intolerable is why Kingwell and those who agree with him shouldn't get their way.

Greta Thunberg and the Climate Debacle: How dare you 'how dare me', when I 'how dare you?'

The popularity of Thunberg et al. doesn’t come from the belief that the world will end in 12 years. I think it comes from the fear of the very probable consequences of climate change coupled with the fact that many adults – some of whom are in positions of considerable power - still don't accept it and/or want to action to avoid them. 

The condemnation of Thunberg et al., I think, also doesn't come from the denial of the belief that the world will end in 12 years - but rather it comes from the sensible suspicion that people have towards those who appear to cry wolf whilst admonishing others for not adhering to their cries.     

Thus is the nature of this debacle of a debate.

From what I can see, calamity is inevitable. If we were to snap our fingers today and stop 100% of all emissions, the residual effects of the emissions already in the atmosphere would continue to impact the climate for decades to come. 

This isn’t based on some esoteric physics that only men in white lab coats possess. Rather, it is also based on myriad geological findings that are easily and readily observable to the average person: we have the shrinkage of sea ice, the retreat of glaciers, a rise in sea levels, salination, storm surges, and net ice sheet melt. We also see plant and insect life migrating northward indicating that once inhabitable biomes for these creatures are now becoming habitable due to changes in temperature and environment. All of these have downstream effects that will cause further disruption of previously established natural cycles.

Given the inevitability of calamity, the better use of energy is thus to prepare for, rather than avoid, what gets thrown our way. This also means that we should be wary about taking options of the table because they violate some ideological a priori assumption – for instance we ought to be able to consider geo-engineering solutions that could very well aid in the mitigation of crises. 

We also have to come to the understanding that Left and Right can come together on this issue to provide possible solutions. The Left doesn’t have a monopoly on the environment, and, in fact, it used to be a conservative issue. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, the Goddess of Neoliberalism, was the first head of state to bring the climate change, acid rain, and pollution issues to the forefront of public attention – though right-wing environmentalism goes back further to Edmund Burke. 

Nonetheless, the point is that there are conservative, market-based solutions that can be wielded in the service of mitigating further risk and preserving what we can. This point has to be recognised because the only solutions being proposed are solutions from the Left – the so-called ‘big government’ solutions. This, I think, is the main objection people on the Right have towards moving on the climate change problem: the proposed solutions are big government solutions, the Right is against big government, and so those solutions are off the table – similarly with the Left’s view towards Right-wing solutions. This problem doesn’t lie in the interpretation or debate on technical data: I don’t think many heads of state and other decision-makers who oppose climate change measures have read a technical paper on the matter. The disagreement is political, economic, and social. The issue lies in the underlying passions and dispositions people possess, and the values that they hold. 

What we see is that since passions are rising on both sides, hyperbole is being used and getting mixed in the debate. Furthermore, we see hyperbole getting mixed in with the science – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stating that the world will end in 12 years, is but one of the most obvious examples. By mixing scientific conclusions with hyperbole, a bewildered public will confuse the two. This isn’t their fault: it’s the fault of those pontificating to them. We see this on both sides: we’ll have the Left misrepresenting the scientific findings to support its claims and agenda, whilst the Right will misrepresent the scientific findings to attack it. 

To my mind, when it comes to the misrepresentation of the science, it doesn’t matter which side it comes from nor how disproportionate it may be to which side. What matters is whether the science is being done diligently and reported accurately. 

To swing it back around to Thunberg and her fellow travelers: I see hyperbole, and I see some misrepresentation, but I do not see direct contradiction of the evidence. She is not saying ‘A’ when the science is saying ‘not-A’. She is embellishing her calls to awareness and action with moral denunciation, and this is divisive – attitudes towards her and her message predictably break down political lines, and due to this, she could very well cause some backfire on the environmentalist movement, but perhaps not. 

Thunberg and others are engaging in political theatre. Now, theatre is a part of politics, but it doesn’t count as politics. Asking people to ‘look into their hearts’ and exclaiming ‘how dare you?!’ only effects those who are susceptible to the need for soul searching. That said, there is organisation, and that has been effective in mobilising the message. This organisation may very well be AstroTurf'd, and one can see the focus groups, special interests, and political machinations behind it. In addition, the social justice crowd has latched on to it. Folks say ‘climate change is a social justice issue’ because people-of-colour, LGBT folks, women, and children, particularly in third-world countries will be affected. This is a category error, and a sleight of hand which can make any issue a social justice issue subject to the banter of the social justice crowd. To that, I say climate collapse is too important and too real an issue to be surrendered to the vanity and narcissism of the social justice-types. 

At a microlevel, what we see with Thunberg are the scales of youthful idealism falling from her eyes, and since she lacks the maturity to properly assess the situation, she finds herself blinking at a post-apocalyptic dawn that was built on betrayal.

Now, there certainly has been remarkable corruption, and there has hitherto been a lack political will to address climate change, but, at a macrolevel, this is a technical problem that will require hard work and diligent use of technical expertise, as well as savvy political action to obtain, if not a consensus, at least a convergence, on the path towards addressing climate change; not moral condemnation from children.