Helen Joyce & Julie Bindel: Should TERFs unite with the Right?

I'm genuinely sorry. I wasn't trying to distort your words, simply to work out what you meant. You seem to think that I understood your words and was responding in a way to try and twist them into something you didn't mean. But I did not (and do not) understand your words and so my response was trying to think through some of the possible interpretations in order to get you to clarify. E.g. to say, no it's not the way the state regulates business in fascism because that involves X and what I mean is Y; or no, it's closer to communism in that X but it would be different in that Y... etc. To get you to explain what you meant, and also to point out that the state tightly regulating businesses has precedents that are... problematic. Assuming you would agree that these systems are problematic and be moved to clarify your position, rather than accusing you of wrongthink.

I hope that makes sense.

This seems kind of relevant here:

Jo Freeman: The Tyranny of Structurelessness
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I think that maybe this is because for many from that kind of leftist tradition, they believe as a matter of faith that it is possible to have a non-hierarchical, functional solidarity among large groups. It's part of their idealism and what they ultimately see as the most correct, pure, political expression.

For me personally I always felt that was where his vision failed - I've never seen any real example of a community that functions long term without some kind of hierarchy emerging. And that's ok, imo, it can be managed through things like institutional measures.

But when you deny that such a hierarchy exists, it means in practice that the hierarchy operates without acknowledging, or controlling, it's power.

Is it really individualism though to not want to live in a squat and be a political lesbian?

In a way what you describe reminds me at the plethora of attempts at egalitarian communes in the 60s and 70s. Most of which failed, because of two things - earning enough to live off of, and even more, the problems of creating a community that functions while remaining unhierarchical and "free". The reality is, a lot of them didn't even fizzle out, they failed spectacularly in a dramatic fashion because they blew up, and if you talk to kids raised in such communities, many have some scary stories.

I don't think recognizing that there is a need for more structure is individualist. And along those lines, conservatism by nature is not individualist. It's very much a kind of collectivism. It's really liberalism that is individualist, whether it is the kind on the left or right.

beastlyslumber but can you see how impossible it is to reply meaningfully when your words have been distorted so much?

Ditto my saying that winning the victories of gender ideology only isn't a win for feminism and you saying that I meant that women securing the vote or better rape legislation didn't matter.

Honestly, it's an utterly pointless exercise. Trying to genuinely answer questions that several posters are aiming at you and no-one else because you're all broadly in agreement with each other, to have 'ah, so you mean (insert something I didn't say) then?' followed by more questions in response.

I admit my 'good times' about the 1970s wasn't entirely genuine, although as someone who grew up in poverty at that time and knowing full well that it would have been so, so much worse now, it did have personal truth in it.

Having said that, I guess I tend to think of the left as the hard left, idpol left, socialist left, rather than the centrists. So maybe it's a case of everyone exaggerating their opponent's position. I think it's unfair to conflate right wing with fascist, and left wing with communist.

Yes, I think HJ used extreme examples of left wing regimes to explain her right leanings.

Myself, I think we are about right, swinging from right to left so the state never becomes this oppressive behemoth or loses its safety net. Although I am left-leaning.

Bike, I was trying to work out what you meant by saying profits should be balanced by contributions. I gave you two scenarios where profits are balanced with contributions - one was fascism, one was communism. I also suggested that maybe what you meant was some kind of version of what we have now, with the addition of renationalised industries.

My aim was to get you to clarify and expand on your meaning, not to silence you. I apologise if it seemed like I was calling you a fascist - that was not my intention. I just wanted you to clarify and defend your statement. What does it mean to balance profit with contribution? How is that organised? If not in the ways society has done this previously, then how?

beastlyslumber with all due respect, might I suggest that if you would genuinely like posters with varying views to engage in a thread that you actually read what they say?

I suggested that businesses be tightly regulated so that there was balance between what they contribute to society and you said that is an argument for fascism.

Why on earth would anyone want to engage with that level of distortion and misrepresentation?

One thing I know has been said lots of times before, but bears repeating, is that the left often conflate the right and the far right, or they use the terms interchangeably. Defining terms before debating is such good practice. It should have been done in this debate. Would have made everything clearer.

Having said that, I guess I tend to think of the left as the hard left, idpol left, socialist left, rather than the centrists. So maybe it's a case of everyone exaggerating their opponent's position. I think it's unfair to conflate right wing with fascist, and left wing with communist.

Well that's got to be the first time I'm mentioned in the same sentence as JS Mill. (Except maybe when students have said, that bloody cow beastly made us read a chapter of JS Mill and I hate her!)

But I totally agree. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. There's a reason why these essays, quotes and ideas have stood the test of time. I'd also recommend Andrew Doyle's book 'Free Speech' for a more modern rendering of these ideas. It's only short and it's very readable. (I gave that to my students too - they still hated me!)

*the right (whatever that means)

He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.

This is what is so frustrating. To not hear persuasive arguments from people who genuinely believe that there is a danger for feminists to ‘work with’ (whatever that means) the right.

I've been away a bit - fascinating insights from beastlyslumber. You made me think of that well-known John Stuart Mill quote. Digging it up, I got the wider text, and I'll think I'll post it. It's 100% on point here.

Although he wasn't big on paragraphs, apparently. Bold is the bit most-often quoted.

The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversary’s case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.* Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred. All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in the strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up.

John Stuart Mill On Liberty, chapter 2.

(I guess I'm being a bit lazy here, but Joyce + beastlyslumber and Mill are doing such good work, I don't think I can actually contribute anything more at the moment!)

Yes it's a shame you can't get the people who are doing it to have a little bit more self-awareness, or self honesty, and tell you what the reason is.

I’m also trying to get to the heart of why people, who i assume to be pretty sound and decent, even admirable, feel morally justified in berating others on what appear to be utterly unreasonable, spurious grounds.

I am definitely not arguing against solidarity, by the way.

I am just exploring why it is so morally transgressive to think as an individual and do anything which challenges the consensus if you are part of these groupthink subcultures.

Once you have entrusted your choice-making to the consensus, people can start making any old shit up and it will easily start to be accepted and adopted, because it comes via the untrusted channels and won’t therefore be examined.

It makes me think of the scene in The Life of Brian.

It’s about information (still thinking out loud here). Staying informed of all the rotten things in this world is a very joyless task and most people aren’t up for it. “Just tell me what to do and what not to do fgs”.

So you have set up a dynamic of instruction and obedience without realising. It’s a hierarchy.

I think the hierarchy emerges without people realising.

I don't think it's solidarity. Solidarity implies that we're all equal, all in it together, all with an equal voice. I think it's hierarchy: do these things because someone with more status than you has decided you should. Do these things because it demonstrates your allegiance to me/the cause.

Yes. I think the notion of solidarity being the moral expectation is at the heart of it.

The upside of solidarity is that ‘together we are strong’.

The downside, is that every choice becomes a moral choice and it is also morally imperative that you keep yourself properly informed to make those moral choices.

So if you are choosing, for example, what can of beans to buy, you have to trade off what is worse, exploited labour or environmental destruction.

Of course it is impossible to know everything, every possible ramification of every choice you make, so you rely on others informing you. “Don’t buy fruit from there, they exploit their workforce”, “don’t get those trainers, the rubber seal chemical is poisoning rivers”, “don’t read JK Rowling, she’s transphobic”….

tying feminism to politics seems to divide feminists.

This is why I don't call myself a feminist anymore. Because it comes with a set of demands about what I believe and how I see the world. I've lost count of the times I've been told I'm not a real feminist and I find it simpler to just say, you're right. I'm not a feminist, therefore you can't harrass me with your demands for political allegiance and purity.

I see that there are feminists like HJ and others who don't align with this take on feminism, but look how much flak they get. Because feminists like JB are convinced that feminism belongs to the left, is of the left, and if something is not of the left, it can't be feminism.

When I have spoken to women who parted company with second wave feminism, they tend to complain about women ‘telling them what to do’, really hating feeling controlled and berated all the time.

The communes may have disbanded, but women are still being berated by feminists for everything from their political beliefs to who they associate with to what they wear and whether or not they dye their hair.

I think there is something evolutionary here about how women create hierarchies and compete with one another. We destroy each other with gossip, reputational damage, cliques, manipulations and expectations, all the while maintaining a butter-wouldn't-melt smile...

I am thinking out loud here, so I don’t necessarily know if this is what I think.

Second wave feminism grew in the 70s and 80s, through small meetings, ‘consciousness-raising’, lots of care to prevent hierarchies forming, getting stuck in, volunteering to rescue women and children from violent men, and so on. Very communitarian, egalitarian ideals, rooted in materialist, Marxist analysis, being at the coal face, roughing it a bit, many living in squats and peace camps. All very hippy ‘lefty’ - lentils, homemade yogurt and incense. A fairly solid identity and culture, with its own norms.

When I have spoken to women who parted company with second wave feminism, they tend to complain about women ‘telling them what to do’, really hating feeling controlled and berated all the time. I wasn’t the most sympathetic listener, to be honest. But this ‘wronging’ of people going on in current ‘call-out’ culture does seem to echo their complaints.

This current new influx to the understandings of second wave feminism, people who suddenly see life utterly differently, as though they are suddenly looking through the matrix, are many who would never have considered living in a dank squat, who would never leave their families to live a lesbian life, who may have financial clout. It’s a completely different set of norms. In fact, there’s no real common culture, I think.

I can see how a left-wing feminist commune would be threatened by someone joining who said “I am going to build an annex with an en suite to live in and pay for my own meals, I am not up for the ‘roughing it in solidarity thing’”, would actually mean the beginning of the end of that commune, because dissatisfaction would spread. It’s either everybody or nobody. So that’s how right wing individualism can destroy the solidarity of the left.

Perhaps it is this instinctive aversion to individualism that is at the heart of it?

In my opinion, a sophisticated understanding of what a woman is and why women are oppressed by men around the world, is happening, as a result of having this nonsense forced upon us by the biology denialists. Feminists arguments are being mainstreamed. People who would have balked at ‘whiney feminists’ are starting to go “oh, I see”.

Definitely. One of the reasons why I'm finding this thread so interesting is my own acquisition of late onset feminism. The outrage over gender politics is so instant and visceral, you can't help but become interested. And it doesn't take long for the scales to fall, and before you know it, you're looking at life through a feminist lens.

And I know this is happening all over the place. Women falling out with lifelong friends and husbands, left, right and centre, because they suddenly see life utterly differently, as though they are suddenly looking through the matrix. It's actually recruiting feminists, at speed.

And tying feminism to politics seems to divide feminists. Which can't be a good thing. So the new found feeling of clarity when looking at things through this new lens, now appears opaque and like there is a logic fail going on somewhere.

and I think it's this:

Which is exactly what HJ said in the discussion, and others have reprised here: the idea that left = good and right/anything else = bad. And when you believe you're good, then you also may feel entitled to silence others, to condemn others, to blame others and to hate others. Because they're bad, so it's fair, and you're still good. In fact, the more you silence and condemn others, the more it consolidates the feeling that you're good. And everyone around you understands, and says, 'I know exactly what you mean,' and no one demands a logical articulation of, e.g., why you hate Posie Parker so much. They just get it. And those who don't get it are bad people. And so it goes.

I could never understand the dislike of Posie Parker, given the headway she was making in an aspect of feminism that everyone seems to care about.

I now see it's not good enough to be vaguely left-wing, you have to be vehemently left-wing, otherwise you're bad.