'The right side of history' = 'God is on our side'?

A lot can be justified if you think the final just society can be achieved historically and politically.

Unnervingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, I first read that as 'final solution'.

Just to add to that in case it isn't clear - the argument some make is that Marx (and others) borrowed that sense of an end of struggle from the Christian worldview, but took God out, and made it a wholly material-historical movement.

So related to the Christian approach but with a very significant difference in terms of how they think about practical politics. A lot can be justified if you think the final just society can be achieved historically and politically.

This is why claims that this kind of id pol movement and gender ideology are wholly neoliberal don't really work. It's certainly a POV that can be used to advantage by people who want that kind of society, but the view of history as progressive comes from the left.

Very interesting, thanks. Is that post historical aspect to be found in scripture, or is it something that's inferred?

Although certainly some sects are expecting some kind of Judgement Day event within their lifetime. I'm thinking of the Rapture, Jehovah's Witness' beliefs, etc.

Lots of people repeat stupid shit without thinking about where it comes from or what it means.

That does not mean that the underlying social concepts sprang out of nothing or carry no deeper resonances. They have power precisely because they fit in which the underlying sense many political progressives have about the nature of history. A sense that often hasn't been explicitly articulated in their own minds.

Not all cultures have shared this sense that history progresses, and such cultures would never come up with that kind of phrasing or thinking.

@MavisMcMinty - nor, indeed, renege on the fundamental concept of being 'gender critical' - that no one should be bound by regressive gender stereotypes.

Does anyone think 'GC bods' weren't 'onTRSoH' when, as the result of an MN thread, they founded Let Toys be Toys?

No, it's kind of a post-historical scenario. It happens at the end of time.

In Christian theology, the Fall is what gives us a universe that has evil, death, and negative physical change in it. They laws of the universe themselves were in some sense re-written due to becoming separated from the source of their being. So there is no expectation that material history that we live in will be able to overcome that. At a human level we all continue to suffer the effects of death, illness, disaster, living in bad families, having negative mental and physical desires we can't control, and so on. There's no utopia possible within that.

The Last Judgement is seen as part of the remaking of all that, outside of time, and accomplished by God rather than any kind of human effort, or political policy.

The thing is that NOBODY who was ever gender critical is going to change their mind and admit that TWAW, or that children and teenagers are competent to give consent for dangerous experimental procedures/treatments on their perfectly healthy bodies, or that men are welcome in our single sex spaces and sports.

There was a MN poster in the last week or two who said they “used to be GC but not any more”, but I find that really hard to believe. Once seen, it can’t be unseen. The mind-changing only goes one way.

@GodessOfThunder

I’d be surprised though if a few commenters here weren’t secretly concerned about not being on the right side of history.

after all, if you are opposed to minority rights you’re in some pretty awful company historically

So as I said, it's about moral condemnation of opponents.

I did give various examples trying to make the case that it's a little more complex than, "opposing minority rights is baddie stuff".

What we need to look at, is in what circumstances wouldn't we easily accept claimed new minority rights. You presumably don't think that just any "rights" claim should be automatically accepted.

I think I have given a couple of reasonable criteria already: (1) where it creates a conflict with other claimed rights that appear to have a reasonable basis, and (2) where you are claiming "rights" using a new type of justification that would seem to many people to have absurd consequences if applied to other areas like racial identity; or involve false or highly suspect claims to operate. So "TWAW and therefore they should be in women's prisons", can be objected to, as it's starting from a false or highly controversial idea.

As I said, I don't think it matters much if some women sometimes have doubts.

What matters is whether there are good reasons to object to these particular claimed rights.

@GodessOfThunder

It’s just a phrase expressing a prediction for what the person saying it hopes/believes is likely to happen in the future.

No, it's more than that, as it has moral content. It's not merely, "this position will be successful in the future". It's basically a moral condemnation of opponents.

@Cattenberg

But some trans activists deny there is any conflict at all, which is so blatantly untrue that I can’t take them seriously at all.

I don't know who comes up with all their slogans on the trans activist side, but it's like they never expected them to be challenged in the real world, and they didn't put the time in to think whether they made sense or not. And then everyone on their side just mindlessly copies them.

To say that there is no conflict with women's rights, they either haven't bothered to think about it for a second, or they are just trying to beg the question that the claimed women's rights are always wrong and the claimed trans rights are always correct.

Protected characteristics do sometimes overlap and come into conflict with each other. We’ve seen a few court cases where “Religion or belief” has conflicted with “Sexual orientation”. In most of these cases, “Sexual orientation” has “won”, but not in the case involving a Northern Irish bakery, where it was ruled that in this instance, gay rights did not overrule protected beliefs and freedom of speech.

I just wish that trans rights activists could acknowledge that in a minority of situations, the protected characteristics of “Sex” and “Gender reassignment” do come into conflict. They might believe that “Gender reassignment” should always take priority over “Sex” and they’re welcome to argue their case. But some trans activists deny there is any conflict at all, which is so blatantly untrue that I can’t take them seriously at all.

@MargotBamborough

I think that it would be very surprising for a gender critical feminist not to have a few "Are we the baddies?" moments when the entire political left and centre is saying that we are indeed the baddies, and that not accepting that trans people are what they say they are is bigoted and denying their right to exist.

Yeah good point.

And surely what matters, is not whether some GC women have ever had doubts about their position because of the social pressure or the psychological conflict of being outside the good graces of the left-wing; but rather what is important is whether they can rationally explain why the "trans rights" case is comparatively weak, or open to various objections that wouldn't apply to previous civil rights progress.

With Christianity, or traditional forms of it, I understand its viewpoint as moving towards a goal in history. Although this isn't exactly "human progress", but a dramatic and radical supernatural intervention in history.

So history may continue, but in a quite different way, and even with transformed rules of nature, if that's a good way to put it.

There are a bunch of different eschatology views in Christianity, for exactly how it's all supposed to play out, and Protestants mostly tolerate differences without calling people a heretic over it. Although it's part of the creeds to believe in future eschatology I think, so you can be called a heretic for denying this.

One view which does involve more of a "human progress" side to it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmillennialism

"Postmillennialism expects that eventually the vast majority of people living will be saved. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ's return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions Jesus Christ will return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the eternal order follows."

I think that it would be very surprising for a gender critical feminist not to have a few "Are we the baddies?" moments when the entire political left and centre is saying that we are indeed the baddies, and that not accepting that trans people are what they say they are is bigoted and denying their right to exist.

But it is precisely the fact that these people don't appear to be having any "Are we the baddies?" moments themselves, even as they back male rapists in women's prisons and women not having access to any single sex rape crisis support, that makes me think their judgement isn't what I thought it was.

So to be honest, I'm now at the stage where I've moved on from wondering whether we are the baddies and I'm now wondering what else "the right side of history" is actually wrong about.

Personally I would actually remove the right to change your legal sex because I think it is bad law.

Thinking about the religious side, to me as an atheist I don't see religion as the organising factor identifying an 'other', I think creating or identifying others/ enemies is one of the things that humans do, and religion is also one of the things that humans do. I wouldn't even say that religion makes that tendency worse, as the religions I know all accept that not everybody is part of the same religion, and engage with that in some way.

There is a strong patronising element though. That if you aren't a member of that religion it must be because you haven't heard the Good News, or because you can't read the Book. Or because you haven't met any trans people.

Can you give some examples of the rights that you think we want to remove from people who identify as trans or rights that you believe they don't already have?

As far as I am aware, people who identify as trans have the same rights as everyone else in the UK. They also have protection under the EA with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Another parallel with some aspects of religious thought is the need to create and maintain an 'other '.

Non-believers and heretics must be othered. The unspoken implication of TRSOH is that non believers will be cast out, and/or damned.

Yep. Trans people deserve not to be discriminated against as laid out in the EA. They rightly have legal protections.

This does not afford males the right to override women's rights.

In Ireland “Traveller community” means the community of people who are commonly called Travellers and who are identified (both by themselves and others) as people with a shared history, culture and traditions including, historically, a nomadic way of life on the island of Ireland.

From https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/8/section/2/enacted/en/html

Please note the capital T.

I presume the UK has a similar form of words. This has been tested in law many many times. People discriminating against Travellers have to difficulty knowing who they are.

These are people who appropriate everything, including the past (Joan of Arc was trans) and the future (people who haven't been born yet will agree that we were right).

It probably is equivalent to "God is on our side", not so much for the religious aspect as for the fact that people who claim God is on their side probably don't actually believe any such thing, they're just looking for an excuse for their own shitty behaviour.

Yes. And providing that groups who self define as a minority (such as transwomen) don't self identify as a group they aren't (such as women) and observe the law (such as the Equality Act allowing for sex-based provision) there isn't a problem, or at least not for me.

'The right side of history' is retrospective and it's important to remember that history is just as subjective as the present.

How is a traveller defined though?

Travellers self define and also (well some do, some live in houses and permanent settlements) engage in certain lifestyle markers.

Recognising travellers as a group deserving of rights requires just as big a leap of faith by your logic as recognising trans people as deserving of rights.

You could also apply the same logic to other faith based rights.

Also there is no know “gay gene”. We take people on good faith they are gay when giving access to resources etc.

Once again, #OperationLetThemSpeak is shining brilliant sunlight.

Yes

do I believe that future people will judge me for being opposed to giving children who are uncomfortable with sex based stereotypes drugs that sterilise them and make their bones fragile and surgery that leaves them life long medical patients?

erm no. No, I can’t say that features on my (long) list of worries at all