Thread 4 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads 1 & 2 & 3.

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

I was a very annoying teen. In my first year at university I carried my essential items in a cross body Winnie the Pooh lunch box as I thought handbags were hopelessly declasse.

It's one thing to say let the young people teach us but when you hear stories about peer pressure and how anyone not conforming to the majority view gets suppressed, bullied and ostracised, I'm not so keen on singing children are our future and all that malarkey. Of course it is no suprise that people in other places are perfectly fine with minorty views being suppressed.

I also have to say the rot really set in with me over the Brexit issue. Much as I was and am a fervent remainer, the complete lack of willingness to listen to anyone who was pro leave, to the extent anyone even saying we should listen to them was branded a right winger, left a very bad taste in my mouth. It rankled especially when I realised just how many ostensibly "progressive" people over there despise the Working Class.

However I think "gender non conformity" was around in our day ...
It has been around since the 60s, and very probably earlier than that. But (like all of us) each generation always thinks they invented all sorts of things.

It is interesting isn't it. To a certain extent that mindset has always existed but it seems to be growing. I had an interesting conversation with Mr Monkey yesterday (he moves in more left wing circles than me) about the fact that Parkrun have appointed a trustee who used to edit the Sun. He commented a lot of people in his circles were saying they would no longer be involved in Parkrun as a result.

I mused that was interesting - did these people think there was something specific about this man that made him unfit to be a trustee of a fitness event or is it in their minds was he so tainted by his former employment that he was unfit to carry out any further employment of voluntary roles after this?

Gender non-conformity has surely been around since the emergence of gendered norms and hierarchies. The article that (I think) Mach2 linked on an earlier thread about how trans is one way in which people are expressing gender non-conformity in the 21st Century West made a lot of sense to me - gender non-conformity seems pretty universal in human societies but transgender identities are pretty culturally specific to the here and now:

bprice.substack.com/p/trans-is-something-we-made-up

I agree that rejecting gender stereotypes is not a new thing (and something I pretty much got to on my own). I think what I've learned most about, is the interplay of sexual attraction and romantic feelings. What has emerged (it seems recently to me) recently is a fairly comprehensive language for that*.

*Not completely unrelated to thinking you have the wrong body type for your brian, but can be useful as a completely separate system of knowledge.

"I think what I've learned most about, is the interplay of sexual attraction and romantic feelings." What does that mean? This is not a recent thing, I mean there have always been people who need to be romantically and securely attached to have sexual feelings.

"there have always been people who need to be romantically and securely attached to have sexual feelings"*

Yes, I'm not trying to claim the younglings have invented anything that didn't exist, just that they have found a language for it that I didn't have access to when I was their age.

*that has a name now (heck if I remember what it is tbh)

I think a few of Shakespears comedies might be a antidote to thinking any of this is new. Classical literature likewise.

Is it not more that until recently adults not only noticed that self-absorbed adolescents were very very boring, the also felt free to tell them so, and give them lessons and chores to keep them busy for the years until they grew up.

Having to listen to them 'explain' their feels about this is definite stick pins in my eyes sooner that that stuff. Like puppies being very dull compared to adult dogs. humans are the same.

Ahh i see.

An interesting trend with young people is, for all the talk about sex and endless obsessions over categories for perfectly naturals and normal sexual feelings and attractions - they are not having a whole lot of it.

It's like it is a disinterested academic exercise for them. I suspect it is about control - if you categorise and label yourself you feel that there is some element of control - whereas in real life sex and attraction is messy, confusing and we can make mistakes.

It's clear that not everybody has found this as interesting as did I, different strokes for different folks, you could say!

I suppose this is one of these areas where I might accept that that I am behind the curve so to speak. I don't understand how definitions help - doesn't "I'm comfortable/not comfortable with that" suffice? People change, circumstances change, I don't understand how creating new very specific boxes improves the situation. I would have thought we had the language, but lacked the ability to be able to articulate those emotions using the language we had. What has happened is that people are now able to articulate themselves better - but why do we need a new jargon to give us permission to do that? Why do we need to say I AM [this] instead of I feel or prefer [this]? Not that I object to other people who find this way of thinking using this language, but personally I don't get what it adds.

It rankled especially when I realised just how many ostensibly "progressive" people over there despise the Working Class.

"Mustn't call them thick racists". That's what rankled with me. Apparently Brexit was all the fault of some working-class Leave voters in the North of England. Who knew, eh?

@Winterborne74 indeed. However if it allows young people to develop boundaries and lagiage around those boundaries, that can be a good thing. However what I see is a generation obsessed with controlling their interactions and relationships to a point they are very boxed in and lonely.

And it doesn't seem to be helping with boundaries at all. Not the important ones.

Testing boundaries is an important part of being young and on the edge of adulthood - puppies do it too. And responsible adults, individually and collectively, set the boundaries fairly closely and enforce them, to protect the young from their own overreach and from predators. The problem with this thing is that the boundaries have been removed and the predators are setting the agenda.

the genuine range of opinion also led to some amazingly intelligent analysis, proper debate and reams of data.

I so agree with @Kucinghitam here. It's hard to find a place where you can have a proper debate about contentious issues without it getting personal, and maybe I need to spread out more here because on the trans issue I think most of us are broadly in agreement. But the intelligent analysis here is excellent and I value that. If you never listen to what people who disagree with you think, and their reasons for thinking that way, it's far too easy to float along with your ideas unchallenged.

I watched a YouTube video last night with a chap called Arty, can't remember his full name. He was talking about the difference between trans and gay (he's gay) the main one being that for gay people it's about their person. They want/wanted the right to be legal. Trans people want other people to do all the heavy lifting. That is, a gay man or a lesbian doesn't demand that their rights are more important than yours, they don't want to undermine the rights of others, they don't demand that you recognise their sexuality in all circumstances, etc. Trans activists demand that you not only recognise their identity in all circumstances but that you are in some way lesser and accept their identity of you. You are now cis. You have no trauma because by being "born in the right body" you have it easier, that gender is more important than sex. Men who identify as women believe that their rights are more important than women's rights and women who don't accept that are bigots.

My eyes were already partially open, they are now wide open because of this place and the likes of Glinner.

Re children and them being kinder and probably wiser. Their brains are still maturing, probably not the right word, but their ability for critical thinking is still forming. If we are unkind because we accept reality then so be it.

it's far too easy to float along with your ideas unchallenged.

And be incapable of navigating differences of opinion, or experience differences of opinion as a personal affront and evidence of some defect in the person holding the opposing view. It is of course particularly ironic when the received opinion in question is supposedly about accepting diversity.

@IReallyLikeCrows - I like the way you put that.

but their ability for critical thinking is still forming.

And being challenged at a formative age is essential for developing critical thinking skills. How will people who have only experienced validation ever become critical thinkers?

on the trans issue I think most of us are broadly in agreement

I've been particularly interested in the recent escape of the topic into AIBU, where threads draw in some dissenters and a lot of people who are new to thinking about the detail.

Shelagh Fogarty is just starting an LBC discussion about yesterday in Parliament/ the GRR blocking.

Yes there's been a few lately, hasn't there. And instructive to see the reaction when the topic reaches a wider audience.

The great thing here is that you can have the discussion/debate. Elsewhere, and I'm not just talking about the other place, it's so difficult and sometimes impossible.