Jon Ronson thinks we're stuck in the Poltergeist scene with QAnon...

[Alicethroughtheblackmirror]

The man who somehow forgot to mention that the harmless, fluffy Mich Fest protests ended in a TRA murdering a lesbian couple and their son, is now saying GC women need to "lift themselves out of" "culture wars". I'm sure the women locked up with males murderers would love to be able to do that!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2f3bc31d-dad7-4cf1-9522-860ce8cc0e3b?shareToken=050a2b481a5be06c283f7e180dbd3f23

What makes Ronson such a trustworthy guide to our age is that he genuinely wants to understand others’ perspectives. “I’m not jaded, pre-judging or out to get anyone,” he says. “I’m enthusiastic. By the time I approach someone to interview them, I’ve been down so many rabbit holes I’m just excited and curious.”

Bollocks with diamonds on.

Does he fuck.

Wouldn't touch anything that really brave uppity women were doing in actually digging the rabbit holes to find the truth.

He's pissed off a load of unknown women did it better than him,

And too scared of the consequences that befell Glinner for rocking the status quo and challenging the establishment.

I think he likes investigating 'others'. I suspect trans ideology is too close to home for him.

For anyone who wants to know more about the Miami reference in the article, it's a story that is only too familiar and distressing in what looks like wilful blindness of a killer targeting black women as victims. (Like Yorkshire Infamy and South Yorks Police, the theory was only seen to have a counterpoint when a young woman's autopsy revealed neither drug use nor a plausible history of 'working the streets'.)

For a long time, the prevailing theory about the deaths was a highly unusual one--that the prostitutes died from the toxic effects of cocaine accompanied by the stimulation of sex. Neural exhaustion, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Charles Wetli called it.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-05-14-mn-413-story.html

It's the laziest of thinking. If something can be put into the box of "culture wars", then you define the good side and the bad side, look to see which side can be coded as having an affiliation to the Right, and declare that to be the bad side.

I'd say that spinning complicated situations into narratives that correspond with your worldview is a form of conspiracy thinking itself.

Also, it does seem that the narratives he creates are nicely compatible with his target audience and do help to optimise sale of product.

Ooh, and I note this from the comments beneath the article:

I saw yesterday that Nick Wallis who is the journalist responsible for highlighting much of the Post Office scandal, is Gender Critical.

I do hope that's true.

He's a one trick pony (contrarian exploring 'the other') desperately seeking relevance and happily wearing his misogyny on his sleeve.

If he genuinely was interested and impartial, surely he would be telling "TRAs" to "lift themselves out of the culture wars" as they're the ones whose existence, attitude, outlook, lobbying, and aggressive attacks on women started it all. But no. He's targeting women. And in the syntax of targeting women specifically, he's actually proving he does know that TW are NOT women because he knows where to aim his misogyny.

Yes, it is true. Nick is very much a friend and ally.

The man who was very curious about Martine Rothblatt's attempt to create a similcrum of her wife...

...but not curious enough to mention at any point in the book chapter that Rothblatt was male. Resulting in a very odd read where something felt very, very odd but you couldn't put your finger on what.

Of course it all fell into place when I discovered the latter fact, Rothblatt's voice and attitudes reading as the most masculine manly xy un-reconstructed male to ever man.

This guy totally creeps me out. Even his ' butter wouldn't melt ' faux naive speaking voice sets my teeth on edge.
Glinner said once the Ronson got in touch , apparently to see if they could find some common ground. But GL soon realised it was a fishing expedition. Ugh.

Id have thought that he would be interested in why some topics are seen as culture wars, rather than just accepting the term and what is and isnt part of it.

A good starting point would be who decides what is a culture war and what isnt.

One thing I noticed a while ago is that those who use the term "culture wars" tend to use it as a shorthand for there being one, bad, side that's effectively a basket of deplorables being people who won't accept a fixed set of "progressive" political views as being beyond question. There's no examination of the "other side" in the "war", and whether some of their views might actually be undesirable in any way.

Easy to think that he is capable of the astonishing deed of seeing both sides on some issue when he is not at all affected by either side.

It's not Ronson's rights which are being reallocated in the gender wars, but those of women and girls, and many of those rights were fought for and won only quite recently, with great sacrifices.

He belongs to the male sex class which is not asked to give up its language or awards or places on the podium or face increased danger in its single-sex spaces.

Neither is the male class negatively affected by the "sex work is a good career" or "surrogacy is empowering" types of arguments. It's the female sex which is rapidly being turned into an exploitable resource.

as a slight aside - it looks like someone has drawn those glasses on his face

"forgot to mention that the harmless, fluffy Mich Fest protests ended in a TRA murdering a lesbian couple and their son,"

I've not heard about this, can anyone fill me in or shoot a link my way about this?
Tried googling, but unsurprisingly not much is coming up - I'd imagine because no one likes to report on TRA's doing bad things because it doesn't fit the narrative :S

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/06/25/the-shameful-silence-over-dana-rivers/

Some more information in this twitter thread -

x.com/simonjedge/status/1669233491400171522?s=20

Is that person still in a female prison? That really is the final insult if so.

My respect for him plummeted when several years ago he admitted he was stockpiling Tamiflu for a flu pandemic that never came. My priorities are not his. he doesn't understand science.

I am increasingly angry about this concept of ‘culture wars’. It’s used as a way to dismiss concerns and it’s not ok.

People disagreeing with your preferred ideology is not a war, cultural or otherwise. You don’t need to categorise everyone as allies or enemies.

Reduxx had a lot on this I believe..

genevievegluck.substack.com/p/trans-activist-to-stand-trial-for

In which book did Ronson write about Martine Rothblatt?

Lost at Sea?

https://skepchick.org/2014/09/skepchick-book-club-lost-at-sea/