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

Is this the interview that says he was badly bullied as a child? I suspect that left scars that continue to limit his ability to write honestly on many subjects.

Yes that's the one. It's a single chapter and I read it long before I had any real consciousness about transgender beyond the occasional old school transexual.

I was reading about this lesbian couple, one an uber high powered exec, the other facilitating the execs lovely life.

The exec was obsessed with building a duplicate of her wife so she could still have her if she died.

Obviously it was completely barking on any level, but it also just rang completely false in terms of any female relationship that I'd experienced or witnessed.

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.”

that's dishonest. I listened to him being interviewed on a podcast and he said he was worried she would ask him about the trans issue. He really did not want to be asked anything in any depth about it.

I guess he's only comfortable when he can ask questions rather than have to articulate his own views.

he genuinely wants to understand others’ perspectives. “I’m not jaded, pre-judging or out to get anyone,” he says.

Years (decades) ago I used to read his column in the Guardian and initially found him funny but was distinctly turned off him after he wrote an article about people smiling. His angle was going up to people smiling to themselves and asking them what they were smiling about. Obviously only to generate content for a column. He was utterly judgemental with sneery condescending comments because one young woman (and of course it would only be a woman he’d judge) was smiling thinking of her daughter getting professional photos wearing angels wings.

Ugh, what a pathetic little tick.

Another male who's cross that women won't all put mothering him and other needy males ahead of their own needs. Another male using lazy tropes to push forward their agenda. Anyone who chooses, with no evidence, to tell one side of a human rights debate to roll over to make space for the other is not someone whose moral compass is straight.

It's odd he singles out gender critical. For someone who is cursed with seeing both sides he seems pretty blind to what the gender ideologists have been getting up to. Not just the mass murder committed by the Michfest guy, but all of the assaults, death and rape threats, the child abuse, state sanctioned and by trusted tw, the transwidows. You'd think for someone so cursed this would be meat and drink for his shtick.

Assuming the Times has allowed them, is there any push back in the comments?

The comments were very unimpressed, both with the article and the man himself. Led with this:

After series one it's clear that Ronson is neither a 'trustworthy guide' nor able to see both sides of an issue. Quite the opposite. The episode on 'camp trans' which protested Mich Fest, a women-only lesbian festival, was astonishingly one sided, presenting it as loving and benign. No mention of the camp trans member - Dana Rivers -who tracked down a lesbian couple, regular attendees of Mich Fest, brutally murdering them and their son. An extraordinary omission. Behind the faux-naivety Ronson is just a hack with an agenda.

Yes @nauticant that comment has the tiresome little creep wrapped. He is dishonest, disingenuous and untrustworthy.

Jon Ronson this morning on Radio 4: "Pretty much every culture war that tears us apart today, not every one but most of them, all blew up within about 20 days of each other, in May 2020, 6 weeks into lockdown".

Considering that people opposing gender identity ideology is something that Ronson considers to be one of the "culture wars" that'll be news to many of us. And also news to others engaged in many of the other "culture wars".

His definition would seem to be that people were confused and lost once the reality of lockdown hit fully, and them becoming involved in pre-existing movements, some of which were rational and valid, was those movements becoming "culture wars".

Considering that people opposing gender identity ideology is something that Ronson considers to be one of the "culture wars" that'll be news to many of us. And also news to others engaged in many of the other "culture wars".

How ignorant. He's looking at it all from a very American perspective, but in his times interview the other day he dismissed this as an issue when it was raised, by saying it's all the same. Because either he's not particularly well informed about the situation in the U.K., or he thinks America is the only place that really matters, now he lives there. No wonder Graham Linehan is frustrated.

Every time I hear someone wheel out th concept of ‘culture war’ I put their point into the bucket marked ‘argument by buzzword’.

It’s just nonsense. People are allowed to have political disagreements and debates about cultural issues.

There is no war here at all.

Painting people who object to trans ideology or any other identity based politics as the aggressors in a war against poor victims and their faithful allies is simply a way of avoiding having to make a coherent argument. People doing this can sit congratulating themselves in a vague sense of moral superiority without having to examine anything.

I think he's being conveniently dishonest. He defines "culture wars" in this narrow US-centric way to make his argument that "cultures wars are bad", but then uses "culture wars" vaguely and as something much more broad to mean a basket into which all those he considers deplorables can be chucked in to. Such as those opposed to gender identity ideology.

It's the lazy guilt by association fallacy. Because after April 2020 some right wing people in the US became engaged in the debate over gender identity ideology, then everyone engaged, including those on the left long before that date, and those since, US-based or not, can all be discredited as "culture warriors". Because Ronson disapproves of their opposition to gender identity ideology.

Agree with all this but what I really want to know is how on earth did someone with a voice like that get a career in radio?!

It’s the whole ‘culture wars are bad’ argument being made by people intent on having a ‘culture war’.

It is ironic that the people supposedly fighting on the side of ‘diversity’ are just as against people thinking differently (to them) as they claim their opponents are.

I think the only issue given a shot in the arm , ouch sorry, by lockdown was the anti vaccination lobby.

But Ronson is trying to recast concerns about the effect of ' trans rights' on women's privacy and safety or children's well being as a recent by product of the pandemic.

This is what he does , makes bold , snappy sounding assertions , extrapolated from news items etc. But unlike, eg , Dr John Campbell, Ronson pretends to be a disinterested observer floating above this sad and inexplicable mess.

Ronson pretends to be a disinterested observer floating above this sad and inexplicable mess.

so many if these type do.

They act like these pathetic ‘culture wars’ are beneath them - while actually perpetuating the whole ‘culture wars’ trope using their massive media platform.

eurgh.

In other words, Ronson is just another conspiracy theorist type, just one who considers himself to be so much superior to others.

Anyway, it's started now on Radio 4. Miami in the 1980s...

I think he’s another one of those terrified of having his child think badly of him; he’s always seemed like that, ever since his son was small.
see also; Caitlin Moran

They act like these pathetic ‘culture wars’ are beneath them - while actually perpetuating the whole ‘culture wars’ trope using their massive media platform.

Exactly. Ronson's getting a lot out of the "culture wars".

I do think trans activism, promotion to children, porn addiction etc has got madder since the lockdown. But obviously he's not going to look at that, is he? I hope someone else does.

I think he's being conveniently dishonest. He defines "culture wars" in this narrow US-centric way to make his argument that "cultures wars are bad", but then uses "culture wars" vaguely and as something much more broad to mean a basket into which all those he considers deplorables can be chucked in to. Such as those opposed to gender identity ideology.

This.

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it?

I make pertinent points about human behaviour and social trends.

You (woman I'm not interested in listening to) are being caught up in the culture wars.

I'm listening to his first episode about the murders of women in America by a serial killer where they'd not managed to establish the cause of death.

Some dr came up with 'excited delirium' based on how they were left and so the killer was missed for some time till one woman survived and described him. He was choking them with his penis. The dr had missed key indicators.

However, this quack 'diagnosis' carried on being used to describe / dismiss an actual range of symptoms and diseases and seems to have become a recognised 'diagnostic label,' particularly among police dealing with drug addicts and those who've been tasered.

And unbelievably this idiot diagnosis of "excited delirium" was used to describe the symptoms of George Floyd by the police, rather than actually struggling to breathe due to brute force.

The whole thing is a horrific example of pseudoscientific ideas.

And he simply doesn't see the analogy with trans quackery.