Kathleen Stock - "These people are just a bit thick"

[Another2Cats]

So, Kathleen Stock has just made her views on people like Joylon Maugham et al known.

She started off with a tweet that said:

"Never mind the serious reputations, the accents, the swagger, the BBC connections, the Guardian column, the KC status, the rave book reviews, or whatever it is - like no other issue, trans ideology shows up people who are really quite stupid."

Which, not unsurprisingly, got a lot of replies. Some in support and some defending these people.

In reply to those defending these people she then had this to say. It's a different take on how to approach the argument. Don't know if I entirely agree:
.

I never do a long post but first time for everything. Lots of lively comment on my "they are just quite thick" explanation of Establishment transactivism capture (proposed hashtags #itsthestupidstupid #makeidiocymortifyingagain).

Also, some alternative explanations being proposed. I suppose my conclusion is: it doesn't matter if they really ARE thick, or just pretending/left-brained/lost in a cult/cosseted from the consequences/ smart in a way that makes them susceptible to motivated reasoning.

Having spent best part of six years (FML) arguing patiently with these people, a) I am not convinced of the more charitable explanations for notable characters, and b) either way, I don't care any more. If it walks like a moron, talks like a moron, it is – for all relevant purposes– a moron, and we should say so.

So for instance (just a small selection from timeline today):

• if you think transwomen (men) are to women what step-parents are to their children YOU ARE A MORON (think it through to the end: when was the metaphorical marriage? wtf is "womaning" as a verb? Wearing kneesocks?)

• If you think you can't know your own sex because you haven't seen your chromosomes YOU ARE A MORON (if that is the burden of proof, how do you personally know you have a brain?)

• If you think that the Supreme Court should have "consulted trans people" about their "lived experience" while interpreting existing law YOU ARE A MORON, this is not what courts do; and for good reason - how would it be workably scaled up?

• If you base your glowing view of trans ideology on what your daughter at private school and all her mates tell you (it doesn't affect us, Dad, why can't they just be kind?), then YOU ARE A MORON. What kind of general epistemology is that, exactly? You seem to be confusing having 360 degree insight into the intersection of law and social reality with them being able to use the remote better than you can.

I see so many people on here trying to shame the likes of Maugham, Campbell, Stewart, Harman (insert your most annoying establishment shill for transactivism here) on the grounds of their ethical failures and inability to empathise with vulnerable or respect basic fairness norms. It is hopeless. These people are utterly convinced of their moral rectitude, they automatically take disagreement as a sign of the limited mindset of their opposition.

We should forget all that, and hit them where it hurts: in the ego. THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST A BIT THICK. They are promoted way above their station, have blustered through on their accents, educations, and connections, and now the tide is going out, we can truly see who is naked. Let's learn from this, and never trust their so-called expertise on any other matter again.

https://x.com/Docstockk/status/1917165815339589823

@Waitingfordoggo
Stock is wonderful. I know I’m far from the only straight woman with a big crush on KS and her big brain.
Oh, you're not alone.
I love Doc Stock. Calm and funny.

And she's spot on here.

It’s a specific kind of thick, because it attracts people who like ideas which superficially seem clever. They feel like they have reached a higher level of enlightenment by being so flexibly minded that they have learnt to believe something which doesn’t seem possible to the uninitiated.

I think many are thick, but equally a lot are just bad faith actors who know perfectly well they are talking rubbish, but say it anyway because it serves some kind of purpose or agenda for them.

Agree, and I suspect those are in the majority. It's hard to credit that there's that many true believers. When you see people like Carla Denyer, you just wonder.

I wonder how much of the extreme anger and refusal to even listen to critical viewpoints is people trying to shield their dogma, because on some level they know it isn't true.

I've seen something similar in other contexts, where people suspect the emperor is naked and they're constantly trying to police themselves for slips of the tongue.

Yeah, this is where I'm at.

That doesn't stop them being thick, of course, but I think the overriding attitude is that they think everyone else is thick.

Clearly what they're saying is nonsense, and they must know that, but they believe if they say it enough times, or with enough conviction, people will buy it.

Unfortunately, they're not that wrong.

But I don't think the originators of all this are stupid, nor the legal bods having massive tantrums, etc. They are relying on other people not thinking clearly, or really not thinking at all.

As an aside, I'd be more than happy to use a different word other than moronic, but so far, I haven't found any that have the same impact as thick, moronic, idiotic, etc.

I know they offend some people, though, so happy to look at an alternative.

What I'm less happy to do is change all my language to not be offensive to the people I'm calling thick. It's bloody meant to offend.

It was once, but hasn’t been used in the medical world for years and years. Decades even. I think those words have lost quite a lot of their offensiveness because of that. We just don’t put people with learning disabilities into those particular neat little labelled classes any more.

Was this thread literally just created to call people with a different perspective stupid?

From the ‘side’ who accuses the other of shutting down debate?

Well, it's a take.

This is so true! I love FWR for moments like this when another woman points out something that is true and I recognise but that I had not previously managed to articulate.

It's a good thing to look out for, and call out too.

Part of the stupidity is intentional stupidity / moral cowardice / putting heads in sand in order to be sheeple and go along with the crowd. There are many people who are deciding to be stupid. Funnily enough, these same people usually know what a woman is when it comes to making babies and their actions therefore suggest that TW are not literally W.

I'm so glad more women, including prominent women like KS are speaking plainly and calling out the stupidity of gender ideology. Because it is absolutely ridiculously stupid to suggest that the mythical Pete, with his male biology, can just say 'I'm a woman' and everyone should pretend from that point on that he literally is a woman. Once there's a critical mass of plain speaking, I predict more reverse ferrets.

I don’t think they’re thick because it takes a certain level of intelligence to entertain the absurdity in the first place.

It’s definitely more like the midwit meme. The thickest and the smartest know there are 2 sexes and that Judith Butler are nonsense. It’s the 110IQs who think they are smarter than they actually are who will attempt the mental gymnastics to justify the woo.

Not believing in biology isn't an 'opinion'. If one doesn't believe in biology, then yes, it does make them a moron. Likewise believing 2+2=5 also makes one a moron.

Not believing in biology isn't a 'perspective'. If one doesn't believe in biology, then yes, it does make them stupid. Likewise believing 2+2=5 also makes one a stupid.

And what is with trans activists obsession with the word 'literally'? I've never seen that word used so much until the last 5 years.

Don't you know, literally means something IS. I swear, some use it in a no debate kind of way - to shut down conversation.

Given my user name, I am literally a rabbit. Bet you didn't know buns can type!
(I actually name changed on a thread about this very topic, as did quite a few others of us, Sirchenjens to name one 😂

lcakethereforeIam · Yesterday 17:32

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🥕

Deliciously subversive of you!

I feel that Dr. Stock's tweet is excellent and long overdue. The absolute shit she's had to put up with over these last years, I'm surprised that she was so measured!

It must have been cathartic for her.

I can see she is trying to puncture these people’s pride- and I hope it works, because rational argument certainly hasn’t. But I think their ‘stupidity’ is more a wilful blindness that stems from their unacknowledged hatred and contempt for women. And yes, that also applies to the many, many women who are pandering to this ideology, while throwing their sisters to the wolves.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Peima-Uw7w

l found this very helpful to understand, intelligent people tend to show more ideological bias.

The “other side” literally said “No Debate”. Very stupidly.

Isn't there a phenomenon where folk who have been conned just will not countenance it? The psychic injury to their vanity, their ego would be so great they keep doubling down, pretzel their logic, attack the ones trying to deprogram them. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't lack nimbleness in the brains department though. You have to be in on the con, a child or have the mental capacity of a carrot to have bought it in the first place.

I'd love to know why people like Starmer acted like believers though. It can't always be carrots...cowardice?

“Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.”
(Economist J.K Galbraith)

I think this quote is pretty relevent.

I think there might be a similar phenomenon with clever addicts.

They just have more ways to talk themselves into some clever-stupid reason to relapse.

So being clever can lead you into very stupid places, and it might be in that case, that the simple (stupid/straightforward) way of thinking can be best.

I mean we can't all be DrProfs who know how to use epistemology in a sentence. I know I'm not.

So maybe being half clever is a way to put it, as a PP up thread mentioned. It's dangerous to be half clever, can lead you to acting and sounding 100% stupid.

I think her point is less about true believers, and more about patronising idiots who haven't bothered to do the homework, but still expect their analysis to be taken seriously.

I suspect many teachers experience this kind of frustration.

Ironically, it's one of the reasons Campbell and Stewart have so much antipathy towards Johnson. They are less able to spot these flaws in themselves.

Yeah you get them in every pub.

They get used to being treated as the smart guy in the room, and start to think they're the smart guy in every room.

Yes, exactly.

The clever addict is a real type. One book I'd recommend is Counterfeit Dreams by Jefferson Hawkins, which is about his experience in Scientology but is a lot more broadly applicable. In that case there's an intellectual sunk cost fallacy where you've been in this cult for 30 years and it becomes almost impossible to admit it was a lie.

Not quite the same as the parents of trans-identified children, but a similar thought process where admitting to yourself that you might have been wrong is unbearable.

I think her point is less about true believers, and more about patronising idiots who haven't bothered to do the homework, but still expect their analysis to be taken seriously.

That's definitely where I place the Campbells and Stewarts, whose expertise is in really a very narrow field, and once they leave it they're relying on us being so overawed by their status and reputation that we don't notice they're giving us the Bart Simpson book report.