Excellent dissection of the so-called liberal media's bias. Thank you. As an old white dyke, I had hoped this nation would continue to a more equitable society. In the last decade, I have seen the opposite.
Gahhh, Noah, ya nailed it again! Another reminder of why I unsubbed from WaPo last week. For a paper that revived their "Democracy Dies in Darkness" slogan for the age of Trump, they certainly seem to be throwing plenty of their own shade in the wrong direction.
I had not read the article, but loved your ruthless dissection of a very toxic idea. That thinking is how the hideous world of the Handmaid’s Tale came to be. And they are so obtuse they don’t see it. ☹️🙄
It’s almost uncanny the way that everything the right accuses liberals and the left of doing is something that they do. In this case (and many other cases), what they call ‘social engineering,’ lack of respect for personal choices, charging individuals with the burden of improving society, and much more. This isn’t a very deep point but it’s fundamentally weird how invariable this aspect of their ideology is, where they go batshit over someone recommending you don’t have a gas stove because it can be harmful to your health and decrying the interference with personal freedom the advice involves but then say that you should marry someone you probably won’t like because ‘otherwise you’ll be unhappy.’
One of the thoughts I always have about this constant drumbeat of anxiety about the youth (which are ultimately always attacks on the youth, particularly women and LGBT and people of color) is that these people simply need to accept that society is going to change but by the time it substantially does, they’re going to be dead. It’s going to change partly because the people living in it will have different ideas and different needs. Can someone just explain to them that they will be DEAD and their view of what is best will no longer be a factor? This issue of marriage and reproduction doesn’t even involve their future interests, as they have already married and reproduced. Younger people face different circumstances which they are dealing with in their own way but this will be their society to shape. We older people will be DEAD.
If they were truly worried about how the world will be after we are all gone, there are many more useful things they could do to ensure it is better for the next generations than squawking about how young people should adopt their dying worldview. But they don’t care about the welfare of the next generations, they simply want to reproduce their value system. Thus, the people they identify with are the young white men, the ones to whom transmission of this value system apparently left them ill-prepared to flourish in changing circumstances, and who apparently haven’t been prepared by their elders to be flexible and adapt to any novel developments. I guess they see these men as their legacy? They burdened them with inapt world views and now they are constantly hectoring the rest of the citizens--in this case, young women-- to accommodate them, whatever the personal cost.
Of course what they know is that these kind of men could be a massive problem for everyone else if they fail to accommodate themselves to the fact they are just one person among many, and must cope with the norms of social cooperation the rest of us are expected to cope with, i.e., that it is unfair to coerce people to meet your needs but in fact having one’s needs met involves quite a lot of reciprocity. I guess creating a bunch of people who can’t handle a situation where the scales til towards fairer terms of cooperation is their real legacy.
Jeez, sometimes you feel like The Man's totally against against you in all his forms—Media, Politics, Religion, Education.... What a bloody mess this all is.
I heard about that thumbsucker and I thought, "Who is this writer, and is he INSANE?"
Sorry, I have nothing more profound to say than that....
I don't see anything that says he's a drinking man.... 🤷♂️
If he genuinely believes this, then he sounds like a stereotypical Muslim man looking for a quiet, subservient wife, and angry he can't find any among America's *shiksa* goddesses!
well...I mean, this is what right wing christians are on about in the US.
I think there have been debates about Hamid's ME scholarship and feminism, but I can't find them online really, so I'm not sure exactly what the issues are.
I feel like the more likely outcome is conservative white men rethinking their positions, rather than some kind of population crisis. But I guess WaPo is as concerned with there being fewer conservatives as much as there being fewer white babies
Excellent dissection of the so-called liberal media's bias. Thank you. As an old white dyke, I had hoped this nation would continue to a more equitable society. In the last decade, I have seen the opposite.
Jesus H. Christ, WaPO. I don't have anything coherent to say, just flames on the side of my face.
Gahhh, Noah, ya nailed it again! Another reminder of why I unsubbed from WaPo last week. For a paper that revived their "Democracy Dies in Darkness" slogan for the age of Trump, they certainly seem to be throwing plenty of their own shade in the wrong direction.
I had not read the article, but loved your ruthless dissection of a very toxic idea. That thinking is how the hideous world of the Handmaid’s Tale came to be. And they are so obtuse they don’t see it. ☹️🙄
F*** WAPO. It’s no mystery why print is dying.
It’s almost uncanny the way that everything the right accuses liberals and the left of doing is something that they do. In this case (and many other cases), what they call ‘social engineering,’ lack of respect for personal choices, charging individuals with the burden of improving society, and much more. This isn’t a very deep point but it’s fundamentally weird how invariable this aspect of their ideology is, where they go batshit over someone recommending you don’t have a gas stove because it can be harmful to your health and decrying the interference with personal freedom the advice involves but then say that you should marry someone you probably won’t like because ‘otherwise you’ll be unhappy.’
One of the thoughts I always have about this constant drumbeat of anxiety about the youth (which are ultimately always attacks on the youth, particularly women and LGBT and people of color) is that these people simply need to accept that society is going to change but by the time it substantially does, they’re going to be dead. It’s going to change partly because the people living in it will have different ideas and different needs. Can someone just explain to them that they will be DEAD and their view of what is best will no longer be a factor? This issue of marriage and reproduction doesn’t even involve their future interests, as they have already married and reproduced. Younger people face different circumstances which they are dealing with in their own way but this will be their society to shape. We older people will be DEAD.
If they were truly worried about how the world will be after we are all gone, there are many more useful things they could do to ensure it is better for the next generations than squawking about how young people should adopt their dying worldview. But they don’t care about the welfare of the next generations, they simply want to reproduce their value system. Thus, the people they identify with are the young white men, the ones to whom transmission of this value system apparently left them ill-prepared to flourish in changing circumstances, and who apparently haven’t been prepared by their elders to be flexible and adapt to any novel developments. I guess they see these men as their legacy? They burdened them with inapt world views and now they are constantly hectoring the rest of the citizens--in this case, young women-- to accommodate them, whatever the personal cost.
Of course what they know is that these kind of men could be a massive problem for everyone else if they fail to accommodate themselves to the fact they are just one person among many, and must cope with the norms of social cooperation the rest of us are expected to cope with, i.e., that it is unfair to coerce people to meet your needs but in fact having one’s needs met involves quite a lot of reciprocity. I guess creating a bunch of people who can’t handle a situation where the scales til towards fairer terms of cooperation is their real legacy.
Jeez, sometimes you feel like The Man's totally against against you in all his forms—Media, Politics, Religion, Education.... What a bloody mess this all is.
I heard about that thumbsucker and I thought, "Who is this writer, and is he INSANE?"
Sorry, I have nothing more profound to say than that....
it's credited to the editorial board, but Shadi Hamid took credit for at least some portion of it on twitter.
I don't see anything that says he's a drinking man.... 🤷♂️
If he genuinely believes this, then he sounds like a stereotypical Muslim man looking for a quiet, subservient wife, and angry he can't find any among America's *shiksa* goddesses!
well...I mean, this is what right wing christians are on about in the US.
I think there have been debates about Hamid's ME scholarship and feminism, but I can't find them online really, so I'm not sure exactly what the issues are.
He's argued that feminism and Islam are not contradictory, which seems pretty reasonable...
I feel like the more likely outcome is conservative white men rethinking their positions, rather than some kind of population crisis. But I guess WaPo is as concerned with there being fewer conservatives as much as there being fewer white babies