In a speech given in support of Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat seeking to re-acquire the governorship of Virginia which he held from 2014-2018, Barack Obama, on Oct. 23, implored the voters of that state to simply ignore the “phony trumped up culture wars” being hyped by the right-wing media. “Conservative” outrage with the supposed intellectual/moral decline of the West is, he averred, completely “fake.” But it is not, and his assertion to the contrary is a glaring example of the intellectual/moral bankruptcy of the contemporary Left. As a member of that religious sect, Obama is perfectly willing to sacrifice Culture at the altar of a mindless Inclusiveness. Because Culture means nothing to him, he can’t imagine that it matters to others!
What is Culture? While certainly not presuming the following to be the final word on this issue, Culture, it seems to me, is that complex amalgam of Man’s intellectual, moral and temperamental responses to the world around him given expression in those rules and conventions, explicit or implied, governing the way in which he chooses to confront that world. Culture reflects a society’s fundamental definition of what it means to be Human. Certainly unworthy of being cast aside as a mere minor issue, it shapes our very concepts of truth and untruth, good and evil. Obama’s attempt to minimize what he suggests is a mere manufactured cultural crisis here in the West is an absolute disgrace for one who fancies himself an intellectual, yet a perfect example of why I have been placing that word in quotation marks for all of my more than 200 blogs. Ironically, his support of candidate McAuliffe does nothing but highlight the importance of the Culture Wars presently ravaging the Democratic West.
The state of Virginia has recently been torn by a controversy involving the Loudon County School Board’s policy of allowing students to use washrooms and locker rooms consistent with their declared gender identity. In June, at a board meeting in which a number of parents expressed their objections to that policy, one Scott Smith was arrested for getting unduly belligerent in descrying the fact that his young daughter had been raped in a girl’s washroom by an individual with a penis who was nevertheless wearing a skirt. The board’s agenda, with typically “woke” irrationality, placed the sensitivity of that minute minority of individuals suffering from gender dysphoria ahead of the welfare of those millions of young girls who might feel threatened by sharing their most private of moments with one sporting the genitalia of the opposite sex. What truly appalled Mr. Smith was that the Loudon Board had attempted to hide the fact of his daughter’s rape, Superintendent Scott Ziegler assuring him at the June 22 meeting that no such event had been reported. Subsequent evidence showed he had been informed of the incident on May 28, the very day it had occurred. When confronted with his brazen lie, he said he had misunderstood the nature of Smith’s accusation.
Quite aside from the particulars of this case, the “cultural” issue at hand is whether government agencies have the right to impose on their citizens policies of a demonstrably Ideological as opposed to Rational nature. An individual with a penis who claims to be a Woman, no matter the rantings of today’s gender radicals, is significantly different from a Biological Female. This is a statement rooted in Fact rather than Hatred! But Facts, to those on the Left, are irrelevant when they collide with their fanatical devotion to Inclusiveness, a religious cipher which asks us to equate intelligence with stupidity, reason with superstition, achievement with non-achievement and indeed an individual with a penis to one with a vagina. I am in no way seeking to vilify those of ambiguous sexual identity, but the “woke” members of that demographic, those willing to selfishly put their need for personal validation ahead of the rights and safety of others, those who would have society simply ignore their deviancy from the biological human norm, those who would seem to be “marginalized” by the demonstrable realities of their condition, must in fact come to acknowledge and accept those realities. But the Woke dwell in the land of feelings rather than Reality. Hence the fact that in various jurisdictions, those born Male who claim to be Female are allowed to compete in athletic competitions against biological females, the absurd but predictable result being that Women may soon be unable to succeed in competitions specifically designed for Women!
“Hurt feelings” are as often the result of the moral and intellectual shortcomings of the “offended” as of any demonstrable injustice in the actual world. Indeed Jordan Peterson is wont to point out that those who Think are by definition bound to “offend” those who refuse to think. “Hurt feelings,” in other words, ought never to be the basis of government policy. That they nevertheless would seem to be the motivation behind much of the Leftist agenda is a fundamental cultural issue separating rational Conservatives from “compassionate progressives,” indeed poisoning most every attempt at dialogue between the two.
The “inclusive” gender policy of Loudon County’s School Board is clearly contentious to a significant number of the parents of those female students affected by it. But candidate Terry McAuliffe has insisted repeatedly, as verified by at least 7 recorded statements, that those parents are entitled to no say whatsoever in the policies of their various school boards. Does that sound like Democracy to you? Critical Race Theory grossly simplifies History on behalf of those who, often without any demonstrable evidence, claim to be victims of continuing racism, yet Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, is openly seeking ways to deter American citizens from challenging the teaching of C.R.T. in their schools. Does that sound like Democracy to you?
My question is not merely random but rather is intended to suggest a second fundamental permutation that has come to infect our cultural consciousness over the last several decades, the very definition of Democracy itself. The Enlightenment philosophers and the designers of the U.S. Constitution, fully aware of Man’s propensity to tyrannize, saw Democratic governments as servants of and for the people. Yet given the cynical vision of the species informing the Neo-Marxist Left, both Loudon’s Board of Education and indeed America’s Attorney General have arrogantly concluded that they have every right to coerce those beneath them into submitting to their “politically correct” world view. This represents a profound departure from, indeed betrayal of, the Humanist assumptions informing our Civilization, yet the brilliant Mr. Obama has asserted that the so-called culture wars are a mere right-wing invention!