Ben Shapiro vs Neil deGrasse Tyson: The WAR Over Transgender Issues

[Deesse23]

and my dear, you sure love to float the idea of taking away the rights of others - how very fassy of you.

First off being trans is not a mental disorder. This is just another baseless claim of yours.

Second, I don't intend to take away the rights of others, I was just applying YOUR logic to YOUR particular group in society. That went completely over your head, and unwillingly you just argued against your own point.

Dishonest AND ignorant, what a lovely combo.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

(my bold)

TWM is too big a coward to approach this topic with any kind of intellectual honesty.

Thanks for bringing it up; I skim through the spam when I feel like swinging by, and I reckon this one must be a big one yall want addressed. I'm sorry you didn't have any family to visit or a vacation to take on your New Years, but try to understand that's not the case for all of us and watch your tongue.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cost" - of course there is always going to be a general "cost" when people suffer from mental disorders - but I don't think they differ from someone with schizophrenia, alcoholism, or alien hand syndrome; the "cost" of someone on society is determined by their actions, not by their sex or gender - or any other stereotype you want to try to fit them into. I don't buy into your hyper-collectivism, hyper-ingroup bigotry and the simple truth is that this ideology has been carefully developed by simple minds with simple goals; their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

The cost of "Christian bigotry and misogyny" is just the cost of bigotry and misogyny - and my dear, you sure love to float the idea of taking away the rights of others - how very fassy of you.

I defer to your expertise as a Christian, a bigot, and a misogynist.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

TWM - tell us you are a troll without telling us you are a troll.

[Belacqua]

the "cost" of someone on society is determined by their actions, not by their sex or gender - or any other stereotype you want to try to fit them into.

Though I think I would use different language than @TheWhiteMarten here, there is a serious discussion to be had.

I wouldn't say "cost," necessarily. But the idea that a person's political role is formed by their actions, rather than their identity, is one that Christopher Hitchens argued for. He was very much against identity politics. For him, actions were what mattered, not the accidents of one's birth.

---

(from his memoirs):

As 1968 began to ebb into 1969, however, and as “anticlimax” began to become a real word in my lexicon, another term began to obtrude itself. People began to intone the words “The Personal Is Political.” At the instant I first heard this deadly expression, I knew as one does from the utterance of any sinister bullshit that it was—cliché is arguably forgivable here—very bad news. From now on, it would be enough to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic “preference”, to qualify as a revolutionary. In order to begin a speech or to ask a question from the floor, all that would be necessary by way of preface would be the words: “Speaking as a…” Then could follow any self-loving description. I will have to say this much for the old “hard” Left: we earned our claim to speak and intervene by right of experience and sacrifice and work. It would never have done for any of us to stand up and say that our sex or sexuality or pigmentation or disability were qualifications in themselves. There are many ways of dating the moment when the Left lost or—I would prefer to say—discarded its moral advantage, but this was the first time that I was to see the sellout conducted so cheaply.

(and from his Letters to a Young Contrarian):

Beware of Identity politics. I'll rephrase that: have nothing to do with identity politics. I remember very well the first time I heard the saying "The Personal Is Political". It began as a sort of reaction to defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they 'felt', not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its sub-groups and "specificities". This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee transgender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.

Anyway, what you swiftly realise if you peek over the wall of your own immediate neighbourhood or environment, and travel beyond it, is, first, that we have a huge surplus of people who wouldn't change anything about the way they were born, or the group they were born into, but second that "humanity" (and the idea of change) is best represented by those who have the wit not to think, or should I say feel, in this way.

---

I got to wondering whether Hitchens would be on Dawkins' side in the current debate, or on P.Z. Myers' side. That is, whether he would get moved to the Naughty List with Dawkins and Coyne.

Of course we can't know, since he's dead, but based on things he wrote I think we can make some guesses.

First, based on the quotes above, I don't think he would support the politics that focusses on identity. As an old-fashioned leftie, his politics were more about social class and economic justice.

Also, as I recall, he was personally fairly conservative on the subject of gender roles, and was personally opposed to abortion -- although he thought these things were personal and shouldn't be legislated. So he might well have downplayed the trans rights movement.

I suspect that he would have supported an individual's right to determine issues about their own body, and to live and dress as they wish. But at the same time, he was adamant about anyone attempting to control his language, so he probably would not have stood for anyone telling him what pronouns he was allowed to use.

I'm not expert on his work, though, so if anyone has different quotes that are relevant I'd be interested to see them.

I understand, of course, that atheists are people who think for themselves and no one here would care at all about Hitchens' opinion. I'm just interested in the way trans issues appear to have re-drawn certain battle lines, with people who were formerly judged to be Good People now recategorized onto the Bad People list.

[Ravenshire]

(my bold)

TWM is too big a coward to approach this topic with any kind of intellectual honesty.

Thanks for bringing it up; I skim through the spam when I feel like swinging by, and I reckon this one must be a big one yall want addressed. I'm sorry you didn't have any family to visit or a vacation to take on your New Years, but try to understand that's not the case for all of us and watch your tongue.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cost" - of course there is always going to be a general "cost" when people suffer from mental disorders - but I don't think they differ from someone with schizophrenia, alcoholism, or alien hand syndrome; the "cost" of someone on society is determined by their actions, not by their sex or gender - or any other stereotype you want to try to fit them into. I don't buy into your hyper-collectivism, hyper-ingroup bigotry and the simple truth is that this ideology has been carefully developed by simple minds with simple goals; their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

The cost of "Christian bigotry and misogyny" is just the cost of bigotry and misogyny - and my dear, you sure love to float the idea of taking away the rights of others - how very fassy of you.

Isn't that cute. The troll actually thinks I'm interested in engaging with it.

[The Grand Nudger]

More wokester nonsense.  No one is abrogating your rights by pissing while trans.

[Sheldon]

TheWhiteMarten

(my bold)

TWM is too big a coward to approach this topic with any kind of intellectual honesty.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cost" 

Well it was your claim, you claimed that trans people living their lives based on their gender identity, rather than their biological sex came at a cost to others, one assumes you had some idea of what this cost was, and who incurs it, when you made the claim? Though of course it could simply be another piece of the vapid bigoted rhetoric that litter your contributions here. 

of course there is always going to be a general "cost" when people suffer from mental disorders - but I don't think they differ from someone with schizophrenia, alcoholism, or alien hand syndrome; 

Gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder, and the mental health problems people with gender dysphoria may suffer from generally come from prejudice and bigotry, of the kind you have been espousing about them since you got here. This also doesn't remotely address your claim that trans people living their lives as themselves comes at a cost to others. 

As I said before, why does this bother you at all, give me one cogent honest answer I can understand?

the "cost" of someone on society is determined by their actions, not by their sex or gender - or any other stereotype you want to try to fit them into. 

How does a trans person living their lives as themselves cost society anything? 

 I don't buy into your hyper-collectivism, hyper-ingroup bigotry and the simple truth is that this ideology has been carefully developed by simple minds with simple goals; their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

What ideology, what relevance does this latest disjointed rant have, to trans people at all? 

The cost of "Christian bigotry and misogyny" is just the cost of bigotry and misogyny - and my dear, you sure love to float the idea of taking away the rights of others - how very fassy of you.

Leaving aside the vapid tautology , and your hilariously ironic use of a misogynistic epithet, who are you claiming has suggested taking away the rights of others, what rights are you claiming they want to take away? I suspect some unexpected family demands will "miraculously" prevent you from answering this honestly of course, but hey ho.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Trans people violate his right to not be offended.

[Sheldon]

Trans people violate his right to not be offended.

This was my suspicion as well, that their very existence being acknowledged publicly even by themselves, somehow violates his Christian right to adhere to archaic religious bigotry and prejudice. 

Until he honestly answers this:

Why does the idea of trans people living their lives according to their gender identity, rather than their biological sex, bother you at all? 

All we can can do is draw a rational inference.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

the "cost" of someone on society is determined by their actions, not by their sex or gender - or any other stereotype you want to try to fit them into.

Though I think I would use different language than @TheWhiteMarten here, there is a serious discussion to be had.

I wouldn't say "cost," necessarily. But the idea that a person's political role is formed by their actions, rather than their identity, is one that Christopher Hitchens argued for. He was very much against identity politics. For him, actions were what mattered, not the accidents of one's birth.

---

(from his memoirs):

As 1968 began to ebb into 1969, however, and as “anticlimax” began to become a real word in my lexicon, another term began to obtrude itself. People began to intone the words “The Personal Is Political.” At the instant I first heard this deadly expression, I knew as one does from the utterance of any sinister bullshit that it was—cliché is arguably forgivable here—very bad news. From now on, it would be enough to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic “preference”, to qualify as a revolutionary. In order to begin a speech or to ask a question from the floor, all that would be necessary by way of preface would be the words: “Speaking as a…” Then could follow any self-loving description. I will have to say this much for the old “hard” Left: we earned our claim to speak and intervene by right of experience and sacrifice and work. It would never have done for any of us to stand up and say that our sex or sexuality or pigmentation or disability were qualifications in themselves. There are many ways of dating the moment when the Left lost or—I would prefer to say—discarded its moral advantage, but this was the first time that I was to see the sellout conducted so cheaply.

(and from his Letters to a Young Contrarian):

Beware of Identity politics. I'll rephrase that: have nothing to do with identity politics. I remember very well the first time I heard the saying "The Personal Is Political". It began as a sort of reaction to defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they 'felt', not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its sub-groups and "specificities". This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee transgender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.

Anyway, what you swiftly realise if you peek over the wall of your own immediate neighbourhood or environment, and travel beyond it, is, first, that we have a huge surplus of people who wouldn't change anything about the way they were born, or the group they were born into, but second that "humanity" (and the idea of change) is best represented by those who have the wit not to think, or should I say feel, in this way.

---

I got to wondering whether Hitchens would be on Dawkins' side in the current debate, or on P.Z. Myers' side. That is, whether he would get moved to the Naughty List with Dawkins and Coyne.

Of course we can't know, since he's dead, but based on things he wrote I think we can make some guesses.

First, based on the quotes above, I don't think he would support the politics that focusses on identity. As an old-fashioned leftie, his politics were more about social class and economic justice.

Also, as I recall, he was personally fairly conservative on the subject of gender roles, and was personally opposed to abortion -- although he thought these things were personal and shouldn't be legislated. So he might well have downplayed the trans rights movement.

I suspect that he would have supported an individual's right to determine issues about their own body, and to live and dress as they wish. But at the same time, he was adamant about anyone attempting to control his language, so he probably would not have stood for anyone telling him what pronouns he was allowed to use.

I'm not expert on his work, though, so if anyone has different quotes that are relevant I'd be interested to see them.

I understand, of course, that atheists are people who think for themselves and no one here would care at all about Hitchens' opinion. I'm just interested in the way trans issues appear to have re-drawn certain battle lines, with people who were formerly judged to be Good People now recategorized onto the Bad People list.

Now explain why I should give two shits about what a dead man would have thought about trans rights. Why not Dante? Could we discuss what Vercingetorix thought about this? Maybe we could conjure up the ghosts of Socrates, Columbus, and Saladin and have them debate it.

Christ on a crutch.

Boru