"But he hasn't got anything on at all"

As I frequently say I am in the business of questioning assumptions and I don’t think there should be things that cannot be said. This must be said. So let it be said.

At some point in the past fifty years or so someone decided that there was a thing called gender that differed from biological sex. From this all sorts of unlikely thinking has arisen. As with everything else it is necessary to go back to first principles and question everything. 

In the 1940s John Steinbeck wrote his novel East of Eden. At one point a little girl tells her uncle that she would like to be a boy and could he help her become one. The uncle points out to her that it isn’t possible for her to be a boy and she has to accept what she is. Over time she does so. She grows up and becomes a woman.

Imagine this same conversation today. I still think most parents would try to convince their little girl that it wasn’t possible for her to become a boy. But there is always the chance that someone would eventually agree with the little girl. They would take seriously the idea that she felt that she was really a little boy and they would set about making her dream come true. Would this story have a happy ending?

Let’s look at the ideas involved in modern day assumptions. It is assumed that gender can be different from biological sex. The little girl’s biological sex is female but her gender is really that of a boy. But how do we determine this gender? Is there anything empirically that we can point to in order to determine if it is true? All we have is the little girl’s statement that she feels like a boy and wants to become one. But how does she know that she feels like a boy? How does she know what being a boy feels like? I do not know what it feels like to be any other person. I only know what it feels like to be me.

Moreover, if what matters is that someone says they feel like something else, what if the little girl had said I feel like a cat and want to become a cat? Should we take that statement seriously and set about turning her into a cat? Why can’t we make a similar distinction between our biology as homo-sapiens and our feelings that we are cats? This is clearly analogous to the distinction between being biologically a little girl and feeling like a little boy. It may not be technologically possible to turn people into cats, but this is a mere medical limitation. One hundred years ago no-one thought it possible to turn a girl into a boy. So we could work towards a time when we could fulfil the little girl’s desire to be a cat, meanwhile accepting that although she is biologically a human being she is really a cat.

If however we accept that there is a distinction between biological sex and gender why ought there to be a need to change biological sex. If gender is determined by how someone feels, why not say you can feel as you please, no-one is stopping you. But why then do you feel the need to change your biological sex? There is a contradiction here. Either whether someone is a girl or a boy is something objective or it is not. If it is a matter of how someone feels, there need be no need to get medicine involved. If on the other hand it is something objective, then it ought to be determined objectively. But how is it that we determine the sex of infants? This is either the criterion of who is boy and who is a girl or it isn’t. You can’t have it both ways.  There is nothing hindering you being subjectively a little boy even if you were born a little girl. But subjectivity is not truth and ought not to determine reality. Once you go down the route of making subjectivity the master of thought then you can quite soon believe absolutely anything, no matter how unlikely. This unfortunately is the case throughout much of the Western world. We have reached the stage where “black” will soon mean “white” if that is what the latest PC fad suggests. Moreover we all must conform or else face censure. Soon we will be commanded to believe that 2 + 2 = 5 and we will all do so willingly. 

With regard to the sex that someone is assigned at birth, there are no doubt instances of people who have a medical condition that requires intervention, but these are few and far between. However, in the vast majority of cases it is simply unhelpful to make a false distinction between gender and biological sex. In the world we live in today I suspect 99% of the population understands sex as an objective matter that is almost always determined at birth. Only in the West have we got ourselves into a terrible muddle by making a distinction where there is no difference. The correct response to someone who says they were born with the wrong gender is to point out that they are simply mistaken. You may feel like a boy, but you are not a boy. You may feel like a cat, but you are not a cat. It is better to be what you are than to try to be what you are not and can never become. That way only lies unhappiness, because it is to try to build a house on the foundations of falsity.

It is unreasonable to base our whole theory of identity on a few people who describe themselves as transgender. The norm for nearly everyone is that there is no distinction between sex and gender. Creating a distinction where there is none because of a small group of people who are objectively mistaken is clearly odd and lacking in logic. Moreover it is I believe harmful. Many little girls who would grow up to be women and little boys who would grow up to be men are being confused by an assumption which has no evidence behind it. It is quite simply something a few academics made up out of their heads mainly because they are sophists who have fallen for the old lie that “man is the measure of all things”.  Plato showed the folly of this position thousands of years ago. There is truth and it is objective otherwise what I am writing right now would be self-defeating and pointless.

There are objective qualities and there are subjective qualities. For the vast majority of us it is simply a fact that we are male or female, black or white. I cannot say that I feel like a black woman and therefore I am a black woman. This quality of being black is objective. To fail to realise this rapidly leads to the nonsense of someone pretending to be black even though their parents were white.  For the self-same reason I cannot say that I feel like I am a man, therefore you ought to help me become a man. It is more correct to simply say to me, “I’m very sorry but you are mistaken. You are a woman. Accept it for this is something you cannot change.” If we really thought that the idea of someone being a girl or a boy was subjective we wouldn’t determine it in the way that we do at birth, but rather we would wait for every infant to become eighteen before giving it a name or deciding what sex it was.  

There are exceptions to every rule and we must be kind and understanding. But we do not define words by how they are used by a tiny minority. The fact is that for nearly everyone in the world there is no distinction between sex and gender. We determine both by looking at someone when they are naked.  The whole theory of gender being distinct from biological sex falls down upon a simple examination. It’s a wonder that so many people believe in it. But then there is a lot of pressure on them to do so. But I’m very sorry, I may be something of a lone voice here, but I feel the need to point out that the emperor has no clothes on at all.

Dwelling in the land of Nod

There’s a small section in John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden where he discusses how people in Salinas, California used to think about the future. He writes “The whole valley, the whole West was that way. It was a time when the past had lost its sweetness and sap” (Ch. 15.i). When the 19th century turned into the 20th, these people in the West started to look forward, anticipating the inevitable progress towards which the American dream was leading. They might not know quite when this heaven on earth would arrive but they had hope and faith that it would. It didn’t matter that the dream had not yet been fulfilled, it mattered only that they were tending towards it. Maybe it would even be fulfilled in their own lifetime. “And people found happiness in the future according to their present lack” (Ch. 15.i).

I found this passage by chance in a novel I was reading by chance. I’d just watched again the James Dean film for the first time in years and wanted to see what the book was like. Something struck me when I read these sentences and I spent a few days thinking about why they had caught my attention.

I remember reading about how the SNP organised the independence campaign. They were taught by some American political guru that they must banish all negativity. Alex, Nicola and co. played some sort of game where they had a collection of balls and had to give away one each time they said anything that was not positive. They learned their lesson. I may have mangled the story, but the essence of it is true.

There’s something about these political gurus that I despise. They’ve turned politics into a game which attempts to manipulate the result using human psychology. It turns politics into a sport where what matters is my team winning. But politics must have a purpose beyond mere winning. Otherwise, it becomes a game not worth playing. What matters in the end is not whether Republicans or Democrats win, but how the country is run. The political guru is paid to make his party win even if that were bad for the country, just as a lawyer frequently is paid to get his client off even if he is guilty. This has nothing to do with justice and nothing at all to do with truth.

In Scotland we were faced with a debate about the future of our country. No more important decision can be made than breaking up a nation state that has withstood so much throughout the course of its history. The result should not be influenced by political trickery. Let us banish all gurus, especially those who couldn’t care less about Scotland so long as they are paid. The future of Scotland should not be determined by balls as if it were some sort of lottery. It’s not about creating a populist mood. It’s not about manipulating psychology. Rather, it’s about decisions that will affect all of our lives in ways we can hardly guess at. Let us at least be a little serious about how we decide such questions. Let us focus on issues of substance. If what I say is true, it ought to matter not one little bit if some people find it negative. Truth sometimes is negative and it is simply childish to try to avoid it as if reality dare not impede the dreams of nationalists.

But this is not where we are in Scotland. Nothing must interfere with our dreams. What Steinbeck showed in his novel is the power of hope, the power of the idea that life will get better, maybe not for me, but for those who come after me. This is compelling particularly for those who lack something now. Most importantly, the mere idea that the future will be better makes these people happier now, just because they hope that in time their dream will come to pass. The anticipation can sometimes even be better than the thing anticipated. Who has not looked forward to a trip, only to be disappointed with the reality? As long as the goal is in the future, reality need not impede the dream. This was the power of the SNP campaign. All they had to do was present people with hope and this hope made those, especially with a present lack, happier. The problem with this method of campaigning, however, is that it doesn’t depend on truth and is immune to counter argument.  

People in California over a hundred years ago dreamt of how untold riches would come to the valley of Salinas. They thought of how progress would end all the hardships they had to endure at present. Anyone pointing out difficulties was just being negative. Such comments were wholly unwelcome, even un-American as they went counter to the American dream.

This is our problem in countering the dreams put forward by the SNP. For those caught up in the dream, any counter argument is just being negative. Moreover, the dream simply depends on faith in the future. It cannot be disproved, because the proof that would counter it does not exist, or exists only in a future that may or may not unfold. We therefore have faith based politics. Nothing I can say can disprove a claim about the future. After all, the future is not and can be anything I dream it to be.

The problem however, with the politics of hope is that it does eventually collide with reality. The SNP have put forward a vision of an independent Scotland. They have turned a proportion of the Scottish electorate into those who look forward to this with hope. They see every counter argument as just talking down Scotland. Wha’s like us, we can make the future of Scotland anything we choose it to be. They think anyone who doesn’t share their dream is ultimately un-Scottish. But if Scotland did become independent, the dream would in the end face a reality. At this point the counter arguments would be proved true or not as the case may be. But by that point it would, of course, be too late. This is the power of the SNP’s argument. It doesn’t matter if the dream they put forward does not turn out as they describe. There may be disappointments, but independence is a one way street and there would be no going back. Their hope does not need to have any relationship to truth, for their dream is only independence. It matters not one little bit to them what an independent Scotland would be like just so long as it was independent.

There is something seductive about the idea of inevitable progress. Steinbeck’s Salinas valley did get richer and the standard of living did rise. But then anywhere that has free markets and doesn’t do something politically or economically stupid will see a gradual rise in the standard of living. Anyone who can remember the 1960s and 1970s realises that we are incomparably better off now than we were then. But clearly this is not the hope that Scottish nationalists seek. If they were only interested in the gradual rising of living standards, they would be content to stay in the UK. Here is where they begin to side with people like Mr Corbyn in presenting a vision of the future that is rather more Utopian.

The Scottish nationalist vision just like the vision of the Corbynites is of a society that is fair, without inequality that never goes to war and where socialism brings something close to heaven on earth. People find happiness in this idea according to their present lack. This is why it is so difficult to counter. It’s an ideal. Even Tony Blair did not join the Labour Party to become a Blairite. He joined because he hoped one day to bring about the socialist paradise that he dreamed of when he was a youth. Why is it that people who disagreed with Corbyn let him into the contest in the first place? The reason is that although they disagree with him, they wish that what he says was true. The problem with the pragmatists who oppose Corbyn is that they can all remember when they agreed with him and would like to agree with him now.

But neither Scotland, nor England is going to become a socialist paradise even if some people try the experiment. The reason is quite simple. Although it would be nice if we were all content to live in a socialist paradise, we never will because it would be necessary to change human nature to do so. Free markets bring prosperity, precisely because of all the nasty things that socialism strives to remove. It is inequality that drives progress. The future does not always see hopes fulfilled. Progress is not always inevitable. Many parts of the world were far worse by the mid part of the 20th century than they had been at the beginning.    

The hope that is put forward by both Nicola Sturgeon and Jeremy Corbyn is quite seductive and it is very difficult to counter, but it is worth remembering that more unhappiness has been caused by Utopian dreams than almost anything else in history. These dreams will eventually come up against reality. It may be impossible for us who do not dwell in the land of Nod East of Eden to counter those who do, but their dream world is liable to turn into a nightmare. But for the present, there is no waking them up, because hope is a greater soporific even than morphia.