The Berkeley law professor, the senator, and the use of language
I was rather surprised to see how many people reacted to the video of the Berkeley professor, Khiara Bridges, in her exchange with Senator Josh Hawley, by saying they thought she wasn’t very bright.
On the contrary, in my opinion she’s smart, and she knows exactly what she’s saying.
What’s more, in the exchange between Bridges and Hawley that can be found at that link, my perception is that both understand what the other is saying quite well and both are smart. It’s just that they are playing a semantic and political game about the meaning of the word “woman.”
And when I call it a game, please don’t think I mean it is something trivial or light. It is a deadly serious game with large consequences for liberty. It goes to the heart of the argument between today’s left – represented by Bridges – and today’s right, represented by Hawley. That argument comes from what the great Thomas Sowell has called the conflict of visions.
Sowell wrote his book on the subject in 1987 (revised in 2007), and it set up the dichotomy this way:
The root of these conflicts, Sowell claims, are the “visions”, or the intuitive feelings that people have about human nature; different visions imply radically different consequences for how they think about everything from war to justice.
The rest of the book describes two basic visions, the “unconstrained” and “constrained” visions, which are thought to capture opposite ends of a continuum of political thought on which one can place many contemporary Westerners, in addition to their intellectual ancestors of the past few centuries…
Sowell often refers to [those with the unconstrained vision, such as Bridges in this case] as “the self anointed.” Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exist some people [themselves, of course] who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.
I will add that a favorite tool of the self-anointed is to insist on changes of language in order to change both perceptions and policies, as well as the favoring of subjective feelings over objective truth (the latter of which they have a tendency to deny, except when it happens to favor their cause).
More:
Those with a constrained vision favor solid empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the constrained vision demands checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest.
That would be Hawley’s position.
And the argument between Bridges and Hawley about the word “woman” is an argument about whose vision will prevail. It puts me in mind of the following dialogue between Humpty Dumpty and Alice, from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass:
“[T]hat shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents.”
“Certainly,” said Alice.
“And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”
That is indeed the question that underlies the sparring between Bridges and Hawley, with Bridges playing the role of Humpty Dumpty and Hawley as Alice. Note also the fact that, in the passage from the book, Humpty Dumpty smiles contemptuously and later addresses Alice “in rather a scornful tone.” This was true of Bridges, as well, because the self-anointed often feel contemptuous and scornful towards those who won’t get with the program.
It’s clear, also, that Bridges seems to thinks she’s gotten the better of Hawley in that exchange, and Hawley may indeed believe that he’s the winner. I have little doubt that the viewers on each side thinks that the person with whom they agree has scored the most points (see this, for example).
But I also think the most effective way of arguing involves understanding what’s behind the arguments of the other side. In that spirit, I offer this guide to what Bridges was saying, and the philosophy behind it. I’ll summarize the logic this way:
(1) In using the terms “man” and “woman” we are beyond the simplistic, objective, biologically-determined thinking of old. In our brave new world, what matters is a person’s self-perception about being a man or a woman. This world is not binary – some people are “non-binary” – but most people will be identifying (the operative term) as man or woman. Whether a person is in fact a man or woman is completely determined by that individual’s self-perception. What’s more, the rest of the world must recognize that self-perception as the only reality and behave appropriately, and that includes not only using the correct pronouns but also a newly-appropriate use of the terms “man” and “woman” to describe such people in the manner defined by that reality. Furthermore, it is a reality that, although often recently arrived at, is considered to extend backwards in time, so that even though the person was previously considered a man or a woman (or a boy or a girl), in fact that person was always the other sex and was merely “assigned” a sex at birth that turned out to have been incorrect. Therefore birth certificates can be changed ex post facto in order to conform to the new sex the person always had, appearances at birth to the contrary. And that is also why those people who ultimately choose to have sex-change surgery are now considered to be having sex affirmation surgery, a procedure that makes their outsides conform better to what is now considered to have always been their identity.
Therefore:
(2) a biological male transitioning to becoming a trans woman should always be called a woman because that’s what he (now “she”) believes he (now “she”) is, and what he (now “she”) wishes to be called. So “he” is now “she” and is defined as a woman, although he-now-she cannot get pregnant – therefore this is a woman who cannot get pregnant. In addition, this he-now-she was always a “she,” and to suggest otherwise is to harm that person, because words are violence.
(3) a biological female transitioning to becoming a trans man should always be called a man because that’s what she (now “he”) believes she (now “he”) is, and what she (now “he”) wishes to be called. However, if she (now “he”) still has an intact vagina, ovaries, and uterus – which many such people have because they’ve not gotten so-called “bottom” surgery – then she-now-he can become pregnant. In addition, this she-now-he was always a “he,” and to suggest otherwise is to harm that person, because words are violence. Ergo, he can become pregnant. Therefore, since this person is a man, it is correct (and even obligatory) to say that a man can become pregnant. To suggest otherwise is, in Bridges words, to deny the existence of such a person – and that is violence.
Similar arguments go for so-called “binary” people, but I won’t go into the tedious details except to add that they tend to prefer other pronouns (such as “they”) and tend not to want to be called either “man” or “woman.”
These arguments seem absurd because they deny biological reality. But they are not illogical; they have an internal logic and progression. Such positions once were confined to leftists in academia, but now they have gone out into the general society and the left is trying to impose them through shaming. When Bridges accuses Hawley of “violence” – even implying that he can cause suicides among fragile people through his questioning – she is using a tried-and-true tactic of shaming those who won’t get with the program and use the approved leftist language.
It seems surreal, but so is Lewis Carroll’s book that takes us Through the Looking Glass into another world. The book is written in the spirit of play, but the game between Bridges the professor and Hawley the policy-maker is not fun, and the stakes are high.
I didn’t notice it right away, but the Berkley law prof had a ring in her nose. If I appeared before the Senate, I’d wear mine!
Yeah, she might have earned some fancy degrees but she’s completely divorced from reality and common sense.
Scott Adams put it best: Two movies on one screen.
We conservatives have very little in common with today’s Left. The Left needs to be totally defeated. Defeated so badly that they know they are defeated and have no popular support. Only then can we build bridges. But I doubt this will happen in my lifetime. The Left is crazy and they don’t know they are crazy.
Khiara Bridges was certainly of sufficient intelligence to pass through the various hoops required to ascend the ladder of academic success, but she, like many academicians (incapable of speaking cogently outside a narrow field of expertise), would appear to be not really capable of arguing rationally, with a sophistic and legalistic style being, in all likelihood, dominant. Furthermore, her reference to Hawley’s “violence” is simply a trope favored by leftists to suggest that while their all-too-real violence is protected “free speech”, any dissenting opinion from the right actually constitutes “violence”.
I’m with you until Bridges demands “violence” be defined to include asking questions.
Sorry, I’m still in the “not that bright” camp. If Bridges were really smart, she’d know that using such language out in the open like this will sound bizarre and stupid to a great many unaligned people. Her use of the “words as violence” trope is especially dumb because while relatively normal people might be persuaded that a person could experience words as violence against them, Bridges is nakedly invoking the tactic on behalf of others.
She’s not accusing Hawley of violence against herself. She’s accusing him of violence against some theoretical person somewhere. It intellectualizes the shaming in a way that is self-defeating.
Mike
Vitally important post. Thanks…
Leland; j e:
Here’s the argument about that: any speech that might trigger violence is doing violence to the person who might be triggered. Bridges said that one in six trans people are at risk for suicide, and that Hawley is denying that they are people – denying that they exist. The implication of course is that if they commit suicide his speech has caused it or at least contributed to it. Therefore speech is violence.
This is a very common type of argument on the left.
Just because a person is attempting to redefine words in order to redefine reality doesn’t necessarily make them intelligent (it doesn’t make necessarily mean they’re stupid either). I mean, haven’t human beings been making these sorts arguments for a very, very long time?
M Bunge:
I disagree.
First of all, she’s not playing to those people, she’s playing to her base – and they love her. I already put this link into the post, but I don’t know whether you followed it. I suggest you take a look.
So the base is very very happy with her.
They are not trying to persuade the right or even the moderates at this point. They’re trying (a) to power it through when they take power (b) to get the public familiar with it through repetition of the arguments; and (c) to intimidate their fellow-academics and others from going the route of Hawley and arguing with them, as well as giving notice to their base of the way to approach such people (call what they say “violence” leading to trans suicides, for example).
neo writes, “When Bridges accuses Hawley of “violence” – even implying that he can cause suicides among fragile people through his questioning – she is using a tried-and-true tactic of shaming those who won’t get with the program and use the approved leftist language.”
Sorry, but the tactic does not induce shaming in me. It induces contempt for the would-be shamer. In some circumstances, it also induces ridicule for the would-be shamer.
And I well imagine that that’s the reaction of many of us right-leaning refuseniks.
Nonapod:
I didn’t say an attempt to redefine words was intelligent.
But I listened to what she said and it is logical, though also absurd. It takes some intelligence to become a law professor and argue that way. It does NOT take wisdom. I’m certainly not confusing the two.
It reminded me of when I was in grad school, that crap from the literary theory courses.
Neo,
I’m sure you’re correct. I also don’t doubt that she was “playing to her base” to some extent. But the bigger question may be, is such absurd sophistry actually persuasive to certain people?
I would argue she isn’t as smart as one thinks, fear alone would keep her from giving in on her rhetoric. Oh she is well versed in her sides Lawyer arguments that isn’t in doubt.
It seems to have started with there never being any objective truth. All truth was subjective, according to the experiences of who was speaking. Everyone had their “own truth” that was reality regardless of anything else.
Stacy Abrams wrote an op-ed that, among other things, called for last year’s baseball all-star game to be removed from Atlanta due to the “racist” voting laws enacted. The game was moved and after a backlash, the op-ed was changed to remove her call for moving the game.
A fact-checker recently said Abrams had never called for moving the game citing the op-ed. When confronted about it being edited afterwards, the fact-checker stood firm.
For the “progressive,” history is only the “now” what is said “now” is the only “truth” about the past and present. In a second, “now” andthat “truth” can be changed with another pronouncement, which will alter the past again.
Since those in the past did not live up to the “progressive” standards of today, they are all truly evil and must be destroyed and only remembered by how the “now” thinks of them.
The few “objective truths” that “progressives” believe is that non-“progressive” whites are irredeemably racist. All non-“progressive” men are irredeemably misogynistic. All non-“progressive” religions are irredeemably bigoted. All non-“progressive” cis people are irredeemably phobic of others.
Trans people should do well to look at the Black and feminist experiences with “progressives.” When something new comes along, their concerns and status will fall as they must toe the line to the new “now” and “truths.”
I’m going to take exception to neo here. I have a suspicion that if you review her law review papers as well as what she’s placed in other journals, you’re going to find very little which resembles either the literature of the law or the literature of social research. As I said, I’m not masochistic to do it myself and not an ace with law review articles. Her dissertation had nothing to do with anthropology; it was a cut-rate sociological exercise.
There’s a species of academic who in graduate school get the idea that intellectual life is generating strings of jargon and mastering jargon. I attended a panel discussion by one such specimen in 2001, in the company of a dear woman who was once a canvasser for Barry Commoner’s Citizens Party. Listening to this woman yap, she said just what I’ve told you. It was entirely involuted, and delivered with wretched elocution, so you had to struggle to hear her. She departed that particular school and was hired and tenured by Miami University of Ohio, the state’s most selective public institution. She’s in the teacher-training faculty, self-declared as a ‘curriculum theorist’. I’ve reviewed her work published during the period running from 1997 to 2006. There was in it nothing about curriculum and no theoretical models. She did place an article in JCT: journal of curriculum theorizing, but it was a memoir, including a vignette about how racism had blighted her career as a broadcast journalist ‘ere she enrolled in graduate school. If you heard that woman speak into a microphone, you’d be stunned that any TV station hired her ever.
Khiara Bridges has better elocution and has produced 10x as much verbiage in print, but you have to ask yourself what frontiers of knowledge about law and culture have been advanced by anything she’s written.
And, no, I didn’t find her forensically deft at all. If her constituency fancies what she said, it’s because they’re stupid.
All this keeps reminding me of an argument about twelve years ago with some faculty from, of course, the humanities. At question was reforming the GE requirements. As the discussion moved to the sciences, we physicists were accused of teaching only “white physics”. I then asked, “Is the physics in Africa different from the physics than came from Europe and the US?” The answer was that this was very definitely so. So I then asked if the earth’s gravitation acceleration in Africa was 9.8 m/sec^2. The answer: maybe not. As MY value is “white physics”, so a black scientist in Africa may have an EQUALLY valid and different number. I then asked if the speaker would like to go to Africa and jump off a 10 story building to test the hypothesis that the physics in Africa is different. She declined. BTW, the old GE program was totally scrapped for a ridiculous (but only to me and few others) truly woke curriculum.
I can’t decide if these people actually believe this nonsense which is an absolute denial of reality, or if they know what they are doing and it’s just a power ploy. I tend to go with the second option. However, in the intervening 10 years, I’ve seen such “woke” nonsense make its way into engineering programs. Reality will come crashing down on all of us soon.
“Alice in Wonderland” is not a treatise applicable to American governance.
(incapable of speaking cogently outside a narrow field of expertise)
What’s her field of ‘expertise’? It isn’t anthropology. Is it contract law? Commercial law? Tax law? Labor Law? Well, this is what she says it is:
Areas of Expertise: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties | Constitutional Law | Critical Legal Theory | Family Law, Childrens’ Rights, and Reproductive Rights | Law and Society | Racial and Social Justice
The blawger Wm Dyer (“Beldar”) once offered that he’d be a lot more impressed with Barack Obama if BO had taught commercial law or tax law or some such, because in these fields, an instructor has to know his onions. BO taught constitutional law and a species of elective that I’ve heard lawyers call “_ & the Law”. The problem with constitutional law, per Dyer, is that while it can be taught well, it is the subdiscipline of law for which it is the easiest for the instructor to fake it in class. Aside from Family Law, how much of what she’s teaching is (a) something she cannot fake and (b) of use to the working lawyer down the line?
Cornhead – I wouldn’t say so much that the left needs to be defeated as they need to be allowed to live the life they want to live just as I need to be allowed to live the life I wish to live. It is time for the great parting of the ways.
BTW, the old GE program was totally scrapped for a ridiculous (but only to me and few others) truly woke curriculum.
You’re making the case in increments for state legislatures to authoritatively shut down components of institutions and whole institutions. As in putting the entire arts and sciences faculty out on the curb.
Several pundits—Dennis Prager and Roger Simon come to mind—wrote articles wherein they rather humbly admitted that the past several years of all-out assault on language, speech, law, history and overall respect in the US—the overall insanity, destructiveness and sheer relentlessness demonstrated by those of “passionate intensity”—disabused them of the once-commonly-held notion that “it couldn’t happen here”. Shorter version: It COULD most definitely “happen here”….
This has nothing to do with intelligence or “smarts” or “logic” or “truth”.
It has everything to do with the ability to manipulate, the power—and twisted logic used demagogically—to motivate and mobilize people, mainly by convincing them that they are being victimized by an evil enemy, whether that enemy be “society” in general or a specific group of class-based or race-based—or now, gender-based—“victimizers”.
Identifying (or creating or inventing) that enemy is CRUCIAL; and it is why the TACTIC used against Hawley was that he was advocating violence by asking his questions; that he was encouraging suicide by not agreeing with the professor’s assertions; in fact he was accused of victimizing the person who was in fact ATTACKING HIM.
Which is the tactic to be aware of.
It is this inversion/perversion of victim/victimizer roles that is the strategy; and it can be extraordinarily successful…if one (or especially many) falls for it.
Which is why it is so essential to understand what is going on. What the tactic is.
Cf. Alinsky Rules (see especially Rule 11):
https://www.citizenshandbook.org/rules.html
Note: It’s essentially the same tactic used by BLM/Antifa and the Soros “prosecutors”. Create those definitions and saturate society with them: E.g., a “victim” of society can NEVER be a perpetrator of a crime; can NEVER be a racist…and must therefore ALWAYS be treated leniently…or let off altogether; excused, justified. His or her crime cannot possibly be UNDERSTOOD as a crime. THERE ARE DEEPER CAUSES.
The roles are perverted because of the underlying definitions.
The person or group making those definitions has the power if that person or group can convince, bamboozle and/or threaten/intimidate their opponents into accepting those definitions.
As Humpty Dumpty said, it’s about POWER.
Which means that it is up to the common citizen to be aware of the nature of the manipulation being foisted so that that citizen may have the common sense—and courage—to say, NO.
In the face of mob violence—and the “mob” can take different forms—that does take an awful lot of courage.
The French writer Andre Maurois asserted that people who are intelligent…but not at all creative…tend to latch onto intellectual systems created by others, and hold on to those systems more fiercely than even their creators would.
I think this explains a lot about academics in today’s world…they have to talk, they have to write, but most of them are not going to be particularly creative. So they will take a predefined intellectual framework…once classical Marxism, now Wokeness with its weird categorizations and use of language…and work within that.
Reminder:
The latest Supreme Court judge similarly claimed that she was unable/unwilling to provide a definition of “woman”.
IOW, this destructive madness is no longer an outlier.
“First of all, she’s not playing to those people, she’s playing to her base”
She’s saying it during a Senate hearing and the result has been stories about it from multiple different national news organizations. It doesn’t matter who she thinks she’s playing to. It matters who is actually watching.
“They are not trying to persuade the right or even the moderates at this point.”
Which is part of the reason they’re heading for a historic butt-kicking at the polls this November. Where I live, even most Democrats would mock and ridicule what Bridges’ said.
Mike
I’m more pessimistic than others. I have seen a fair amount of similarly leaning talk on the right. While people don’t go quite so far, there is often an emphasis on a kind of individual autonomy which clearly points in Bridges’s direction. And I don’t mean toked up libertarians, but Claremonsters and the like.
(One who took it there was Anthony Kennedy.)
For a trans-man to become pregnant would require them to have sex *as a woman*. If they are a man, would that not be repugnant? I know that, as a man, I have absolutely zero wish to have sex as if a woman, even if surgery allowed for it.
So they are claiming to be men, but acting as women.
As a man, I also have no desire to be pregnant. Since these (trans) men are always pro-choice, they should abort at once. Otherwise they are once more claiming to be men, but acting as women.
If trans-men are really wanting to be men, then getting pregnant should be a complete non-problem. Instead they want it both ways — to be called men, even as they act as women.
I’m not sure how you would go about showing Humpty Dumpty is wrong–if Moses brought down the meanings of English words from Mt Sinai I’m missing that episode from my Torah. No point in blaming Humpty Dumpty, he’s just the messenger, and what he says is true for himself and for everyone who ever uses words.
There’s nothing wrong with changing the meanings of words, happens all the time. What’s wrong is doing it in a way that confuses people or steals bases in argument.
I’d say it’s not Bridge’s use of the word “woman” that’s worrying so much as her use of the word “violence”. She’s redefined violence to include speech, and from there her allies will equivocate and say it’s appropriate to use force and coercion to defend against “violence”.
MBunge:
People can mock Bridges and yet vote for Democrats. And if they vote for Democrats, the views of the Bridges of the world – the activist left – will be implemented more and more. Even now, they hold sway in many important places: academia, the media, the entertainment world, law schools, and are starting to be pushed for legal documents and even medicine. They don’t have to win over voters to have a lot of influence.
But I certainly hope you are correct and that in 2022 they will lose the election.
Frederick:
In her definition of “violence,” Bridges is just using the definition that has become standard on the left these days.
u:
Indeed.
Also, if they don’t adopt leftist boilerplate, they won’t be getting very far in academia these days.
How the grotesque distortion and Owrellian manipulation of words applies likewise to “Biden”‘s sinister foreign policy:
“Biden’s Visit Bodes Ill for Israel”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-visit-bodes-ill-for-israel
H/T Powerline blog.
As usual, Tony Badran is spot on…but the insanity he describes makes for very uneasy reading…(unless one’s fervent hope is that “Biden” will succeed in doing for the Little Satan precisely what he’s trying to achieve for the Big Satan….)
This is a very common type of argument on the left. and Humpty Dumpty. At that point, she has assumed her position as Humpty Dumpty.
For that matter, accusing Hawley of violence resulting in death is actually a bit more like the Queen of Hearts. Either way, she is demanding people speak as her and use her definitions by accusing them as accessory to crimes by and against people totally unrelated to them. She’s no better than the various monarch’s that have falsely imprisoned people across the world over the history of time.
Where the abuse and distortion of language leads (Turley):
‘They “Should Never Know Peace Again”: Harvard Instructor Calls For People To “Accost” Justices In Public’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/they-should-never-know-peace-again-harvard-instructor-calls-people-accost-justices-public
Three cheers for (more) demonization!
On the question of logic; I’m aware in the previous post, I mentioned her logic suggests women don’t exist. It was a bit hyperbole, but this is what I got. Because Hawley asked if her phrase meant “women”, she jumped to the conclusion he was being violent by excluding the other possibilities beyond women that include trans-men. But that’s an illogical jump for such a question. It is a common tactic of the left, but still illogical. A more reasonable response would be to explain, without suggesting Hawley meant anything else than his question, that her phrase includes not just cis-women but trans-men. If he had said “Is that trans-men?”, we should have suggested Hawley was violent against women, who also have statistics every year of committing suicide when they discover their womb will not support having a baby? The problem here is the jump to a conclusion that wasn’t supported by Hawley’s question, and that jump is illogical unless the inclusion of “women” in the discussion is intolerable in society.
Art Deco:
By the way, a while back I did some research on what Obama actually taught while a law professor. See this post, in which I reproduced the following excerpt from this article:
So basically, what he taught was law and race.
A couple of the many things I don’t understand about the transgender movement:
1. If Caitlyn Jenner was always a woman, has she been (or should she be) stripped of the melals she won competing in men’s events? Or were those events open to persons of any sex and only women’t events restricted, as is the case with chess?
2. How do transphiles dismiss the problem of cismales (e.g. convicted rapists) insincerely claiming to be transgender for nefarious purposes? What is their argument? What makes them so sure that no straight cisgender toxic male would ever pretend to be transgender?
Heh, Viva Frei makes a similar point to mine yesterday (que to location then 20 secs).
bof:
Here are some typical arguments from the left about #1.
And here are some typical arguments from the left about #2.
Not stupid. Evil. Destructive. narcissistic. Power hungry in a terrifying way. I would not want to have her as a teacher you would be in danger all the time if you didn’t just agree with her instantly. She is a protected person within her realm and no one that mattered has ever pushed back on her beliefs in her life.
At the bottom of it, it’s compelled speech. And if you can compel people to say the words you demand, you have stripped them of their liberty and freedom, sometimes without them even being aware that this is the point of the exercise.
Attendant to compelled speech is the re-definition of words; but its not just a ‘re-definition’. It’s the leveraging of the traditional meaning of a word, and applying this traditional meaning to a new circumstance or context. Hence, ‘Violence’, which traditionally means causing injury to a person, is now transferred directly to the action of speaking – or not speaking, as directed. Now under the new rules, your words are ‘violence’, causing injury.
She’s an absurd fraud and a caricature of an intellectual, but she is not without intellect – or purpose.
Leland:
Nice try, but I don’t think you’ve succeeded. Here’s why.
In reference to a phrase that Bridges had used – the phrase “people with a capacity for pregnancy” – Hawley asked, “Would that be women?” That’s the question that sparked her list, and her answer went like this: “Many women – ciswomen – have the capacity for pregnancy, many ciswomen do not have the capacity for pregnancy, there are also transman who are capable of pregnancy, as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”
Hawley did not say, “Would that include women?” You analysis would be correct had he said that, but he had not. He had said “would that BE women,” which implies an exclusivity. Bridges answered with an response that included biological women (“cis” women) but pointed out all the other possible categories (including “cis” women who for whatever reason are infertile).
Hawley responded with a question about whether it was a women’s rights issue, and she again points out that “we can recognize” that it “impacts” women but that it also impacts other groups. She is not denying the existence of women, she is including them and including other groups too. This may seem absurd because we know that only biological women can become pregnant, but she is carefully avoiding the term “biological” and is redefining the term “women” to mean “people who think they are women.”
Chester Draws:
Here’s a question for you that requires quite a leap of imagination: What if having sex vaginally was the only way for you to have sex? You might still refrain from sex, but that’s the position of a transman who has not had bottom surgery and retains female sexual and reproductive organs.
Just to make it more complex, some such people identify as men but as gay men and are therefore attracted to men and can have regular heterosexual-type sex with them and therefore can become pregnant in the usual manner.
Here’s another question: what if vaginal sex and pregnancy was the only way you could have children?
Art Deco:
Well, I find her forensically deft, and I’m fairly forensically deft myself.
It’s not easy to defend something absurd. It’s actually a bigger challenge than to forensically defend something that isn’t absurd. And by the stipulations she sets up about the definitions of words, she does very well in my opinion.
I think it is foolish to dismiss it as stupid. It is wrong and it is a power play, but it isn’t stupid – except perhaps if it turns too many people off, which it may. But that would make it stupid tactically, not in terms of its own internal logic.
Aggie:
Yes.
On Caitlyn Jenner, I don’t think Jenner claims to “be” a woman. Jenner declines participating in women’s golf tournaments, for instance, and says that Lia Thomas’s participation in women’s swimming events is unfair.
“She is not denying the existence of women..”– Neo
No, she’s just redefined what a woman is. What has been known since the beginning of time and understood to be women, are no longer women, but cis-women, a sub-category. Women has now been redefined to include trans-women. When is it proper to use the term woman? When a man dresses as a cis-woman. Has hormone treatments? Has surgery to remove anatomical parts?
I think the bigger problem for the social marxists is the definition of man. A man can now be pregnant. What!!!
As a practical matter, if I see someone that looks like a woman, dresses like a woman, acts like a woman– I treat her as such.
I haven’t seen a pregnant man at this point, so I’m not sure how I would react.
But that’s not what social marxists want. They me to someone suspend reality and engage in their psychosis.
Neo, you’ve studied and absorbed that latest cant used by the totalitarian left and clearly know how to decode it. I hear this stuff and my reaction is that the speaker is trying to “ baffle me with bs” and that they’re very shady.
I happened to hear this woman’s reply to Senator Hawley on the car radio and she mentioned that trans-sexuals are five times more likely to consider suicide than normal people. Years ago I looked into the frequency of homosexuals in the population. The answer then, before the current hysteria, was 2%, 2/3 lesbian, 1/3 homosexuals, and a tiny fraction who had what Johns Hopkins called gender dysphoria. For years, going back to the 1960s, Johns Hopkins had a program of “gender re-assignment surgery” to help them get a new body so that they could be comfortable with their perceived sex. Eventually they stopped because the operation was seldom a success because the psychological problems of the patients were far deeper than a mere physical change could help. The biggest problem was the very high rate of suicide among the patients. What’s her name the law professor is right about the suicide rate but seems to want to assign blame to those of us who don’t accept her idiocy and bizarre language and not the true reason, that it is inherent in the birth defect.
Paul in Boston:
Yes, and she carefully avoids being caught in that trap, by merely stating the suicide rate and implying causation from words such as Hawley’s. She doesn’t say a word about the fact that the suicide rate remains high after transition.
I think it is foolish to dismiss it as stupid.
Have a gander at the literature she’s spent her professional life producing. You want that to be your monument? What do you call that?
New words are invented all the time, because they are needed. As the word “woman” fades into the past, “cis-woman” emerges from the future. And there are many other words for the reality, most considered vulgar. Someday “cunt”, a word used by amateur biologists, might find its place in the genteel vocabulary.
All else aside, I find it impossible to take an adult with a nose ring seriously.
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”
By definition, a relationship in which one is “master” implies the ability to impose their will upon the other party(s), regardless of how opposed to the “master’s will” the other party may be.
At base, that equates to “might makes right”. The underlying premise of Mao’s “Political power grows out of a gun.”
A ‘master’ unwilling to use whatever degree of force that is needed to impose their will upon a resisting party, is not a ‘master’ at all, for they can be dethroned with enough resistance. Their power relies upon the oppressed unwillingness to resist enough.
The fanaticism of ideologues offers the rationale needed to do whatever is necessary, as the end justifies the means.
Which is why, once ideological fanatics gain enough power and support, they can only be stopped through force. Neither Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro or Saddam were ever going to allow themselves to be ‘voted’ out of power. Nor will Maduro. Nor will Xi.
The next two elections will reveal whether we have reached the point where Constitutional safeguards still if fact exist. The policies the democrats are imposing are so onerous that they cannot but result in massive rejection by the electorate. Unless of course, those who count the vote are ‘inclined otherwise’, in which case it’s game over for constitutional governance.
I’d bet that every last person who shares Bridges’ POV thinks that she got the better of Hawley. And it is a virtual certainty that the mass media will portray Bridges as having handed Hawley his head.
“In using the terms “man” and “woman” … what matters is a person’s self-perception about being a man or a woman. …Whether a person is in fact a man or woman is completely determined by that individual’s self-perception. neo
I agree that argument is not illogical but its originating premise is fundamentally flawed demonstrated by the resultant consequence when it challenges objective external reality. Which BTW is the only way to determine sanity from insanity.
By that logic’s premise; that the individual’s self-perception determines their personal reality…
Icarus’s wings made of wax and feathers would not have lost cohesion when he flew too close to the sun. A myth designed to illustrate the inescapable importance of remaining congruent with the external reality within which we all exist.
By that logic’s premise, an individual’s self-perception that they can fly would not result in their death when they jump off a 10-story building and spread their arms out like the fictional Superman.
That they can put their hand into a blowtorch and not be burned.
Challenge them to “put their money where their mouth is”, to
personally demonstrate beyond question that the subjective supersedes the objective. When they refuse to do so, tell them to STFU.
As of course they won’t take up such a challenge nor STFU because they secretely know the truth, that it’s a bunch of BS used to acquire power over the gullible sheep.
Those willing to lie, steal and destroy in pursuit of power know only one form of restraint… force. The force of law when the rule of law exists. Physical force when it does not. Because otherwise they will have their way… it is their obsession. Power at any and all cost is that in which they have fully invested their very being.
No more dangerous delusion has ever existed than that mankind is self-perfectible and that humanity must be forced to embrace that delusion… because at base, it is the same delusion of which Milton spoke in Paradise Lost; “Better to Rule in Hell than Serve in Heaven”.
So many great comments here. Hard to pick one’s spot to engage. The most interesting question to me is,
I can’t decide if these people actually believe this nonsense
Every instinct I have says that at some level they know their mendacity (lying, and liars), and every instinct of faith I have tells me this will be their downfall.
I’d love to hear from a psychologist as to just how deep a positive feedback loop can go. Professor Bridges says what she says, and gets a dopamine hit of praise from the people from whom she desperately craves praise
– and then the next to come along takes it to the next level. And so on.
The assault on language is entirely intentional. Read the postmodern philosophers (Foucault, Derrida) and take them seriously. Language isn’t “true”, it’s merely a weapon to exert one’s will/power.
Transmogrify yourself into a man or woman or binary (neither?) with a nano encabulator. It’s the latest thing for justice, equity, the planet, and suicide prevention. No violence allowed. Only right thinking.
I think the question of violence is where Bridges wins the point. It is a dishonest point — Hawley was not visiting violence on anyone — but it is one that rocks Hawley back on his heels for a second. So if we are to debate with woke people, we need to have a way to respond to the question of violence. Perhaps with a legal definition, perhaps with a syllogism that refutes the point, but the important issue is to be able to prevent people like Bridges from winning a point by saying “violence.”
Anybody have a good suggestion on this?
A hearty guffaw, put them off their game. Is laughter violence?
@Geoffrey:By definition, a relationship in which one is “master” implies the ability to impose their will upon the other party(s), regardless of how opposed to the “master’s will” the other party may be.
Humpty Dumpty is imposing his will on words not on people–and it’s because he pays them. So he is saying “master” in the sense of “employer”, not saying “master” in the sinister sense in which you’ve taken it, but I can’t be sure about Professor Bridge of course.
And of course you are doing what Humpty Dumpty and Professor Bridge are doing, taking a word meant one way by someone else and meaning it your own different way. Doesn’t make you bad or dumb, just sayin.’
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they’re the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’
‘Would you tell me please,’ said Alice, ‘what that means?’
‘Now you talk like a reasonable child,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. ‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’
‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
‘Ah, you should see ’em come round me of a Saturday night,’ Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, ‘for to get their wages, you know.’
(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I can’t tell you.)
The Left doesn’t like the result because it interferes with their fantasies. It has been known that transgender individuals have a high suicide rate. Several years ago a research study at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine followed individuals who had successfully transitioned with a supportive therapist and a supportive “family”. The suicide rate in these individuals was still elevated.
There is still something dangerous going on below the sexual identity show. Professor Bridges can shove her word games ……………
The Lefties just pontificate about their glorious theories. Scientists and physicians look for proof. Professor Bridges is a fraud willing to kill and mutilate sick people for a time in the spotlight.
Its an exercise in insanity, their conclusions must be dismissed out of hand
It’s clear, also, that Bridges seems to thinks she’s gotten the better of Hawley in that exchange, and Hawley may indeed believe that he’s the winner.
To an audience member who came to weigh opposing viewpoints, the artfully-artless back-and-forth of two transmitters with no intentions of receiving is equivalent to the static of lightening interrupting a radio broadcast. All sound and fury, indicating nothing. They’re in a posturing contest, playing to their factions in the crowd. A sad result of adding TV cameras to Congressional proceedings.
Navel gazing intellectual nonsense. Men are men, women are women, and we all know which is which. All other descriptions and arguments are political propaganda.
We all know what happened to Humpty Dumpty.
Seems to me this is really a simple debate to resolve. All we need to do is provide the name of one biological derived man who has had a baby.
“Is laughter violence?”
In their world, absolutely. Nothing wounds the sensibilities of the fanatic more than ridicule, which is why it’s their default response.
Frederick,
I used it as a metaphor. It doesn’t matter how and to the purpose to which Caroll employed it. What matters in this discussion is that the hard core Left looks at it in exactly the way I described.
Mike-SMO,
“The Lefties just pontificate about their glorious theories. Scientists and physicians look for proof.”
The many ‘scientists’ who support the ‘theory’ of climate change and the medical ‘experts’ who’ve kept silent during the Covid ‘vaccine’ scams argue otherwise.
“Professor Bridges is a fraud willing to kill and mutilate sick people for a time in the spotlight.”
I suspect that many, including Bridges, have conveniently
convinced themselves of the rightness of the ‘philosophy’ they’ve embraced.
Virtue signaling to themselves as a means to rationalize an ambition that steps upward upon the heaped up bodies of the sick people she ‘champions’.
Miguel Cervantes,
Many dismissed out of hand the threat from Lenin and Hitler. The gulag treatment of the Jan. 6th political prisoners should be a clear warning of what they are willing to do to anyone who resists. Even to those who weren’t even there. Such as ourselves, all purveyors of misinformation.
Insufficiently Sensitive,
So Hawley’s position that only women can become pregnant. Versus Bridges position that ‘men’ can become pregnant… are both but preaching to the choir?
Was not Hawley simply asking Bridges if only women can become pregnant? Who avoided a straight answer by stating that question to be an indication of transphobia and thus underserving of being addressed.
neo – Your analysis is dead on. This post reminds me of why I come here. Trans ideology is a logical, coherent whole, it just happens to be a logical, coherent whole that contradicts reality in important ways.
The problem is that policy decisions and debate take place in realm of language and theory where the leftists can prevail. A “good” versus “bad” narrative with internal consistency is powerful and emotionally satisfying. Partisans like this prof are very intelligent and know how to use that narrative. I suspect that most have succumbed to the emotional high of the narrative too.
Reality will catch up eventually, but by then it might be too late. It’s kind of like the COVID lockdowns in March of 2020 when all of the “experts” were saying there would be 2 million dead within three months. They were off by two orders of magnitude, but by the time we figured that out we were stuck in lock downs and a significant portion of the population had lost their minds.
So the left defines violence with simple disagreement with their will to power and the actual violence they condone and rationalize away is fine. The left only cares about power.
The moderates can’t moderate the left. They fail to stop evil. But don’t worry, they know to otherize those evil Conservatives… The lack of justice is frustrating to say the least
Declaring simple disagreement to be violence is one certain way to discover that what goes around… comes around.
This (presumed) woman is a Bridges too far.
“Seems to me this is really a simple debate to resolve. All we need to do is provide the name of one biological derived man who has had a baby.”
Ah! But THAT would be “violence”!!
Not “defined as violence”; not “construed as violence”
But VIOLENCE itself!!
(Which is precisely the beauty of the argument…)
Barry Meislin:
An argument that contradicts reality is not beautiful. But it might be powerful, I guess. And it might gain adherents. Bridges’ argument has its adherents, I will grant.
I think Bauxite has it right. It is also consistent with neo’s Alice in Wonderland analogy. Bridges may be logically consistent with her language and mindset, but it still requires that we accept new definitions for women (no longer the female of the human species capable of birthing offspring) and violence (saying something that can hurt anyone’s feelings regardless if you are speaking to or of them).
A most welcome (if overdue) development—
Vociferous but principled, civil and respectful pushback (though I wonder if it, too, will qualify as “VIOLENCE” by the usual suspects…):
“Black community leaders condemn ‘racist’ attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas”—
https://nypost.com/2022/07/13/black-leaders-condemn-racist-attacks-on-clarence-thomas/
H/T Instapundit.
Right enough.
(Maybe I should have said, “charm”…)
I’ve checked the Bar register of California and of New York. She’s never been licensed to practice in either state.
Totally unrelated (or maybe not…since insanity appears to be extremely contagious—quick! call Il Fauci?—hence multi-disciplinary…)…
Folks, it may be time to stock up on dried beans and rice, and your canned and freeze-dried favorites…
Unless you opt for home delivery, while yer waiting in the checkout line—shouldn’t be too long because no one has much money left for food after filling up on gas to get to the supermarket—compare and contrast:
“Sri Lanka Is the Future the Global Elites Want for Everyone”—
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/07/13/sri-lanka-is-the-future-the-global-elites-want-for-everyone-n1611148
“Take The Tragedy In Sri Lanka And Multiply By Ten”: The Fed Just Lobbed A Financial Nuke That Will Obliterate The Global Economy
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/take-tragedy-sri-lanka-and-multiply-ten-fed-just-lobbed-financial-nuke-will-obliterate
From the leadership of Costco to the president of Goya, the refrain seems to be the same: dark times ahead.
(To be sure, keep yer voices down since these truths may be considered VIOLENCE by all the beautiful people.)
Pushing back is the only way to prevail. Don’t call things what they aren’t.
You have XY chromosomes, you are male. XX female. Any other combination intersex.
If someone insists on arguing differently, say I’m sorry but your fight against reality is damaging to my identity.
Regardless of what you call yourself you are _____. You could call yourself the Queen of England, but that doesn’t make it so.
*****************************************
I’d like to run an experiment:
Have 2 vials, marked male (XY), and female (XX)
Each is an elixir of youth for the respective genetic sequence. Take the wrong one and it’s a debilitating poison.
You get to choose which to take.
Let’s see how people respond.
OR if there were some substance that, for instance, men would taste sour and women sweet.
Is it troubling to anybody that a law school professor is professing such vagueness and challenging the senator’s position on a purely political ground? Where does she fit into any legal framework as an educator?
Definitely related! (from Walter Russell Meade):
“Putin Using Western Wokeness As A Weapon: WSJ Op-Ed”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/putin-using-western-wokeness-weapon-wsj-op-ed
– – – – – – – – – –
And Matt Taibbi is on a tear (heh):
“…’The New Kremlinology’: Reading The New York Times”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-new-kremlinology-reading-new-york-times
Sowell often refers to [those with the unconstrained vision, such as Bridges in this case] as “the self anointed.” Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exist some people [themselves, of course] who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.
One of my favorite speeches from “Serenity”
I AIM TO MISBEHAVE
https://youtu.be/1VR3Av9qfZc
This report is maybe 12 years old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried ’til River dug it up.
This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear ’cause there’s a whole universe of folk who’re gonna know it, too. They’re gonna see it.
Somebody has to speak for these people.
Y’all got on this boat for different reasons, but y’all come to the same place. So now I’m askin’ more of you than I have before. Maybe all.
As sure as I know anything, I know this: They will try again. Maybe on another world. Maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people…better. And I do not hold to that.
So no more runnin’.
I aim to misbehave.
In a nutshell, however a person defines themselves, that , therefore is reality. Extending this sort of “logic,” a person can thus define, in addition to themselves, anything at all ( a cat, dog, car, house) to be anything they choose.
This sort of (ill) logic would allow anyone to define themselves as, say, Jesus Christ, or George Washington or King George III, or a cat as a dog, or a dog’s tail as a leg, etc. Further, it would allow an individual to change their self-identification as frequently as they choose; say on a daily basis.
And extending this sort of “logic,” what is to prevent an individual from “defining” another individual as, say, an “enemy of the state, ” or as an untermensch or a Kulak, all deserving extermination?
We have seen the result of this sort of thinking throughout history. By redefining he definition of “human,” then humans are not being exterminated. Gypsies, kulaks, jews, et. al., are being dealt with, but not humans.
We have also seen this sort of “logic” in the world of “art,” in which an artist “defines” his work (say, an upside cross of Jesus placed in a bowl of cow manure) as “art.”
As stupid as this is, even more stupid are those art “experts” and art elitists who actually accept this crap as art, but then again, they do this only to demonstrate their superior intelligence and knowledge to other members of their rarified art-expert tribe. Yep, they have to demonstrate that their art expertise is way above that of the ignorant hoi polloi to solidify their membership in their art-expert-club.
(Check out lofty and intellectual descriptions by art students/experts of “art,” when, unbeknownst to them, it was art produced by an elephant or ape given a brush and a few cans of paint. Yep, art is in the eye of the beholder and can be anything one defines as art).
There is no doubt that folks like Bridges know they are spouting from their pie holes a bunch of bullsh#t. Their goal of course is to be perceived as an “intellectual,” as one above the fray, as one capable of understanding things simply way above what mere mortals are capable of understanding.
And when combined with the requisite pseudo-religious political ideology, it solidifies membership in their leftist / progressive / intellectual / academia tribe.
It is solidifying their membership within their “intellectual” group that is the primary motivation that underpins the statements they make in public or to other members of their club.
Folks like Bridges are on a massive ego trip.
(It would be real interesting to hear what Bridges would say when inebriated or in an unguarded moment; she may actually say what she really believes).
The concepts presented by Bridges show the subjectivity (and arrogance of those within) the social or other soft “sciences,” in which there is no definable right and wrong, up and down, left and right.
What is considered correct, acceptable and obvious is anything the prevailing dogma is within their self-affirming, echo chamber club.
In this regard, they are no different than any other club such as the KKK, the CPUSA, Nazi Party, etc.
If you want to stay a member of your club, you know what you have to say and know what you cannot say.
Whether you believe what you say or not is an entirely different matter.
Or perhaps another alternative to either beauty or charm Barry, consider possibly the bard’s use of “nice” as a descriptor of a shady but effective argument?
Oddly enough I guess, “shady and effective” pretty much sums Machiavelli’s push in chapter 15 of the Prince, so, wholly modern in spirit, no?
I wish they would close many of the universities and send the kids out to farm for a few years. Let them learn about cows and steers, chickens and roosters, and mules. Make them grow their own food and read about Norm Borlaug. In history class, let them learn why the Egyptians domesticated cats.
We need more people with real world experience and fewer degrees.
All women and men have always had different interests and abilities. They worked together to build their houses and grow their food, but they knew who would deliver their offspring. Also, they didn’t spend most of their lives on the internet, trying to be cool. It was more important to have something to eat for dinner.
}}} Khiara Bridges was certainly of sufficient intelligence to pass through the various hoops required to ascend the ladder of academic success, but she, like many academicians (incapable of speaking cogently outside a narrow field of expertise)
She’s also black, and, sorry to say, that means her path — most especially being an ultra-liberal one — was cleared considerably, much like Barack’s**.
I assert that is how AOC graduated “cum laude” despite the clearly self-evident fact that she does not understand jack or his smelly companion about actual economics, even bonehead 101 stuff. She got her degree for being Hispanic, not for actually demonstrating that she knew anything.
=====
** this is racial, not racist. That’s a massive difference in basis. The former is rooted in evidence, the latter is not.
Excellent piece, btw, Neo.
As a performance, the woman did land a blow on the senator with the unexpected pivot to questioning her (and her constituent’s) premise as to what constitutes a woman as violence.
At that point the senator should have challenged the definition, but we have so sensitized the definition to mean nearly anything that is taken offense over.
But she already had the upper hand, so it was pointless for the senator to challenge the assertion. Point scored for the Marxist.
But if we are redefining woman away from it’s traditional roots to a new word “cis-woman”, don’t we logically have the obligation to use the correct word “trans-woman” to describe someone who adopts the character of a woman? No matter how much cosmetics or chemistry or cutting, the person will always be transitioning, since he(she) can never be a woman. Of course, the very use of the word “trans-woman” is violence!
And who decided that a woman who has the potential of birthing should be identified as a cis-woman? It apparently dates back to 1995.
But why cis? I did find this interesting.
-The prefix “cis-” comes from the Latin meaning “on this side,” as opposed to “trans-” which means “on the other side of” or “beyond.”
-In chemistry, the prefix “cis-” is added to the name of a molecule when two atoms or groups are situated on the same side of a plane of symmetry passing through the molecule, like a double bond between two carbon atoms.
-In molecular biology, a cis-acting element regulates a neighbouring gene when it binds to a trans-acting element.
To be consistent, I can see why cis is applied to a natural born woman as opposed to a transitional woman, but I don’t find it particularly logical. “on this side woman” as opposed to “on the other side woman”. It seems nonsensical.
I kind of like the notion of a wo0man and a wo!man and a m!n and a m0n.
The Marxists may prevail on gaining acceptance of the use of women to mean trans-women and actually co-opt the traditional meaning, but getting society to accept men who are pregnant as men might be a harder sell.
This is really just a continuation of the misuse of language that occurred during the same sex marriage debate. We had to use the word marriage to describe the relationship, not something like civil union, since gays would be so hurt.
At what point does this lead to mass psychosis?
Bridges is a modern-day parasite. Academia, corporate America and government at every level is infested with these people. The only good thing about the great reset is it will also be the great delousing.
She’s also black, and, sorry to say, that means her path — most especially being an ultra-liberal one — was cleared considerably, much like Barack’s**.
If I’m not mistaken, grading at Harvard Law School is determined by examination results and the examinations are blindly graded. Steve Sailer has studied the question of how he landed a berth at Harvard Law School and concluded that his LSAT scores were exceptional.
I assert that is how AOC graduated “cum laude” despite the clearly self-evident fact that she does not understand jack or his smelly companion about actual economics, even bonehead 101 stuff. She got her degree for being Hispanic, not for actually demonstrating that she knew anything.
Doubt that. She’s been out of school for a while. Its a reasonable wager what she was taught went in one ear, out onto an exam paper thence to be forgotten. She somehow got past the intermediate micro and macro courses, which usually function to weed out the unsuitable. They seldom make use of calculus, however. It’s also a reasonable wager that BU in her era required only nine courses to declare a major, and she took the minimum.
One other thing: I’m going to put money on the table that she majored in economics as part of a deal with her mother, not because that’s what she wanted to study. Her father was an architect who died at the age of 48. As fancy professions go, architects are among the most modestly compensated. It’s a reasonable wager they did not have ample savings. Yet, she goes to school out of state, she attends a private research university (which does not admit just anyone), and she studies an academic subject. Maybe she got a handsome financial aid deal from BU, but absent that the whole sequence of events makes little sense if her family was (after her father’s death) as impecunious as she says. New York’s public institutions have an undergraduate enrollment in sum of north of 200,000. I have a dear cousin who lives within a short drive of AOC’s mother, same town. Half his upbringing was Staten Island, half in a village equidistant from Newburgh and Poughkeepsie. His mother was a schoolteacher, his father a supervisor in a moving company. He and his siblings all cadged BA degrees. They all attended small town state colleges and earned degrees in occupational subjects, like their mother and father. Why wasn’t AOC doing that?
Here’s a question for you that requires quite a leap of imagination: What if having sex vaginally was the only way for you to have sex?
This raises an old lawyer joke. You’ve probably heard it.
I am less concerned about a radical law professor, unlicensed to practice law, who spouts these theories to law students, who are increasingly leftists, than I am that this crap is infecting medical schools. I spent 15 years teaching medical students clinical skills to go with the academic material they were learning. I recall a number of other instructors (mostly female) who insisted including a bit of SJW into their teaching. It was pretty harmless but has evolved into denying reality like gender.
On the topic of XY chromosomes, there is a famous, and beautiful, actress who has XY chromosomes. She has what is called Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.
It is rare and I was at Childrens hospital of LA when she was diagnosed.
I am less concerned about lawyers because lawyers who accept this ridiculous dogma are less likely to practice law. I have two kids who are lawyers and both are pretty far left. One is an FBI agent and the other is a trial lawyer. We avoid politics. I do worry about doctors who accept this. This is not reality.
Bridges is a modern-day parasite. Academia, corporate America and government at every level is infested with these people. The only good thing about the great reset is it will also be the great delousing.
I think Bridges is more of a faculty type than a general bureaucratic type. I doubt her students are learning much law, which does make her a parasite.
On the topic of XY chromosomes, there is a famous, and beautiful, actress who has XY chromosomes. She has what is called Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.
It is rare and I was at Childrens hospital of LA when she was diagnosed.
Bernie Schwartz must have been devastated
The transgendered movement is a form of modern Gnosticism because it is based upon secret knowledge that is known only to the initiates. Very bright people are prone to accepting gnostic movements because they think that they know more than everyone else and their acceptance of this new knowledge confirms their belief in their own superiority.
She’s also black, and, sorry to say, that means her path — most especially being an ultra-liberal one — was cleared considerably, much like Barack’s**.
If I’m not mistaken, grading at Harvard Law School is determined by examination results and the examinations are blindly graded. Steve Sailer has studied the question of how he landed a berth at Harvard Law School and concluded that his LSAT scores were exceptional.
wrong Harvard uses Affirmative action which Barry having been born and raised in an uber WASP family of slaveowning stock and the other half non-africana American silo-saharan should never have been eligible.
and the year after Susan Estrich was head of law review by merit they changed the process to allow affirmative action and guess who won?
Pretty good reading everyone, read every comment down to here.
avi:
You are confusing three issues. The first is admission to Harvard Law. The second is grades at Harvard Law. And the third is selection to Harvard Law Review as well as the selection of the head of Harvard Law Review.
And these things have changed over time, as well.
Mike K:
I don’t see why you say that lawyers accepting these doctrines are less likely to practice law. Firstly, I don’t know any statistics on that, so I’m not sure it’s true. Secondly, “less likely” in the statistical sense doesn’t mean they don’t practice law. They do, and the legal profession is quite leftist these days. There are many many areas of law dominated by leftist lawyers and they are often quite relentless – and quite successful, particularly in areas where leftist judges are in place. One area of tremendous growth has been election law, for example.
what bridges and her colleague in austin*, is peddling is mind arson, it’s unknowledge, beyond mere sophistry, thats not the way the world works, that’s why it has to be challenged,
*made the similar argument to ted cruz,
We—everyone—should insist on honesty and maintain our hold on the terms “man” and “woman”. Let the rest be honest and define themselves as “transman” or “transwoman”. We don’t need to invent or accept new “cis” words to describe the vast majority of the population.
Conservatives running for office should seize their opportunity to educate their future constituencies about the abuses of language on the left. I wish the Republicans would put together an aggressive campaign to raise the consciousness of the voting public. (Although many voters—such as commenters here—seem to be far in advance of some politicians in understanding what’s going on.)
Regarding a purely rational argument on any of these matters, I think it’s pointless to expect that to influence a change in any leftist’s thinking.
For a very interesting conversation on the factors creating mob behavior and thinking, see Bret Weinstein’s talk with Mattias Desmet on the topic of mass formation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkBQcIDto7s
(Desmet’s recent book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, just came out in June.)
It’s long, about 2 hours.
And the Berkeley law department has no issue with how she handled herself yet people like Brett Weinstein, Jordan Petersen and Nicholas Christakis are forced, asked or have volunteered to resign from their positions … Madness.
which Barry having been born and raised in an uber WASP family of slaveowning stock
The Payne and Dunham families are old stock American. I have no clue why you make use of the term ‘uber WASP’. One’s maternal side great-great-great grandfathers number eight if there hasn’t been any cousin marriage in your family in the last several generations. You won’t find any of Obama’s listed as a slaveowner in the slave schedules of the 1860 census.
“I am less concerned about a radical law professor, unlicensed to practice law, who spouts these theories to law students, who are increasingly leftists, than I am that this crap is infecting medical schools.”
And yet, it was somewhat shocking to me how many physicians militantly accepted the highly political pronouncements by healthcare bureaucrats in dealing with COVID-19. You would think that your fellow physicians would do their own research, and maybe, just maybe, question the word of nonpracticing bureaucrats who happened to have an MD or PhD degree. And, yes, maybe just in my mind, but it seems to be worse with the younger doctors.
That is an interesting classification of people “uber WASP.” I wonder if there is such a thing, demographically? Is there a “unter WASP” or the far lower catergory “white trash” or “redneck?”
“I don’t see why you say that lawyers accepting these doctrines are less likely to practice law.”
I read that as a critique of law profs who never bother to get licensed to practice law. Could she have passed the bar and been licensed? Probably. But the problem is that she didn’t bother, and thus has never practiced the profession that she is supposedly training practitioners in.
Bruce Hayden:
Most full-time law professors do not also practice law these days, as far as I know, or practice very little. But the statement was not about law professors, it was about lawyers.
But on law professors, here’s an article from 2020:
This was often the case even long ago when I was in law school.
Most full-time law professors do not also practice law these days, as far as I know, or practice very little. But the statement was not about law professors, it was about lawyers.
The Catholic blawger Donald McClarey has offered that law school curricula are designed to train appellate judges, which few lawyers will ever be. He said he was told by the senior partner of the firm which hired him in 1982 that ‘young lawyers are useless’ and that he himself and classmates he spoke to as they were receiving their degrees had to agree. His recommendation is for one year of law school to be followed by an apprenticeship of two years in a law office ‘ere one takes the bar exam.
It is another example of how the priority in academe is to provide employment for professors & administrators, not to provide contracted services to students.
“That is an interesting classification of people “uber WASP.” I wonder if there is such a thing, demographically? Is there a “unter WASP” or the far lower catergory “white trash” or “redneck?””
half the white people in America came here decades after slaveowning scum like the Obama family were forced to give up their slaves, yet we get to share the blame for what his family did, and he got to steal the set asides for the descendents of his families victims. yeah he is uber WASP like his cousins the Cheney’s the Bushes and the Battenburg’s
}}} A fact-checker recently said Abrams had never called for moving the game citing the op-ed. When confronted about it being edited afterwards, the fact-checker stood firm.
I would suspect, offhand, that an original copy may exist on the Wayback Machine.
That is what allowed people to find the wonderfully prosthetic (yes, I meant that) piece by the Sri Lankan PM on the WEF, even after it was removed:
Sri Lanka PM: This is how I will make my country rich by 2025
https://web.archive.org/web/20220710161819/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/this-is-how-we-will-make-sri-lanka-rich-by-2025/
Search for the oped’s previous version on The Wayback Machine. It might still be there.
😉
half the white people in America came here decades after slaveowning scum like the Obama family were forced to give up their slaves,
Once more with feeling. Stanley Ann Dunham had eight great-great grandfathers. In 1860, six of them were married men with children whose names do not appear in the Census Bureau’s Slave Schedules complied in the 1860 Census. Slaves were not listed by name; their owners were listed and then there was listed the age and sex of each slave owned. The other two great-great grandfathers were living with their parents and siblings at that point. Neither their fathers nor their future fathers-in-law appear in the 1860 Slave Schedules. No one in Ann Dunham’s pedigree held slaves in 1860. If they held them earlier, they’d manumitted them or sold them by the end of the antebellum period.