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| Mr Bombastic: Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to expanding social justice. |
WILLIE JACKSON is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also offered up ten names for Jackson’s consideration. The idea is not a bad one, especially in light of Labour’s success in bringing together a similar collection of experts to discuss the pros and cons of New Zealand signing up to Pillar 2 of AUKUS. It won’t work, however, if there’s only one song-sheet.
The cynics among us will no doubt wonder aloud why Jackson, when he was the Minister of Broadcasting and Communications, did not think to summon a similar colloquium to chart a path forward for the country’s struggling Fourth Estate. It is certainly highly frustrating to see former Labour cabinet ministers calling upon the good and the great to debate the burning issues of the moment in circumstances where they are structurally powerless to give force to their advice.
It would seem that Labour is only keen to listen and discuss policy with New Zealanders when giving practical effect to their ideas is impossible. Once in office, however, the opinions of those Labour deemed worthy of consulting whilst in Opposition rapidly lose their persuasive power. Those masters of deflation, the Public Service are quick to prick their new masters’ policy balloons. Big ideas are prone to creating big consequences – and by no means all of these are favourable. Best to leave the difficult business of devising and implementing policy-change to the professionals.
Few political observers would blame Jackson for telling these “professionals” to bugger-off. After all, they were the ones who spent months and months chewing over Labour’s plans for merging Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand into a single public broadcasting entity. They were also the ones who oversaw the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars on private consultants. Not that this lavish spending on “expert” advice in any way empowered Jackson and his colleagues to offer the voters a succinct and compelling explanation of the merger plan. Perhaps there wasn’t one. Perhaps that’s why, in spite of the vast sums already spent, Chris Hipkins knocked the entire project on the head.
Would the names advanced by The Daily Blog Editor do any better?
Certainly, the academics on Bradbury’s list, Professor Wayne Hope, Dr Joe Atkinson and the key figure in AUT’s “Journalism, Media and Democracy” (JMAD) research team, Dr Merja Myllylathi, have all, over many years, written and spoken out forcefully on what they perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of the New Zealand news media.
Ironically, the media they wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to expanding social justice. The challenge now, for these wise members of the academy, is to explain why the media they wanted is not what so many of its readers, listeners and viewers wanted.
Perhaps the seasoned journalists on Bradbury’s list of media luminaries could help them? Although it’s possible that John Campbell, Barbara Dreaver, and Mihi Forbes are not entirely sure that being on the list of a radical left-wing blogger is something that will necessarily rebound to their advantage.
Most media observers would hail Dreaver as a journalist of the old school: that is to say, a gutsy television reporter who has always worked tirelessly to uncover the facts, and then been content to let those facts speak for themselves. Campbell and Forbes, by contrast, often come across as fully-paid-up members of Team Truth.
Given that the truth is not always factual, and the facts don’t always align with the truth, the work of journalists like Campbell and Forbes tends to be the sort that raises hackles. As Bradbury’s academics are, perhaps, only now discovering: the Great New Zealand Public is more in love with the tellers of “good yarns”, than they are with the campaigners for the right (or should that be left?) kind of morals.
Few would dispute the wisdom of putting Myles Thomas on a list of New Zealanders seeking to rescue the Fourth Estate. As the spokesperson for Better Public Broadcasting Trust, Thomas brings a refreshingly Alexandrian approach to the Gordin Knot that is New Zealand broadcasting policy.
Anyone who can tell a parliamentary select committee: “TVNZ’s annual budget is roughly $300 million. For the cost of just $5 a month per capita, New Zealand taxpayers could fully fund TVNZ so that it need no longer rely on any advertising at all”, is blessed with a very sharp intellectual sword indeed! Sharper, certainly, than Jackson’s blunt old blade.
It is not very likely that the “Old School” Gavin Ellis, former NZ Herald Editor and university lecturer, and the bombastic Mr Bradbury would have got along very well had Fate thrown them together in the same newsroom or classroom, and yet, Ellis’s name is also there on The Daily Blog editor’s list.
Fiercely loyal to his beleaguered profession, Ellis struggles, like all of us, to square the circle of a Fourth Estate that is crucial to democratic politics, with a Fourth estate that can no longer command the advertising revenue that made people like himself such key players in the game. Ellis knows that social media has already transformed the game of politics, and not necessarily for the better, but he can come up with no better remedy for the desperately ailing “legacy media” than for the state to help it to dip its bucket into the New Media giants’ “rivers of gold”. In the meantime, Ellis, like AUT’s Myllylathi, is at pains to fend off all those critics who cry: “Physician, heal thyself!”
Quite why Matthew Tukaki and Michael Wood appear on the list of media sages is anybody’s guess. Bradbury has friends in Te Ao Māori, and the Labour Party, but even so …
Conspicuous by their absence from Bradbury’s list are the critics of, and challengers to, the Fourth Estate that Jackson is now so keen to rescue. And, right there, is the besetting sin of both the Labour Party and the besieged bastions of broadcasting and the print media – a dread of giving those whom they perceive to be their enemies access to the microphone. Twenty years ago, key players in the Fourth Estate would have recognised that for what it was: cowardice – and dumb cowardice at that.
All the “summits” in the world will avail their organisers nothing, if all they are willing to listen to are their own fears.
It is not very likely that the “Old School” Gavin Ellis, former NZ Herald Editor and university lecturer, and the bombastic Mr Bradbury would have got along very well had Fate thrown them together in the same newsroom or classroom, and yet, Ellis’s name is also there on The Daily Blog editor’s list.
Fiercely loyal to his beleaguered profession, Ellis struggles, like all of us, to square the circle of a Fourth Estate that is crucial to democratic politics, with a Fourth estate that can no longer command the advertising revenue that made people like himself such key players in the game. Ellis knows that social media has already transformed the game of politics, and not necessarily for the better, but he can come up with no better remedy for the desperately ailing “legacy media” than for the state to help it to dip its bucket into the New Media giants’ “rivers of gold”. In the meantime, Ellis, like AUT’s Myllylathi, is at pains to fend off all those critics who cry: “Physician, heal thyself!”
Quite why Matthew Tukaki and Michael Wood appear on the list of media sages is anybody’s guess. Bradbury has friends in Te Ao Māori, and the Labour Party, but even so …
Conspicuous by their absence from Bradbury’s list are the critics of, and challengers to, the Fourth Estate that Jackson is now so keen to rescue. And, right there, is the besetting sin of both the Labour Party and the besieged bastions of broadcasting and the print media – a dread of giving those whom they perceive to be their enemies access to the microphone. Twenty years ago, key players in the Fourth Estate would have recognised that for what it was: cowardice – and dumb cowardice at that.
All the “summits” in the world will avail their organisers nothing, if all they are willing to listen to are their own fears.
This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 22 April 2024.
30 comments:
An enjoyable and edifying read, thank you.
As an aside, any idea emanating from Bradbury is doomed before birth due to the vitriol in which it would have been gestated.
"Quite why Matthew Tukaki and Michael Wood appear on the list of media sages is anybody’s guess."
Matthew Tukaki has extensive work in media, including being a host of 2UE, as well as having been in a prominent role on the Maori Council.
Michael Wood is the E Tu negotiation specialist for the restructure of TVNZ.
That would be my guess, but then maybe I don't understand your question.
"It would seem that Labour is only keen to listen and discuss policy with New Zealanders when giving practical effect to their ideas is impossible." The media, and the wealth tax. Had I not been nicely brought up, I'd declare that Labour is absolutely full of shit.
Yep, that ‘echo chamber’ thing.
Well said.
Oh my God, Michael Wood? I would assume he knows even less about the media than his ability to count. That guy is unemployable unless given some sort of government role by an old mate!
Bradbury is old school, he thought the debates pre election would save the day, he's a believer in Jack Tames show (whatever it is), and the 6.00 news. We increasingly don't watch free to air, it's shit! TVNZ will soon be worthless, in fact, a liability. It's day has come and now permanently gone!
Willie is clinging to the out of date notion that the legacy media control voter opinion. Making them annoyingly parrot "Hato Hone St John" is one thing, influencing public opinion, another. Certainly they, with Willies publically funded - one hand washes the other - handout, saved Labour from a well deserved upper teens result last election. But they don't own the public opinion. And they increasingly piss the public off, when they do take any notice. John Campbell has gone from impressive to a woke high priest. He's beyond polsrising, he's typecast. Simon Wilson another irritant, like tuberculosis.
You simply cannot overstate what a turn off social justice is to the ordinary voter who are smart enough to know, most people write their own destiny, real people work for a living, get on with life, some people risk it all and get rich, and whatever goes on in a woke left politicians imagination is best left there. Our standard of living and life expectancy has risen not by waiting for the lowest 5% to work out that making sensible decisions is the best course, rather, it's from politicians staying the hell away from their lives apart from the basic social license of health, justice, reasonable well managed social housing, and transportation, but otherwise, letting us get on with it. And on those last fronts, Labour Green did abysmally.
To me, the legacy media is stuffed, past tense, made increasingly irrelevant by the customers endless options the internet provides. We had no choice before but to endure egotistical journalists and their editors narrative. But never more so than in the last few years. Just this week, Luxon axed Melissa Lee. In one move, for our awful media, he's gone from evil and the enemy to evil and their friend. A glowing article in the Herald praised his move, the conditional adulation hoping to gain public money to prop up their mates in their broken out of date organisations to save democracy. He would best stay well away from their charms, they don't write the cheques no more.
“ It would seem that Labour is only keen to listen and discuss policy with New Zealanders when giving practical effect to their ideas is impossible. ”
Well, yes.
This government needs to divest itself from investment in mainstream media. The MSM needs to stand or fall on its merits without the corruption of Government subsidies.
I doubt Luxon understands this, but hopefully his coalition partners do. Those who voted for Winston (for the first time) have much to be thankful for.
"They say 'Don't go
Up Media Mountain
'If you're looking
For the Truth.'
'Cos the Corporate Towers,
They own that Mountain
With the truth they're handy
At playing fast and loose..."
Quote ..."Given that the truth is not always factual, and the facts don’t always align with the truth, the work of journalists like Campbell and Forbes tends to be the sort that raises hackles."
Oh Touche' and extremely well said Sir!
I had thought I was the only one thinking ... "insufferable --- up emselves ... impossibly woke"... etc.
But No ... clearly there were "others" with "bristling hackles"
Spot on Chris.
Since the demise of Newshub and retraction at TVNZ the legacy media have been utterly unprepared to genuinely confront the elephant in the room: collapsing public trust. No circumspection, no contrition. Mike McRoberts: "People have their opinions; they're wrong".
"Our" legacy media are blatantly (proudly?) willing to promote pet causes; the truth be damned. Their willingness to sacrifice journalistic integrity to climate change hysteria, gender woo-woo and racial separatism, for example, is evidenced by contractual commitments to Covering Climate Now, Rainbow Tick and the requirements of the PIJF. They're not "vital to our democracy" they're cynically subverting it.
Given the ideological imbalance against, and, at times, the outright hostility towards the Right there is plenty of incentive for the government to give nothing more than a few crumbs to the dying media. I suspect that's all they'll get.
I suspect a lot of people don't just distrust the media but think they're all quite mad.
The Cass report came out in the UK recently, it was a bombshell to the Gender cult, and the practice of chemical and surgical sterilisation, castration and mutilation of children and young people in particular.
You would have thought there would be some serious media attention paid to it here. You would be wrong. Last week the NZME, Stuff group etc. ran a story, same picture and all, about a little boy being put through all this by his mad mum and how it is all a wonderful idea. Perhaps it was generated by a third party (Rainbow Tick?) but very unsettling to see this collectivised, propaganda from "your most trusted news" source.
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
With plenty of anti right-wing govt names on that list, I'm not sure about going up a mountain? More like entering a protest echo chamber. Much like his DailyBlog where they are rather selective as to what gets posted by whom - upset the echo or critise the agenda and you get "the hard left filter". It's hard to take the idea serious without even one name that has credible commercial nous...or is that no longer required to "protect the fourth estate"?
We are in a new place; no longer a nation with a common history, symbols and identity, so it is interest against interest: infrastructure; property; construction and the export education scam with a festering sore of "dual citizenship"*
These days we need Team Radio rather than your in house gate keeper.
Eg on The Platform Roger (prosperity for all) Partridge v's Ian Harrison who argues fixed factors (land and distance) and resulting marginal product.
Why have earnings in tourism/ worker plummeted form $80,000 in 2011 and >$70,000 today? The retirement commissioner says people are working longer. In some sectors it is because they have to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBBT9qGglU&t=19s
The historical record in many countries shows that when populist outsiders challenge oligarchic insiders, the oligarchs almost always win. The oligarchs may not have the numbers, but they control most of the wealth, expertise, and political influence and dominate the media, universities, and nonprofit sectors. Most populist waves break and disperse on the concrete seawalls of elite privilege.
Michael Lind The New Class War: Saving Democracy form the Metropolitan Elite.
Chris whatever Willie Jackson says can be taken with a grain of salt. His performance on the AM show this morning of the 26th showed everyone the unadulterated hypocrisy that splutters out of his mouth. His being sorry for the way National have treated Melissa Lee after his flailing her with his own derogatory comments was jaw dropping. The man has no credibility whatsoever and whatever he tried to with media during his tenure failed.
Any talk of lists of suitable journalists is just someones opinion, and what credentials does that someone have for drawing up a list. There is nothing wrong with the skill and intelligence of journalists these days, its seemingly their absolute need to have their opinion heard or read that is the issue for me. Having an opinion is fine so long as whatever subject is being covered has the different ideas about it included in the article. Television is the worst but not the only offender with an action by say government (for example) immediately followed by an interview with it's critics without the right of reply. The interviewer often taking the moral high ground along with the interviewee. As for my opinion of the cabinet reshuffle on broadcasting, its a good positive move but it remains to be seen whether anything useful comes of it. Media is technically having growing pains and the current recession has meant advertising revenue has been cut in half. The current recession is forcing all media to rationalise their operations to match their revenue. Journalists have been caught in the middle but their plight has been made worse by their own wokeness which has seen the public being turned off by the way journalists have handled politics and the news. . It will take a year or two for Television to restructure and transmit digitally via streaming and until they sort that out journalists won't have any certainty of how many and where they will fit into the updated systems. Interesting times.
Do our opposition politicians and their support activists and bloggers really really want a functioning objective media "for democracy"? Really? You only put these turkeys on your wish list if they are known quantities, guaranteed friendly and incompetent.
Jackson was a disgrace as Broadcasting Minister, putting his race obsession front and centre as part of the quid pro quo use of public money "gifted" to the media and to ensure friendlies for his trojan horse Labour Party to navigate the then upcoming election. So I consider his interest very concerning for democracy.
But here's an idea. Let the media do their job, find a competent journalist to objectively investigate then analyse why Labour had such a hugh turnover of Ministers. How it descended from bad (pure incompetence like Twyford, Curren, Little, etc) to the unprecedented worse of the Justice Minister getting busted for an array of offending so beneath her title. Especially after the red flags were well and truly present about her decision making long before that night. The outcome certainly would identify base philosophy and with that the problems lie in cadidate selection based on ones experience in "...isms", unions, politics, gender and other pointless occupations totally at odds with delivery of such portfolios. It would show it was this that was at the epicentre of this generations Labour government failure. And how that will mean Labour are an absolute liability to vote for again given their philosophies.
You'd think, for the sake of democracy that our media care so much about, these questions would have been asked by now? How a majority government in an MMP environment, managed to end up on the scrap heap, so quickly? Surely? They just had the unvarnished truth laid bare to them having experienced the worst government this country has seen.
But that would mean admitting they, the media got it wrong, that well meaning naive twits and kindness, does not maketh a government. That would mean a complete overhaul of their own politcal philosophy.
And they don't want to be that guy who looks in the mirror and realises everything they held true was wrong.
Given that, I hold no hope for anything better to come from our media and I suspect Labour know that too! They are better as an unpaid PR service.
Willie Jackson is the govt's best asset. The more he opens his mouth the less Labour have a chance of winning the next election. Who knows what he has over them, but Labour need to get rid of him at all cost. He's a serious distraction.
Ref; "Anon" 26 April.
What a brilliant dissertation.
Your insights include for eg; ... "Jackson" ...incompetent racist fool- egotist;
" the worst government ( Lab/ Gr ) ...ever" ... Yes! ... and much more.
MY! Comments follow re Press: in NZ being ...it is currently clearly inept ***- and IMHO is fraudently, "functioning for democracy".
HAAH!
What utter self serving claptrap-Bullshit.
The Regional "Democracy" Slush Fund see further below ... "Democracy!!!???"... HAAH! again ...this travesty of terminology encapsulates the whole sorry press-mess.
The fund is patently corrupt and possibly illegal and it's title including the word "Democracy" is the sickest most cynical screwing of the pooch that I can "ever recall ... in Godzone".
A very! interesting thread this one ... ehh?
At long last the silent majority is pushing back on our Media and effectively too ... and is commentating on the NZ media's self selected self importance...TVNZ-Jackson-Campbell et al ... and Hooray bloody Hooray ... for that!
More on this please.
*** Re inept media... exempt from this "ineptness" are the rare media professionals of the Herald and less so ... under its new woke editor ... The NZ Listener plus Trevett O'Sullivan and "Nippert" ... Who by the way has just this week announced his departure from the whole sorry current press-mess. Unsurprising ...ehh?
State funding of the news media was the business model of Izvestia in the Soviet Union.
The Cass report was well reported in NZ and RNZ especially. The report was crafted to try to avoid the bile and sensationalist commentary you have made.
The conclusion was that medical gender reinlinement was overused as a first option for children and parents. It did not negate liminal gendered identities but questioned the appropriateness of early medical intervention as a blanket approach, especially for pre-teens.
The cratfers of the report were aware how prejudice can try to capture a medical report. I think it is a shame you do this David because it is an issue in regard to the timing or need for medical input that should be able to benefit from expert analysis.
Once again, you demonstrate an obsessive interest in genitalia or hormones. For thousands of years gendered liminality in time and culture has not been reliant on either. Lack of modern western negotiation of these spectrum identities does not assist children, families and their medical advisors make body modification decisions from a position of safety.
After all, the safety of the child must be paramount.
"Cass has stressed that she wasn't seeking to undermine trans identities or the right to transition " - The Guardian 27 April 2024
Chris: " dread of giving those whom they perceive to be their enemies access to the microphone".
That is, sadly, true. Perhaps that has always been that tendency, I don't know but it's certainly more pernicious than is healthy for "our democracy" to flourish.
I recall an interview on RNZ (Kim Hill I think it was) of popular British politician Nigel Farage. It was so obviously done with the intention to demonise. The sneering, supercilious interviewer didn't want the listeners to understand or, God forbid, sympathise with the man; she wanted them to hate him. That's our national broadcaster, clearly not the least interested in the notion (as outlined by NYT's Adolph Ochsin 1896) “to make of the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”
Is RNZ even salvageable?
From an essay on philosopher (prophet?) René Girard:
"In the end, when politics becomes our religion and the source of our righteousness, as happens in our time of hyper-polarization, it’s no surprise that we come to view our opponents as iniquitous. Clearly, they must be banished from public life. This sacrificial kind of thinking—that others must be eliminated for the common good—is precisely what Girard illuminated and warned against."
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-prophets-rene-girard
...and yet Willie is still standing while (now former) Minister is in free fall.
If Labour is to rebuild for the next election (which may not last term), there is a need to re-engage with working class Maori and Pasifika. Last I saw, Willie was leading that - while the coalition was actively politicalising those sectors and pushing them to the opposition parties.
Perhaps demonizing Jackson is fear of effectiveness.
Really Barron? If "gender identity" is independent of genitalia and hormones what is the purpose of chemically and surgically altering them? It's a monstrous mass delusion with serious and irreversible consequences for unhappy young and credulous people.
I don't know where you're seeing this "Lack of modern western negotiation of these spectrum identities". Effeminate men and masculine women are widely accepted and loved from what I can see. The quintessential bulldozer driving, buzz cut, bovver boots wearing bull dyke can freely just get on with her life without having to chemically or surgically try and become some sort of grotesque facsimile of a man.
Of course those questioning the whole thing (J K Rowling for example) are subject to constant insult and threat, framed as Terfs and outright bigots.
As American writer Shant Mesrobian observed a few years ago:
"bigotry used to be the best way to bully and intimidate people, but now performative anti-bigotry is the best way to bully and intimidate people. An evolving toolset for sociopaths."
Your earlier post was to misrepresent, but hail, a report that suggests that an holistic approach to teen and pre-teen gendered identity should be cautious in the use of medical intervention in the first instance. You now reject any liminal gender identity outside medical intervention.
Your attack on a mother and her child that used medical intervention in consultation with their medical advisors you demonize, without any knowledge of the actual situation or the people concerned. You are well read enough to know the self-harm and suicide statistics for those with gendered identity issues, and that this can be almost completely mitigated by support, social and family acceptance and secure personal identity. You seem to decide greater knowledge of risk factors than the parents and their medical advisors. This is with total indifference to the life and safety of the child. I find this type of approach to border on sociopathy when the life and safety of a child is disposable in your world view.
I do not claim to know the individual circumstances in the example, but that the parents, the medical advisors and the child's age and understanding did no the circumstances and acted in the interest of safety. The point of the Cass report is to suggest that in Britain, a wider process should be employed (based on the well-being of the patient) before a final decision.
In regard for gendered identity without altering genitals and hormones, you demonstrate almost a cartoonish view. You referred to "them" as a generic group (or is Them '60s Northern Irish R&B?), different people have different liminal gendered identities and express them personally or in line with their culture. In south-east Asia the growing of certain finger nails is a signifier, in Polynesia there are subtleties recognized within the culture. Formerly NZ based anthropologist, Niko Besnier, showed the difference in external messaging between the Tongan fakaleitī traditionally and when influenced by K Rd drag. I am sure that medical options again changes external signaling. India has legislated recognition of hijras and eunuchs as third gender categories. While the eunuch can be defined by genitalia, hijras is a cultured gendered identity.
I was unaware that a reshowing of 'The Killing of Sister George' had been played, but it seems you conflate sexual and gendered identities in a way that allows you to be offensive to all. It has to be emphasized, those with gender identity liminality are not confined to the masculinized female or feminized male.
I have previously made the point that pre-Western colonization most cultures in the world had more than two gendered identities. We should note Matthew 19:12 as an acknowledgement of liminal gender. Most of these cultures had time to accommodate the plurality of gender categories. As I stated, these spectrum identities have not been traditionally negotiated into western society which has insisted on binary gendered classification. The fakaleitī may have a cultural and personal safe space in their Tongan village and may not feel any need for medical change to reinforce their identity, but negotiating identity in a western context may be very different.
My understanding is the Cass report is suggesting to allow supportive exploration of the liminal gender identities before physical medical intervention. That you consign sectors that you do not identify with "performative anti-bigotry", goes back to your sociopathy. It is not about their lives and safety, but solely about you. Identities are 'performative' directed to you, and it is all about challenging your personal bigotry and allowing dogma bereft of factual basis.
No wonder you often quote Jordan Peterson, the deregistered psychologist. He reaffirms the right to untethered chauvinism. Often described, the dumb person's view of an intellectual.
Interesting reaction of TV 1 to the most recent political poll.
Geez what a beat up.
Their reaction ... that is; their doom casting and hopeful wish fulfilment suggesting the demise of the coalition.
Well hullooo! The "real " poll is still 30 months away.
Luxon is clearing the decks doing the hard unpopular stuff now. So the current poll reflects this . Oh what a surprise! ... Not!
"Oh well" ... anything to boost eyeball counts and ... a big maybe ... maybe boost ad rev? ... as their ... the Medias ... doomed tramp steamer goes down by the bow.
To: The Barron.
Lengthy denunciations of fellow readers' moral and psychological shortcomings are editorially discouraged.
Short, pithy, and polite is the preferred mode.
Point taken.
However, David's prose on mother's making difficult decisions for the well-being of a child and his bull-dyke views have potential to cause harm. I think this is only mitigated by the narrowing of the sector diversity still contributing to your blog.
David is one of the most prolific contributors and usually is research based, albeit not always sources I respect. When he goes off-piste and attacks the vulnerable, I am sure a certain kick back was expected.
“Mark Twain once said, “It’s not what we don’t know that gets us in trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
― Jordan B. Peterson,
Thank you Barron, though I can't imagine how my somewhat colourful, and hopefully humorous, description of an imaginary butch woman could be construed as an "attack on the vulnerable", particularly when prefaced with the claim that they are "widely accepted and loved".
As for that woman encouraging and facilitating irreversible chemical (and God knows what's to follow) intervention on her confused nine year old son, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump: crazy is as crazy does.
David, you may wish to ask the question as to whether your view of humour is punching down.
I would also question your lack of empathy with a parent making extremely difficult decisions with medical advice for the well-being of the child. As I stated, where there are the unacceptable suicide statistics for teens and pre-teens involving gendered identity, there should be no criticism of a parent balancing the safety of their child and having support and acceptance given age and understanding of the stated needs of that child.
That said, it may surprise that I have some agreement with the Cass report. Holistic support should precede any medical intervention. Your 'humour' shows that liminal gender identities are not in a safe place currently. If there is vilification of non-binary identities, it should be of little surprise safety is sought in medical transition to a binary identity. It is my view that medical intervention is an individual choice, but it should be one that is both informed and made from a position of safety. Where societies have accommodation that gender identities have a plurality, a position on a spectrum becomes more viable.
To argue against both medical transition and non-medical liminal identity is simply one of harm.
"punching down"
Sorry Barron, I'm not the least bit interested in considering that question. The term is another manifestation of an ideology I detest: Critical Theory and it's concoction of a hierarchy of victimhood based on group identity.
I suspect you've made your own judgement as to whether I'm punching up, down or sideways based on God knows what, certainly without knowing what misfortune, suffering and privation I've endured or fortune and privilege I've enjoyed. The whole concept is foolish and dangerous.
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