Perspectives: Gender justice, testing our allegiance to reality

OPINION – One of the most disturbing aspects of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” was its depiction of an entire society that was forbidden from embracing reality.

Orwell’s character Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth was making inconvenient facts disappear down the memory hole. His government could tell the people any lie, and it was accepted without question.

They lived under a form of intellectual bondage where their own understanding was subject to another’s direction.

The citizens of Oceania were required to participate in their totalitarian leaders’ delusions or risk punishment as purveyors of thought-crime.

A similar type of mental tyranny is beginning to take hold across our own society in the form of so-called “gender justice.”

Don’t take my word for it. Watch what happens when a man conducting interviews with college students tells them that he identifies as an Asian woman, or a 7-year-old girl or as being 6 feet 5 inches tall.

Watch the video up top; playarrow click to play.

Watching each student struggle not to acknowledge the simple, unambiguous reality right before his or her eyes is highly revealing. They have been trained by cultural revolutionaries to believe that it is their duty to affirm another person’s self-image regardless of how it conflicts with reality.

Even though their interviewer is not being overbearing, virtually all of the students feel obligated to ignore reality in order to support his particular fantasy.

These young adults are not being stupid, nor is there malicious intent in their answers. This isn’t about being polite or simply treating others with respect.

Thanks to their indoctrination, they are struggling to toe a line that requires ignoring truth according to how another person directs them.

The students’ inability to courageously answer simple questions based in reality should make us wonder about their ability to answer questions that actually matter.

Imagine how difficult this could be when dealing with an entitled person seeking a legal remedy to compel others to participate in their fantasy.

This unhealthy reliance upon external guidance in the use of our own intellect was addressed long ago.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant, describing enlightenment, wrote:

Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance.

The insatiable desire to control what takes place within the minds of others is the hallmark of what is often referred to as political correctness or cultural Marxism.

I highly recommend the exceptionally succinct explanation written by Claudio Glass regarding what cultural Marxism is and how it is fomenting the birth of modern thought-crime.

Those cultural revolutionaries seeking to create uniformity of thought have enjoyed their greatest success in subjugating intellectual freedom on our nation’s campuses.

This is why high school and college campuses have become the latest battlegrounds over gender-identity issues. Witness how campus officials are falling all over themselves to avoid being seen as “insensitive.”

The battle over gender and restrooms is just one more example of the public being told that reality no longer counts, even in the most intimate areas of life.

It’s a perfect wedge issue to drive between individuals who will eagerly stake out the moral high ground on the basis of either equality or public morality.

This has sparked numerous social media wars that still manage to miss the larger principles at stake.

The real question is not whether objectively identifiable biological characteristics or mere personal convictions are what determine one’s gender.

It’s whether any person has an enforceable right to compel others who do not share their belief to act as if we do.

The dystopian world described by Orwell in “1984” is a mirror image of the utopian world envisioned by today’s cultural revolutionaries.

Claudio Grass explains how the goals of the Party in “1984” and the goals of our modern social justice warriors are similar:

It is all about the creation of identical individuals who do not come together and exchange ideas, as they operate like mindless machines. The Frankfurt School and its followers have therefore clearly proved to be the enemies of freedom and the conscious human mind.

We cannot allow the fear of being labeled as insensitive to override our willingness to live in reality and exercise our own understanding.

Our minds are the last real measure of freedom we can still exercise without being surveilled and directed.

Willingly allowing ourselves to become intellectually enslaved in the name of so-called social justice is not an option.

Bryan Hyde is a news commentator, radio host and opinion columnist in Southern Utah. The opinions stated in this article are his and not representative of St. George News.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @youcancallmebry

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2016, all rights reserved.

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2 Comments

  • BIG GUY April 25, 2016 at 11:02 am

    Thoughtful essay. One person’s social justice is another’s intellectual enslavement. Those preaching social justice sooner or later find themselves trapped in webs of their own making just as environmentalists touting solar power are opposed by environmentalists who don’t want pristine landscape encumbered with square miles of solar panels and immense new power distribution networks.

    Example: Harvard University proposes to expel male students who belong to a male-only, off-campus social club even though the club receives no university support. The social justice crime: gender discrimination. One proposed solution to the club’s dilemma caught my attention. If half the males in the club declare that they identify themselves as females, Harvard would be trapped in its own web.

  • Wolverine April 27, 2016 at 10:09 am

    I feel it’s a lot of hoopla on both sides really. Whatever happened to mind your own business? Transgender people have been using our restrooms along side of us for as long as there have been transgender people, weather you realized it or not. Live and let live if you ask me, I could care less if a man or a woman was in the stall next to me, I’m there to take care of business, not create conversation and spend time socializing. Keep to yourself, do your business and get on with your day. We all have to pee and poop, I have seen both sets of anatomy in my lifetime, ( I have one set of them obviously) it’s nothing new, and I don’t get offended easily. People and parents need to lighten up on both sides I feel. If parents are worried, accompany your child into your own gender restroom or wait for the family bathroom that is available at many public locations. Better yet, use your personal convictions to bring up the conversation about the differences in male/female and transgender. I would think most families have no clue how to actually explain without religious or personal prejudice the differences between them. People are who they are, and your views on weather it’s right or wrong won’t change the fact that you will encounter all of these genders in public. People have a right to live their lifestyle as they wish, and if that other person is only going about their day and not interacting with you in a negative or hostile manner, mind your OWN business and treat others with respect. The right and overly conservative is just as annoying as the left and overly liberal in most situations. Please don’t cram your staunch beliefs in either area down my throat. I could really care less what your religion, ethnicity, gender, hair color, how many kids you choose or not choose to have, small, large, which economic bracket, what kind of car you drive, etc are. I may not understand your lifestyle, but I wish you the best life you can create for yourself. Isn’t that what we’re all really after?

    I’m not buying the sexual predator argument that many people are crying out about. If a person is a sexual predator, they’ll find a way to get to a victim. It makes NO difference what is on the door of the bathroom. Be diligent about your (and your loved ones) safety in any public place, as we all should be. There are no safe public places, get that out of your head and act accordingly.

    A great quote that I try to live by is: “There is a time to speak out and a time to remain silent. Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing weather or not to say it.”

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