Totalitarianism from below. In the West we are too inclined to see Communism as something imposed from outside, from on top, by Bolsheviks and their goons, by foreign conquest. But Communism is also imposed from below, by people empowered by envy, spite and malice, who hate distinction, independence, and anything that does not smell of themselves. But it can also occur from efforts to be nice, to respect newly invented rights not to be offended. Enforced speech is everywhere.
Chris Taylor writes in “2010s = 1984: the Decade we finally understood Orwell” that
“The Party doesn’t get its power from spying on its citizens, or turning them into snitches, or punishing sex crimes. All were presented as mere tools of the state. How did it come to wield that control in the first place?
“Orwell, aka Eric Blair, a socialist freedom fighter and a repentant former colonial officer who had a lifelong fascination with language and politics, knew that no control could be total until you colonized people’s heads too. A state like his could only exist with loud, constant, and obvious lies.”
” To be a totalitarian, he knew from his contemporary totalitarians, you had to seize control of truth itself. You had to redefine truth as “whatever we say it is.” You had to falsify memories and photos and rewrite documents. Your people could be aware that all this was going on, so long as they kept that awareness to themselves and carried on (which is what doublethink is all about).”
A tax accountant, Maya Forstater, a woman, in England was fired for saying that people cannot change their sex. The Court ruled that such views were not acceptable and “unprotected”. This from the Guardian:
“A researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex has lost a test case because her opinions were deemed to be “absolutist”.
“In a keenly anticipated judgment that will stir up fresh debate over transgender issues, Judge James Tayler, an employment judge, ruled that Maya Forstater’s views did “not have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief”. (skip)
“But in a 26-page judgment released late on Wednesday, Tayler dismissed her claim. “I conclude from … the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”Advertisement
“In response to the ruling, Forstater said: “I struggle to express the shock and disbelief I feel at reading this judgment, which I think will be shared by the vast majority of people who are familiar with my case.
“My belief … is that sex is a biological fact, and is immutable. There are two sexes, male and female. Men and boys are male. Women and girls are female. It is impossible to change sex. These were until very recently understood as basic facts of life by almost everyone.”
This is the aspect that is so disturbing, as Douglas Murray has observed, that truths which everyone held since conscious thought began are declared by some pompous ass dressed in robes as “unprotected”, and worse, that one can be mobbed, harassed, fired with impunity, and subject to disgrace on social media for insisting the obvious fact that a person born with XY chromosomes is a genetic male, no matter what surgeries he undergoes and costumes he dons.
While it may be polite to address a person by their desired gender, this does not abolish biology.
The core of the case for the judgment was that
“A number of commentators have viewed this case as being about the claimant’s freedom of speech. Employment Judge Tayler acknowledged that there is nothing to stop the claimant campaigning against the proposed revisions to the Gender Recognition Act or, expressing her opinion that there should be some spaces that are restricted to women assigned female at birth. However, she can do so without insisting on calling transwomen men. It is the fact that her belief necessarily involves violating the dignity of others which means it is not protected under the Equality Act 2010.”
Transwomen are men. There, I said it. I have now committed thoughtcrime. And notice how this totalitarian lie is achieved: by excessive niceness. It has become a firing offence to insist that a transwoman is still a man. My feelings are hurt. The tyranny of hurt feelings is the origin of the social compulsion being enforced by courts. Many of my beliefs necessarily involve violating the dignity of others, and so do yours. But if I have made my dignity depend on your addressing me as a woman, or as a Duke, or anything I can imagine – and the rules change every day – am I obliged to treat you as you claim, or as a preposterous mountebank?