The events of Rachel Dolezal and \u201cCaitlyn\u201d Jenner are classic textbook case studies in the intellectual and moral incoherence of the contemporary leftist\/progressive worldview.<\/p>\n
Dolezal is a biologically white person who has spent years passing herself off as black. She continues to self-identify as black.<\/p>\n
Jenner is biologically male but self-identifies as female.<\/p>\n
In both instances, one hallmark idea of the left figures centrally. This is the notion of human malleability, the idea that there is no hard, stable nature or \u201cexternal world,\u201d as philosophers call it. The only \u201creality\u201d with which we\u2019re familiar is a \u201csocial construction\u201d that, as such, can be \u201cdeconstructed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sky\u2019s the limit.<\/p>\n
Given the similarity of the two tales in this regard, one must wonder why Dolezal has been (almost) universally condemned for living a lie while Jenner, in glaring contrast, has been (almost) universally celebrated.<\/p>\n
Some questions and comments for the left:<\/p>\n
(1)Both Dolezal and Jenner maintain that the physical reality<\/em> of their respective circumstances is no obstacle to fulfilling their goals and expressing their true selves<\/em>, the knowledge of which is widely held to be radically subjective (Who are you <\/em>to tell me <\/em>who I <\/em>really am?). If, then, it is immoral for us to deny Jenner\u2019s claim that, biology be damned, \u201cshe\u201d is really a woman \u201ctrapped\u201d in a man\u2019s body, then why isn\u2019t it immoral for us to deny Dolezal\u2019s claim that, biology be damned, she<\/em> is really a black woman trapped in a white woman\u2019s body?<\/p>\n (2)For all of my lifetime, leftists, especially black leftists, have charged such black conservatives as Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell (to name but two) with being \u201coreos,\u201d i.e. white men trapped in black men\u2019s bodies. Bill Clinton was heralded by some notable blacks as America\u2019s first black <\/em>president. Biracial <\/em>celebrities like Barack Obama and Halle Berry, in spite of having been abandoned by their black fathers and raised by their white family members, and in spite of having lived a fairly privileged existence, insist upon self-identifying as \u201cblack.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, the words and actions of leftists all point to one conclusion: Particularly in regard to \u201cblacks,\u201d race is not only\u2014maybe not even\u2014<\/em>fundamentally biological. Ideology <\/em>or culture <\/em>has at least as much, and probably more, to do with being black than mere physical reality.<\/p>\n Besides this, don\u2019t leftists insist that \u201crace\u201d is just a social construct, that there are no races save the human <\/em>race?<\/p>\n So, why should anyone who accepts any of this have problems with Dolezal identifying herself as black?<\/p>\n (3)Gender, like race, is also a social construct, according to leftists. This, I suppose, is why the rest of us have been lectured on the need to accept at face value Bruce Jenner\u2019s claim to being a woman, irrespective of all of the physical evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n At the same time, though, doesn\u2019t this line about the socially constructed nature of gender identity actually contradict <\/em>the idea that Jenner is, by nature, <\/em>a woman inhabiting a man\u2019s body?! If there is nothing natural about gender\u2014if the body is just an external trapping\u2014then there is no reality underneath the surface, right?<\/p>\n And if gender roles are in principle the products of time and place, then isn\u2019t it so that in self-identifying as a woman because, for example\u2014and this is<\/em> the only <\/em>example that he\u2019s given for his claim to really <\/em>being a woman\u2014Jenner enjoys dressing in women\u2019s clothing, that he proves just how confused he is on this question? Doesn\u2019t he prove that, far from being an icon that promises to advance the cause of the trans-gendered community, Jenner is a retrograde that threatens to plunge us back into the bad old days when it was held that there really are women\u2019s <\/em>and \u201cmen\u2019s\u201d <\/em>clothing?<\/p>\n (4)A colleague of mine expressed the standard leftist objection to Dolezal\u2019s self-identifying as black when he argued that, not having been born with a black body, Dolezal can\u2019t relate to and, hence, shouldn\u2019t be able to capitalize upon the suffering that those with black bodies have historically had to endure in America.<\/p>\n However, for a very long time, the left has been making similar assertions regarding women. Women, we are constantly assured, are as well victims of centuries and millennia of male patriarchal, sexist oppression.<\/p>\n Well, this being so, isn\u2019t it unjust for Bruce Jenner to capitalize on the suffering that being a woman invites? After all, given that he\/she has lived as a man for some 65 years, Jenner has never had to endure the indignities and hardships, the exploitation, to which women are regularly subjected. Thus he can\u2019t relate, can he (or she)?<\/p>\n If the rest of us are having a tough time keeping up with progressivism, we should take comfort in the fact that we are not the problem.<\/p>\n The problem is the\u00a0progressive’s worldview itself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The events of Rachel Dolezal and \u201cCaitlyn\u201d Jenner are classic textbook case studies in the intellectual and moral incoherence of the contemporary leftist\/progressive worldview. Dolezal is a biologically white person who has spent years passing herself off as black. She continues to self-identify as black. Jenner is biologically male but self-identifies as female. In both…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n