Author: blueridgemountain_man

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Think-Tanked

How Progressive Nonprofits Went Over the Waterfall

Another splendid essay by self-described progressive Eliza Mondegreen who witnessed from within how progressive nonprofits were seized by the ideological frenzy of a rising cohort of junior staffers deeply invested in a pseudo-politics of identitarian deference and grievance that seized the white collar workplace in the 2010’s.

When trans activists wrapped their cause in the language of civil rights, they sought to exempt themselves from scrutiny and debate. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way to shut down inquiry among self-identified progressives and progressive organizations. Anyone who resisted or even asked basic questions risked being cast in the background of this image: 
Even the most apologetically stated concerns or reservations—about males in women’s prisons, women’s sports, and women’s refuges, about the effects of overwriting sex in the law—were instantly dismissed as the bigoted ravings of a privileged mob. The real conflict between sex-based rights and demands couched in an inner sense of gender identity got buried. Trans activists taunted progressives: who wants to end up on the wrong side of history?

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A strange sort of arms race kicked off, where whoever could brainstorm the most byzantine ways someone could feel marginalized or excluded by anything we wrote or said—or (decreasingly) did—won by demonstrating a superior sensitivity.

You know the drill: You should read the whole thing.

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An Idealized American Landscape

Pastoral Landscape, 1861
by Asher Brown Durand
National Gallery of Art

See if you can spot the churches in the background.

Overview

By 1861, when Asher B. Durand executed this large and impressive picture, he had fully perfected his approach to landscape painting, creating idealized, expressive views of America’s wilderness based on close observations of the natural world that stand as prime examples of the Hudson River School aesthetic.

Because virtually nothing is known of Pastoral Landscape’s history prior to 1980, the painting’s original title remains the subject of speculation. But certain relevant facts can be established. First and foremost, the work is the largest, most ambitious, and most accomplished of Durand’s paintings from 1861, representing a substantial commitment of time by the artist, who was not a fast worker. Second, the scenery resembles that of the Hudson River Valley, where he spent considerable time and from which he drew inspiration for many works. Third, the painting contains several works of architecture—an Italianate villa just beyond the woods at left, an arched stone bridge, a gabled house across the water, and an English Gothic revival church in the center distance—that may or may not indicate that Durand sought to depict a specific, identifiable place. And finally, in certain respects—mostly notably, the presence of a house nestled in the woods, a church, and an arched bridge— Pastoral Landscape bears a strong resemblance to Durand’s important work of the previous year Sunday Morning (New Britain, Connecticut, New Britain Museum of American Art). Regardless of its precise identity, the painting is unmistakably one of Durand’s grandest and most successful panoramic renderings of an idealized American landscape.

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Doughton Park, Blue Ridge Parkway
by blueridgemountain_man

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Creating Fragile Children

Lisa Selin Davis in her recent article continues an ongoing theme of this blog; Coddling Generation Safety Blankey.

Coddling Generation Safety Blankey? Or Affirming Shared Truths?
College Students Demand Protection From Words and Ideas
Young Woman in Profile by Odilon Redon – 1910
National Gallery of Art

Davis, a parent of a gender non-conforming girl, who was frequently mistaken for a boy, has some astute recommendations for “snowplow parents” and the fragile kids they create.

Here are a few graphs.

While some advocates of gender-affirming medicine and gender-identity ideology insist they are saving the lives of vulnerable children, in practice much of what’s taught to kids today about gender—especially the conflation of gender nonconformity with gender dysphoria—suggests to masculine girls and feminine boys that they need to “fix” themselves through medical or psychological interventions that have some irreversible effects, without guaranteed benefits.

There are many possible reasons why this is happening, including the lobbying efforts of transgender and civil rights groups, and the institutional incentives created by federal laws like the recent White House executive order on “affirming care.” But I believe another reason is our national zeitgeist shift toward snowplow parenting, in which parents believe their job is to clear obstacles out of their children’s way rather than to equip them with the skills to navigate those obstacles. We are terrified of our children’s suffering and teach them to be terrified of it, too.

The lessons children are learning about gender in schools, from our culture and on social media, may leave them fragile and thin-skinned, unprepared to withstand pain and conflict and confusion. Take, for instance, misgendering—in the alterworld of Twitter, it’s a worse crime than, say, libeling someone, which is the lifeblood that powers the platform. Children are being taught that misgendering is violence, that every person must be treated exactly as he or she (or they) wishes to be by others or else they’ve experienced discrimination, and that people who violate these rules must be punished, whatever their intent. Children are being taught that feelings are facts. That figurative violence is literal violence.

Most of the time, misgendering means “correctly sexing”—identifying someone by their biological sex, not their gender identity. This can cause a very small percentage of people with intense gender dysphoria deep distress, but doesn’t mean children should learn that they’ve hurt—no, harmed—someone if they misgender them. I don’t want children to be disrespectful, but if they’re disrespected, I don’t want them to melt into a puddle and demand vengeance. I don’t want them to learn that they need to weaken others to feel strong.

Children are learning that sex and sex stereotypes are interchangeable, that rejecting stereotypes means rejecting your body. Or they are not learning about sex stereotypes; the popular gender teaching tool, the Genderbread Person, makes no mention of them. They’re learning that puberty is an aesthetic choice they can make based on their level of discomfort; they are learning that discomfort cannot be withstood.

[emphasis added]

Read the whole thing: The Real Risks of Gender Education

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