Psybertron Asks

“Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms – Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East” is a 2014 book by Gerard Russell.

The Yazidi Peacock Angel (c) Tawûsê Melek

Rory Stewart provides the foreword. Like Rory, Gerard was a British officer and diplomat in the region and, like T E Lawrence before them, their knowledge comes not just from scholarly research but also from living, working and empathising with the locals in their own languages and geographies. My interest in Lawrence and “The Middle East” is one that pre-dates this knowledge blogging project and I often find myself relating my epistemological interests – what, why and how we believe what we think we know – to traditions of belief and action exposed in such accounts. All belief traditions – including science – are effectively religions in this sense and, even as an atheist, theology is an important perspective beyond disembodied logic and dehumanised science. It’s a consistent theme. Pirsig and the American pragmatists draw on native Amerindians, north and south as well as Eastern traditions. Rushdie mines south-America as well as his native Indian sub-continent.

I’m probably not going to find space for a complete read and review, and will consign it to my library of unread books (after Eco) for now, so this is really just a placeholder for the resource:

From Rory Stewart’s introduction to Gerard Russell’s work:

“The combination of linguistic skill, deep cultural understanding, courage, classical scholarship, and profound love of foreign cultures was once more common. Russell is in the direct tradition of British scholars / imperial officers such as Mountstuart, Elphinstone, Macaulay, or even T E Lawrence. But it is now very rare. It is not an accident that Russell has now moved on from the British diplomatic service and Harvard University. Academics seem to be absorbed in ever more intricate internal arguments, which leave little space or possibility for a [book] project of this ambition and scope. Foreign services and policy makers now want ‘management competency’ – slick and articulate plans, not nuance, deep knowledge and complexity.”

That final sentence pretty much drove my own Systems Thinking focus. Forgotten kingdoms represent forgotten knowledge, forgotten ways of knowing. [Hold for later – nuance / detail – complexity / abstraction …]

Hat tip Dennis Finlayson for the book itself. Any book recommended by Rory Stewart and Tom Holland is OK by me.

=====

Just a quick holding post to capture the link. Hat tip to Kevin Mitchell for sharing this 15 minute “Lightning Talk” by Johannes (Yogi) Jaeger

It’s short but I’ve only skimmed first few mins. Already loving it.

Don’t know any more about Ronin Community or Vienna Uni Philosophy, but I see Templeton sponsorship.

Evolutionary Systems focus, almost apologetic for increasingly conceptual theoretical interest. (Me too – that is the point of adopting “Systems Thinking” – after Levenchuk, et al.)

Identifying that gap between Technical Specialists and higher level (more holistic / systems) Thinking – anywhere, including science itself in 21st C. (Irony that so much fundamental science theory ignores its “ontological commitment” being happy to hang with the maths, and yet disowns / devalues science that strays from the empirical, to the abstract and conceptual understanding / thinking / belief – hence Templeton?)

Hear, hear!

I’ll be back.

=====

OK, so watched & listened to the whole: All good.

The crux is these “12 Theses”.

My only difference would be coming down quite so negative on the word “machine” – but it’s clearly the main thrust of the theses and the book – “”Beyond the Age of Machines”. I personally have no problem with machine language, but a sufficiently complex self-adaptive “soft (ie non-mechanistic) machine” system. A very special evolved kind of computing machine with these properties of agency, purpose, meaning etc. Organism is good. System is good. Whichever word we choose it will come with baggage. I happen to like the Turing baggage. I’d support Organism if it became the preferred word. I’m in.

And, as admitted, making a list of 12 is a nod to Martin Luther, so slightly artificial choice of which specific 12 “assertions” – could be re-written at any level of abstraction vs detail 3 or 4 to 15 or 20? Apparent in the elaboration whilst presenting the 12. Either way, a plea to be treated like those 12 Theses, nailed to the doors of the “church of reason” – as Pirsig called it.

But the 3 pillars metaphor is very much aimed at keeping distinct the different kinds of thinking and doing. As I think I already said, exactly the point of Levenchuk’s version of “Systems Thinking”.

Manifesto good too. Kairos, Wisdom, Mysterianism and Metamodernity – a re-de-constructed modernity (PoPoMo as I’ve always called it).

An “emergent book” – a bit like my blog in my Psybertron case 🙂
https://www.expandingpossibilities.org

All good. Recommended.

=====

Previously on Psybertron:

“Systems 101” (with Kevin Mitchell) – June 2023

=====

Mentioned in the previous post I’d been re-reading / re-viewing Dan Dennett content since, as ever, I found myself defending what he really believes about human consciousness against those that dismiss him as some kind of illusionist, compatibilist, denialist. He’s actually an evolutionary systems-thinking realist like the best of us. There’s some determination amongst popular science and media to maintain mystique – secrets and mysteries to-be-unlocked and to remain so forever. It serves their agenda to deny real progress and agreement.

In fact science journalist John Horgan said as much quite explicitly, and not just to me:

It would be more grim if everyone agreed on an answer.

— John Horgan (@Horganism) June 28, 2023

I don’t think agreement on consciousness, or quantum mechanics, really matters. In fact, disagreement is more entertaining.

— John Horgan (@Horganism) June 27, 2023

Breath-taking cynicism, no? Agreeing truths about reality “don’t really matter” – what matters is the entertainment value of disagreement over mysteries? Well in the entertainment business maybe – thinking of you Brian Cox and Robin Ince and their ilk – but conflating quantum and consciousness “mysteries” as if one is a valid metaphor for the other is another dangerous part of the problem.

[Post Note: Whilst I’m beating-up John Horgan,
here his rant being critical of Skeptics (capital S).
I agree. Hat-tip Mark Hammonds.]

Sure, at a human scale, a lot of the gaps in and around QM don’t matter much – our everyday Newtonian Physics and Electronic Media will continue to function in blissful ignorance of what is really happening at the QM (or the cosmic gravitational) scale. The problem is that the competing QM interpretations and thought experiments leave candidate hooks for others with entertainment agendas to snag mystery onto other human-scale questions. Consciousness for example.

Consciousness – our conscious will and decision-making and how they’ve evolved to be the way they are for reasons of human fitness in the cosmic ecosystem – is probably the thing that matters most to humanity (and that ecosystem). And – paralleling Descartes’ thought – probably the least mysterious.

The same is true of human sex/gender differences, hence my title.

It is politic to deny gender differences when it comes to brains and minds – and to a large extent for good political reasons – equalities of human rights and opportunities – like all the other atypical neuro-diversities, the ones we don’t deny. But to deny the differences and choose not to understand them is ignorance.

I raise this here, because a couple of my previous references to “Vive La Difference” arose out of Dennett content, and as I noted above, my previous couple of posts had led to me re-viewing my Dennett content.

(Dennett is not alone amongst neuro-philosophers and neuro-scientists in acknowledging real differences. It’s always about the “so what?” question.)

My own concern is the evolutionary value in diversity – the “requisite variety” to use Stafford Beer’s systems thinking term – in enabling ongoing development of systems – living, human, ecosystems. To force common identity on all brains and minds, to deny their diversity in the name of equality, is human suicide. Amidst all the other diversity-denying madness around sex and gender at the moment, this is one important and far-reaching subtlety. We’ll be better of with a gene (and meme) pool containing both male and female brains (and minds) rather than some forced, sterile version of the one true human brain / mind.

That’s my “so what?” but what about Dennett?

I recorded before that Dennett was put on the spot by James Shaftsbury(?) asking him the direct question about gendered brain difference in a high-profile public and recorded presentation. The whole Royal Institution lecture is linked here, but I want to focus on that specific Q&A. Worth a watch (starting here at 9:34 in the Q&A and running for about 6 minutes):

Great preamble, question and answer. Dennett is very thoughtful and careful to give both the scientific and political angles of his answer due weight.

His “so what?” is tactical. He doesn’t deny the differences suggested. He suggests that on-balance there is more political risk than benefit in talking about them explicitly, so better not to highlight them (here). That’s a fair judgement in the light of previous (and current) political climates. I still maintain those doing science – and scientific philosophy – should not actually deny or fail to understand those differences. If I had findings to present, I’d certainly want to choose my audience.

The classic previous example referred to is Harvard University President Larry Summers speech in 2005 highlighting gender differences between academic areas. Here a report in the month afterwards into what he actually said, the reaction and his follow-up reasoning. Here a retrospective review from 2009 around what he did and didn’t say and the consequences for education policy. Note that nothing he said was false or badly motivated. It’s all about the “so what?”

=====

Previously on Psybertron:

• • • “Vive la Différence, One More Time” (September 2017)
    • “Vive La Difference” (April 2013)
    • All previous references.

=====

I’ve already documented my take that there really is no longer any mystery behind consciousness and our conscious (free) will – my simplest single reference being Mark Solms “Hidden Spring”. Surely, massively valuable in its own right to have solved that long-standing human riddle? And, more importantly, it takes away a massive source of confusion and wasted argument from would-be scientific approaches to the future of humanity and our planet more widely. Also not insignificant, surely? An enhancement to our knowledge of the world that science and humanity benefit from.

As an old man in a hurry, I’m already focussed on the “so what next?” to achieve such global aims given that understanding, rather than the detail of cementing the underlying agreement in all stakeholders -that’s all of us – and a whole Kuhnian paradigm or Kondratieff cycle, typically three human generations. I’ve already documented every which way my “systems thinking” position says that the appropriateness of detail is a very real consideration driven by understanding the system(s) you’re currently dealing with. Yes, the devil says all details matter eventually, but the angels really are in the abstractions, here and now.

The intersection of the philosophy of consciousness and the science of brains with systems thinking is precisely what my reference to Mark Solms is about. The particular version of systems thinking being “Active Inference”, based on the Free Energy Principle and the statistical-thermodynamics information-processing idea of Bayesian inference across the Markov Blanket boundaries of the systems we’re dealing with. Fortunately amongst the Active Inference Institute’s 750 members and more guests there are people concerned with firming-up understanding and agreement of those explanatory principles and models, as well as exploiting their future value.

Two such people, in particular Maxwell Ramstead and Mahault Albarracin, gave a presentation to the AII yesterday:

It was very good.

Firstly it was admittedly a summary of – a crash course in – the underlying principles that are maybe taken as given by AII members. But, useful in itself.

Secondly it developed the FEP idea all the way to the many-layered experience – affect –  we call consciousness. Particularly striking for me was the meta-layering on multiple dimensions at every level of granularity and scale.

In general / dynamic systems thinking we may find ourselves talking about processes, procedures, methods and methodologies seemingly interchangeably or redundantly, yet needing to make distinctions when appropriate. Well, even starting back at the level of fundamental physics we have principles, mechanics and dynamics with layered explanatory dependencies. And remember we’re starting with “a principle”, the FEP.

The aim – theirs and mine – is not a new theory n+1 of consciousness, but an integrative unification of n partially agreed theories – exploiting their iso-morphism across many layers and aspects to provide an explanatory view of the whole. A “minimum unifying model” (MUM).

One attractive feature of the FEP-based explanation is its sparseness, a sparseness that is iso-morphic with both the problem domain (life, the universe and everything) and with the ontology of our brains, wrestling with with that problem of daily life. A 100 billion neurons, each with only (max) 10’s of thousands of connections. Yes, everything is connected eventually, even those molecules in the proverbial box of gas, but only a tiny proportion interact directly with each other. There are degrees of separation – a small number relative to the population itself. Sparse.

One corollary of this is that hierarchy – the dirty word in power politics –  is the entirely natural view of the organisation. The natural nesting of overlapping systems. And with any ontology, there is a concentration of information – a compression – at every interface, each level in the hierarchy. It’s simply efficient, minimising free energy, at all scales from quanta to black holes. Whilst our system may be arbitrarily networked – a neural net, the apparent opposite of a pure hierarchy – remember it is sparsely networked. Nevertheless hierarchical but heterarchical with many overlapping hierarchies – but tractably few population-wise. #GoodFences

Another iso-morphism, and the primary point of this particular pre-print presentation, is an “inner screen model of consciousness”. Bearing in mind we’re treating all interfaces as Markov Blankets and that their functional / logical definitions need not coincide or map one-to-one with physical sub-system boundaries. One such interface we can think of as the view from consciousness – an inner screen – which conjures up a neo-cartesian homunculus, but I think Dennett would love this whole explanation of reality, a view seen as an illusion yet nevertheless real and explicable.

Two more corollaries – One, the iso-morphism of a Markov blanket and a holographic “screen” interface in physics. Two – the most natural 2D surface view of any complex reality from one point in space-time. Think ancient Egyptian spreadsheets or clay tablets as our tabula rasa.

Anyway, passing (neutral) reference to IIT and multiple references to the usual suspects – Friston, Glazebrook, Fields, Levin as well as Solms – and several specific papers with collaborators mentioned here already. (No Levenchuk?)

Recommended.

=====

Post Notes:

Ironic that at the same time I published this post, the infamous 25 year bet between Chalmers and Koch was called in favour of the former’s prediction that consciousness wouldn’t be “solved”:

https://t.co/mTPAyIz5GQ

— David Chalmers (@davidchalmers42) June 24, 2023

Of course my post headline is exactly that – no one thing “explains” anything – least of all a “principle” but Active Inference use of the the FEP is undoubtedly the last piece of the jigsaw in explaining how consciousness arises and functions. Obviously there are details of exactly which aspects of consciousness we’re talking about in any number of contexts, but there are no mysteries, even if it takes those three human generations of scientists to socialise the knowledge. It really is time to move on.

Believing is not the same as knowing. @Mark_Solms believes the FEP explains consciousness. But the FEP computer models are an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction. A ghost in the machine. Just because it makes sense doesn’t make it true. You wanting it to be true with…

— Stuart Sims (@SimsYStuart) June 24, 2023

“It makes too much sense not to be true.”

Hear, hear!

I’m a skeptic like anyone else – finding fault is easy, making progress is harder – but there needs to be a division of human labour. We can’t all be expected to learn and go through every detail as individuals. That’s teamwork. The bigger story elsewhere here, is that the (marketing) success of objective (reductive) science has destroyed the intuitive (subjective) value of the no-less-real abstractions.

That’s what needs fixing.
Crossing back over that Rubicon.

=====

Kevin Mitchell and his colleagues at Trinity Dublin recently created and ran an introduction to systems course for their students in multiple disciplines. Last week Kevin posted a comprehensive blog reflecting on the whole process and outcomes.

Reflections on Systems – the Science of Everything
By Kevin Mitchell – May 22, 2023

Did you ever get the feeling, when you’re working on some problem (scientific or otherwise), that there are some basic principles at play that elude you, but that must have been worked out already by somebody? That’s certainly been my experience in my career in biology, whether it was in developmental biology, human genetics, neuroscience or other areas. I’ve felt the joy of discovering new components of systems and working out some interactions and pathways, but also a nagging feeling that I was not seeing the whole picture – that I was elucidating details of what was happening, but not grasping what the system was doing. I often felt like I lacked the principled framework to even approach that question. This was not because such frameworks don’t exist but because I had never learned about them – systems principles had simply not been part of my education.

It really is very good. Whilst it’s clear that practitioners in any discipline obviously need to learn, experience and understand details of their own area of expertise, there are more abstract systems principles and concepts that are isomorphic about any system and how they work at any scale. Indeed, the “science of everything”. Or as I often say:

The devil may be in the details,
but the angels are in the abstractions.

Also reported are some issues with using specific software tools in the educational exercise. Reminded me of earlier attempts to give all students a basic grounding in computing – which invariably get focussed on learning the technicalities of a particular technology, currently in fashion and therefore useful in the fast evolving world of consumer and business applications. Training people for “jobs” as opposed to educating them. The real value and proper focus of education needs to be in the transferrable abstractions, independent of the implementation technology.

(Previous example:
Computation 101 – Registry Programming Exercise.
Technology requirement – a handful of beans.)

Kevin’s “Science of Everything” exercise is a “Systems – 101”. Recommended.

=====

I’ve been following and writing about the “TERF War” (transgender debate / gender wars) for about 8 years now, since 2015 when I read Alice Dreger’s “Galileo’s Middle Finger“, her book about her expert practitioner – and very personal – involvement in “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age.” (Pub Med 2008).

That title, pretty much sums up the reason for my original and ongoing interest – the corruption of 21st C science, and human rationality more generally, infected by identity politics and the memetic stranglehold of bad ideas too easily spread by both naive innocents and activists with agendas armed with real-time electronic media. That’s my whole agenda here on Psybertron quite independent of the Transgender, Intersex and Dysphoria subject matter. Amidst all the other woke / anti-woke, identity (and other) polarising politics of the past decade (#Brexit / #Trump / #ClimateCrisis anyone), not to mention any number of actual scientific controversies, #TERFWar was my exemplary cause-celebre. Just an example, but a very important one – a case history to use Alice’s words. So I was pretty vocal in what I wrote and communicated for several years.

I stopped about a year ago, after seeing Kathleen Stock talking sense at what turned out to be a very uncontroversial session at HTLGI2022 and after Alison Bailey winning her employment tribunal. Sense was apparently prevailing, and there were plenty of brave, articulate and well-informed women, gays, lesbians and yes, actual trans, taking the political battle forward in the face of the deranged, cultish TRA ideologues. No-one needs a straight beardy white guy mansplaining – whilst I nevertheless continue to support by sharing and promoting those voices. I could list them all, maybe I should, but you know who you are.

Sense has continued to prevail, though many more brave women have faced the physical and very personal threats of the ideologues. I’m prompted to write some actual content today, by the fact that yesterday Kathleen Stock succeeded in speaking eloquently in Oxford, and by the screening yesterday of Channel 4’s “Gender Wars” (which includes Stock speaking previously in Cambridge) after a year in which we have seen the Tavistock, Mermaids, Stonewall, and the rest getting their come-uppances. Onward and upward.

For me it’s time to ensure the right subtleties get into the dialogues. Despite appearances and the wishes of ideologues, this was never a simple binary battle to be won or lost. Several distinct points I wish to make about how much of the dialogue is cast as a debate about rights.

Firstly, the inane “Trans Rights are Human Rights” mantra. Obviously being humans Trans have the same rights as any other human. But human rights are not unconditional for any of us. All rights come with responsibilities and a duty of care to fellow humans, many of whom have protected characteristics, some of whom are minors. It’s by concensus and convention protected in law that conflicts between different humans and rights are settled.

Secondly, one specific rights example I have found very disappointing.

Kathleen Stock at the Cambridge Union – “We Have the Right to Offend”https://t.co/cW3CVeDU2P pic.twitter.com/6BUHgFrQ4n

— The Cambridge Union (@cambridgeunion) May 30, 2023

Freedom of (thought and) expression is very high in the hierarchy of UN protected rights and this has been central to much of the recent conflict. Parties that provide platforms have their own rights about who they invite and who they don’t, but no individuals or groups with counter opinions has the right to cancel or prevent the free-speech rights of others. Other than expressed opinions that stand as “hate speech”, or hateful intimidations in behaviour (or para-military concealed-identities), the one free-speech right that was highlighted here (by Cambridge Union, not Stock herself) was “the right to offend“. An important right sure enough, but very much about the process during dialogue rather than the substantive content. The right to offend is not the same as it being right to cause offence. Dialogue must always aim to defuse offence, and remains incomplete until it does, on both sides of any disagreement. Truth and reconciliation.

Thirdly, the right to exist? Another aspect of the ideology is the idea of “no LGB without the TQI+”. Anyone suggesting that that’s misguided is hyperbolically accused of “genocide” in somehow failing to support the existence of Trans, actively promoting their non-existence. Laughable, but sad, mad and dangerous. It is of course central to the whole dialogue that sex, gender and sexuality (and maturity) are recognised as having distinct biological and sociological reasons to exist. They all exist, but their reasons are different. Lumping them into one alphabet-soup acronym conflates these important differences. #GoodFences.

Fourthly, finally and most importantly imho, another sense of right – the more right-wing end of the political spectrum? We could debate whether left<>right was as useful as liberal<> authoritarian as a political compass these days, but there is a growing left<>right problem in both media and politics that is much greater that this Trans controversy. It’s killing so much democratic politics. Largely because the whole controversy is cast as a polarised rights debate and rights being cast by the woke as response to perceived oppression and injustice, it is inevitable that the more left/liberal parties and media side with the rights at the expense of the many more subtle responsibilities. The whole nazi / bigot accusations arise because the sane and the evil appear to be on the same side against the insane. But they’re against the irrationality for quite different reasons and motives. It is indeed sad that it is the right leaning media and politicians are the only ones that can publicly support the rationally and humanly right side of the subject whilst the left are captured. (See immediate examples below). The solution here is that politics and media must be allowed to address the subtle complexity of the issues in the dialogue, and not reduced to siding in a simplistic, non-existent debate. If for Labour politicians, this is not a big topic playing on the doorsteps, that’s because the topic has been so reduced.

As ever this is a plea for subtle, caring dialogue to displace binary, ideological debate.

=====

Post Notes:

And as we go into Pride Month 2023 and the whole LGBTQI+ version of the Pride flag is shared everywhere, two examples:

The left media captured? I give you the Grauniad:

My god they really do believe TWAW don’t they, even the most violent rapists. Shocking article, indefensible pandering. Shame on Zoe Williams and Bragg for this absolute betrayal of women. https://t.co/tkEBFP0d21

— Milli Hill (@millihill) June 1, 2023

(See many more examples in the comment thread below that tweet.)

And The British Library trotting out the “assorted hermaphrodite fish” trope in support of “(Human) Pride”. Utterly bonkers and much shared by TRA’s in support of their inhumanity to (human) women and minors over the years.

This #Pride month, let us tell you about the Māori wrasse (also known as the humphead wrasse) 🐟

But its wondrous forehead isn’t the most magnificent thing about this fish – they are protogynous hermaphrodites, which means the females can later change sex to become males.

🐟 ©… pic.twitter.com/q3kR4D0qN5

— The British Library (@britishlibrary) June 2, 2023

The British Library tweet, got thoroughly “ratioed” about 4:1 with 550 responses not liking it before they switched off replies. And since deleted, so dead link in the Tweet above.  Duncan Henry kept screen shots, including an investigation of the capture of the institution by the identity politics of the gender wars.

To celebrate “pride” let’s compare “LGBTQ” to hermaphroditic fish. 😐@simonjedge I’m keeping a calendar of pride 2023 🥴 https://t.co/Y1bhHDvBeZ pic.twitter.com/txBhcLGVr5

— Duncan (@DuncanHenry78) June 2, 2023

Fortunately actual Trans people have a sense of humour in the face of the insanity:

We are only 24hrs into Pride month & I haven’t seen a single trans genocide all day. Surely proof of how effective rainbow lanyards really are.

— katøi (@katoi) June 2, 2023

And my Point 4 – about the left/liberal<>right/authoritarian problem – this piece from Matthew Parris in The Times is drawing predictable flak from the lefties, but is precisely the warning we need to heed. The war feeds the right, whichever “side” of the story you think you’re on because choosing sides denies the important responsibility for the subtleties. (Zizek been warning us about this for decades.)

War over trans lobby is manna for the right https://t.co/8yYrUeYVof

— Diana Peek (@TheMoominmama) June 3, 2023

Parris’ version of my “war” point – is spot on – intellectually, Left (Zizek) and right (Parris) agree on this:

“Only obsessive minorities on opposing fringes benefit from a confected combat in which most of us are on the same side.”

And there’s more:

Kenan Malik had a piece in the Guardian which drew quite a few responses. He suggested free-expression included the right of protestors to physically deny or cancel the free-speech of others, and that those of others suggesting otherwise were denying the free-speech of those protestors. Meta, meta, meta. Malik is a subtle commentator, much cited here previously but without the hate / incitement / intimidation angle he’s wrong here. It’s a tough call, but the individual, simplistic, binary, “easy” solution is the wrong one.

“Speech that is intended to silence the legitimate speech of others has a chilling effect on research and education and is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

My letter to the Observer in response to Kenan Malik’s piece.https://t.co/MfSSaGuQUR

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) June 4, 2023

To be fair Alice does agree that most of Malik’s take is subtle and valid – no surprise there – but he’s wrong on this one point if that’s what he intended? I’d agree. But his main thrust is correct as ever “If you defend free speech, you must defend it all and not silence those you disagree with.” Cuts both ways. Sure enough Kenan was making the distinction between permitting any disagreeable expression with those using cancelling / silencing / intimidating behaviour and hate-speech acts:

Sorry, I disagree. There’s a difference between speech and action, and those calling for censorship (as you do here) should be able to express their views. Ironically, those criticising me for arguing against no-platforming GC voices also use Popper’s Paradox as justification.

— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) June 4, 2023

Yet again, the subtleties are what matter, these are not simple binary arguments. I repeat the plea “for subtle, caring dialogue to displace binary, ideological debate“.

June 7 – and sure enough, Doc Stock to the rescue, with a response to the Matthew Parris piece, stating the opposite to what I appeared to be agreeing with “No, gender wars are NOT a gift to the right.”

‘They say you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you, but I’m afraid that in this case I’m feeling quite carnivorous.’ | @Docstockk https://t.co/XYYDNaPlE0

— UnHerd (@unherd) June 7, 2023

She’s right of course it’s not actually a gift, but the warning is still an important point, precisely because it is this kind of contribution does address the proper nuances. It’s a gift to the mainstream press and party-political voices, who cast the sides as extremes, enemies in a “war” and side along natural partisan lines, even though a sizeable population do indeed care and understand more clearly and are neither extremes. It’s an empirical fact that left media and politicians are hamstrung – labour MP Jess Phillips, (not to mention Starmer) is my exemplar in avoiding siding with GC arguments, even moderate, sane GC positions.

Conversely the “alliance” between right-wing media outlets and the gender-critical camp are there for all to see. The warning is real and needs addressing.

And this is the same point from a cynical US perspective:

Watch out the “I am on the left but Tucker Carlson talks a lot of sense” people are back

— Dorian Lynskey (@Dorianlynskey) June 7, 2023

I could be one of those, but as one of the commenters points out that’s just Tucker’s Luck. The luck of the right-wing that the left-wing are not picking-up the sane, rational position. The gift to the right is not the gender-war per se, but that the left-wing do not have a grip on the rationality of it.

=====