Progressive Illogic

Items in the news recently accentuate the lack of logic that’s typical of progressive “thought.” For example, progressives deny the scientific, biological reality of two human sexes, male and female, as determined unequivocally by DNA.

Denying reality, progressives prefer to reify imaginary “genders” which, at last count, were up to as many as 63.

The reality is two sexes: male and female. If you have a Y chromosome, you’re male, which rule neatly classifies the tiny number of individuals born with a condition that some call “intersex,” meaning something went haywire during embryonic development and phenotype at birth may or may  not obviously match genotype.

Being “intersex”  is not a normal state. It’s an aberration. An abnormality. It does not constitute a third sex any more than those born with Down Syndrome or dwarfism constitute other subspecies of human beings.

Nevertheless, progressives prefer to imagine that a person should be allowed to declare himself or herself to be of another sex (or “gender”) and the rest of us must accept that delusion as reality. So in the progressive universe, people are allowed to self-identify their sex.

One would think that logic dictates that if a person is allowed to “change” one immutable characteristic, then a person should be allowed to change any other immutable characteristic. How about age?

A man in the Netherlands has thought of it and is taking his quest to “change” his age to court:

Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old motivational speaker in the Netherlands, has petitioned a Dutch court for permission to change his legal age by altering his birth certificate to show he was born 20 years later than he really was — to legally make him 49 rather 69 years old.

Ratelband told the Washington Post: “We can make our own decisions if we want to change our name, or if we want to change our gender. So I want to change my age. My feeling about my body and about my mind is that I’m about 40 or 45.”

Dennis Prager writes:

Now, what exactly is wrong with Ratelband’s argument? If sex doesn’t objectively exist, why does age? If feelings determine sex, why don’t feelings determine age? If we are to regard sex as “assigned” at birth, why don’t we regard age as “assigned” at birth?

One would think that progressives would agree with Ratelband’s quest. Au contraire!

The very progressive editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently published a “short take” on the Dutch man’s self-identification. They also threw some equally illogical shade at a white woman’s self-identification as a black woman: [emphasis added to quotes]

We live in a world of options and choices never imagined by our ancestors. In 2015, Rachel Dolezal was discovered to be a white woman impersonating a black person, and she was so good at it, she was named head of the NAACP office in Spokane, Wash. When asked to explain, Dolezal suggested race is a choice, and she chooses to “identify” as a black person.

Now a Dutch man argues that age also should be optional. Even though Emile Ratelband is 69 according to Earth time, he wants to identify as a 49-year-old because he is having difficulties finding the right women to hook up with on Tinder, a dating app. So he asked a court for legal permission to officially change his age. It might be easier if he legally changed his planet. Mars takes 687 days to orbit the sun, which would put Ratelband’s age at about 37, almost equal to his IQ.

Consider the illogic and the hypocrisy!

Let’s start with their commentary on Ratelband. These progressive editors don’t respect the man’s self-identification! Instead, they dismiss his innermost feelings by alleging that he only “wants” to self-identify as a younger man. They then go on to provide, without evidence, an ulterior motive: Ratelband just wants to more easily “hook up” with younger women.

How bigoted of them to not accept his self-identification at face value! He has chosen and that is his choice and we all must accept it.

When a man “self-identifies” as a woman trapped in a man’s body, do these progressives go looking for ulterior motives? Do they cast doubt upon the self-identification? Of course not! (Actually, if they so dared, they might find themselves forced out of their jobs.)

If someone can lose a job simply for not “respecting” another’s opposite-sex self-identification, then why can’t progressive editors lose their jobs for disrespecting Ratelband’s choice and self-identification of age?

How about the attempt to ridicule Ratelband at the expense of mentally disabled individuals–those with low IQs?

Mars takes 687 days to orbit the sun, which would put Ratelband’s age at about 37, almost equal to his IQ.

Are they not dehumanizing the differently abled in their attempt to be clever? Is that not also bigoted and despicable?

Now let’s look at their commentary about Rachel Dolezal. In their opinion, she was “impersonating” a black woman, but Dolezal self-identifies as a black woman, because she grew up with black siblings and so learned to identify with blacks and black culture. Is that so difficult to understand?

Race, as we are told by scientists and especially by progressives, is not an immutable characteristic. In fact, race is not even a scientifically, biologically determined “thing” like age or sex.

Race, as numberless progressive experts have told us numberless times, is a “social construct,” as is racial “identity“:

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries.

Social construct meaning a familial or cultural grouping. That article was published in the notoriously progressive New York Times. The experts have spoken!

Nevertheless, the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismiss the very idea that Rachel Dolezal can have a “choice” concerning with which social construct, which social grouping, which racial identity, which racial culture she most identifies. These editors imply that race is not a choice, against all scientific evidence. Again, we’ve been told by progressives and scientists that race is not “real”.

If race is not “real” because it’s not biologically determined, then sex must be “real” because it is biologically determined. Similarly, age is “real” because it also is biologically determined.

Is it, therefore, logical (and not hypocritical) for progressives to

• allow self-identification of sex against biological reality, while at the same time
• disallowing self-identification of age against biological reality, but also
• disallowing self-identification of race (or racial identity) even though (progressives insist that) race and racial identify are not “real” in the sense that age and sex are “real,” as in immutable facts of nature?

Like race, “gender” (in the sense of 63 and counting expressions of sexual orientation) is fluid. That makes it not “real”, as opposed to the fact that age and sex are “real” because they’re biologically determined and immutable.

Remember that Dolezal, according to progressives, is not allowed to self-identify her race. However, as we have seen, anyone is allowed by progressives to self-identify his or her gender, even though both racial identity and gender identity are fluid.

Is that logical? Is that consistent?

How do progressives manage to keep their heads from exploding from all the cognitive dissonance?

#####