“The book also asks deeper questions about the ways art institutions now fetishize political radicalism, while often abusing or excluding those who live it. Contemporary art galleries are happy to exhibit Black, queer or even (occasionally) working-class artists; they just prefer not to sell the art to them or share boardrooms with them. At the time Bosker’s book was written, there were 176 members of the Art Dealers Association of America, one of them African American.
“Meanwhile, salaries in the art world are so absurdly low that only rich kids with family money can afford the entry-level jobs, turning galleries into self-selecting clubs that perpetuate their own privilege. Bosker exposes the often-abusive labor practices of art institutions and shows how gallerists, artists and curators take pride in treating their employees like vermin. They ‘hire by feel and fire on whims,’ and one Manhattan gallerist brags about putting assistants ‘through hell the first day.'”
Journalist Bianca Bosker ging undercover in de snobistische en elitaire kunstwereld van New York en beschrijft haar ervaringen in het boek Get the picure: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See. Het is precies wat je er al van had verwacht: de New Yorkse art scene is feitelijk één lange Jiskefet-aflevering, en wordt, uiteraard, bevolkt door een 99% roomblanke elite die zichzelf heel erg inclusief vindt. Quotes afkomstig van de boekrecensie in de Washington Post.
“First promoted by the French activist Renaud Camus in his 2011 book ‘Le Grand Remplacement’, the theory that the white or indigenous European population is being replaced by immigrants in a form of reverse-colonisation is now a staple of rightwing conspiracy theorists, white supremacists and mass shooters around the world. This poisonous rhetoric depends heavily on the idea of a distinct civilisation — French, British, western or white — that is under threat from different and alien cultures and especially from their children.
“But it’s the idea of civilisation itself that is the real problem, and in particular the notion that it is a zero-sum game, with higher cultures under threat from migrant, fecund foreign values. There has never been a pure western culture that is now under threat of pollution. No single people is an island, unless they’ve been there for a very long time and haven’t invented boats. And that’s a good thing: without new relationships between different people exchanging unfamiliar ideas, nothing much would ever happen at all.”
In Financial Times een provocerend essay over de betekenis van ‘civilisation‘ als tribaal en identitair concept. Oxford-professor Josephine Quinn maakt via de ontstaansgeschiedenis van beschavingen en de verspreiding van het alfabet een valide argument dat er niet zoiets bestaat als ‘de beschaving’. Alle beschavingen, tot op de dag van vandaag, zijn het product van voortdurende uitwisseling van culturen en voortdurend in beweging en verandering.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has shouted its hatred for the West from the rooftops for anyone who cared to listen. But few in the bien-pensant society in the West did listen. Or, if they heard, they discounted the seriousness of the regime’s articulated aspirations. The claim was that Iranians didn’t really mean death to Israel and death to America. Those who warned that Iran—much like Hamas and Hezbollah—has no interest in comity with Western powers and their friends and allies were denounced as warmongers and advocates of American empire.
“The misconception that the Iranian regime, despite its tough facade, is a status quo power aiming for peaceful coexistence with the West and its allies, has long hindered a true understanding of its nature. Supporters of this view work in academia and in think tanks, such as the Quincy Institute and the International Crisis Group. Their view of Iran’s stance toward the West seems to ignore the Islamic Republic’s consistent self-description and demonstrated behavior as an adversarial state.
“Islamic Iran is a master of flexible tactics but has never wavered from its commitment to the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution that put it in power. The anti-liberal, anti-Western Islamism that has persisted all these decades must be taken seriously as the engine of Iran’s domestic and foreign policy. Iran is not a hybrid political system combining theocracy and democracy; rather, elections are an instrument of theocratic rule.”
Eén voordeel van een tweede termijn Trump is dat de VS eindelijk weer tegen Iran zullen strijden in plaats van het door Obama ingezette correcte pappen en nathouden-beleid. Een beleid dat is gebaseerd op de gedachte dat het islamitische, theocratische regime in Iran alleen maar vrede wil en kan samenleven en handelen met het Westen.
In The Atlantic legt Kian Tajbakhsh nog maar eens uit dat Iran maar één ding wil, en dat is het Westen haten. En vernietigen.
Voor Iraanse islamisten is het vrije democratische Westen, zoals voor alle islamisten, het Grote Kwaad. Net als Joden, ongelovigen, Israël en, vooruit, ook vrouwen het Grote Kwaad zijn. Nu maar hopen dat Iran straks niet ook een kernwapen heeft om die vernietigingswens in de praktijk te brengen.
“Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.
“Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.
“Parents are routinely warned that to pursue any path outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people like emotional blackmail. Proponents of the gender-affirming model have cited studies showing an association between that standard of care and a lower risk of suicide. But those studies were found to have methodological flaws or have been deemed not entirely conclusive. A survey of studies on the psychological effects of cross-sex hormones, published three years ago in The Journal of the Endocrine Society, the professional organization for hormone specialists, found it “could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.” In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”
“Moreover, the incidence of suicidal thoughts and attempts among gender dysphoric youth is complicated by the high incidence of accompanying conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder. As one systematic overview put it, “Children with gender dysphoria often experience a range of psychiatric comorbidities, with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, eating disorders and autism spectrum conditions, suicidality and self-harm.”
“To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best, it is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time. One mother told me that after her teenage son desisted — pulled back from a trans identity before any irreversible medical procedures — he explained, “I was just rebelling. I look at it like a subculture, like being goth.”
“Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.
“Nobody knows how many young people desist after social, medical or surgical transitions. Trans activists often cite low regret rates for gender transition, along with low figures for detransition. But those studies, which often rely on self-reported cases to gender clinics, likely understate the actual numbers.”
De transgenderlobby is geen lobby maar een agressieve, dictatoriale en volkomen dichtgetikte religie waarin nooit en niet mag worden getwijfeld aan de heilige idee dat inmiddels zo’n beetje elk psychisch probleem van een puber het symptoom van ‘genderdysforie’ is. Resultaat: kinderen(!) worden het slachtoffer van een ‘progressieve’ ideologie, die met kritiekloze instemming wordt rondgepompt door ‘liberale’ media, en die slachtoffers (kinderen!) raken daardoor levenslang en onomkeerbaar beschadigd.
Toch, ondanks de haat die critici van de transgenderideologie steevast ten deel valt, klinkt het tegengeluid steeds luider en lijkt deze dichtgetikte ideologie zich meer en meer te openen. In Groot-Britannië is de beruchte Tavistock-kliniek inmiddels gesloten, terwijl in Nederland (bakermat van de ‘wetenschap’ die transitiezorg onderbouwt) zelfs het progressieve NPO-programma Zembla kritiek durft te leveren op de falende wetenschap achter ‘transities’ op jonge leeftijd.
Bovenstaand citaat is afkomstig uit een hartverscheurend, uitstekend onderbouwd, maar zeer verontrustend artikel in de doorgaans woke, liberal en pro-translobby New York Times. Dát de New York Times het nu aandurft dergelijke kritiek te publiceren moet genoeg zeggen.
De fundamentalistisch orthodoxe transgenderreligie staat aan de vooravond van Verlichting. Godzijdank. Want het gaat, en je kunt dit niet vaak genoeg benadrukken, om onschuldige kinderen die (zoals gebruikelijk als eerste) slachtoffer worden van een ideologie.
“In 2021, Carole Hooven, a longtime Harvard lecturer on human evolutionary biology who wrote a well-reviewed book about testosterone, stated in a Fox News interview, “The facts are that there are in fact two sexes, male and female, and those sexes are designated by the kind of gametes we produce.” She added that “understanding the facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect,” and that we can “respect their gender identities and use their preferred pronouns.”
“The director of her department’s Diversity and Inclusion task force, a graduate student, denounced Hooven’s remarks, in a tweet, as “transphobic and harmful.” A cascade of shunning and condemnation ensued, including a petition, authored by graduate students, which implied that Hooven was a threat to student safety. Graduate students also refused to serve as teaching assistants for her previously popular course on hormones, making it difficult for her to keep teaching it. Hooven found it untenable to remain in her job, and she retired from the department.
“Students across the political spectrum, but largely liberals, have told me that they felt it would be foolish to volunteer their opinions in class discussions, or even that they routinely lied about their views when asked. These self-censorious habits became even more conscious with the rise of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, such that a large range of political remarks—questioning abortion rights, calling a fetus an “unborn child,” doubting the fairness of affirmative action, praising “color-blindness,” or asking who should compete in women’s sports—could be perceived as being on a continuum of bigotry. In this climate, it became increasingly difficult to elicit robust discussions because students were so scared of one another.”
De ‘academische vrijheid’ en ‘vrije uitwisseling van gedachten en ideeën’ anno 21ste eeuw samengevat in drie alinea’s van The New Yorker. Verder commentaar overbodig.
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