Social workers and safeguarding professionals
That’s alarming.
That is very alarming. It seems likely that social workers tend to move in Woke circles; if that’s true they likely feel immense pressure to silence the relevant dissenting views.
Tip Jar
I’m trying to imagine a future where the woke movement succeeds and its doctrines become society-wide norms. I can’t. The whole thing is too convoluted and precarious. It will fall apart, I’m certain. What comes to mind is East Germany. The True Believers, the citizens who became informers for the Stasi, ratting on their friends and neighbours because they fervently believed in the progressive righteousness of the Cause, or they believed it was to their advantage to get in bed with it. Even as the system became more and more authoritarian and dysfunctional, as bit-by-bit the corruption and depravity underneath it all became increasingly apparent, many of them held on to the belief that they were on the Right Side of History until the bitter end. But by then the overwhelming majority of East Germans were done with it.
I’ve become very interested in reading about the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, particularly how it affected the Stasi collaborators. I think it can give us some insight into how the Woke Stasi are going to feel in the future.
An interesting parallel: the Stasi were meticulous bureaucrats; they documented everything. And the Wall fell so fast they didn’t have time to burn the records. The collaborators couldn’t go into hiding; their deeds were all documented for their friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbours to see.
When the Woke Wall collapses, and most of us are celebrating, the collaborators are going to have to reckon with the fact that once again the records of complicity are intact: the Internet Never Forgets.
I think the motives of the loudest elements of this movement are much less ambitious and grand. They don’t honestly believe that in ten years, they will succeed in getting people in (e.g.) South Carolina to start conversations with, “and what are y’all’s preferred pronouns?” The people I’m referring to are not even really focused on things like getting federal antidiscrimination laws to apply to all trans people. (Others are.)
They just want to wield power in their little corners of the world. University professors, authors, social workers, public libraries in major cities, etc. — these are people over whom they have influence, either because they are sympathetic to the cause, or because their superiors (university officials, publishers and booksellers, government officials, etc.) will order them to behave appropriately.
You might as well ask whether or not the parent who dominates the local Little League or children’s theater group or whatever really thinks that their kid is going to go pro, or that the parental meddling will help. The behavior is not SUPPOSED to be proportionate to the stakes. The domination is its own reward.
That’s why J.K. Rowling is such a tempting target. Chasing her off Twitter won’t make a dent in her life, and won’t improve the lot of the average trans person one iota. But that isn’t the point; the point is to “prove” that [insert name here] is NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH! I took down a world famous author! (Where “took down” = “annoyed”).
Hmm. Good point. But I don’t know. I think these people think they’re continuing the work of women’s and gay rights — which very much were/are about total social transformation, and which have had great success in achieving it. I think people like “Veronica Ivy” and the narcissists down in Silicon Valley who control social media really do think they’re ushering in some kind of brave new post-biological world. At least today they do. I sense a “Have you no shame?” moment on the horizon.
Screechy Monkey#2 wrote:
I think this is an apt analogy, though maybe not for the same reasons. The fierce Papa or Mama Bear who wades in to their child’s playgroup to kick collective butt isn’t usually just doing it because they like butt-kicking in general, but because they enjoy kicking the butts of those who are unfairly hindering their child. They don’t really expect Junior to go pro or get the academy award, but they do expect them to be a winner in life. The parental meddling is presumed to help with long term character-building. And long-term gratitude.
And that’s where I think this creepy ideological bullying comes from — a “parent’s” desire to protect a “child,” the most vulnerable, marginalized, picked-on victim in Little League, ever. The Social Worker’s talk about “safeguarding children” will be greeted with outraged cries of broken irony meters. THEY are the safeguarders. HE is the threat. What is not permitted when a child’s safety is at stake? They’re living out a story of victimization: victims, victimizers, and those who catch them.
I think this will eventually fall apart when the kids grow up and start to sue. Another story will replace the first.
Sastra, I think you’re right about how this ends. The great wave of child mutilation will be followed, ten years down the road, by a great wave of child abuse lawsuits. That will make for even better TV.
It took ten-twenty years for the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria to run its course.
Sastra @4 and Artymorty @3,
Yeah, I think you’ve both accurately described the mindset involved. I didn’t mean to suggest that internally, these people actually acknowledge to themselves that they’re on a power trip. They rationalize their behavior like all of us do.
#2
Reminds me of a certain Party policing the Party membership to an insane degree, while leaving the proles to their own devices.
True, but one fact often ignored is that in many cases, the child being protected is not being unfairly hindered; they are on an equal footing with the other children, and the parent wants them elevated above. The parent is often a bully rather than an advocate.
That makes it an even better analogy with the trans movement, since many of those being protected are not the “most marginalized ever”. They are people who have been brought up with male entitlement, and intend to carry that into being female. Femaleness must elevate them above the other, ordinary females. They must be central to what it means to be female.
A great analogy with most soccer moms and theatre moms I’ve known – why isn’t my child getting more play time, lines, etc?.