The Bureau of Ideological Definition

Written by

Ophelia Benson

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My email Inbox this morning has given me the treat of the 2021 email exchange between Jon Ronson (inviting) and Graham Linehan (declining the invitation). Ronson wanted Linehan to do an interview for a BBC Radio 4 discussion, Linehan made such a chat conditional on Ronson’s acknowledging that men are not women and women are not men. It went back and forth. This one thing that Ronson said is particularly…interesting.

Honestly, Graham, no reputable journalist who isn’t also an activist could ever agree in advance to state for the record the interviewee’s ideological position as a prerequisite to access. It’s unheard of. It breaks every rule of journalism.

Ideological position!

He thinks (or pretends to think) that it’s an ideological position to be aware that men are not women and vice versa. Is gravity an ideological position? Is the human inability to breathe under water an ideological position? Is the heat of fire an ideological position? Is the difference between a wolf and a sheep an ideological position?

The idiocy of trans ideology (and that really is an ideology) is making people pretend to be idiots.

Comments

2 responses to “The Bureau of Ideological Definition”

  1. twiliter Avatar
    twiliter

    But trans doesn’t identify as an ideology, that’s part of it’s charm. If Ronson isn’t committed to the ideology, then what’s the beef?

  2. Artymorty Avatar
    Artymorty

    And and and, if society had already regressed to the point that “men are not women” was widely perceived to be an ideological position — it has not yet done so across all of society, though as we know in certain liberal/cultural career circles it’s at least mandatory to pretend that it has — it would very much be the kind of ideological position that guests would have very good reason to ask in advance, because it would be a proxy for “are you in the cult or outside of it?” Or, “are you going to be unreasonably hostile to basic facts or not?”

    It’s rather like if we lived in a world where half the science community believed in young-Earth creationism, it would be reasonable for an evolutionary biologist to ask whether the host was a young-Earth creationist before agreeing to be interviewed.

    Or if Scientology had actually gained widespread legitimacy, it would be reasonable for a psychologist to ask whether the host believed in body thetans and engrams, and that psychologists are evil aliens from outer space (which Scientology quite literally professes), before agreeing to be interviewed.

    Because the people who hold those positions are rabidly hostile to those who don’t, because those positions aren’t upheld by any logic or reason at all, but by tribal identity instead.

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