"Truth Wars," The Latest
"...deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it."
That quote above isn’t mine. It comes from the New York Times, and a story entitled, “Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College.”
I suspect you’ve heard the story by now, at least parts of it. It is about an young black student at Smith College who was eating a meal alone in a closed dorm when she was visited by an unarmed campus security officer and took offense. Turns out the dorm was closed and she wasn’t supposed to be there, but that didn’t stop accusations of racism to fly, or prevent Smith’s woke president from apologizing to her profusely for her victimhood and take all kinds of actions to make up for it. You should read the whole story. Smith College is considered one of America’s most elite women’s colleges with tuition, fees and board adding up to more than $78,000 per year.
But here’s the full quote that really summarizes today’s cultural wars more than the Times might want to admit: “The story highlights the tensions between a student’s deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it.”
But that was only one front in today’s Truth Wars. This week, in the US House, was all about HR 5, one of the House Democrats priorities: The Equality Act. It passed yesterday on a party line vote with three Republicans crossing over to support it. The bill, among many things, expands to 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sweeping protections for transgendered persons.
But of course the issue wasn’t restricted to HR 5 or its passage in the House chamber. It also emerged in a Cannon House Office building hallway between two Members of Congress. Two Cannon House Office Building neighbors, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-GA), the bête noire of the House and Marie Newman (D-IL), a pair of newly elected members, brought (descended) political discourse to a whole new level. Newman is the mother of a transgender child, and started this sophomoric exchange it by placing a transgender flag (I didn’t know there was one) by Rep. Greene’s office door. And of course, Rep. Greene reciprocated with a sign of her own that “God Created Two Genders.” Is there anything that better symbolizes our culture wars today? Note the number of tweets & retweets on each. It reminds you where the center of the Twitterverse is. Of course, the whole thing was reported via their own respective Twitter feeds. I hope they feel better now.
The Senate of course got in on the act as well. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee scheduled a confirmation hearing on the day the House was considering the Equality Act. For whom? The nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine as Assistant Secretary for Health, one of the most powerful positions in the federal government. Currently, Dr. Levine - who is transgender - serves as the Secretary of Health in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And not a very good one, as I’ve posted about previously. Dr. Levine is being celebrated for transgenderism, not competence. And the nomination should be rejected solely on basis of the latter.
And of course, two of our nation’s leading consumer product companies, Mondelez, maker of the Oreo cookie, and Hasbro, a leading toy company, got in on the act, along with Amazon. Hasbro, in particular, decided to remove the “Mr.” from “Mr. Potato Head” and just go with “Potato Head.” I guess the toy does feature interchangeable parts, so there’s that, and very interestingly, by the end of yesterday, Hasbro had apparently changed its mind. That was quick. Oreo noted that “trans people exists.” We knew that already, but whatever. And then Amazon magically disappeared Dr. Ryan T. Anderson’s best selling book on transgenderism, “When Harry Became Sally.” But don’t worry, you can still buy Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and of course the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.
Let me state this very clearly. All human beings are created in the image of God, possess inherent dignity, and deserve respect and a measure of grace. Attacks on people who suffer from gender dysphoria should be repulsed. My Christian faith requires me to provide an account for that which gives me hope, with “gentleness and respect.” Unfortunately, those of us who hold traditional Christian views about marriage and creation aren’t often afforded such respect. So, what should be worthy of a good, respectful discussion descends into hallway symbolism, book banning, virtue signaling and other forms of discourse that persuade no one and generates resentment, or worse.
Too many on the right, as Erick Erickson has stated, are choosing to pay back evil with evil. “We have to fight like the left,” I’ve heard some say. How’s that working out for you? Yes, we must continue our relentless pursuit of truth, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, as uncomfortable as that might make people, including certain students at Smith College. Facts matter. How we promote, protect and defend the truth, however, is important. None of us are not entitled to our “deeply felt sense of personal truth” when it runs afoul of the facts and ruins lives in the process.
Yes, we’re in the midst of “truth wars.” And like most wars, either one side wins or loses, or there is some kind of “settlement.” Meanwhile, can we at least agree to a few rules of engagement while the engagement continues? Maybe consumer product companies can stick to marketing products, and stop woke virtue signaling. Maybe members of Congress can model the kind of behavior that better advances real dialogue and engagement that restores the best of American politics. Maybe “Big Tech” companies like Amazon can stop censoring and banning people and publications that don’t fit their politics. And maybe colleges like Smith and other institutions can wait for facts to emerge before rushing to conclusions. Maybe we all can.