Fundamental Contradictions
Pointing out some modern contradictions
Progressivism is fundamentally contradictory. Any philosophy with the name of ‘progressivism’ or some synynom must be fundamentally contradictory, of course, because in order to ‘progress’ one must have a goal, and what happens when you reach the goal? The end of progress?
But in this post I wish to point out some smaller contradictions in progressivism. Each of the following list consists of two statements which are both held by progressivism but are fundamentally contradictory:
1a) Women bring a valuable contribution to the workplace because of their differences
1b) Men and women are not significantly different
This fundamental contradiction in the modern paradigm was particularly evident in the recent Google controversy. The only reason the controversy could exist at all was that progressives hold two contradictory views, and agreeing with either of them without the other is considered heresy.
The first view is that women bring a valuable contribution to the workplace because of their differences. This view also includes different races, as well as sexual perversions such as Sodomy, transgender, etc. It emphasises their differences and states that it is having these differences working together is valuable.
The idea that having differences work together is by itself valuable is a debatable one and seems like it may well vary from workplace to workplace, and vary according to the differences involved. And it seems like it should be tested for all of those things. If a given, say, hospital laboratory is staffed exclusively by women of Philippine origin, is that necessarily a bad thing? Or does their homogeneity mean that they work well together and are less likely to make mistakes of communication, etc.? This seems to need to be tested, not merely assumed.
But my focus is on the first claim: that men/women, black/white, Philippine/English, etc. are different as classes from each other. That is the claim that needs to be seen as true for the second claim (having differences work together being valuable) to work.
However that claim itself stands fundamentally in contradiction to another important progressive claim: namely that they aren't different. That men and women do not have significant differences in the way they view the world, that blacks and whites have no fundamental cultural differences, and that it shouldn't matter what country you come from to your employer.
And what I am pointing out is that not only is that second claim nonsense, it is contradictory to the progressives opposite claim. If there truly is no difference between men and women, black and white, Welsh and Irish… then there is no need to set quotas as to how many left-handed, red-haired, women of Japanese descent you have in your workplace. If there is nothing significantly different between the classes, then they bring nothing of significant difference to the workplace.
Although one of these claims is ludicrously false, they both can't be true. They are contrdictory.
2a) Women are equally competent with men
2b) Accommodations need to be made for women in the workplace
The recent Serena Williams controversy brought forth another basic contradiction in the progressive position. Women cannot at the same time be held to be equally competent as men and to need special accommodation.
For all of human history everyone… like pretty much every single human being… has recognised that there are significant differences between men and women. Physical differences, psychological differences, social differences, even moral differences. And these differences we taken into account and written into the rules of society. The NT famously (or infamously, in the eyes of modern progressives) calls woman the 'weaker vessel' and says she will be 'saved in childbearing'.
As a result all sorts of accommodations and rules have grown up in different societies. 'Women and children first', 'never hit a woman', and 'big boys don't cry' are a few of the thousands of ways that society has addressed, accommodated, and even enforced these differences.
However, occasionally in history, one early example being Plato having Socrates try to limit these differences to the fact that 'the woman bears the children while the male mounts the woman', individual thinkers or schools of thought have tried to challenge this fundamental idea. To propose, to one extent or the other, that there are no real or significant differences between men and women except, as modern 'thinkers' like to claim, 'bits of plumbing'.
A more easily disproved claim would seem difficult to advance, but my focus here is on the fact that progressives, at one and the same time, push the idea that there is a need to accommodate women in the workplace, on the playing field, etc. and that there are no significant differences between men and women.
You can have one or the other of these ideas, but not both. Making an accommodation, for example, for a disabled person in the workplace implies first acknowledging their differences. Indeed, their weaknesses. Even if you are proposing corresponding and even offsetting strengths, you can only call for accommodation to accommodate a weakness. Thus a wheelchair ramp, even if put in for an incredible genius who makes the company millions every time he shows up for work, is still an accommodation for his weakness… for the fact his legs don't work and he can't thus walk up stairs.
So we can take one of two routes: We can have 'women's sports'; meaning sports where women are protected from competition from men, as a way of accommodating their weaknesses. Or we can treat women as exact equals and clones, which would mean that no women would play professional tennis because no woman could qualify. But only progressives think we can somehow do both.
3a) Heterosexual,Homosexual, Bisexual
3b) Gender fluid
I have seen many memes addressing this fundamental contradiction, but very few people seriously address it.
The term 'homosexual', which is itself a perverse term, is meant to mean 'one who has sex (or wishes to have sex) with someone of the 'same' sex as he is. (Or she is.) The term ‘heterosexual’ means the opposite. The term 'bisexual', coming from the root words 'bi' and 'sexual', implies someone who wishes to have sex with both of the two sexes that exist. Together these words imply that there are only two sexes, and that a given individual can be sexually attracted to one or both of these. While society has traditionally rather frowned on sex between two members of the same sex, all of human history has acknowledged that their are two sexes and that their differences play a role in sexual attraction.
But now cometh on the scene the 'gender fluid'. Contra the commonly held idea that one must be either 'X' or 'Y', they now propose that one can be anything between A and Z… and any given combination of these.
In addition to the basic contradiction implied here there is another problem, and one that has made the news recently. These so-called transgender are finding, to their apparent chagrin, that there does not exist a large class of people who wish to have sex with a man pretending to be a girl, or a girl pretending to be a panda bear.
Human society has traditionally said that the moral ideal is for a man to desire to have sex with a woman, a woman to desire to have sex with a man, and for a man and a woman to commit to this sexual relationship for life. And to bear and raise children together. They have frowned, to one degree or another, on all other relationships.
But our modern society has now invented the woman who pretends to think she is a panda bear; and has left her to seek out the man who thinks he is a panda bear. Assuming that she thinks she is a female panda bear, and he thinks he is a male panda bear, and both of them have a desire to have sex with an opposite sex person pretending to be a panda bear… of the opposite sex.
And assuming we don't just lock them both up in a zoo and use artificial insemination.
4a) Male traits are to be desired
4b) Female traits are to be desired
GK Chesterton famously pointed out that, in the battle of the sexes, men have recently been surprised, shocked, and appalled to find out that they have won. Whereas before, women stood up just as fiercely for their values of home, hearth, and family as men stood on the battlefield, the workplace, the congress and the pub… women have now decided that it is truly the battlefield, the workplace, the congress and the pub that are important; and that hearth, home, and family are minor, secondary, and oppressive.
As a question of traits this contradiction comes confusedly forward as we move from place to place in our society. In the workplace woe betide the man (or even woman, or even gender fluid) who comes forward with the concept that women may lack, or even have, as a statistical average, less of some typically male trait such as aggression, competitiveness, or status seeking. However move over to the schoolroom and all of a sudden male traits such as a desire for physical work, difficulty sitting still, and/or loud boisterous behaviour become unacceptable.
Historically it has been accepted that men are men, women are women, and that society works best when we keep that in mind. However today men are discouraged from being men even while women are encouraged to be men. Which is it? Are men's traits so desired that even women must seek after them? Or are women's traits so desired that we have to drug all of our little boys when they act like little boys?
5a) Meritocracy
5b) Accommodation and diversity
One implied fundamental precept of the progressive movement is meritocracy. Although almost never put using that word, the argument from the progressives is that if A ( a female, a disabled person) can do a job, then that person should be allowed to do that job.
However this argument is in indirect contradiction to two others of their other premises, namely that of accommodation and diversity.
The reason that this contradiction is not as easily seen as some of the others is that the word 'can' is treated like a binary, but in the context of the workplace it is not one.
Let us look at an easy-to-understand example. I 'can' play football… if by that it is meant that I am capable of understanding the rules, standing in the proper line, and following the proper plays. I 'can' play football as long as one is happy with my speed in the hundred yard dash of 45 seconds (assuming I was well warmed up and had plenty of time to rest afterwards. And it was a while ago I managed that.), ability to throw a pass a good ten yards (although not a good pass), assuming a good receiver, ability to block… as long as I can do it by standing still and using the weight I have gained since I turned forty… etc etc.
I 'can' play football… but I can't play it well. I 'can' play football, but not at the level that a professional, well a college, well a high school, well, an eight grade boy's pick up squad can play.
I 'can' play football. And I play better than my wife. Or my daughter-in-law. Or my grand daughter (she's not quite three). But others can play better than I can.
So should the fact that I 'can' play football mean that I should have an equal right to a job as star quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys? Hopefully everyone realises that in this case 'can' is not a binary, as in 'can vs can't', but part of a sliding scale from impossible to really super great at it.
And the Cowboys want to try to hire the 'super great at it' people, not the people who are merely 'not impossible' at it.
6a) Take the differences into account
6b) Don't take the differences into account
The fundamental contradictions in Feminism and Progressivism in general lead them to have a flawed understanding of cause and effect. The other day, on the same thread, the same woman was both posting articles demonstrating that women reported more pain for a given injury than men do (average woman, average man, same injury) and articles bemoaning how doctors tend to treat women less seriously for their reports of pain.
There may be some serious problems related to both of those issues, but the woman I was discussing them with wasn't able to see the very obvious cause and effect between them. If a given class of person reports a pain level of '8' for the exact same condition for which another person reports a pain level of '4'… then any rational human being, doctor or otherwise, is going to 'discount' the '8', or be very concerned about the '4'.
The underlying contradiction here is that the same people that wish the doctor to 'take the woman's pain into account' because she more easily reports it (and thus, might even have more pain) wishes, at the same time, the doctor to pretend that the woman and the man's report of pain be treated in the exact same manner.
7a)Islam vs
7b) Christianity
Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins, both flaming progressives with otherwise impeccable credentials, have both recently come into ill odour in the eyes of their fellow Googleites by daring to point out that the feminist love story with Islam involves a very odd couple.
Ask your modern progressive if they know of a religion that hates Sodomites, women, and liberal values and they will all smile knowingly and accuse fundamentalist Christianity. Ask them if they know of one that tosses Sodomites off the top of buildings, stones women for being raped, and jails or murders those that speak against their religion and their smile will turn to a frown and they will accuse you of being racist.
There is a fundamental contradiction between the values that Googleites claim to love and the religions that they choose to hate. While it is perfectly true that the holy book of the Christians and Jews calls for the death penalty upon Sodomites, there is another religion that actually kills them. While Christianity may speak of women as the 'weaker vessel', Islamists forbid her from driving.
8a) #MeToo
8b) Victim Shaming
It has been interesting to watch the ‘#MeToo’ movement but, from a logical standpoint, the most interesting point about it is its contradiction with the simultaneous disapproval of ‘victim shaming’.
You see the idea of the ‘#MeToo’ movement is that if enough women come forward to talk about sexual abuse, then the society as a whole will be able to take action and prevent further sexual abuse. But the idea behind victim shaming is that the victim of sexual abuse, either before or after the abuse, has no responsibility to take any actions.
These two are obviously contradictory. Either the actions of victims can or can’t help society as a whole take care of sexual abuse. If it can, as the #MeToo movement implies, than society can rightly call upon victims to take that action. Or, at the very least, they can call upon themselves to do so.
But if the Victim Shaming mentality is right, then society should not pressure or even congratulate victims who have come forward, since that will ‘do nothing except shame them’ or risk shaming other victims who haven’t come forward.
Conclusion
Obviously no philosophy is internally completely coherent. However the above list demonstrates, at least to me, that progressivism is fundamentally incoherent. It rests upon a whole series of contradictions which cannot be reconciled.
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