The Unborn as a Convenient Advocation

This particular Facebook post from a Methodist pastor is over two years old, but it's the first I'm seeing of it, so you'll pardon my tardiness. There are a couple easy to come across thinkpieces about this "brilliant" post from people who would inexplicably throw this pastor into a volcano for affirming the divinity of Jesus. First, the post in question:

 

"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

 

Some discussions of this post have asked the reasonable question, do we really believe the pastor is against advocating for the unborn, or is he simply using this juxtaposition to humbly request that we apply the same fervor we have to protecting the unborn towards other maligned groups of people? I cannot find, at least not very easily, the genuine answer to this question, but we still have a particularly strong argument to make for why utilization of this argument for that angle is, still, wrong.

First of all, it's a classic false dilemma. We are implicitly asked "which of the least of these is most important to advocate for?" which is a question we need not answer. Each person is called by God to advocate for different groups, as we are all limited humans with the same amount of limited time in a day. This argument insists that the most good we can do is to help the most possible people, when it may be of unimaginable importance that we spend years helping even just one particular person. We cannot know who is the most important to advocate for, so we turn to God for guidance as to who requires our help the most. We cannot do it all and it is outrageous to chuck this "whataboutism" at people in regards to the groups that they chose to dedicate their time and effort toward. The unborn are a perfectly legitimate group of people in need of advocacy and we cannot hope to shame pro-life organizers for not doing enough for other groups of people the same that we cannot shame those who help rehabilitate convicts for not spending enough time knitting winter socks for orphans.

The other issue is perhaps a little more difficult to pinpoint. The classification of calling the unborn "morally uncomplicated" is, maybe a little unexpectedly, the most important detail here. It is a true statement, in fact, to call the unborn morally uncomplicated - there is indeed absolutely no argument that can be made in good faith to justify the murder of someone who is in every imaginable way pure and innocent, and also so incredibly vulnerable. This aspect of the unborn is very precisely the part about them that makes murdering them so painfully insidious. It is wrong, of course, to permanently condemn and ignore those of us who have committed grave sins, but it is in all actuality very understandable when we have issues seeing the humanity of a person who has, for example, raped and murdered several people. It is very difficult to trust these people and very easy to believe that they will always be a danger to other, innocent people in society. It takes great discipline and faith in Jesus to believe that people so lost could be redeemed. They are indeed very morally complicated.

 

It should be then, by comparison, very clear that it is wrong to murder an innocent baby, and yet here we are, where abortion is not only legal, but advocated for, celebrated, and viewed as a sacrament to its zealous supporters. This, specifically, is what makes it so important to advocate for the unborn, because they are faced with an unbelievable amount of adversity for a group that should be an open and shut case. The idea that we aren't advocating enough for other disadvantaged people while believing strongly that abortion is wrong isn't a sign of hypocrisy, it is quite frankly the most obvious position. It should be very easy to understand that abortion is wrong. The stance of even the most mentally unengaged, low effort thinker should be against abortion, as it is so self-evidently evil. The death penalty for murderers is, by definition, far more morally complicated. There is a lot to go through, a lot of questions to ask, and ultimately a moral and logical struggle to come to a responsible and thoughtful conclusion for the best interests of society as well as our humanity. There are no similar arguments to make when it comes to whether it is acceptable to murder innocent people. The unborn are, indeed, morally uncomplicated.

The post goes on to its obvious intention, the "gotcha" moment, where the speaker tries to assume their targeted audience's beliefs and then shame them for them. The people who fall into this category are the very same low effort thinking groups who believe intuitively that abortion is wrong, but fail to put very much effort into thoughtful contemplation about these much more "morally complicated" groups. Very few genuine "pro-life advocates" (that is to say, someone who actively works to combat abortion as opposed to someone who is merely against it because it is wrong) are not convicted similarly on the importance of welfare for orphans and widows. It is a position I have seen expressed by some select few unaware, non-reflective humans, but it is far and away a minority position held by only the most obtuse and thoughtless. Here, the post tries to misclassify all pro-life advocates as ceasing to care about the child once he is born.

I could go on for an additional dozen paragraphs explaining how I believe people who support abortion manage to still believe any conscientious pro-life advocate would similarly support throwing pregnant teenagers out in the streets, but I will summarize quickly for brevity. It does not take a majority of interactions to convince the person looking for any reason to delegitimize their opponent's position that inconsistent beliefs are more common than they are in reality. Even one interaction with someone who is against abortion but says something obtuse like "women who get pregnant out of wedlock are out of luck" will cause them to believe this is the majority position, as it is convenient to their position to believe so. 

 

All of this in mind, it is actually still not hypocritical to hold these beliefs that even I would argue are inconsistent. It is unwise and thoughtless, surely, but the difference between shrugging your shoulders at a teenager who made poor decisions and is facing the consequences is worlds apart from "it is okay to murder a baby". There is nothing hypocritical about these positions. A person who would not care about the plight of the women who typically choose to abort is certainly thoughtless, as these two issues are tightly interwoven, but the reasoning behind the two positions do not conflict with one another. On one hand, murder is wrong, and on the other hand, suffering the consequences of your decisions is just part of life. They do not advocate, for example, the execution of teenagers who find themselves pregnant - they merely believe those teenagers should not kill their own children. These beliefs are fully congruent. Low effort, yes, certainly ill-advised, and, exceptionally, heartless, but not hypocritical.

Perhaps the conclusion that it is "easy" to advocate for the unborn has a few valid points to be made. It's easy because it's very obviously bad to murder the unborn. It is not a complicated situation to dissect. The conclusion is easy to come to for even the most room temperature of IQs. I would argue, though, that it is not truly "easy" to advocate for the unborn. We fight for a group that is undeniably innocent, but inexplicably difficult to represent. The very things the Methodist pastor claims makes the unborn "convenient" to advocate for, actually makes it quite difficult. It's very hard to relate to an unborn child, as while we were all once in such a position, we will never be again. It's easy to consider, "what if I were arrested for a crime I did not commit?" or "what if I found myself homeless through circumstances outside of my control?" In fact, many congruent situations ("what if I were in an irreversible coma and my family had to decide if I lived or died?") are not actually very similar when analyzed more seriously. There is no similar situation we could find ourselves in to that of an unborn child.

 

For lack of a better phrase, we have to do all the work. It is easy to find a convicted criminal, buy him a suit, and have him speak about what rehabilitation means and how difficult it is to find humanity in the prison system. It is easy to find a woman who believes she is "better off" for having an abortion and have her speak to a crowd about how important ending her child's life was for her own personal welfare. The people who suffer from abortion are not able to defend themselves, while the people who perpetrate it are free to speak unopposed. It is impossible to have an unborn child speak to a crowd. Even more difficult, they are nearly entirely invisible. It is easier even for animals to have their emotional pleas made visible and publicly for the world to see. An actual 20 week old ultrasound will be met with people genuinely arguing that it's not even a real picture. Despite the overwhelming availability of prenatal care information, people who seek to deny the humanity of the unborn simply do not look at this information or educate themselves.

Worse yet, people who advocate for the unborn are accused of nefarious ulterior motives. While the unborn as a group is morally uncomplicated, abortion itself is actually a very intense conversation. It is entirely understandable to be worried, scared, or feel helpless and, yes, even like your entire world is ending, to find yourself pregnant when you didn't want to be. It would be tone deaf to believe that it is an easy situation. The problem stems from the unavoidable reality that the unborn child is a human life, and that it is wrong to voluntarily end that life. The argument itself is simple, but the lived reality takes a much larger toll. Pro-life advocates, then, are viciously accused of being heartless and indifferent to the plight of the people who would seek abortions. The unborn may be morally uncomplicated, but advocating for them - and everything that comes with such a conviction - results in aggressive personal attacks that are difficult for the average person to stomach. People who would likely not support abortion in the majority of cases will compromise and attempt to appeal to the emotional attacks of abortion advocates to try and receive slightly less slandering and vitriol, simply because a hard "abortion is always wrong" stance comes with it so much infamy.

It is, in fact, very tone deaf to attempt to argue that the unborn are "convenient" to advocate for - as the people who advocate for the unborn are dehumanized alongside them.

What Does "Catholic" and Religion Mean to the General Public

The current political discourse is focused pretty heavily on President Trump's most likely choice to fill the Supreme Court seat, Amy Coney Barrett. While large numbers of arguments are bubbling up all over for every possible for and against position, one of the agreed upon main focuses for the mainstream pundits is over her religious faith. She is a Catholic who actually believes in Catholic tenants, which of course is bad according to liberals and progressives. It's not that she's Catholic persay, it's that she actually believes in and practices her Catholic faith. This results in the argument that she intends to legislate through her religious beliefs.

Many have pointed out that the problem is certainly not simply that she is religious - while there is a large number of atheists and anti-theists who claim that having religious beliefs at all is a crime against humanity, anyone who is honest is able to recognize that it's the active practice of the actual beliefs behind what it means to be Catholic that is the "problem". People who are looking only to score "debate points" ignore the obvious, well understood concept here that people are against anyone who actually believes in what they say they believe, and attempt to proclaim that, "no! of course we are not against Catholics! How absurd, clearly, honestly, how could you be so obtuse as to say we don't like Catholics!"

Anyone intellectually sincere understands that the thing that causes the disagreement is when the faithful person in question goes forward with applying their beliefs actively to their life. See, that's the "bad thing" that religious people do - when people believe there is an all powerful, all knowing, merciful but just God who created all things, who created existence itself, and has given us directions on how to navigate through the universe He created, and then apply this knowledge to their everyday existence in a way which is entirely consistent and obviously understandable when you give it more than a passing thought, that's a problem. You can have your "religious beliefs" - that is, that God has given us distinct instructions on what is good and what is bad and that these things apply to all existence at every second of every day - but don't you dare actually believe that.

So, how does this weird inconsistency happen in the first place? Amy Coney Barrett is Catholic, just like Joe Biden, even Nancy Pelosi. All of these people self-identify as Catholic. Amy Coney Barrett is the only one who causes issues, because she actually practices Catholic beliefs. But as far as intellectually dishonest left-wing pundits are concerned, all three are fully and equally Catholic. The American left doesn't have a problem with Catholics, and the followup argument that is either thinly veiled or outright proclaimed is that right-leaning pundits are making up strawmen and being insincere when they say that an anti-Catholic bias exists. Because, you see, Joe and Nancy are Catholic! So, obviously, we see there's nothing wrong with Catholics. This should seem absurd if you are capable of honest analysis - because it is. But how do people get here, to this obviously cognitive dissonant position, without seeing the issue?

The actual root problem lies in what the general public understands about what it means to have a religious belief, and especially Catholic beliefs. To understand how this inconsistent belief persists, we have to look at how people understand what it means to be both Catholic and religious. The problem is quite clear when we first realize that the common American fundamentally misunderstands what religious beliefs even are. The problem is exacerbated by the idea of the Catholic identity, which somehow manages to exist in this peculiar state as almost a separate idea from actual faithful religious beliefs. Let me explain.

America was a Christian nation at its founding. People often talk about how the colonists were seeking "religious freedom" when they came to North America, but sneakily discard the obvious fact that this religious freedom was Protestantism and not, say, Judaism or Buddhism. They didn't seek "religious freedom" so they could practice pagan tree-worship and become Wiccans - England was Catholic and the colonists wanted to be Protestant. Still explicitly Jesus worshippers - the religious freedom they sought was away from the Pope and the theocratic legal atmosphere therein. The purpose of explaining all this is to stress that Americans from their very foundation, and thus American culture from its very beginning, was Christian. This means that the every day person believed in God, spoke of God, prayed to God, and the culture was directly influenced by religious beliefs - what is basically "socially right-wing" today. A cohesive and coherent understanding of who God is was explained to children and adults every day through media, every day conversations, cultural phenomenon, and of course in church, where people actually went very often. The general cultural understanding of God and religious reality was Christian and was much more correctly understood than it is today.

This culture persisted for the next couple centuries of America's history. It has only recently begun to be dismantled, the culture only recently - within the lifetimes of people alive right now - has become abjectly secular. This means that the common man no longer genuinely believes in God as described by the bible, as this information must be sought out individually. It takes a person with intentional desire for faith-focus education to find out the reality of who God is and what it means to believe in Him. These days, it's not taught or explained to the average person without their effort. People come to understand what God is and what faith and religion are via infostreams that do not explain these concepts properly. The Christian understanding of the world is a faded echo in our culture - people use "Jesus Christ" as an expletive without even consciously realizing they're invoking the name of the savior of the world. People believe nebulously in the concept of God without believing anything consistent about Him - not even that they would believe other religion's concepts of God, but that they simply believe in God as a secular, cultural concept - a brand new concept of God that is not reflected in any formal religious understanding. These people have not engaged with religion as an important aspect of their lives and believe very generally things like "good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell" without ever reflecting any further on this idea. Absolutely no recognized religion actually believes in Heaven and Hell this way, these concepts are best described as "secular spiritualism". These people falsely identify as Christian or Catholic due to their upbringing because their parents said "we're Catholic" and then they never actually learned what any of that meant. Or, perhaps, they did learn it, but it became unlearned as they aged within our aggressively secular culture.

These secular-focused and non-Christian ideas have invaded the current culture so that much older people - say maybe 65 and older - were the last generation to experience an actual cohesive religious reality portrayed through media. As the 1970s came and went, the culture became exponentially more secular, and this ever-present general understanding of actual religious reality experienced by the average, every day person has gone away. What this means is that well meaning parents of baby boomers who experienced a constant every day culture of religious reality simply expected their children to grow up the same way, not believing they needed to put actual individual effort forth into ensuring that their children grew up with a coherent religious understanding of God and Christianity. Even people who had strong religious backgrounds growing up may quite easily, and without intending to, fall away from their faith simply because there is such a deficit in the culture of mentioning God. They simply "forget to remember" God in their day to day lives because there is nothing around them reminding them.

This overall failure to understand the importance of our existential spiritual reality that is encompassed by religious faith is the root cause of this strange phenomenon where "Catholics" like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are A-OK by democrats, in a very real and sincere belief by the general public, but Amy Coney Barrett's actual Catholic faith that she actively applies to her life, is not. To the general common man, these three people are all genuinely Catholic. It is a unique aspect to Amy Coney Barrett that she actually applies her beliefs - a concept that, to the general public, is something "people who are religious" can simply choose to turn on and off at will without their underlying spiritual commitment being affected. They in all sincerity do not understand the problem here.

The reason for this is that they don't understand what "makes" someone Catholic. The general layman understanding is, in all actuality, that someone is Catholic by way of the performance of rituals in their upbringing, by way of their parent's faith. They have a confirmation name, and thus they are Catholic. It is understood - very incorrectly - as an aspect of someone's identity in the same way that you graduated from a particular college or, to some, similar to how someone can be Jewish, but not religious. People are for example "Irish Catholic" by birth - despite the fact that Catholic identity is not connected to any race in the way that Jewish identity is, severing the importance behind the actual application of religious beliefs to their lives. "Being Catholic" is a nebulous identity with no actual important underlying aspects to the majority of Americans. 

 

Biden is Catholic because, well, he just is. He was "raised Catholic" and thus, despite not believing anything even vaguely resembling Catholicism, he simply is Catholic as a matter of identity. Barrett is equally as Catholic as Joe Biden, but she is also religious, where Biden is not. People understand this issue subconsciously but fail to fully apprehend it, thus they believe something as ridiculous as "we have nothing against Catholics don't be silly" without seeing any inconsistencies in their beliefs. Someone being Catholic is effectively meaningless, just a box you check on the census indicating a particular series of rituals performed as a child, and nothing more.

Both the people who believe they are Catholic and the secular, existential-reality denying faithless general public do not understand what someone is saying when they say they are Catholic. The concept exists of a "lapsed Catholic" which, at its base, means someone who is simultaneously Catholic and not Catholic - they were Catholic, but do not practice Catholicism anymore, yet in a subtle way they somehow remain Catholic by way of immutable identity. The very existence of the phrase "lapsed Catholic" underlines the issue here - people believe you simply are or are not Catholic by way of circumstance, not by way of genuine committed faithful adherence to a set of religious beliefs. If you've ever attended Mass or been confirmed, you're now always Catholic, allegedly. 

 

But that is not how religion - any religion - works. In fact, we simultaneously seem to believe it's possible to choose your religion due to your preferences while believing someone who was raised Catholic is simply always Catholic. You can choose to convert - religion is just a meaningless preference, like preferring Coke over Pepsi, and yet they are simultaneously concrete indicators of identity of a person. These conflicting ideas exist in the consciousness of society without reflection and people fail to recognize the issue with these inconsistencies. Religious affiliation, in fact, is so meaningless, that we take at face value every claim of religious identity. This should not be the case - if someone says they are Christian, they cannot deny all of Christianity's dogma. 

 

I am not even referring to, here, on matters of popular disagreements like gay marriages or women pastors - there is an unbelievably high number of people who identify themselves as Christians and do not even believe Jesus was a real person. There are people who claim to be pastors who genuinely believe you can actually just believe whatever you want and still go to Heaven if you are "good" - this is not a belief congruent with Christianity. There are bare basic claims Christianity makes that, if you don't believe in them, you cannot in any good conscious claim to be Christian. It would be like saying that you are a vegan, but still eat fish. There is a different name for that classification of identity, and it is not "vegan". When we allow definitions of words to exist in the general conscious that conflict directly with the understood definition of that word, the result is that we communicate nothing. In this day and age, saying that you are a Christian has effectively been made meaningless because it carries with it no consistent outline of expectation - if you can say you're a Christian and simultaneously believe that everyone goes to Heaven, then what does "Christian" even mean?

Now, in regards to the actual theological beliefs that coincide to Christianity, there are certain truth claims that are necessary to say that you believe in Christian dogma. While the cultural problem with the definition of religion in and of itself suffers from this failure to adhere to even the bare basic tenants of a religious affiliation, things like the aforementioned popular disagreements do still come into play in a very real and important way. If you believe in the truth claims made within the Christian religion, then you should, if you are being consistent, thoughtful, and intellectually honest, wind up believing particular claims made within Christianity that are not explicitly existential theological truth claims. Of course I refer to "social issues", and the social issue that is in the forefront here because of this whole current hulabaloo with Barrett is of course the issue of abortion. 

 

Catholics believe in a very specific set of theological truths in regards to God, Jesus, the spiritual world, the value and purpose of human life, salvation, and eternity. When those theological truths are applied thoughtfully, a Catholic should be staunchly against abortion. This is where the issue is coming into play - Biden and Pelosi claim to "be Catholic" in a meaningless, self-identifying sort of way, while Barrett claims to be Catholic in an actual, applied, committed way. Thus, with no actual theological beliefs about truth, the aforementioned duo are in favor of abortion on demand at any time and in any circumstance, while people are "afraid" that Barrett - because they, whether they spell it out for themselves or not, truly do understand the concept that the theological truths put forth by Catholicism ultimately comes to a conclusion where abortion is morally repugnant - will legislate from her religious beliefs against abortion.

The failure of the common man to bring beliefs to coherent conclusions is the root of this problem. The culture will pretend like you can choose a set of religious beliefs that you have, but you never speak about them, you apply them only personally to yourself, and that you should under no circumstance discuss them or apply them to the rest of your beliefs that "aren't about" religion. The very act of having a certain set of beliefs but not applying them to the rest of your thought processes is cognitive dissonance - it is inconsistent and incoherent. When you do not apply your beliefs about one thing to another thing, you wind up with inconsistent beliefs, in regards to anything. It is how hypocrisy occurs. This idea that we should keep our "religion out of politics" or "religion out of ____" is nothing more than social pressure to be hypocrites. If we were to be sincere - intellectually honest, thoughtful, self-reflective people - then we should, absolutely, under every circumstance, apply our religious beliefs to our politics and every other aspect of our lives.

The failure to recognize this comes from a failure to understand what religion is. I'll help - religion is the term we use to describe the mechanisms by which we believe the entire world operates. It would be an aggressive act of intentional mental disconnection to have the beliefs I have about God, how we got here, why we are here, who Jesus was and what He did, and what will happen to each of us when we die, and then proceed to not think about that in regards to everything else that ever happens to me or anyone else on this earth. If I believe God is active in my life, it would be nothing less than pathetically thoughtless for me to not remember that when I think about other aspects of my life. The very idea that religious beliefs, of all possible things, are somehow relegated to only discussing privately in your own head, is the most offensive scam in modern history. The purpose of religion is describing our very existence in the most fundamental possible ways. People have managed to incorrectly define and identify the purpose of religion to the point where people don't even know what it is for.

Indeed, it is more accurate to define our religious beliefs as our "worldview" - especially because there are a good number of people who claim to "not be religious" while simultaneously holding views about the fundamental reality of our existence. That is what religion is, and thus everyone is "religious" - or at least analogous to it. The modern blunder of inaccurately defining religion has led to a fractured social consciousness - it is totally normal and acceptable to simply have beliefs about things, and as long as you don't imply in any way that you believe the way you do due to your "religion" (i.e., the fundamental understanding of the cause and purpose of our existence) then people will debate you based on the merits of your beliefs. As soon as you attribute those beliefs to your religion, then it is the religion that is the problem, and you should have never applied your religion to your beliefs - despite the fact that the root cause of all belief is "religious" in nature, attributed to the worldview we have about the mechanisms through which existence functions. To say you are "not religious" is truly to say you are not self-reflective or thoughtful - you are drifting through life without ever stopping to think on the whys or hows about it.

This is how we have arrived to this nonsensical future, where anyone can say they are a Catholic and democrats can say they don't have anything against Catholicism, while simultaneously being against everything that Catholicism has to say about anything at all. The failure to adhere to a coherent understanding of the words we are using has created an epidemic of communication failures. Do not be fooled by this flimsy argument - this baseless idea that democrats are fully accepting of Catholics because particular prominent democrats "are" Catholics. The definitions they are using are different from the definitions we understand - and thus, it is fully consistent, in their minds, to make these claims. We differ fundamentally not merely on ideas of law and politics, but the very essence of what makes up our reality. This is the reason why there is such immense failure to find common ground with our ideological rivals - they are speaking a completely different language.

What is Femininity

For many years, I've had a particular source of annoyance from every possible variety of person and their different opinions on how women should be. From the radical feminist to the average modern woman, from the typical Christian to the hyper-reactionary right wing, everyone has their own idea on what a woman should look like, physically and existentially.

Close, but no cigar

While I don't believe anyone is barred from being allowed to muse on how they think women should behave, think, act, or actualize themselves, there is a particular revulsion I can't help but feel from particularly "alt-right" opinions, predominately from men, that I've often happened upon due to their close proximity to (but in true function, complete separation from) traditional Christian values on femininity. Unless this is the very first thing from me you've ever read, it would come as no surprise that I personally hold a traditional view on the role of the woman and wife in both family and society as a whole. Why, then, would I find such "close but no cigar" views as more annoying than the modern, individualistic western feminist views purported by mainstream culture? Surely closer is better than missing the mark completely?

Whether it is more correct or more righteous to be "pretty close but still wrong" than to be "so off the mark we're on different planets", it's my personal gut reaction that makes me feel these slightly recognizable but markedly unbiblical outlooks are much more egregious than shaved head feminists demanding publicly funded infanticide. One is unmistakably demonic and wrong, so clearly and unbelievably removed from reality that it needs no justification to explain why it's in no uncertain terms destructive except to mildly gesture at it with a furrowed brow, while the other feels more insidious. It's as if, yes, surely we see what is clearly wrong, but what then is right? We get several different possible right answers, and as wrong as progressive third wave feminism is, yet another wrong answer is still the wrong answer.

While I of course take much issue with modern feminist values on womanhood, it need not be explained. It would be an exercise in little more than a self-indulgent rant to attack such a flimsy and useless position as is held by radical progressive women today. So, what then is the focus, here, in regards to the reactionary alt-right position? A little more explanation may help before we get into the muck and grime of things.

Wrong is still wrong

There are plenty of thinkpieces on the alt-right and what they are and who qualifies as such, but to summarize quickly if you are entirely unfamiliar, the alt-right is more or less what happens when more conservative-than-average people are radicalized in a certain way by identity politics. The innerworkings of the alt-right are not quite so cut and dry, and certainly nowhere near as many personalities fit into it as the left-leaning media attempts to demand. The differences of opinion among the alt-right itself is as vast as any other fringe ideology, but they are recognizable mostly by a focus on identity politics, almost a backward mirror of the left's identity politics.

This is such a central opinion in the alt-right that they will disavow anyone who is not against, for example, race mixing, while those much more engrossed in the ideology support a full ban on even legal immigration. Some have much more "palatable" opinions on their best suggestions for racially homogenized ethnostates, while others openly advocate for forcible deportation of legal citizens of the wrong color. This practical perfect mirror of progressives' opinions on race are copied near exactly for their opinions on women, resulting in a mostly cohesive opinion among them that, for example, women shouldn't work outside the home, and if they "must" they should do everything in their power to change it, for no other reason than that to work outside the home as a woman is heresy. The hot takes go on forever, as I find in many of my regrettable journeys down twitter rabbit holes. From the unironic belief that women should not drive to the desire for, literally, a "stupid girlfriend" (as women should not think too much, you see), the poison in this sphere of influence becomes just as obvious as radical feminism's the deeper you go.

The problem lies in the slightly more palatable opinions of more popular alt-right, or sometimes even "new right", bloggers that wind up being "close enough" to avoid immediate dismissal. The ever more insidious are the ones who claim to be Christians, abusing scripture to fit their opinions in difficult to dissect ways. These are false teachers like any other and while your typical modern feminism-blinded Christian is as in little danger of believing in it as I am in modern feminism, it's people like me who are in danger of being misled by these alt-right false teachers - people seeking a "return to tradition" could easily accidentally land in the sphere of influence of an alt-right false teacher, gaslighting them into thinking that keeping your wife and children more or less locked in your house while you're at work makes sense (it doesn't).

But who does the dishes?

I have luckily never read these warped opinions without recognizing an inherent wrongness about them, but until I read a particular article today, I had trouble putting all my objections together in a coherent way. Today I have read a particularly enlightening article that gave me the missing piece to this ideological puzzle. It's long in itself, but it's vital to understanding the rest of my post. While reading it to completion would be recommended, I will summarize and then reference parts of it as they become relevant. Please note the following summary is highly abridged and reading the post in full cannot be recommended enough.

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The beginning of the post begins by explaining that the question "but who does the dishes?" came up very often in conversations about traditional marriage roles - seemingly strangely, at first. As they (the post has two authors) gained more experience, they came to recognize that there was, in fact, a vital importance to the question. It was not the question or the dishes itself, but what those dishes represented. The post goes on to explain that, to the modern feminist, the dishes represent "trappedness" in the home. Having the husband help with the dishes, in the opinion of some wives, helped alleviate some of this trappedness by having the husband share in the sacrificial burden of housekeeping. But the problem is much deeper than that, and while I typically disapprove of something that appears to be as overly-analyzed as this, I actually think it is quite accurate.

The post goes on to speak about how the dynamics of the traditional household pre-industrial revolution were actually completely different and it is not, believe it or not!, the fault of modern feminism that causes women to believe they would be more fulfilled with a career than in the home, but the industrial revolution itself. How so? The home used to be a creative space where families worked together to build up their home. The women of the household worked, in a real and true sense, by contributing productive creation work - making clothes, preparing and preserving food, repairing household tools, and actively educating their children. The home itself was an industrial space where work and creation took place, where productive activities built the family up together, where children and mothers and fathers contributed to a tangible creation of a home.

Now, that industrial work is done elsewhere; it has been forcibly evicted from the home. No longer cost or time effective, fulfilling these needs is done nearly exclusively through the purchase of goods produced in factories instead of having them produced in the home itself. The home now is exclusively a place for existential, emotional existence, and housework is been left behind as the "mess" leftover from such activities as "spending time together" and "relaxation". There is, then, an innate drudgery in housework that is due to its actual meaninglessness - it is the leftover mess from things that are supposed to be relaxing and enriching, and tend to be - for everyone except the woman, who is left behind after the bonding activities to clean up the mess. When even someone else teaches her children, she is in fact left behind to do naught but clean up the mess of nothing more than day to day life. She is not producing or creating anything with her work, it is exclusively to clean up and return to the starting point of "clean" so that it can be messed up once again, so that the emotional fulfillment of everyone else can continue day to day. It is definitionally nothing but sacrificial work - it is done because it must be and nothing is gained from it, except to not live in filth and continue the day to day rituals.

--

Housework is objectively meaningless

No matter the opinion of a traditional wife who accepts the sacrificial work of cleaning the house, this is a truth. It is well and good to see value in such work, as it assuredly is valuable, but as certainly as it is vital and necessary, it is meaningless as well - not meaningless in a tangible sense, but in an existential one. Man and woman both are creative, as we were created in the image of a creative God, but it is a tragic irony that women have been so explicitly left behind in this meaningless work, because creativity is feminine. Women crave to create, we were built to create - we house the very creations of our God in our own bodies, raise and care for and nurture those souls. Our pre-industrial work was creative work. Men come from the earth and so work the earth, but women come from men, and so work for men - but it's not so "sexist" as this. Women come from people to work for people, the process of using resources and materials to create for the benefit of people. When we lack the ability to create, we feel an emptiness, as we were created to create for the benefit of our partners.

The modern woman sees this problem - either subconsciously or not - and concludes that she could gain self-actualization from an industrial, creative action such as having a career. The conclusion is wrong, but the cause of the problem is the same for every woman. It is almost understandable, then, that the modern woman believes she would be fulfilled with a career, as it appears to be the only way to create and build, as productive creation has been evacuated from the home. Why would she work to create in the home when all that creation work is done in factories and farms? Surely it would not be fulfilling to create her own things when those things could so easily be purchased? And thus she comes to the faulty conclusion that the creation work would best be done by seeking a career outside the home.

The posted article and I begin to disagree slightly at the end. I say slightly, because if I were to articulate the following response to the following paragraph, I don't necessarily believe they would fully disagree outright. One of several concluding paragraphs reads:

We are not advocating by any means for a return to preindustrialism. Even in cases where households can become productive through traditional occupations like farming or smithing, technology is here to stay; you cannot compete without it, and neither should any sane person want to. Rather, we are advocating for a return to production in the household rather than mere consumption; a return to self-consciously treating the house as a place of mission rather than a place of recreation; as an organ of dominion rather than an abstract institution of emotionalism. 

Surely, a full "return to preindustrialization" seems like a bit much. However, I actually see many "traditional" people do just that - move to the mountains in some foreign country and start a sheep farm. There is a fulfillment to creation work that is unparalleled, as I can attest with my own experiences. The idea that we should absolutely not try to live simpler lives is to outright discard what is honestly a possibility. Indeed, there are whole countries of people living right now without much of the benefits of industrialization, so it's not impossible. It's surely hard and choosing to do this would require intense consideration, but to discard it as an option entirely is slightly shortsighted. Truly if one is of a biblical worldview, what is really lost by living a more modest, more natural life? There is no loss to the soul or the spiritual life - I would contest it is likely enhanced by such a life. I am not sure I would undertake such a drastic change unprompted, but I cannot say I absolutely would not if such an opportunity presented itself. The drudgery of modern life and its distractions and conveniences often disgusts me, frankly.

But barring a full on move to the mountains to become a sheep farmer, the simple act of creating things that could otherwise be purchased is powerful. Growing your own food in your backyard will likely not feed your family by itself, but putting lettuce and tomatoes you grew yourself onto your frozen fishstick tacos brings an enhancement to them that is quite fulfilling. Making hash browns from potatoes I grew in my backyard is infinitely more satisfying than using ones from the store. These simple acts of creation are powerful and I believe it is silly to dismiss them as "not being enough" to escape the drudgery of endless housework. Building up the home can be as simple as planting fruit trees, adding both an important task (tending the tree) and a productive, valuable asset to your actual, physical "home" - thus, it is an act of building it up. Creating productive spaces in your home is an act of building it up and making it a center of more than existential emotional support. It is the very thing that was taken from the industrial revolution, why wouldn't adding it back help? I personally believe it does, and much moreso than the authors of this article would supposedly purport.

Where the alt-right makes the most mistakes

The extremist opinions of many people who self-identify as alt-right, as well as plenty of other reactionaries, vary wildly, some of them understandable while others seem to come from a desire to be edgy on the internet. When I speak of many of these ideas I have read, they were not always from any particular popular cultural icon of the ideology, but could be from any random person on the internet, so while some claims may seem outlandish, I attest none of the ideas I put forward here are made up, though they may easily be held by a statistically insignificant number of people.

There are innumerable mistakes in the ideology for "proper women" by the alt-right, but the mistake that contributes to the most flawed opinions lies in the belief that women are, unironically, inferior to men. Whether they have consciously voiced this opinion (many have) or not, it is the backdrop to the majority of their ideology. A biblical understanding accurately sees women and men as equally valuable but fulfilling different roles, but the application of alt-right ideology sees a clear and unmistakable devaluation of women as people. This can be done intentionally or accidentally - most alt-right people who claim to be Christian could possibly be argued to be doing it accidentally by an incorrect application of biblical principles, but it is not hard to find an alt-right figurehead in all sincerity express their belief that women simply are not as important or valuable. 

While it is quite often close to impossible to tell the difference between irony poisoning and true sincerity in these spheres of influence, I guarantee that a non-zero number of people have, for any variety of reasons, come to the conclusion that women are objectively of less value than men. The unfortunate reality is that they proceed to convince some women of the same - either through showcasing of the lowest common denominator of women or through strong emotional appeals. Surely no woman would genuinely accept the belief that they are worth less than other humans by mere coincidence of being born a certain way? Unfortunately I have seen women make statements that would insist this to be the case, and it is as cringeworthy as white people kowtowing to progressive racism by "admitting" that they are horrible and deserve eradication for merely existing while white. In many ways the alt-right truly is a mirror-world version of progressive ideology.

This belief in innate female inferiority, being unbiblical, cannot be correct. As I've explained before in previous posts, the biblical worldview is the truth, and thus any ideology that would contradict a biblical lens must be wrong. Unfortunately, taking the bible out of context to try and convince people to believe lies is not unique to any particular group, and so it is done here as well. From citing being created from part of Adam as unarguable proof that women are "incomplete persons", or somehow less "God made", to an inaccurate reading of 1 Timothy 2:11-14 to say women should not be allowed to even make blog posts (such as these) that discuss biblical truths because a man may read it, the bible is rampantly abused to make a similar-enough-sounding case for the inferiority of women as the reason for the commandment "wives, submit to your husbands". Thus, the conclusion here is that women are submitting to their husbands not because it is part of their God-given role to be sanctified by their husbands who would sacrifice their lives for them, but because she is stupid and incapable of doing anything by herself, such as driving a car.

What is women's work

The true biblical understanding of what makes a woman a woman has nothing to do with her being "an incomplete man", but her creation from Adam is what creates the dynamics present in the differences between the roles of men and women. The conclusion that Eve was any less created by God or any less beloved of a creation for being made the way she was is unsupported by the creation story. There are theologians who believe woman is actually God's favored creation, an opinion gleamed from the very same scripture used by others to claim innate inferiority. It seems unlikely, given the rest of the bible, that God favors woman over man (though it does seem likely He favors children over both), but the point here is that the inferiority theory is based on arbitrary interpretation like any other false teaching.

The piece I was missing from this thought process was solved for me by the quoted post above, where it's made clear that "the home" was a vastly different place when the books of the bible were penned. The bible does not show women "trapped in the home", truly even the Proverbs 31 woman is seen traveling and selling goods - things she has created with her hands. Entrepreneurial work appears well within the range of the feminine woman, who was created by God to create. Travel, commerce, and industrial work is cited as an activity for women - there is no biblical basis for assertions that housework and birthing children are the only acceptable activities for wives. These activities build the home through the woman's creative, industrial work, and thus there is nothing biblical about barring a woman from working or driving a car.

The only differences between the type of work women do and the type of work men do has to do with the purpose of the work. If the work builds up the home, it's women's work. If the work works the earth, it's men's work. Men may build cities, but cities are worthless without homes. Surely not every task falls so clearly and neatly into these classifications, but the concept remains stable even with outliers. The dynamic relationship between men and women and their roles are interconnected on the deepest levels and uncompromisingly require one another to succeed. It doesn't matter if it the work makes you sweat or requires strength to perform. The differences in our roles do not lie within whether the work can be performed with fake nails or not, but the purpose and focus of the work.

Other views accidentally get influenced by inferiority theory

There are many traditional women pushing femininity that also make grievous mistakes in their interpretations of how women should be. I have followed some of these accounts for a couple good takes only to be blind-sided by some claims that neatly dress up the inferiority theory behind some incorrect conclusions on feminine energy. These by and large have a superficial view on what "femininity" is. The most striking this ever was for me was when I read an article written by one of these women that started out wise enough sounding, stating that feminine energy was cooperative, that women feel rejuvenated when they behave as God intended, within their femininity, and drained when they tried to behave masculinely, as if they were men.

This was the introduction on "how to channel your feminine energy" - expecting some wise words on mindset and character building, I was nothing short of accosted by nine different ways to either dress up or perform basic hygiene. Channeling my feminine energy is apparently as easy as "taking a shower", or "putting on lipstick". The list, however, was ten items long - and curiously, the very last one was "create something". The truth remains, even as lies and meaningless ritual attempts to obscure it - creation is feminine.

Far too many women have attempted to corner the market on "traditional femininity" appeal with nothing more than makeup tutorials and fashion advice. This sounds very feminine, surely, but I can see little biblical basis for such trivial nonsense. Feminine energy is not channeled by being clean and pretty - it is wisdom, it is building up, and it is creative. Wisdom is explicitly personified as feminine in the bible itself - indeed, the alt-right idea that "women should be kinda dumb" is nothing more than poisoned pagan nonsense. The most feminine women among us are wise, discerning, careful and modest. Feminists would agree, though perhaps not with that last point - though the reason behind this has far too much to do with God to be palatable to them.

Indeed, a worldview of women where "femininity" is nothing more than being pretty is rather inferior. Luckily, this is not the truth, and so there is much more depth to women than simply being hygienic and wearing makeup. There is nothing innately immoral about dressing up to appear pretty, but there are a large number of people arguing that it is actually necessary for a woman to be feminine. I have actually written about this before - and my post back then could be quite easily summarized as such: if it is necessary to be thin and pretty to channel your feminine energy, then fat ugly women are effectively barred from utilization of feminine energy. This cannot possibly be true, and thus the argument falls flat.

Where did these ideas come from?

I cannot answer definitively where this "return to tradition" mindset went from respecting women's roles as defined by God as being equally valuable but markedly different from men's, to sincere devaluation of women as people. I, however, can note a few things that likely contributed to it - most glaringly obvious, of course, is the way the "modern day woman" behaves. Since we see no failure in alt-right ideology to condemn all non-white humans as inferior due to perceived behavior, it should be no surprise that they would similarly condemn women for the same reasons. The same condemnation, of course, skips past their own identity as white males - nothing short of an emotional reaction to the constant bombardment by progressives that white males are irredeemably evil for merely being white males. 

The problem, of course, is that white males do not deserve condemnation for being white and male, but if they were to uphold their own standards they use for condemning outgroups to their own ingroup, they would find no one left worthy of defending. It's very easy to push back against the idea that white men are inherently guilty for the circumstances of their birth and come out on the other side believing that they are actually nothing short of benevolent martyrs for putting up with such nonsense - but that is quite clearly and obviously not the case. All men, all humans, are vile creatures. We are all disgusting, dismal failures, and we can barely hope to hold our own individual selves accountable for our own secrets and obsessions - to hope to hold the entirety of our ingroup accountable for the image we put out is impossible. This lack of ability for self-reflection is visceral and emotional in nature and is nothing less than a symptom of the collective alt-right's outrage against society in general, which I do not blame them for.

The faulty ideas of progressivism and the faulty ideas from backward mirror ideologies stem from the same problem, a theme that seems to hold true for most things. Men and women both of all races are failing to adhere to God's will for us, His creation, and this causes most of the problems we see around us. The attitudes toward women, ironically enough, actually are misinformed - just not in the ways that progressive theory would insist. However, the attitudes toward men are also misinformed. Everyone is being led astray in different ways, men and women suffer from corrupted values in regards to their place in our world in different ways. We were designed to coexist - in a real and true sense of the word, not merely tolerating each other's company but operating in tandem in a real way. The push to ignore the differences between men and women is hurting us both - but I would argue it's actually hurting women a lot more.

More Cuties Arguments

It's been a few days since my first post and the people defending this movie have not stopped coming up with new attempts to argue against the valid criticism that this movie exploited the child actresses involved in making it. Strangely enough, we have not had to come up with any new arguments to explain why this movie contains child exploitation, since pointing vaguely to said parts of the movie and gesturing exhaustedly is the only necessary action. Still, the new attempts to justify the evils perpetrated by the people who made this film keep pouring in, and so I will explain why each of the ones I have seen are flimsy at best. At worst, these same arguments could be applied without any changes to defending the production of explicit child pornography without false pretenses. The following are presented in no particular order.

"The producer created trust between herself and the actresses, so she was being responsible to not exploit them." (source)

This argument is one of those that would translate perfectly to child exploitation in general. "Trust" is the main avenue adults who seek to harm children use to get those children to do what they want. Children are, unfortunately, easy to exploit because they often trust adults and anyone who acts confident without question. The argument here that the producer created trust between herself and the child actresses does nothing to alleviate the concerns that these children have been exploited. I am not saying that the producer was explicitly behaving maliciously, but it is very easy for a sociopathic person who seeks to harm someone to feign a caring relationship with a child in order to exploit them. Saying "forming this trust is a sign that she was not exploiting the children" is not a valid argument, since forming trust with victims is a basic child exploitation action.

"No one cared about Good Boys/Toddlers in Tiaras/Dance Moms." (source one / two / three)

This is not even an argument, but people who say this will behave as if they are making some brave point, so I will address it. First and foremost, I have not seen a single person who has actually been asked if they were okay with these productions say that they don't hate them. It is entirely - aside from merely grossly irresponsible - a baseless assumption that the same people who disapprove of Cuties are somehow over here cheering on movies like Good Boys. When Good Boys was being advertised and I happened to see some of the previews, I assure you I was thoroughly disgusted. I have found child beauty pageants and all manners of glorifying bad behavior in children and young teenagers to be despicable and I all but guarantee anyone mad about Cuties does too.

 

If your criticism is actually that there wasn't a similar outrage back then, then I agree with you. These disgusting shows and movies have been a blight on our society and if it took Cuties as our collective last straw to realize this is a real problem that shouldn't be tolerated, then I'll accept that - at least we finally realized there was a problem. However, "Cuties is okay because people didn't get outraged about child exploitation sooner" is not a valid argument. If you are simply mad that people didn't get outraged about child exploitation sooner, we are on the same side.

"The people who think the children were exploited are likely pedophiles for finding those scenes arousing." (source)

The argument here fails in two places. First and foremost, the argument here is that no normal person would find the scenes where the children rub themselves and hump the floor to be "sexy dancing" because they are children. This is something we obviously agree on - the problem is that there are non-normal people out there who think it is. That's literally the entire problem that we have with the movie. The movie's defenders will say that the scenes are supposed to be shocking and disturbing because they are children attempting to dance provocatively. This is entirely true for most people - but people who are capable of thinking about things other than themselves have realized that there are disturbed, sick people in the world who actively seek out things like this to rub one out to. We capable-of-thinking-for-five-extra-minutes people recognize that while we are properly disturbed by these scenes as intended, there are other disgusting people out there who will utilize this movie for their spank bank, and we subsequently get very upset about that because we actually care about children and don't want them to be sexualized and exploited this way.

Secondly, this argument fails in a more philosophical way. The argument here is that if you are not a pedophile, you will literally not even be able to recognize that the children are attempting to behave sexually. What happens is someone against the movie says the children are behaving sexually, and someone will say "you must be a pedophile if you thought the dancing was sexy". This would require that someone who is not a pedophile will be unable to recognize the sexual nature of the behavior. It will be so bewildering that you literally won't even understand the purpose of what's happening on the screen, because as a non-pedophile, you're unable to recognize when someone is attempting to behave sexually if you don't find them personally attractive. If this is the case, the entire point of the movie is lost, because the point of the movie is to shock the viewer in regards to child oversexualization.

 

This poster points out that they "couldn't imagine there could be a context where it wasn't creepy and cringey". This, supposedly, seemed like a smart thing to say for them, but I have trouble imagining that this person genuinely is unaware there are people who are aroused by children. If this is a genuine statement and not a hard cope, I can only say that it makes things much worse to know there are adults walking around unaware that children need to be protected from disturbed, perverted adults. It does seem easier to walk around pretending that society has evolved past harming vulnerable populations of people, but that is simply not the reality we live in.

As a bonus, by making this argument, you agree there are sick people in the world who would see these scenes and find them arousing. You should then, if you were being sincere, be as outraged as everyone else, if you truly recognized this. But you are not, for some reason. Probably because you are being insincere and don't actually believe the people who are mad about the explicit scenes in this movie are pedophiles, but are trying to "no u" them.

"You can't talk about the movie if you didn't watch it." (source (also basically every article about it))

I already touched on this but I will do so again as I have an additional bit to add. Most importantly, I've read countless testimonies from people who watched it and said it was disturbing. I actually do not enjoy being disturbed. I have often taken advice from people who said to not watch things that are disturbing and I have actually avoided many internet phenomena this way. I don't watch things if people who have watched them say that they are disturbing. I have absolutely no obligation to watch something that will negatively affect my mental health. Now, the point remains, am I then allowed to talk about the movie if I haven't watched it? Because I've taken the advice of people who have stated that this film is disturbing, and I subsequently do not wish to subject myself to something disturbing, must I then forfeit my ability to comment on the movie?

Yes, if I were writing a review of the movie or commenting on the plot or something in that vein. However, I'm not commenting on the plot or the message it attempts to convey. I have seen enough to know that the movie utilized exploitation of children to be created. My issue with the movie lies there - to argue that I must watch the movie in entirety to know whether or not this piece of information is true is disingenuous. The only argument that could possibly be made would be that the clips are not present in the movie, and I would find this out by watching the movie. This is, however, not a true statement and the fact is no one has attempted to make this claim. They know that the clips people have seen are present in the movie. I do not need to know about the plot or the character building of the main characters to know that the movie exploited its child actresses. The argument that people are attempting to make it essentially "yes those clips are there but when viewed within the context of the movie as a whole, they aren't child porn". It seems very disingenuous to say that something that, out of context, would look like child porn, is magically not child porn in context, as if someone who desired to utilize those clips for nefarious purposes doesn't know how the fast forward and rewind buttons work on their remote.

"The parents signed off on it, so no one was exploited." (source)

This is one of those "could be used unaltered to defend actual explicit child pornography" arguments. If anything a child does is magically fine if the parents sign off on it, then you can have a child do anything - anything at all - as long as you have the parent's permission. It doesn't matter that we were all absolutely horrified about the testimony of the 9 year old who said her mother's boyfriend was abusing her while her mother watched, I assume, since the mother signed off on it?

No, obviously not. It turns out it's possible for parents to put their children into dangerous situations. The parents of the children in this movie are irresponsible and have put their children into a situation where they were exploited. This argument insists that parents have full license to harm their children under the pretext that they are the parents. We as a society have decided that's actually not okay and have taken steps to remove children from households which we believe are causing them harm. While Child Protective Services is a corrupt organization that has used the threat of removing people's children on unjustifiable pretexts as political stunts, the concept remains that we believe parents do not have unrestrained rights to harm their children just because they are their children. To make this argument is disingenuous, though I suppose if the person making this argument really did think it was okay for parents to abuse their children, then at least they would be consistent - however, they would still be wrong.

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Cuties is Bad and You're Not an Intellectual for Thinking Otherwise

In the rare event that you are unaware of what the movie "Cuties" is, it's a French film that was recently released on Netflix. The movie claims to be a critique of Western oversexualized culture, starring a Muslim girl who is said to "join a twerking dance group to the disappointment of her traditional family". I have read several summaries of the movie from people who watched it and unfortunately seen small portions of clips from it. It is being vehemently defended by a large number of blue check mark journalists, under whose pitiable attempts to claim that there is value to the movie they are assaulted by 99% of the people who choose to reply. The problem with this movie is that it has displays of children being exploited, which would in any other context immediately be recognizable as child pornography to any human person. Because this particular child exploitation is masked behind a "message" and a fancy certificate of being an "award winning" (Sundance co-founder pleads guilty to child sexual abuse) "French film" (the French are sophisticated, or something), some bile-spewing, backwater degenerates have taken it upon themselves to defend it as "art":

"The controversy surrounding it seems to be propaganda fueled by QAnon types and anti-Semites."

 

"The freakout about #Cuties bothers me more than almost anything I've seen in a decade as a critic:"

 

 "This is going to blow your mind, but #Cuties (arriving today on #Netflix) is... exactly what rational people presumed it was!!"

 

These are just a few of the attempts to blatantly defend mainstreamed child pornography that I've seen today. I'm sure more will show up as the days pass, since these types of people believe they are much more intelligent than the people who disagree with them and that they could not possibly be wrong, ever. These people will double down until the end of their lives and there is nothing any reasonable person could do to change that. They believe that because the movie is a movie it's magically exempt from the actions individuals took to create it and the images it contains.

For any remaining reasonable people, I would make the following points quite clear, in hopes that they will not be smothered under the gaslighting attempts being made by the mainstream journalists.

What is happening now is a clear-cut example of something I have discussed before. In a previous post I outlined why "referring to non-mainstream theories and opinions as "right wing conspiracy theories" is intentional gaslighting". What is happening right now is that an opinion the vast, overwhelming majority of people hold is being labeled as something that is exclusive to "conservatives", or fill in the blank with any group of people vilified by the mainstream. A man above claims that it's antisemites who are against this movie. This particular accusation is so outrageous because it is slightly layered: far right people are often slandered as being antisemites, and so they extrapolated from satisfactorily simply calling it a "right wing" opinion and went for the throat with "antisemite", skipping ahead on the insult pyramid, not simply calling it right wing but calling it something more aggressive that right leaning people are often accused of being. 

 

This is meant to convince anyone uncomfortable with being called an antisemite or associated with antisemites to (hopefully, from the view of the author) come to his side and start being comfortable with sharing his opinion (as he is a Good Person, and certainly not an antisemite), leaving your uncultured, Nazi opinions behind. Because, see, antisemites are against this film, and if you are also against this film, you may be on the same side as antisemites! Which would be bad, for you and your image, and your aversion to antisemitism should motivate you to begin to support these blatant attempts to mainstream child pornography or else you might find yourself agreeing on a particular topic with people you disagree with on other topics, and we can't have that.

You can see other examples of using manipulative language to attempt to win people over and force this to be a "bipartisan" issue: saying the movie is exactly what "rational" people thought it would be. If you thought this was blatant child exploitation, you are irrational, is what this man is saying to us. Truly, if you were an elevated, enlightened individual like him, you would be rational (a Good Person), and know that this movie simply never was blatant child porn, despite visually seeing evidence with your own eyes to the contrary (tip: this is gaslighting).

Indeed, if you read the parental guidelines to this movie before they whitewashed and edited them to be less obvious that this is blatantly child porn, you would have seen that it actually admitted outright that it is child porn.

Supporters of the movie continue their feet-stomping tantrums by claiming that people cannot merely be against this film for showing children doing lewd things unless they can combat the "intellect" of the movie eloquently. Further down on one of the above links, a blue check insists: "If conservatives, who have jumped on the debate over #Cuties, want to be taken seriously as cultural arbiters, they have to be able to talk about the *text* of a movie like this in an honest, responsible way." All this is saying is that if the person who is telling you the movie exploits children can't manage to combat the messaging and script of the movie in a way that sounds like it's from a Cultured Person, then their opinion is invalid. Simply showing you a clip from the movie that is child pornography in order to prove that this film contains child pornography is "not an argument", they must be able to articulate an argument against the rest of the film, the parts that don't contain child pornography, in order to be "taken seriously" as people who are against child pornography.

This is not a compromise you need to actually make. It's actually entirely valid to point out that the movie required children to be exploited to be created and saying "the entire thing is in fact wrong for this reason". They could have filmed a movie about this topic without exploiting actual children. If they did this exact same movie without the child porn, no one would have cared. It may have even been universally accepted as portraying an important message! No doubt the oversexualization of Western culture is actually bad, which I agree with. I, however, cannot agree with the decision to show underaged girls twerking and rubbing themselves to make that point. 

 

Indeed, believing you are an intelligent, cultured individual for being able to "look past" the child exploitation present here is quite ironic - nuance is something that is lost on the majority of people. It seems very un-nuanced to condemn this entire film for "just a couple parts" that are child exploitation, but it is actually just as lacking in nuance as accepting the entire film for "just a couple parts" that are child exploitation. You have accepted the whole package - the message and the child porn - as opposed to condemning the entire package. It is the same amount of nuance. The correct nuanced position would be that the shots filmed and produced that show children in compromised positions was irresponsible and should have been handled entirely differently. 

 

Indeed, I have read several people say that the scene where the girl takes a photo of her privates and posts it online is quite lacking in any attempts to soften the distress this scene should cause. Somehow, this scene is filmed in a way that elicits the correct emotional response (shock, distress) - but they managed to film the dances, the twerking, the touching and everything else horrible in here in a pleasant and jolly light. It is very ignorant and shallow minded for the individuals who produced this film - giving them to benefit of the doubt as not being child predators themselves and genuinely believing they were filming something "shocking and distressing" - to film these particular scenes in a light that was pleasant and upbeat, as if they were truly attempting to make people aware of the effects of Western society's hypersexualization on children, they should have known that such a scene filmed in this way would be a gift on a silver platter to individuals who seek out these sorts of things for their own pleasure. It should have been filmed and produced in a way that elicited shame, horror, and distress - but it was not. This is the issue, and this is a nuanced position. You are not an intellectual for "looking past" the child exploitation happening for the message of the film, you are simply irresponsible.

 

Now, I've been seeing this circulating, and if you have been tricked by the following argument, allow me to provide you with some help: "People create movies criticizing the travesty of war by making war movies showing in vivid and uncomfortable detail the crimes against humanity that occur during war." This argument attempts to say that the film has full license to show children being exploited in order to criticize the oversexualized culture of the West, which is what they are claiming to be doing in the movie.

Here is the part where that argument falls short: no one is actually killed in a war movie. It's all simulated. The actual war crimes are not actually being perpetrated, they are being depicted and everyone goes home with all their limbs once it's over. Unfortunately, showing children behaving sexually in a movie is undeniably, inseparably literally child exploitation. The fact that these children performed these hypersexualized dances, lifted up their shirts, and touched each others bottoms doesn't go away when the movie is over. They are literal children, being encouraged to behave in a way for adult viewers. That is literally what child exploitation is. That is literally, that is precisely, it is exactly, it is in absolutely no uncertain terms exactly in every single way what child exploitation is. 

 

The only way the "war movies" argument would be valid would be if in war movies, they actually bombed civilian homes and murdered women and children in drone strikes. The harm done by exploiting the children who "starred" in this movie is permanent. Those children performed those acts. Now pedophiles are in their living rooms, watching these scenes on repeat with their pants down and you are genuinely trying to argue it is art. This is unbelievable.

This analogy does not work because you are not simulating child exploitation, you are performing it. They are literal children that have been groomed to perform these behaviors on camera. It does not matter what messaging you put before and after it. You filmed children touching each other and dancing provocatively, intentionally, and then showed it to people. There is a scene that is literal, by the definition of law, child pornography and then you showed that on Netflix. These children cannot consent and they have been exploited - actually and in real time these children were harmed. That is why the movie is bad. It actually does not matter, despite the protests of the blue check brigade on social media, what is before and after the exploitative scenes.

 

Another argument I have seen people attempt to make is that it is okay that these children were filmed performing these actions for a movie because they auditioned for it and were paid. This argument would fit neatly alongside an argument for the actual professional filming and creation of child porn, and thus it is an astronomically irresponsible argument. It does not make it okay to film children in compromising positions because you have paid them. We as a civilized people understand that children are still developing mentally, they have unblemished trust in adult authority figures, and they cannot truly consent to such acts. It is the job of sane, responsible adults to protect children until they have grown enough to recognize what is and is not safe to do. These truths are self-evident and the attempts to erase them from our memory banks is done intentionally by people who wish to exploit children. Do not fall for this type of manipulation - they want to harm children for their own gain and are seeking your permission. Do not give it to them.

The main argument, overall, is that the film has a message and there is a purpose to the sexualized scenes the real children actresses engage in, thus it's not actually child pornography, nor morally wrong. As I have in no unclear terms explained in the last few paragraphs, that actually doesn't matter. They could have filmed this movie without those parts, but they chose to include them. This was an active decision by the people who created this movie. It is, actually, okay to say that any particular scene in a movie makes it inappropriate - this happens all the time with movie ratings. Indeed, sometimes entire scenes are scrapped from movies for being "too much" so that they can go down an age rating, or because the people creating the movie find that it's simply "too much" for the kind of film they're making. This did not happen. They didn't "accidentally" exploit these children and add these disgusting scenes in the final product, it was an intentional decision. These children were instructed to practice these acts, repeatedly, until they were to the satisfaction of the directors. They filmed these shots dozens of times, then watched them all and chose "the best take" - because that's how movies are made. Thus we can look at their intentional decisions and say that these scenes were too much and should not have been put out for all the world to see. It is entirely good and justified for us to say that this is wrong.

I have read the thoughts of many people who have watched the movie - many regular, non-blue check people. The vast majority of opinions I'm seeing are that the film does have its messaging and is mostly a normal coming of age story, but for no clear reason it has these extreme sexualized scenes. At best, people say it's in a "neutral" style, but most people believe these scenes are portrayed with unironic positivity. They are filmed in a bright and pleasant manner with "lingering booty shots" as explained by one normal, everyday person. Many normal people who chose to watch this film "with an open mind" have concluded, through the lens of their very own eyes, that this movie unnecessarily sexualized their child actresses. Attempting to convince someone to doubt their own testimony is gaslighting. 

 

When you see something that is distressing because you know deep in your soul that it is detestable and morally wrong, and someone tries to tell you that you are simply not cultured enough to understand it, you are being gaslit. Do not allow yourself to be manipulated into believing that the evil you knew you saw was simply "art". I will reiterate that the intended messaging in the movie is not incorrect, but the means were a violation of every assumed duty we have as adults to care for and protect vulnerable children in society. 

 

I have not seen this movie and it is a red herring to say I must see it to criticize it. It is not necessary to compromise my mental health or give fuel to the burning rage I have against what society has become for me to know that certain scenes in this movie were irresponsible, damaging, and exploitative. I have seen enough from clips and read enough from people who have chosen to watch it. It is also a red herring to invoke any whataboutisms about other movies or TV series that have exploited children, as believe it or not, I was actually thoroughly disgusted with Good Boys and found it to be outrageously irresponsible to take literal children and have them perform those scenes for a film. I despise Toddlers in Tiaras and child beauty pageants - I never said I did not. All of these things are part of the slippery slope that has lead us here. Indeed, many of the people who organize such disgusting exploitation of children are pedophiles - South Park has a very explicit joke about this in one of their episodes, where one of the child beauty pageant judges is clearly rubbing himself behind the judging counter. These are all also terrible crimes against children and are responsible for getting us here in the first place. Yes, they are bad - Cuties is also bad, and actually measurably worse. It is not hypocritical for me to not mention all of these other things while explaining why the blue checks defending this particular movie need to be investigated by federal police.