Feel free to check out my full essay on gender theory
“In the universe, very few things are discrete in what they are. There’s, in almost all cases, a continuum between one kind of object and another. Now, it’s hard to have conversations about continua so you divide it up into as many categories as is sensible, then you have a way to discuss what’s going on in the universe with others…”
“…this is true of all human minds, because we gotta categorize… it makes it easier to think about it, but in the end it’s just lazy. So you say, “Boy or girl. Are you a boy or a girl?” And then someone is androgynous and it makes you feel uncomfortable. But just because you feel uncomfortable, does that give you the right to come back to a person who is expressing their freedom of self and tell them to change?”
“If we allow… gender expression to appear on a spectrum, as is apparently the case in the real world where people have the freedom to do so, then for you to put your limited capacity to think on a spectrum in a law that inhibits the freedom of others, that is not a free country.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Piers Morgan Uncensored
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a very intelligent and thoughtful individual and I think he understands and expresses the valid left-wing perspective on gender theory extremely well. But he does not seem to understand the valid right-wing perspective, so I will do what I can to clarify it.
Lefties believe in creativity, individualism, and experimentation. Creativity breeds innovation. Innovation breeds progress. Progress is good.
However, there are more wrong answers to a math problem than there are right answers. There are more ways to get yourself killed than there are ways to keep yourself alive. That is why righties believe in community, cooperation, and, controversially, conformity. Creativity breeds bad ideas. Bad ideas breed regress. Regress is bad.
In a balanced society, the role of the lefties is to come up with new ideas because some of them make things better. The role of the righties is to fight new ideas because most of them make things worse. The right gets a bad rap these days because all we can see is the good ideas that make things better. We don’t notice when a bad idea is stopped before it can make things worse.
On the topic of gender theory, individuals do, in fact, exist on a spectrum. But not just the gender spectrum. There is also an individuality spectrum. Some people are extremely driven to stand out. Others are extremely driven to fit in. Most of us are driven, in different ways to different degrees, to do both. Because of the need to stand out, people need freedom. But because of the need to fit in, people also need constraint.
The best thing to do for a child is to tell the boys exactly what it means to be a boy and tell the girls exactly what it means to be a girl. Tell them that boys like trucks and mud and fighting and building. Tell them that girls like dresses and dolls and taking care of things. Give them all the constraints you can, and then give them the freedom to push back. As individuals, children will feel and experiment with what works for them and what doesn’t. And because most of our binary gender stereotypes are based on real, measurable tendencies, providing those constraints will actually give the children a leg up on discovering who they really are.
On the other hand, the more airtime is devoted to discussing exceptions to the rule like homosexuality, transgenderism, androgyny, and gender fluidity, the more children will be fooled into believing that the exceptions are the rule. And the more conformist children will try to be transgender, androgynous, and fluid in an attempt to fit in even though they would have been happier and healthier buying into the gender binary, just as populations happier and healthier than ours have for generations.
While I understand and agree with most of what Tyson said in that interview, I do have a couple of disagreements.
First, no, categorization is not lazy. Children draw stick figures. While you could claim it is lazy that most of them do not grow up to learn classical painting techniques, I would not call that lazy because it is perfectly reasonable to be interested in things other than art.
It is not lazy to hold to the binary model of gender either. Whatever people say, gender is not an identity. And if people don’t care about gender, they have no obligation to care about the fact that you do. They have no right to attack you for the way you choose to live. But neither do you have the right to attack them for rejecting the way you choose to live.
Second, to the question, “Just because you feel uncomfortable, does that give you the right to come back to a person who is expressing their freedom of self and tell them to change?” Yes, every individual has the right to express themselves, including the right to express disagreement with another person’s expression. It’s fair to worry about a law that inhibits freedoms. But offering people unwanted advice is covered by the freedom of speech.
Lefties have plenty of valid reasons to be lefties. Throughout history, conformity has won out over creativity consistently. In almost every case, it is the conformists forcing the creatives to conform. But be aware of the possibility that creatives, given the opportunity, would also try to force the conformists to be more creative.
Just because there had never been a liberal tyranny before the French Revolution doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to have a liberal tyranny; just because Robespierre was chanting “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” while chopping off heads doesn’t mean that anyone necessarily deserved to have their head chopped off.
