"It's convenient to think of yourself as being on the right side of history. Your critics become dinosaurs in their own time, incapable of understanding. You may be incapable of understanding, too, but at least you have faith. At least you have given yourself over to the cause.
The further you go—the more patients you cut up, the more critics you silence—the harder it is to see your destination clearly. But it must be beautiful and just because you've sacrificed for it and identified yourself with it and you are a Good Person.
The entire conference spoke to this Good Person. You are a good person because you are overcoming your biases. You are a good person because you oppose the bad people (even if you don't understand them and we won't talk about them because that would be like letting them win)."
"The endpoint of this education in 'allyship' is a person who cannot question what she supports because she cannot see it, because she lacks the language to formulate the question, because she lacks the confidence of her own perceptions, because she has 'problematized' away any ground she might stand on or any principle she might insist on. She looks on real horrors with starry eyes because she must.
Of course the bad feelings don't really go away. The horror doesn't go away. But you lose touch with its true sources. You project it on the only people against whom you're allowed—encouraged—to vent bad feelings: the people trying to warn you you’re causing harm.
The more horror you must sublimate, the more horrible your detractors must become, even if the worst thing they say is simply: look. Look at what you’re doing."
Sounds an awful lot like what just happened this week with the AMA asking the DOJ to pursue domestic terrorism charges against the "look at what they're doing" brigade of Chris Rufo, LoTT, etc.
All of this feels like it should ultimately lead to some Alec Guiness-in-The Bridge on the River Kwai, "What have I done?" moment, but I highly doubt that will happen to any degree given what went on with the state-run eugenics programs of the early 20th Century.
I have arrived at the point I no longer trust anyone who can’t bust out a Vizio flow doc and explain each step in their thinking as well as how they handle exceptions.
Wanting to feel like the good guy in a movie is a hell of a drug. Just lets you skip over all the parts that make reality messy and warrant caution.
Eliza Mondegreen writes about this in her piece on attending the recent WPATH conference. https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/so-i-went-to-wpath
"It's convenient to think of yourself as being on the right side of history. Your critics become dinosaurs in their own time, incapable of understanding. You may be incapable of understanding, too, but at least you have faith. At least you have given yourself over to the cause.
The further you go—the more patients you cut up, the more critics you silence—the harder it is to see your destination clearly. But it must be beautiful and just because you've sacrificed for it and identified yourself with it and you are a Good Person.
The entire conference spoke to this Good Person. You are a good person because you are overcoming your biases. You are a good person because you oppose the bad people (even if you don't understand them and we won't talk about them because that would be like letting them win)."
"The endpoint of this education in 'allyship' is a person who cannot question what she supports because she cannot see it, because she lacks the language to formulate the question, because she lacks the confidence of her own perceptions, because she has 'problematized' away any ground she might stand on or any principle she might insist on. She looks on real horrors with starry eyes because she must.
Of course the bad feelings don't really go away. The horror doesn't go away. But you lose touch with its true sources. You project it on the only people against whom you're allowed—encouraged—to vent bad feelings: the people trying to warn you you’re causing harm.
The more horror you must sublimate, the more horrible your detractors must become, even if the worst thing they say is simply: look. Look at what you’re doing."
Sounds an awful lot like what just happened this week with the AMA asking the DOJ to pursue domestic terrorism charges against the "look at what they're doing" brigade of Chris Rufo, LoTT, etc.
All of this feels like it should ultimately lead to some Alec Guiness-in-The Bridge on the River Kwai, "What have I done?" moment, but I highly doubt that will happen to any degree given what went on with the state-run eugenics programs of the early 20th Century.
Ayup.
I have arrived at the point I no longer trust anyone who can’t bust out a Vizio flow doc and explain each step in their thinking as well as how they handle exceptions.