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Susan Scheid's avatar

Wow, thank you for another information filled and action packed episode of Broadview in Brief! I love particularly your rumination, which I have been curious about as well: “but what really intrigues me is the ways the current conflicts about gender may be reflecting larger patterns of human beliefs and behaviors over time.” I do think, as a society, we are vastly underestimating the cascade of traumas arising out of living through the pandemic, and historical analogues could have much to teach us here.

There is a post by Colin Wright that connects to this, and I have been wondering ever since I read it what lessons we might learn from historic examples, such as the huge rise in spiritualism in the wake of the trauma of WWI, the Scopes trial era, and, related to that, the more recent case Wright describes in the linked article, from which this excerpt is taken:

“In the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, plaintiffs contested a Pennsylvania school district’s policy that mandated teaching the religious concept of Intelligent Design (ID) alongside evolution in biology class. Biologists were summoned to defend the extensive evidence supporting evolution and explain how ID does not meet the fundamental standards of the scientific method: ID is unfalsifiable and relies on supernatural explanations that fall outside the purview of science. . . .

“While both arguments highlight genuine complexities within biology, they misconstrue the actual scientific understanding. In the Kitzmiller case, the presiding judge, a Christian appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush, saw through the ruse and ruled against teaching ID as science, stating that “ID is a religious view . . . and not a scientific theory.” The denial of biological sex is no different, and its societal impacts are more pervasive and harmful than the denial of evolution.”

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-sex-binary-on-trial

Kate, I think with this you have hit on a particularly rich, untapped vein to pursue, and I look forward to learning anything further you, and others here, discover.

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Rbl_Reason's avatar

Kate, Another thought on the question you pose about societal changes, I am reading Eric Hoffer's the True Believer (1951) and think that while it's outdated in some ways, he was really on to something in terms of understanding how societal change happens and in particular how mass movements are fueled. Here's a quote, “There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and a proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They ask to be deceived.” I wish Hoffer were around today as I'd be very interested in his thoughts on gender!

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