I started Out trying to contact Frank Gaffney:
How many people did you contact?
Frank Gafney was not interested “Howye mate, apologies up to my eyes at the mo, and also letting that die, it was a shitstorm for an entire year haha. Sorry I can’t help” Understandably so this is an ugly topic and i can see why he would not touch it with a barge pole.
To be fair to Fank he did give me two other options to follow up with it was just i didnt get enough time to follow up with them
Angela Nagle – Couldnt find a single thing on her
John Watters – Legend
Michael clarke –
Clare o connor – in twitter conversation with right now she seems open to it
Claire O’Connor and John Waters were the two I got the most engagement out of, the latter being the far more generous with his time energy and intellect. I actually learned a lot from him and have bought His book on the back of it. It was thrilling to have the attention of a real life Journalist and the more i find out about this guy he is a real rebel/punk or rock and roller albeit he’s from Sligo or somewhere Mayo or Roscommon its all Van Demons land to me :).
I was left very disappointed with Claire though she would have brought some real balance to my piece and really I wanted to understand the other side a bit more but she was not willing or able to engage. To be fair I cant blame her and am grate full for the little interaction she did provide. She does however seem to have time to post all manner of topics and issues on twitter but again that is her prerogative and she is entitled to it I just wish I could ave heard more from her on the topic she seems to be a very sharp young woman and I would have licked to here more from her.
How was the attaching of questions to contacts?
At the outset it seemed very easy but when I actually put the questions to John Waters in my case it proved a little more challenging.
John gave me some push back when it came, to my first round of questions “Trouble is, ‘What do you think about identity politics?’ is not a coherent question. The only answer I can give you is, ‘I try to think about it as little as possible.’ Can you formulate a couple of more specific questions so we may be able to get somewhere?
Were you happy with your questions?
On reflection he makes a really good point one which I hadn’t really been properly prepared for I came back with these gems 🙂
- So maybe a more specific question would be what and how much damage is identity politics doing to Irish society?
- What are the dangers of identity politics?
- How is identity politics not prejudiced? and if it is then how can people be so hypocritical?
- How does the promotion and celebration of identity politics metastasised from the early Irish feminist movement.
- Does feminism have an end goal? What does equality look like?
- Am I a misogynist for even asking those questions because it sure feels like you cant as a straight white male ask those questions.
The following was is the correspondence between us
I began with:
Hi John, I have just recently discovered you on the grand torino podcast and found you fascinating. I am doing a project for college on identity politics and the oppression Olympics. As part of this I need to get some primary research. I would be extremely grateful if you could answer even one question regarding this topic. I have read Angela Nagles book Kill all Normies. After hearing Frank Gaffney recommended it on the Irish Womens Podcast. He however is reluctant to get back into that shitstorm as he put it. Which i can understand. I appreciate that you are probably very busy but any and all feedback you could give would be great.
He replied with
Dear Donal
I haven’t read that book but I see it got a positive review in the Irish Times, which would give me cause for concern. I don’t really understand what your angle on all this might be. I don’t get involved in online stuff. But if you can let me know where you stand and what you’re looking for I can work out what I ought up say about these matters.
Good wishes
I then returned with
Hi John,
Fair play to you for getting back to me John I appreciate it.
I’m learning about topics like Identity politics, Intersectionality, Gamergate and all that fun stuff.
Truthfully I am really conflicted I don’t agree fully with either side, it seems to come down to the Left and the Right.
I’m finding if you go too far left you get Antifa, which do take things go “too far” and vice versa on the right Trump Mylo etc.
Its interesting because neither side is completely correct and neither is completely wrong.
I just stumbled across you and thought what you had to say was interesting.
You stick up for men in a political climate where that can be very dangerous and unpopular.
My lecturer is always on to about finding Irish examples and you represent that.
I’ve got a number of points and then question associated with them.
However I think you might be best placed to speak on Identity politics and the demonetisation of men, and if those men happen to be white, much less straight forget about it.
To be clear I may just not be fully understanding of privilege and I my objectivity is lessened by the fact that I am a straight white male notwithstanding, I tend to think its a load of bull.
These are just like the first draft but it gives you an idea of what direction I’m going in and some context.
So I wanted to set my stall out and explain that while this stuff might be happening in north America, because of the nature of the internet it means that its affecting people in Ireland young people especially.
“social media is where most young people now develop their political ideas for the first time”
So my question would be what are the implications for this and then I go on to discover how this plays out on line.
We studied this guy Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony, and counter Hegemony which was really cool but more than that you can see it play out online between the right and the left.
From there then I move on to Identity politics, I get a definition from Gafney and J.Peterson and then this guy Tom Walker has a funny explanation of it.
Then I move on to Gamergate and its implications and aftereffects “Gemergate brought gamers, rightest chan culture, anti feminism and the online far right closer to mainstreeam discussion and it also politicised a broad group of young people, mostly boys, who organised tactics around the idea of fighting back against the culture war being waged by the cultural far left.” that’s from Nagles book Kill all normies
Then I’d like to give an example of the left doing something similar for balance.
Then I have a points about the death of mainstream media, another on Intersectionality.
Its identity politics that I think might be best fit for you, and to be clear John I’m not looking to catch you out or make you look bad.
I just want to get your take on it because I think you are an important voice in our country.
I think your take on abortion, while I don’t agree with it fundamentally I do agree with some of the sentiments of it.
I do agree with the woman’s right to choose, but it should be a difficult decision for people to make.
I do think that abortion is murder but I think that the rights of the mother out weigh those of the child.
If your asking me if my girlfriend came to me tomorrow and said she was pregnant I would say right well you have to have then child.
If she disagreed I think it would be a deal breaker for me because I would look at her as if she had murdered our child, but I think you have to have the right to choose even if I don’t or wouldn’t agree with your choice.
Anyway sorry to get bogged down in that I heard you on a podcast with Eamon Dunphy, which was very entertaining to be able to say you called him a bollocks very cool!! #LIFEGOALS
Again even if I don’t agree with you I still think you should have been allowed to speak and be listened to and you made some good points around the constitution.
Anyway sorry I digress I am thrilled to see you get back to me and I would love to get your take on any of these topics:
Identity politics the Hegemony of the Left and Right how that plays out online and then how that affects us here today in Ireland.
The question I would pose to you about Identity politics would be firstly what do you think of it but more than that what do you think are the implications of this and the growth of this leftest culture and why is it important to pay attention to this?
The suicide rates in Ireland are an interesting statistic and I would look to tie them in also.
I hope I have not scared you off you are the only person that I have contacted that has even got back to me.
It is my fervent wish that we can continue to correspond from time to time, I am beginning my journey into the Journalistic frontiers and recognise the value of some sage advice from an old gnarled seasoned vet such as yourself.
I’m reminded of Will Geer in that film Jeremiah Johnson.
I have a goal of starting my own podcast and college represents a structured learning environment that would help with that
A Journalism course is the closest thing to that, at least it ticks a lot of the boxes and is great for show topics and content etc.
I feel that long form conversations are a lost art and more than anything else I enjoy them so I am looking to pursue them.
Anyway I would be extremely grateful if you could give me some of your thoughts on my endeavour regarding college assignment and the answering of some or any of the questions.
I can only pay you in a good bottle of wine or if you would meet for a pint that would be equally cool.
Thanks again for getting back to me at least, I very much appreciate it.
Kind regards,
Dear Donal
Sorry, just one question before I try to think through your email:
You think ‘abortion is murder’ and also that women have ‘the right to choose’ murder?
Hi John,
Well not totally and not in every situation but like if my partner had one(an abortion) and depending on the context I would be a little resentful because she kind of ended the baby’s life, sorry murder was probably not the right word.
To clarify I think that women have the right to choose what they want to do with their body’s, and that this right supersedes the right of the unborn.
Feck it anyway I’m sorry John I didn’t mean to offend you, and honestly don’t want to fall out with you but yea that’s how I feel.
If she didn’t do anything, she would have that baby and if she does do something, she wont and the baby will die hence her actions or your actions if its a joint decision caused the death of the baby.
Murder is a strong word and there are probably a number of contexts where this for me would not apply, like if the woman was raped or if her health was in danger.
But yea fundamentally if you have an abortion just because its inconvenient then yea like your kinda killing the kid or are at least responsible and if you believe in the man in the sky then… well he’s not gonna like that.
Sorry for the relaxed language you being a journalist probably don’t like that and I’m breaking a load of grammatical rules so if I do offend its not my intention.
And if it sound like I’m licking your arse just to get you to answer my questions for my college project then, it is, and I am 
Dear Donal.
You’re not offending me. If anything, the way you express your thoughts is an offence to yourself. No offence! You seem like a decent guy who’s got his head in a knot. My diagnosis is that you’re suffering from cognitive dissonance disorder as a result of exposure to almost non-stop propaganda. Via the crack of that ‘almost’, some sense has crept in, which causes flashes of truth to enter into your ramblings and makes everything you say sound totally incoherent, but this is not necessarily all bad news. My chief suspects as to who the propagandists are? Right now: Antonio Gramsci and your girlfriend. Gramsci was the inspiration for a group called The Frankfurt School, which was mainly responsible for the propaganda currently gripping academia throughout the Western world. I’ve written a little about this in my new book, Give Us Back the Bad Roads, which I think you ought to read if you want to know anything truthful about identity politics. For me, the world doesn’t divide easily into ‘left’ and ‘right’, but rather into ‘truth’ and ‘lies’. Right now, your emails are a mixture of the true and the untrue, which worries me even though I don’t know you. It ought to worry you. For example, your view of abortion is all over the shop. Essentially, you’re saying that women have the right to do wrong. Think about that, then maybe think about what it would feel like to change that view to an ethical one. Maybe you would lose the ‘friendship’ of a few of the women in your life, but maybe it would be worth it to be able to read over one of your emails one day and think to yourself: ‘That actually makes sense!’ It’s all there for ya!
No need to lick my arse. It won’t help you, and strangely helping you is what I’m trying to achieve. All I ask is that you try to think straight. Ask yourself: if I had never gone to university and never met my girlfriend, would I be able to think better than I do? My guess is yes.
If we can get over the questions issue, we can meet for a mouthful of tea or coffee, sure. (I don’t take anything stronger these days.) But let’s try to sort this q&a thing first.
Trouble is, ‘What do you think about identity politics?’ is not a coherent question. The only answer I can give you is, ‘I try to think about it as little as possible.’ Can you formulate a couple of more specific questions so we may be able to get somewhere?
Oh, and by the way, the ‘man in the sky’ is neither here nor there: either there is a law or there is no law. Which are you for?
Stop listening to bullshit and bullshitters. I suspect there may be a brain under all that Gramscian garbage!
Sincerely,
John Waters
Hi John,
Yes certainly I believe in the law one of my favourite films is a man for all season and in it, is a speech about the importance of the rule of law. I’ll attach the link to the clip here, but I would imagine you’ve seen the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
Things that are, have more “rights” than things that are yet to be, woman are and a fetus is what is yet to be.
I heard somewhere and forgive the sketchy details but I heard that there is some tribe that doesn’t consider children to be a full member of the tribe or a full human if you will, until they are a certain age.
So that they do not benefit from the same level of rights that the rest of the tribe do until a certain age, it was said to have something to do with the high mortality rates and proving your worth.
But more than that I tend to lean towards that, in the sense that your not a real human until about 2 or 3.
Now to be clear its not that i agre with this fully but the concept or the idea of it makes some sense to me.
Again I do not have any children and this view may change once that happens however as it stands I must try to be as honest as possible and hope that my views do not offend or insult too much, which is not my intention.
Nor is this a hill I am willing to die on but i do still think that a woman should have the right to choose to have an abortion or not.
I am ignorant of the law on this Irish law in particular but those are my feelings.
Regarding identity politics I think it is a bad thing and I think the spread of it and promotion of it is bad.
It is to me akin to judging people on things that they have no control over which is as bad as sexism, racism or homophobia.
As Gafney points out “Straight white male” is an identity I didn’t choose. I mean it wasn’t a decision I had any say in, what sexuality, race, or gender I am. I was born this way. But also, “straight white male” was never something I chose to “identify” as. At various times if you’d asked me about my identity, I might have said “Irish”, “a Dub”, or “working class”, but never straight, white, or male – let alone the arbitrary combination of all three. But people who talk a lot about “choice” and “freedom” chose for me, and decided that’s what my identity should be reduced to.”
So maybe a more specific question would be what and how much damage is identity politics doing to Irish society?
What are the dangers of identity politics?
How is identity politics not prejudiced? and if it is then how can people be so hypocritical?
How does the promotion and celebration of identity politics metastasised from the early Irish feminist movement.
Sorry to jump off topic but also do you think we have equality of the sexes in Ireland?
Does feminism have an end goal? What does equality look like?
Am I a misogynist for even asking those questions because it sure feels like you cant as a straight white male ask those questions.
I recently listened to Sam Harris speak with Rebecca Traister and it was very interesting.
Because as far as I can see straight white men are at the bottom of the oppression Olympics and black left handed lesbian’s are at the top.
I agree with your feelings regarding Identity politics I didn’t know it existed until very recently same goes for Gramsci.
I must admit to my ignorance surrounding him, it was just that he coined the term hegemony and comparisons were made in class with his idea’s and Chomsky’s manufacturing consent.
Its thrilling to actually be in correspondence with a real life journalist I have had such a negative idea of them but having heard you speak so disparagingly regarding them (#not all Journalists) I felt a real connection with that idea.
It just seems from the outside looking in that journalists would be willing to compromise their ideals for a good story and that with the pending death of mainstream media and the growing popularity of click-bate articles online.
That this was on the rise as we witness the death throes of a dying medium.
Sincerely,
What are the dangers of identity politics? What danage can it do to society?
It’s doing tremendousn damage already, but it’s only starting. Identity politics, so called, is really a politics that elevates alleged victims of alleged historical injustice over those not included among the listed victims. It;s a variant on Marxism that was created by a group called The Frankfurt School and fed intravenously into mainstream culture from the 1960s via academia, the media and popular culture. It seeks to replace concepts like justice and fairness with ‘equality’ and ‘rights’. It’s also known as Cultural Marxism, a slight misnomer, since there are many other ingredients present aside from Marxism: Freudianism, Nihilism, Gramscianism, etc, Essentially, it elavates certain groups over the remainder of society and by its very existence declares that there is no such thing as justice, since justice can exist only if it is available to everyone. If it is not available on the same basis to everyone, it is not justice. ‘Rights’ do not amount to justice, because they can be claimed by the abuse of power, which is essentially what is happening now. In the US, due to the agitation of feminists and the corruption that has crept into areas like family law, child protection and other quasi-legal categories, the presumption of innocence is being dispensed with, as are age-old concepts like the rules of evidence and the right not to self-incriminate. We see this writ large in the MeToo movement, co-founded by a woman who is known to have paid off an underage boy with whom she’d had sexual relations. This is a new tyranny, which may yet prove far more tyrannical than anything it claims to be the response to. Under different headings also – LGBT, Black Power etc. – we see what is essentially thuggishness making demands for preferential treatment and riding roughshod over long-established principles of law and justice, and taking a wrecking ball to core institutions of human civilisation. If it goes on, there will be no civilisaton left, and it is hard to see how this can be avoided since almost nobody is prepared to stand up against it.
How is identity politics not prejudiced? and if it is then how can people be so hypocritical?
Hypocrisy and incoherence are the keynotes of this ideology. It is rooted in the deepest prejudice imaginable. By claiming justification of unproven crimes of the past, it perpetrates far worse crimes in the present. Feminis, for exampl,e is based almost entire;ly on lies, for example the lie that men used to run the world in thriw own interest. Men never operate as a collective – they are hardwired to compete. They act to protect and provided for their families, and will kill one another if necessary to achieve this.
How does the promotion and celebration of identity politics metastasised from the early Irish feminist movement.
This is an interesting question, I believe the internet had been a crucial factor – Twitter, especially, which is a liar’s and coward’s charter – as has the entry of radical LGBTism into Irish society sometime during the Noughties. They provided the armed wing of identity politics, specialing in intimidation, demonisation and hate-mongering and having access to unlimited funds via a global network of homosexualists. Of course, to hide what they were about, they went around accusing others of hate-mongering. This is standard behaviour for ideologues of these persuasions. The 2015 referendum on the demolitiion of marriage provided the golden opportunity they had been waiting for, Feminists bailed in on behalf of the LGBT movement on the understanding that the LGBT goons would make their services available to fight the abortion referendum due to come later. I’ve written at length in my book aboput this also, in the chapter call After the Ball, in which I piece together a book that is now out of print, but whicg was the earliest manifesto of the LGBT movement, telling its membership how to impose their will on societies, and which has all come to pass in ireland over the past five years or so.
Sorry to jump off topic but also do you think we have equality of the sexes in Ireland?
No, but not in the ways people think. There is now grotesque wrongful discrimination against men in all kinds of ways: denying them rights to relationships with their children, preferring women of inferior talent and experience for certain kinds of jobs, tricking with the education system to favour females, and so on. But these things are not just a lack of equaliuty., Equality is actually a bogus measure, unless you mean equality of opportunity. Woman have opportunities now that far exceed those available to men. An army of State-funded feminists makes sure of this. There are no State-funded masculinists! This racket is camouflaged by propaganda, which is to say lies. For example, the idea that women are being paid less than men for doing the same work. This too is bogus. Show me the newspaper ad for a job that offers one salary for men and another for women… Explain this to me: if an employer can get women to do the same wok as men, but for, say, 20% less money, why are so many idiotic employers continuing to employ men? The reality is that the figures are being doctored: what are offered as comparative salaries are actually groes income figures, the outcomes f men having worked far more hours and taken on more resonsibility. In general, women make decisions about their work lives that relate also to their family lives, caring for children and so on. Men remain the primary providers for most families, and must therefore – again, in general – work longer hours and be continuously flexible and available. Many men do wortk they don’t enjoy, comply because it brings in more money. Women, in general, don’t do this. The entire case is a total mishmash of falsities. Again, everyone is terrified of saying so for fear of one word: misogynist.
Does feminism have an end goal? What does equality look like?
The endgame of modern feminism is the total destruction of men and the civilisation built mostly by men. I have know this for 20 years, since I first began to write about family law abuses against men and saw how determined these people wee to shut me up. Equality is impossible. No two people are alike. No two men, no two women, no man and woman. Everyone has different strengths, needs, desires, talents, etc. If you try to impose equality, you extinguish all justice, all creativity and all freedom. That’s what’s happening. What equality will look like? A world in which there will be no acknowledgement of talent, effort, work or passion. Am evened-out world of pancake people who, having been stripped of all desire, will walk around in pharmaceutial trances, waiting to die.
Am I a misogynist for even asking those questions because it sure feels like you cant as a straight white male ask those questions.
Yes, you are a misogynist. Congratulations! Welcome to the club! To be called a misogyist or a homophobe has become a badge of honour. Wear it with pride. It means you are shaking off the progaganda and starting to think for yourself.
How many people did you contact?
Frank Gafney was not interested “Howye mate, apologies up to my eyes at the mo, and also letting that die, it was a shitstorm for an entire year haha. Sorry I can’t help” Understandably so this is an ugly topic and i can see why he would not touch it with a barge pole.
Angela Nagle – Couldnt find a single thing on her
John Watters – Legend
Michael clarke – A seemingly random guy from twitter I noticed he had commented on a post so I said I’d give it a shot by asking him.
Delete this message sent from donal carroll
to which he replied
The main issues of politics are peace and war (including the importance of Irish neutrality, the threat to world peace posed by the US and its NATO allies and the decline in respect for international law, in particular, on the part of the West), economic development (including jobs, pay and workers’ rights and the implications for jobs of artificial intelligence), the environment (including climate change and the military dimension to damage to the global environment), infrastructure issues (including health and housing and the need for the built environment to help address the threats posed by climate change), equality (including a fair taxation system), globalization (including the relationship between sovereign states and international bodies such as the EU and the UN), education (including the decline of the education system in the English-speaking world since the 1960s), social and political awareness (including the lack of idealism on the part of most young people today compared to the 1960s), the need to develop an ethical basis for society to replace that of the religious values that are now a thing of the past, social policy (including abortion, same-sex marriage and the legally, morally, philosophically and ethically difficult issues thrown up by scientific developments in the reproductive area) and much, much more. Identity politics has become a means by which political parties that are not willing to address the issues I have mentioned above justify their existence. They are also a means of “minorities” (often self-identified) securing funding.
Not sure if he got the meaning right but anyhow it was a swing and miss from Michael but all part of the process I suppose.
Clare o connor – in twitter conversation with right now she seems open to it
Hi Claire,
Its Donal here from our twitter chat.
Thanks so much for getting back to me ok so I have been asked to write a blog post and I have chosen to do mine on Identity Politics and the oppression Olympics.
I suppose my initial question would be what are your thoughts on Identity Politics and from there then we can flesh out the next few questions.
I am really looking to balance out my argument and am obviously biased by my prism of the world. Being a straight white
Sinead Redmond writes quite well on it in her Cop on Comrades article “Most of us have grown up learning to appease men. How to give them our space, how to deal with the fact that they dominate any political discussions, that they are paid more, heard more and believed more.”
This unfortunately has not been my experience and if anything I feel the same way about women weirdly. I am not trying to be a prick here I promise I am genuinely looking for balance and sincerely trying to understand the other side.
However this does just alienate me and really just makes me feel like ok well she is playing for the feminist team and I should do the same but for my team.
This just seems like it will only help to divide us and feminist and feminism is going to accuse me of being a misogynist then I just feel like well ok well let me show you one
Like it just seems like if i’m already guilty by virtue of choices i did not make or have straight white male then well I’ll fight fire with fire.
I’m not really sure how I’m sounding but if you could let me know what your thoughts on identity politics are I can then maybe dig down on that and formulate some more specific questions.
Thanks again for taking the time to correspond with me.
Kind regards,
to which she replied
Hi Donal,
Apologies on the delay. Im finishing a course monday and have a lot of assignments to catch up on. Typing this on the go so apologies that its rushed.
I also had a couple of queries with the question that i had meant to get back to you with. I’m not exactly sure what Identity Politics means so would need more detail to really answer the question. It wasnt something i ever studied in social science. Most of the times ive seen the phrase used its been a criticism of intersectionality which i really cant understand. My understand of intersectionality is understanding the nuanced barriers and oppressions we face based on our gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc. As with anything there are differing extremes in regards to opinions but i genuinely can’t see how acknowledging these things is not a positive step towards addressing them.
Your personal comments seem more specific to aspects of feminism and the use of phrases such as toxic masculinity. I understand that. I have brothers that have faced barrier after barrier mainly due to being working class. These things arent black and white. For me, its possible to acknowledge that a patriarchal system places specific barriers in front of women that men do not experience, and also accept the barriers and specific struggles faced by men. The nature of intersectionality is to accept that multiple aspects of our life, and the social constructs that feed peoples beliefs about those aspects, impact the barriers and oppprtunities we face.
If we focus on just one we are ignore the very real struggles that people face. We cant tell a member of the travelling community or a black person that the struggles they face are only because they are working class, because that simply isnt true. Likewise with somebody that is gay or trans. Ignoring the fact they may have received emotional and physical abuse most of their life as a direct result of that is to creating a hierarchy or suffering, and of who matters.
Another point actually, one thing i do know is that sinead redmond didnt write that copon comrade piece, it was written by a group of women and there were others with more of an input as far as i had heard. Might be important if you’re quoting in your article.
Most importantly I wish we could all listen to each other a bit more. There are a lot of passionate, intelligent people that are unwilling to even attempt to understand another persons views. Wether this is because of their own anger, defensiveness, personal experience or a complete belief in their own ideology i can’t say, but shutting down conversation and dismissing peoples lived experiences is never the way to go.
Regards
Clare
I then emailed her
Hi Claire,
Thanks a million for getting back to me and I hope that we can maintain a friendly tone and atmosphere here because we are about to start wading into some murky waters.
I’d also like to preface this with my fervent hope and wish that we can, while holding polar opposite views maintain open and honest lines of communication.
It would be so nice to be able to correspond with as diverse a range of people as possible online while I study it is a great way to learn and understand topics and ideas more fully.
I found the lecturers to ghost you fairly badly, I mean correct me if I’m wrong but are they not supposed to be leading and guiding us?
As someone who genuinely enjoy’s speaking and discussing ideas with people who hold very different views than myself and to be fair I am more than willing to change my mind.
Admittedly I’m just learning about some of this so I may be a bit ignorant, my apologies I hope you can forgive me and be as patient as you sound.
Left in a few definitions I found, not to be smarmy of spiteful it just helps me to understand things better also I have included a video that I thought was helpful in explaining some of this stuff.
Again not trying to be smart I’m just not sure whats allowed or acceptable and i want to be as respectful as possible with your time and patience, feel free to get back to me whenever you have a free moment or not at all, this should be very relaxed and if you don’t want to you don’t have to and I don’t care or mind if you do or don’t I just find it intellectually stimulating and safe because we never have to meet each other if we don’t want to.
Ok so I want to begin with “My understand of intersectionality is understanding the nuanced barriers and oppressions we face based on our gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc. As with anything there are differing extremes in regards to opinions but i genuinely can’t see how acknowledging these things is not a positive step towards addressing them”.
So I think that intersectionality as defined does not exist and I think its a convenient thing to be able to blame how hard the world is or any and all failures people have in the world. Its like Ali G said “is it cos I is black”, which to me was a satirical commentary of how ethnic minorities can just so quickly or as a last resort pull the race card, he has consistently shone a light on these types of outdated and ugly attitudes with songs like”Throw the jew down the well” which is brilliant being that he actually is Jewish allowing him license to be overtly antisemitic in a satirical way so as to highlight why this is wrong.
I am not a racist, like I don’t believe black people are any better or worse than white people same goes for gay people and women. I think it is wrong to be prejudiced against people for something that they had no choice in and this is what I believe Identity politics does by categorising me as a straight white male and then demonising me for something someone else did.
I am not denying the fact that racism, homophobia and sexism exist, however what I am denying is the zero sum game you describe in your last mail “If we focus on just one we are ignore the very real struggles that people face”. It is not my intention to ignore these struggles but not being guilty of any of these things namely racism, homophobia or sexism. the accusation or implication that i am is ironically enough offensive to me.
Its terribly frustrating to be to be stereo typed like this and I worry that people don’t see the dangers of characterising straight white men as inherently bad people in an oppressive and male dominated society and its all our fault and we should just be quiet and let the black gay feminists right the wrongs that the straight white males have made from now until time immemorial.
I didn’t do any of this but yet I somehow benefited from my straight white male privilege I reject that with extreme prejudice.
There is a great Nietzche quote “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
There is an affect to this and there will be a backlash young boys are ignored today in Ireland and they are commuting suicide at an alarmingly high rate and there is much more I can say on this but I want to try as best as possible to be respectful of your time and seemingly endless patience if you’ve gotten this far.
What i think and believe is that lets just pick men and women, we need each other the ying to the other yang we compliment each other the same goes for gay people and black brown and yellow people. Diversity is good but forced diversity is a tyranny as Jordan Peterson says equality of opportunity but never equality of outcome. You can have that only after you pry it from my cold dead hands! that part was me trying to be funny but I hope you can seem my point and if not then it is my fault because the responsibility for the message lies with the sender.
Again thanks for taking the time and Please feel free to write back whenever or not at all so no pressure, thanks again and I would love to get you thoughts on the above
Kind regards,
Donal.
The act of believing that disagreeing with someone on certain ideologies equates to them disapproving a particular identity such as one’s race, sex, sexuality, religion, etc. rather than the ideology itself. Instead of focusing on the logical aspect of an idea or opinion, identity politics instead believes that a particular identity is opposing all people who belong to a particular identity.
Examples of identity politics include:
(1) Black people believing that cops specifically target them because of the color of their skin
(2) Feminists believing that men judge and treat them poorly solely based on their gender
(3) Women voting for Hillary Clinton because the US needs its first woman president ASAP to empower women
(4) People believing Trump’s voters hate all women, Muslims, and Mexicans by supporting his platform
(5) People assuming if you are a white male, your political ideology is trying to push white supremacy
Ok so that’s what I was referring to now i also looked up Patriarchy and got this
patriarchy
/ˈpeɪtrɪɑːki/
noun
-
a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is reckoned through the male line.
“the thematic relationships of the ballad are worked out according to the conventional archetypes of the patriarchy”
-
a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.
“the dominant ideology of patriarchy”
-
a society or community organized on patriarchal lines.
plural noun: patriarchies
“we live in a patriarchy”
Hi Claire,
How are you? just checking in to see if you received my last mail.
I understand if you do not wish to engage due to you being busy. But I just said i would try If you do not wish to engage any further I… well maybe I don’t understand but I will respect your right to privacy and if I do not hear back from you I will let sleeping dogs lie.
Sorry if I offended you, that was not my intention.
Kind regards,
I have since not received any more correspondence from Claire unfortunately but she active on twitter and does make the odd TV appearance I would so have liked to get a female feminist perspective but alas she does not wish to engage in some lively intellectual debate.
donalcarrollhack 