COLUMN: Our '1984': An equal opportunity gender disaster
My daughter has been reading George Orwell’s “1984” in high school this month. Too bad it’s not required reading for all citizens — especially before they vote. If it were, then perhaps Americans would not be so gullible about everything the government tells them.
In the Oceania of “1984,” it is standard practice for the so-called Ministry of Truth to manufacture convenient fictions that are tailored to steer public opinion toward acceptance of government-approved propaganda. The depth of the government’s ability to manipulate the public is characterized by the illogic of the ruling Party’s slogans: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Boys are girls.
Oh wait, that last one came from Obama’s Department of Justice, not Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. You probably read about the “guidance” provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education that boys should be allowed to enter the girls bathroom, locker room and showers at all the public school districts and colleges in the country. To be fair, girls can also change in the boys locker room in school, although why they would want to is beyond me, remembering as I do just how much boys locker rooms stink.
But what is really bizarre is how silent the country has been over this pronouncement that the physical gender of a human being can be over-ridden by the wish-fulfillment concept of gender identity. Back when I was growing up, they had a different name for boys showering with girls. It was called “indecent exposure.”
But let’s face it, nothing is indecent anymore, because the very sense of decency requires an acknowledgment of right and wrong, which in turn requires an acknowledgement of good and evil, which in turn requires an acknowledgment of He Who Shall Not Be Named in public schools (the God previously known as YHWH). And that’s just not going to happen.
When we kicked God out of the schools, we pretty much started on a path toward co-ed showers because without that divinity to provide us real “guidance,” we are at the mercy of human nature, and it’s not a pretty picture. Not at all.
So where do we go from here?
Does the population of the United States accede to the Ministry of Truth proclamation that boys are girls? Or do we fight back? In “1984,” the protagonist Winston Smith tries to hold to the truth that 2+2=4, but he discovers that he is not strong enough to withstand the power of the government to convince him through any means possible including torture that 2+2 equals whatever the government says it is.
We live in that world now. School districts either agree that boys are girls, or they run the risk of losing their millions of dollars of government funding. The government must be believed, even when it doesn’t make any sense to do so.
Who will speak up?
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” comes to mind. In the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, a cunning pair of con men convince the emperor that they will weave him a set of new clothes made from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for office or incredibly stupid. Actually, the clothes don’t exist at all, but no one (including the emperor) wants to admit it because they don’t want to look stupid or unfit. The emperor parades down the street in all his glory, until finally one small child shouts out, “But he hasn’t got anything on!”
That’s where we are now, waiting for a little girl like the child in the fairy tale who will point at the new woman in the locker room and innocently declare, “But she has too many parts!”
The question for us all to ask is will that girl be praised for speaking the truth? Or shamed for pointing out our blindness?