Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant № 3
Content Warning: Sexism, White Supremacy, and Drug Use Stigma
I have long believed that sunlight is the best disinfectant: it’s important to highlight the kinds of things that conservatives and right wing pundits are saying about and around the world, not because I want to amplify their bad ideas, but because I want to bring attention to where the dark places are. While these ideas may make sense to some people, I hope that folks will take a critical lens to what they read in pieces like this, just as they do any other piece. What worries me most about the ideas in pieces like these is that they are often demonstrably false, usually gross misinterpretations of decidedly democratic, and frequently scientifically-informed perspectives.
It should go without saying, but I do not support any of the views held by any of the individuals whose work I am sharing below. They are abhorrent, and, in my view, should be roundly condemned. They should not, however, be censored or scrubbed from the internet.
Sections: Hated ‘Biblical Truths’ / The Figleaves Fall off on Twitter / Shaming Drug Users is Good, Actually
It is the truth which is assailed that tests our fidelity - Bnonn Tennant - Dominion and Discipleship
In this piece the infamous Christian fundamentalist persecution complex ratchets it up a notch and a half. The author, Bnonn Tennant, is a pastor of a church in New Zealand, writing on a Substack headed by Michael Foster, a pastor from Ohio and a self-styled guru for Christian men. According to the author, denying certain evangelical doctrines will result in your public ostracization, but not necessarily ‘hated as evil’:
Which doctrines, if we were to promote them, come with such a threat?
Some might say creation (i.e., versus evolution)—but while that is certainly a doctrine against which the devil has laid siege, to preach it is not to court hatred and exclusion. The danger on that battleground is derision: being scorned for unscientific and unsophisticated beliefs.
Some might say the gospel itself, but again derision is the chief “threat” there. To believe that Jesus is the son of God now in power, having been raised for our justification, is quaint and superstitious; it does not evoke ire in people, so much as entertain them.
So too the inerrancy of Scripture. This is laughable, but not hateful. It is not seen as evil to believe that the Bible is God’s word, so much as stupid. After all, everyone “knows” that it was written by bronze-age goat-herders and is full of contradictions.
Even to preach hell will garner more amused disgust than censorious outrage. It is better kept to oneself, but it isn’t the kind of thing likely to get you canceled.
If you boldly affirm these doctrines, you will be mocked as a laughingstock, you will be regarded as a kook, you will be derided as a village idiot…you may even be treated like a heretic. But you will not be treated like a blasphemer.
But, Tennant writes, denying so-called Biblical gender roles, along with all of its attendant doctrines, that is anathema:
What biblical truth is hated as evil? … the highest blasphemy of the modern day is the biblical doctrine of gendered piety—along with everything it entails:
Man is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. In consequence…
A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, being silent in church and asking her husband any questions afterward.
A woman may not teach or exercise authority over a man in the congregation.
Women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint…
Women’s adornment must be modest, and their beauty spiritual: the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit.
Wives must be subject to their husbands, just as the church is subject to Christ in everything.
This is the blasphemy of the modern day. There are, of course, many other related doctrines, including teaching on marriage, homosexuality, the household, etc, which are considered equally blasphemous. But the ones we list above are right at the heart of human nature itself, right at the heart of the symbolic reality of mankind, which expresses the very purpose of the cosmos: the relationship between Christ and his redeemed bride.
He continues, exhorting his readers of the coming war, a coming battle over truth:
It is those who dare preach masculine and feminine piety, grounded in the creation order, rooted in the fatherhood of God—they are the ones canceled and ghosted; defunded and deplatformed; slandered as misogynists and vilified as evil. The world does not very much mind Christian piety—faithfully living out our God-given duties—provided we perform it as androgynous persons. The duties that are common to all Christians—these do not offend them. But gendered piety is an existential threat.
This is where the battle is—or ought to be—waged. It is not the only battle…but it is the most significant one.
At some point, all this talk of battles over Biblical truth start to feel a little bit to literal, don’t you think? The piece continues… and continues… and continues… Read the whole thing if you’d like to feel especially dirty.
It’s William Wolfe again…
Maybe B.C.'s drug addicts should have to face shame and stigma - Adam Pankratz - The National Post
One of the most important components of humanizing people who use drugs is combating stigma and shame around drug use. One of the operative components of stigma is that it is a social event - it’s not just one person that casts stigma on a drug user, but a whole group of individuals collectively making certain kinds moral judgements, namely shaming, that person for the action of using drugs. To understand people who use drugs as fully human, in the eyes of progressive drug policy experts, means reducing and/or eliminating these kinds moral judgments not only from theoretical frameworks around drug policy, but also at the individual action level. This means that every drug user, whether they are in treatment or not, is to be treated with complete respect by any and all people they encounter, with as few negative moral judgments as possible.
Adam Pankratz, a columnist with Canada’s National Post, thinks that’s hooey. Interestingly, his argument has nothing to do with drug users, and everything to do with perceived hypocrisy from the left of the political spectrum:
The notion that stigma is harmful to those hurting themselves or others is obviously disingenuous. Paradoxically, it is also its own form of shame and stigma. The difference is simply directional: progressive shaming confers virtue on those who mete it out for the right reasons, while regressive shame is the scorn poured on those who are uncomfortable with the idea that previously illegal or harmful activity should no longer be condemned. …
'Pulling out all the latest strawmen arguments, Pankratz appeals to supposedly lax policies in the United States:
“Decriminalization” or “following the science” are terms that have a sweet progressive ring and as such is the oft-favoured option for (non) action of politicians on the entire west coast. The problem is, the science proves very difficult indeed to follow, if it exists at all. Who can forget California’s effective decriminalization of theft under $950? How’s that working out? The shuttered doors of San Francisco shops scream a tale of woe, sorrow and business dreams shattered. The rampant drug use there is also no positive harbinger for Vancouver residents.
In Portland, following riots which torched and smashed the city in 2020, the police referred over 1,000 cases to the district attorney, which declined to prosecute over 70 per cent of them. Portland, a city once renowned for its cafés, breweries and nightlife is a hollow, unsafe shell of its former self.
It seems reasonable to ask if a little bit of good ol’ shame and stigma here wouldn’t help matters. Shame of stealing. Shame of vandalism. Shame of drug use. We don’t value these attributes as a society, so why no stigma? Were my daughter to behave in any of the above described ways, shame would be first on the list, followed immediately by stigma and repentance.
What do you think? Do people who engage in activities normally conceived of as ‘vices’ deserve to be subject to the negative moral judgment that is shame and stigma? Do you think that shame and stigma helps to police behaviours? Does it change behaviours? How?
I share these pieces because it is important that right-wing commentators be called out for the false prophets and fanatical liars that they are. There is no left wing plot to force authoritarian communism on the American (or Canadian) public. There is, however, a growing stable of increasingly unhinged right wing rants that don’t offer anything to the conversation, but instead look to utterly destroy those who disagree with them. And as those rants find themselves in mainstream publications, the Overton Window shifts even further to the right.