“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”

George Orwell captured a very important reality with that statement. Many realities are not at all complex, yet intellectuals look for subtleties and complexities where none exist.

Alphabet ideology, as was true of Marxism, has spread beyond the intellectual class. But it has its origins in that class and appeals mainly to others with an excessive admiration for intellectuals.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s bread and butter is appealing to that pseudo-intellectual class, to which he is an ambassador representing the credentialed elite. He is an astrophysicist (which both my parents were), and as a group astrophysicists have the highest average IQ of any profession.

I can’t judge Tyson’s particular level of intellectual acuity–he is a science communicator and his job is to take complex topics and make them simple, and he is quite good at this. He probably would be a middling-level astronomer (he actually runs a planetarium, and hence doesn’t “do” science), but even a middling-level astronomer is going to be very smart.

He also proves that being smart and being wise are very different things, and smart people often make the most glaring mistakes by wandering off into the intellectual ether and getting lost.

He did so recently when discussing gender, completely jumbling gender, sex, “masculine” and “feminine” behaviors, and probably the age of the universe was thrown in there as well.

Neil deGrasse Tyson joined the gender cult.

Why do we care, @neiltyson?

We care because children are being cut up, sterilized, and turned into lifelong pharmaceutical patients.

Why don’t you care?pic.twitter.com/UkTIAzBvG4

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) July 31, 2023

Tyson’s meandering explanation is, of course, intellectually incoherent. But being coherent was not the point. Rather, he was making an ideological argument and giving it the gloss of authority that comes with “science.” Tyson throws in statistics, which always sounds great too. Nothing says “science” like artificial precision that numbers can provide.

Tyson’s explanation for rejecting the gender binary is glaringly unscientific, whatever gloss he puts on it. 20% female and 80% male?

Honestly, WTF is that? Sex is a category defined by genetic differences that are binary. There can be chromosomal anomalies, but these are called birth defects and not found in healthy examples of the human organism.

Gad Saad has the perfect takedown of this absurd rant of Tyson’s, and in two minutes does a better job than anything an intellectual could do in writing.

Gad Saad makes an absolute fool of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his bozo explanation of the gender spectrum.pic.twitter.com/ZJd3D7YEhW

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 3, 2023

Alphabet ideology begins with a rather prosaic truth: that HOW we express our gender is time, place, and culture-dependent, and that some people express their individuality more or less in line with the norms of their society. In other words, we can have traits and personalities that are more “masculine” or “feminine” based on the norms of our society, and our personalities come off as more or less in line with the gender ideal of the society in which we live.

Yeah, well, that is obvious. There are female tom-boys and more feminine men. There are gay men and lesbians. There are weird Scots who wear skirts and throw big huge stones. There are all sorts of variations on how masculine and feminine are expressed. So what? That is a trivially true observation.

What there is not and never will be is fluidity in our sex. “80% male” is not a thing. Not because of social norms but because of biology.

It is at this point where alphabet ideology goes off the rails, not in pointing out the blindingly obvious fact that almost nobody fits 100% into an archetype. Ironically we find people who are stereotypes rather odd, even amusing. They seem fake because, in the real world, personalities don’t tend to work like that. In the real world, even women are allowed to enjoy Irish Spring soap.

It is the claim that sharing traits that we tend to associate with the opposite sex MAKES you the opposite sex, rather than simply a more masculine woman or feminine man.

I like to joke that my musical tastes are those of a “chick.” I would have enjoyed going to Lilith Fair, for instance. Does that make me a woman? No. It makes me uncool.

Where Does Gender Dysphoria Come From? #gender #ThePoetryofReality pic.twitter.com/99VNJQMZQn

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 2, 2023

One of the most bizarre consequences of alphabet ideology is the fetishization of stereotypes. One cannot be a masculine female or a more feminine man. One is stereotypically male, female, or simply not sexed at all. For all the talk of individuality and becoming “who you really are,” the reality is that both biological reality and personality quirks must be wiped away in favor of adopting a stereotype of what a “male” or “female” should be.

Gender “expression” is not the same thing as gender or sex, and the falsehood that it is is destroying lives. If you are a male who likes fashion and chick music, then fine. Have at it. I like Taylor Swift too. If you are a female who likes sports and weightlifting, then have at it. Just don’t chop up your body, and God forbid don’t suggest that teens do so.

This intellectual fad will eventually go away, but as with lobotomies as a cure for behavior problems or mental illness, it will leave a trail of destroyed lives in its wake.

If the point were simply to encourage people to accept a wider range of personalities this ideology wouldn’t have garnered so many passionate critics.

It is the assault on reality and the recruiting of kids into self-harm that has millions of people pushing back.

The backlash in Europe has begun. After years of rushing headlong into transing kids even the most socially liberal countries have put on the brakes and even reversed course. Here in the US, it will be a tougher road, I am afraid. There is a lot of money to be made, and lots of investment has been made by healthcare systems in recruiting new patients.

I expect the transgender mania to die down, but not the movement. It will take years, perhaps decades to beat back the movement from influence in society and it will never go away. Like communism, the seed has been planted and the weeds will continue to pop up. It can only be controlled, not eradicated.

In the meantime, intellectuals like Neil deGrasse Tyson will keep shilling for this idiocy, and pseudo-intellectuals will keep buying what he is selling.

Sex is clearly binary, declaring oneself to be otherwise is a distortion of reality. #Gender #Science #PoetryOfReality pic.twitter.com/PHap1TQlaA

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) July 31, 2023