It’s been a strange time, the last year. I won’t try to
enumerate all the ways in which it has been strange. I’m sure that everyone has
their own ideas. I’m also sure that the strangeness isn’t going away any time
soon. For the moment I am just thinking of a development in public conversation
which probably isn’t new but which I seem to be noticing more and more. This is
the way in which people seem to be self-censoring when they state a position
that they expect to be controversial.
One of the executive orders that President Trump has not yet
had rescinded by the Supreme Court devolves power to individual States to determine
which toilet people should use. I haven’t researched it, but I am not aware of
any other nation in the world that has found it necessary to legislate in this
area. But in the Land of the Free ™ there are multiple “Bathroom Bills” coming
before state legislatures. North Carolina passed the first of these pieces of
mediaeval legislation last year and now a number of other states, including
Texas, are considering their own versions. The intent of the laws is to require
that people using public toilets must only use the one that aligns with the
gender stated on their birth certificate. Proponents say that the point is to
prevent sexual assaults perpetrated by males entering women’s facilities under
false pretences. The problem with that argument is that in the entire history
of the United States there has not been a single case of sexual assault
recorded by a male person in a female restroom. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article70255967.html
The researchers of this article did find a solitary case in Canada although
there was no suggestion that the male in question identified as transgender.
Clearly the “protect the children” argument is completely spurious but to its
supporters it may appear more humane than the alternative “transgender people
are an abomination to my small-minded god and should be denied as many human
rights as possible”.
We saw similar developments in the UK during and after the
Brexit referendum. There was a notorious case when a caller to a radio phone-in
programme claimed that he had voted Leave in order to free his downtrodden
country from the yoke of overbearing European legislation. Unfortunately, when
pressed to name a single one of these excessive laws he was unable to do so. I
would speculate that this person had voted Leave for reasons of simple
xenophobia but was reluctant to say as much because deep down he knew that
would expose him as a small minded racist.
And of course the great climate change denial probably falls
into this category. The evidence for human influence on climate is completely
overwhelming. There is no more scientific doubt about it than there is about
the theory of gravitation. And yet millions continue to deny that it is real or
that it matters. I think that climate change deniers are mostly of the opinion
that those affected by the changing climate will be people of different races
living in poor countries far away. Saving their lives, property and livelihoods
is not important compared to maintaining the conveniences of comfortable folks
in the developed world. But of course it wouldn’t be acceptable to state such a
position out loud so the fiction of the Chinese hoax is trotted out.
There are many other examples of this level of societal hypocrisy
and it would be tedious to list more of them. Strangely enough though I find it
hopeful that they exist. If things were really bad there would be no stigma to saying
out loud that we just don’t like people different to us. It means that all is
not yet lost. There is still hope that we are not doomed to a rerun of the
1930s. The Nazis are still confined to the closet although they are hammering
ever louder on the door. “Ordinary people” are not yet ready to support the Stormtroopers,
at least not in public. There is still time for good will and tolerance to
prevail.
Let’s make it so.
