There are far too many of these “summits,” far too undistinguishedly attended, expensive to organize, and conducted in public in ways that attract swarms of hooligans who vandalize shops, beat up bystanders, and provoke the police. Canada spent $400 million on three days of photo-ops at La Malbaie, to achieve practically nothing. For the first nearly 30 years of summiting, there were only nine such meetings; Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at Tehran and Yalta (1943 and 1945), Stalin, Truman and Attlee at Potsdam (1945), Eisenhower and the divided Russians and Anthony Eden and Edgar Faure at Geneva (1955), Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and de Gaulle at Paris (1960), Kennedy and Khrushchev at Vienna (1961), Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin at Glassboro (1967), and Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev at Moscow and San Clemente, Calif. (1972, 1973).
The first three were essential to plan for victory and peace, though many of their key provisions, especially for the liberation of Eastern Europe, were ignored by Stalin. The first Nixon-Brezhnev meeting was substantive and a couple of the later Reagan-Gorbachev meetings were very productive. These were intense business meetings between people who really were at the summit of world power and influence. The only matter agreed to in meetings between Soviet and American leaders between 1945 and 1972 was in the “kitchen debate” between then vice-president Nixon and Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959, when (forgive my coarseness in the interests of historical accuracy), Khrushchev accused Nixon of uttering “Horse shit, no, it is cow shit, and nothing is fouler than that” to which Nixon replied, “You don’t recognize the truth, and incidentally, pig shit is fouler than cow shit.” Khrushchev conceded the second point.
Conrad Black, “Take heed Canada: the U.S. would win a true trade war”, Conrad Black, 2018-06-16.
April 7, 2021
QotD: The G-[pick-a-number] meetings
April 5, 2021
The 1919 Red Scare – the craziest year in American history
The Cynical Historian
Published 19 May 2016Many people have heard of the first Red Scare, but we should look at the year of 1919 more thoroughly. It’s probably the craziest one in American history.
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007). https://amzn.to/2NHIcaT
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wiki:
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included those such as the Russian Revolution. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of communism and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of paranoia.The Scare had its origins in the hyper-nationalism of World War I as well as the Russian Revolution. At the war’s end, following the October Revolution, American authorities saw the threat of Communist revolution in the actions of organized labor, including such disparate cases as the Seattle General Strike and the Boston Police Strike and then in the bombing campaign directed by anarchist groups at political and business leaders. Fueled by labor unrest and the anarchist bombings, and then spurred on by United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s attempt to suppress radical organizations, it was characterized by exaggerated rhetoric, illegal search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and detentions, and the deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists. In addition, the growing anti-immigration nativism movement among Americans viewed increasing immigration from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe as a threat to American political and social stability.
Bolshevism and the threat of a Communist-inspired revolution in the U.S. became the overriding explanation for challenges to the social order, even such largely unrelated events as incidents of interracial violence. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in form of display of certain flags and banners. The First Red Scare effectively ended in mid-1920, after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
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Hashtags: #History #1919 #RedScare #SpanishFlu #Bolshevism #BlackSox #strikes #WoodrowWilson #LeagueOfNations #prohibition #suffrage
[Note: this was filmed in 2016 … I think 2020 has now taken the mantle of “craziest year”. Unless 2021 doubles down all the weirdness of 2020.]
QotD: NYC goes out of its way to “afflict the comfortable”
One might ask why a social-services functionary in New York City would cite the Bible in defense of public policy — except that the quotation is not even from the Bible. In fact, it is from Finley Peter Dunne, a popular Chicago columnist from the 1890s who invented a humorous character named “Mr. Dooley,” an Irish bartender who delivered his wisdom in dialect.
The original quotation, in which Mr. Dooley described the function of the newspaper: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” Somehow, in a bizarre game of “cultural telephone,” this mock-sonorous fiddle-faddle has gathered the effulgence of holy writ for progressives, who take it as descriptive of their “joyous responsibility.”
On the one hand, it’s comical that this scrap of tabloid wit is taken so gravely by self-righteous officials. Properly speaking, isn’t it their job to make people more comfortable, not to diminish comfort? But on the other hand, it’s frightening to consider that New York is now run by progressive militants who appear to believe that their vocation is to “afflict” their constituents by disrupting their undeserved calm and comfort. Mass immiseration is not a side effect of bad policy; it is the policy.
Seth Barron, “The Politics of Affliction”, City Journal, 2020-12-17.
April 4, 2021
The Carpet Bombing of Germany begins – WW2 – 136 – April 3, 1942
World War Two
Published 3 Apr 2021Britain’s campaign to firebomb the old towns of Germany where civilians reside begins in earnest this week. The British also destroy the port at St. Nazaire in commando action. In the Indian Ocean, however, they are avoiding contact with the Japanese, even while on land the Japanese advance in both Burma and New Guinea.
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Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
– Daniel Weiss
– Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
– Election1960 from Wiki CommonsSources:
– Bundesarchiv – 101II-MW-3722-03
– IWM C 2351, A 11787, H_018753_1, R 1827Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Edward Karl Hanson – “Spellbound”
– Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Phoenix Tail – “Last Minute Reaction”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “Underlying Truth”
– Flouw – “A Far Cry”
– Fabien Tell – “Break Free”
– Wendel Scherer – “Time to Face Them”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
The Good Idea Fairy Strikes: American Trowel Bayonets
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Nov 2017The United States first experimented with a combination trowel and bayonet in 1868, producing 200 experimental examples made from standard socket bayonets. This was immediately followed by an additional 500 Model 1869 trowel bayonets made new. These were distributed to a few companies of the infantry to test in the field. Remarkably, the trials reports were overwhelmingly positive.
The US infantryman at that time did not carry any sort of entrenching tool, and so even an awkward combination tool was an improvement over a canteen cup or other ad hoc tool for digging. The bayonet was seen by some officers as becoming obsolete with the introduction of breechloading rifles, so the reduced effectiveness of the new item as a bayonet was not a substantial concern. The intended use of these tools was not to dig elaborate trenches, but rather to hastily construct a shallow ditch and embankment which would provide just enough cover to shelter a prone soldier.
With the trials reports in, the government purchased 10,000 of the improved 1873 pattern trowel bayonet, which featured a stronger blade and a much more comfortable handle for digging. These were issued and used in the field (and in several combat engagements), but the developmental direction turned towards combination knife trowels instead of bayonets, and there would be no further development or issue of these tools after the 1870s.
See the full trials report here: https://books.google.com/books?id=qUE…
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QotD: Revolution and civil war
There was a little memorial with flowers.
Whenever someone starts talking about maybe voting is useless and perhaps other means are necessary to take back our country, I think of Kosovo. That EXACT rhetoric was part and parcel with the disintegration of the Balkans. The rhetoric I see people casually bandying about, we need to confront them everywhere and they deserve no peace, this is the rhetoric and the justification the Serbs used on their way to killing a quarter of a million people in the Balkans. Their former neighbors; often literally.
It’s worth considering whether all those who killed people in Kosovo started with killing in mind, or were they merely trying to right the wrongs that the other side had perpetrated against them? Civilization is a millimeters thin veneer on top an ocean of violence a billion years of evolution deep. If you think it’s acceptable to use violence for political gain, or if you fantasize for revolution, you’re a monster.
Revolution is not what you think it is. Revolution is civil war. Civil war is driving your neighbors from their homes and forcing them to dig their own graves. It is leaving your grandmother behind because she cannot move fast enough to escape the gunmen; and they won’t stop. Yes, there are monsters in places of power, but you are not absolved of your obligations to humanity because of it. That others have foresworn theirs is no excuse. You fetishize misery you cannot fathom. You are in good company, we are all monsters in civilized clothes; do not be insulted or ashamed.
Endeavor to be more.
Again.
Please.
John Chmelir (@JohnChmelir), Twitter (part of a 20-tweet thread), 2018-10-20.
April 3, 2021
QotD: When governments try to “help” small businesses
Love for small business is one of the few universals in American politics. In a 2018 Gallup poll, just 56 percent of Americans viewed capitalism positively; but 92 percent had a positive view of small business, and 86 percent viewed entrepreneurs positively. Government at all levels has policies intended to help small businesses, but there’s little evidence that these programs are effective — and even when bureaucrats try to help, they impede small-business creation by imposing new regulations. The New York City Business License and Permit index presents a daunting compendium of licenses and certifications that can be required to start a business in the city — such as the Esthetics License (needed if you want to “conduct beauty treatment”) and the Certificate of Fitness for Fire and Emergency Drill Instructor (necessary to “lead fire drills in buildings that do not require a Fire Safety Director”).
Such overregulation represents a second way that the deck gets stacked in the American economy against outsiders. The decline of American entrepreneurship is a discouraging trend of the last 30 years. In 2015, economist John Haltiwanger documented numerous signs of diminished business dynamism in the United States. In the early 1980s, he noted, America’s startup rate exceeded 13 percent, which meant that about one-eighth of all firms had just begun. The startup share fell to 10 percent near the end of the Clinton years and below 8 percent during the Great Recession. While no consensus exists about the causes of this dramatic drop, expanding business regulation is a plausible candidate.
Edward L. Glaeser, “How to Fix American Capitalism”, City Journal, 2020-12-13.
April 2, 2021
Victory at any Cost? – Allied Censorship – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 1 Apr 2021Censorship was not just a practice in totalitarian regimes. During World War Two, democratic liberties in Allied countries often clashed with propaganda and restrictions of the press.
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Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
Adrien Fillon – https://www.instagram.com/adrien.colo…Sources:
Dutch National Archives
IWM D 20472
Bundesarchiv
from the Noun Project: Map by BaristaIcon, strategy by Fran Couto, weather by Yoyon Pujiyono, building by Made, Government by lathiif studio, documents by Geovani Almeid, Pen by Caesar Rizky Kurniawan
The True Cost of Petrol, courtesy of www.mirrorpix.comSoundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Max Anson – “Maze Heist”
Wendel Scherer – “Out the Window”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
2 days ago
Censorship is a phenomenon of all ages. Those in power sometimes don’t want certain voices to be heard for a variety of reasons. While this episode is about political and military censorship, we ourselves are still dealing with another kind of censorship today. Economic, political and PR reasons to demonetize or age-restrict our videos are being conflated with “safety” and “harm” of “certain audiences”. We adamantly object to the restriction of fact-based history for the sake of business and public image. This is why it’s so important that we’re able to remain independent. We have full editorial control of our content, and we won’t surrender our mission to publish factual, unbiased and unsanitized documentaries. Our TimeGhost Army is the main reason why we have been able to remain independent and unwavering. Join the TGA at www.patreon.com/timeghosthistory or https://timeghost.tvCheers,
Joram
QotD: Sex and the grad student lifestyle
- Show up; and
- Bring beer.
For 75-90% of women under 40, step 2 is optional. It would’ve been for Chloe. Especially in a bar full of grad students, who despite their extensive academic training on “the rhetorics of hegemony” and whatnot, still aren’t quite sure how the naughty bits fit together. She might’ve had to draw the guy a map, but surely that’s no problem for someone so assertively in control of her own sexuality as was Chloe …
And that’s just normal people, who know what pronouns to use and never hesitate when choosing a public restroom. The real freakazoids actually have it much easier, since loudly proclaiming a deviant sexuality is a status symbol in the ivory tower. Perhaps your deepest, most secret fetish involves cocktail onions and a Shop-Vac … and let me stop you right there, I do NOT wanna know, I’m only bringing this up to say that hey, I sympathize, love is real and you’re having a hard time finding yours.
You should consider academia, my friend, where not only are such things not shameful, but they’re positively celebrated. If you’ve actually got video of yourself doing the nasty under those conditions, they’ll pretty much hand you a PhD in Performance Art on the spot …… and yet, nobody does.
I’m not saying people don’t have sex in grad school. If I myself wasn’t getting my ashes hauled every day in the ivory tower, I assure you it wasn’t for lack of trying. What I am saying is that academia is the only place on earth where not only is your fetish — whatever it is — not shameful, but easily satisfied. Those of us who actually enjoy the missionary position with committed partners of the opposite-sex used to joke that ours was the only sexual deviancy so perverse, you’d be shunned by all your colleagues if you admitted to it. These people, on the other hand, talk like their gonads rule their lives, but they never actually do anything about it.
I have no idea why, but finding out would tell us a lot about the psychology of the average Leftist.
Severian, “Gettin’ Busy in College Town”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-12-04.
March 30, 2021
QotD: Static societies and disruptive outsiders
Stable societies with unchanged boundaries, Olson observed, “tend to accumulate more collusions and organizations for collective action over time.” Instead of accepting rules that encourage overall growth, these collusive organizations — trade groups and labor unions were paradigmatic examples — fight to keep what they have, slowing down “a society’s capacity to adopt new technologies and to reallocate resources in response to changing conditions,” thus reducing economic efficiency. Decline follows.
Olson pointed to Japanese stagnation under the Tokugawa shogunate, when, “before Admiral Perry’s gunboats appeared in 1854, the Japanese were virtually closed off from the international economy.” Ruling Japanese society, he writes, “were any number of powerful za, or guilds, and the shogunate or the daimyo often strengthened them by selling them monopoly rights.” The guilds “fixed prices, restricted production and controlled entry in essentially the same way as cartelistic organization elsewhere.”
A second example: Great Britain, “the major nation with the longest immunity from dictatorship, invasion and revolution” and, consequently, Olson explained, suffering “this century a lower rate of growth than other large, developed democracies.” In Olson’s view, the weak performance resulted from limits on change established by a “powerful network of special-interest organizations,” which included labor unions, industrial groups, and aristocratic cliques. By the 1970s, after the conservative government of Edward Heath fell in a losing battle with striking miners, many deemed Britain ungovernable. Olson contrasted the British situation with that of postwar Germany and Japan, where the chaos and destruction of wartime defeat wiped away established industrial and retail groups, leaving the field open to newcomers like Soichiro Honda or the Albrecht family (creators of international supermarket giant Aldi), who could work economic magic.
The word “ungovernable” was also used to describe New York in the 1960s and 1970s, when Mike Quill’s transit union ran roughshod over Mayor John Lindsay’s attempts to control public-sector wage growth. New York was a long-established city with lots of political collusion. The old Tammany Hall could broker deals to keep Gotham going, but Lindsay’s successor, Abe Beame, proved too weak to resist any special interest that wanted more spending or government favors. New York’s spending kept rising even as public services worsened, until bankruptcy loomed and public power wound up in the hands of the unelected Municipal Assistance Corporation. Thankfully, New York reformed itself economically, at least to some extent, under Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, as Britain did under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Sufficiently strong leaders can buck entrenched insiders.
Edward L. Glaeser, “How to Fix American Capitalism”, City Journal, 2020-12-13.
March 29, 2021
Requiring only men to register for the draft isn’t the real problem — the problem is the draft itself
Kerry McDonald fears that the current challenges to the gender inequality of the US draft may end up making the underlying problem worse:
US Selective Service draft notice for J.D. Schmidt, dated 24 September, 1970.
Wikimedia Commons.
Currently, all American men are required to register for the draft through the Selective Service System when they turn 18, and could be forced into military service if the draft was activated. As a mom with young sons, I shudder at this prospect.
Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to rule the current military draft registration unconstitutional because it requires only men to register, not women. As a mom with young daughters, I shudder at this prospect.
While draft registration does involve unequal treatment of men and women, and women have been ably serving in the military for years, including in full combat, the larger issue is Selective Service registration itself. Current draft registration may be unconstitutional, but it shouldn’t exist at all.
Forcing citizens into any kind of non-voluntary work or action is antithetical to the principles of a free society.
Some contend that conscription is necessary to defend those principles if there were not enough volunteers to serve in a wartime effort, but is slavery ever justifiable? Who decides? If there are not enough soldiers to willingly fight a war, should the war be fought?
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was one of the key figures who succeeded in persuading the US to move to an all-volunteer army in 1973, arguing against military conscription. Friedman wrote that “any system involving compulsion is basically inconsistent with a free society.” He went on to argue: “The continued use of compulsion is undesirable and unnecessary. We can and should man our armed forces with volunteers.”
In place of conscription, Friedman advocated for a voluntary military guided by free-market ideas. “The appropriate free market arrangement is volunteer military forces; which is to say, hiring men to serve,” Friedman wrote in his book, Capitalism and Freedom. “There is no justification for not paying whatever price is necessary to attract the required number of men. Present arrangements are inequitable and arbitrary, seriously interfere with the freedom of young men to shape their lives, and probably are even more costly than the market alternative.”
Friedman’s advocacy against conscription came to a climax in testimony with Army Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland. The general disagreed with Friedman by claiming that the economist’s free-market approach would be akin to leading an army of mercenaries. Friedman replied: “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?”
QotD: Modern conservatism is merely progressive policies on a ten-year delay
So you can take it to the bank that by 2030 rock-ribbed Republicans will be on board with penises in the girls’ changing rooms, but determined to hold the line against whatever the left’s next cause du jour is: human cloning, mandatory transitioning for delinquent boys, voting rights for animals.
There really isn’t much point to conservatism that’s just leftism ten years late, is there? It’s like that ITV+1 satellite service they have in Britain that offers you the ITV schedule but an hour later, in case you were caught in traffic heading home. If you’re considering on which side to bestow your tribal loyalty, the left is right quicker; the right is left behind — but only for a few years until they throw in the towel. If you’re all headed to the same destination, why not ride first class on the TGV instead of the creaking, jerking stopping service? Justin Trudeau’s vapid modishness was perfectly distilled by his campaign catchphrase of four years ago: “Because it’s 2015.” But that beats waiting till 2025 to say “Because it’s 2015”.
Mark Steyn, “Catch-Up Conservatism”, SteynOnline, 2020-12-17.
March 28, 2021
New Blitzkrieg Against a Wall of 9 Million! – WW2 – 135 – March 27, 1942
World War Two
Published 27 Mar 2021The Allies make plans to bring the war to Germany by possibly attacking in North Africa. Holding Malta might be the key to such adventures, but it is increasingly harder to do. The Soviets and German make plans for adding millions of soldiers to their ranks, while springtime mud has kept the front mostly quiet. The Japanese plans for the conquest of Burma are still advancing, though the fighting this week is especially brutal.
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Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
– Daniel Weiss
– Adrien Fillon – https://www.instagram.com/adrien.colo…
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/Sources:
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– IWM: TR153
– Arrow by Dolly Holmes, Factory by Adrien Coquet – from the Noun ProjectSoundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
– Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “London”
– Philip Ayers – “Ominous”
– Flouw – “A Far Cry”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “Underlying Truth”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
TARIFFS and TAXES: The REAL Cause of the CIVIL WAR?!
Atun-Shei Films
Published 16 Jan 2020Checkmate, Lincolnites! Debunking the Lost Cause myth that the American Civil War was fought over taxes and protectionist tariffs. Was the South subjected to disproportionate taxation? Did the Morrill Tariff cause secession? Watch and find out, you no-account, yellow-bellied sesech!
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March 26, 2021
When the science becomes problematic to the narrative
Alexander Riley looks at a few of those awkward points where actual “scientific” science conficts with the deeply held beliefs of the “I heart SCIENCE!” community:
… human and nature cannot so easily be pried apart. The evidence of the biological reality of the sex difference — not just in gonads and sex cells, but in personality characteristics and behavioral profiles, on average — is overwhelming, and science is daily producing more. Male and female brains are structurally different in ways that map on to the emerging neuroscientific knowledge on how brain structure affects behavior and capabilities. The feminist claim that these differences are wholly a product of socialization becomes more implausible the more we know. In societies where egalitarian gender ideology is arguably most widespread, such as in Northern Europe, there has been no disappearance of traditional sex differences in choices concerning careers. Men are still overrepresented in fields that focus on systems and objects, and women are still the overwhelming majority in fields dedicated to extensive human interaction and social services.
The radical spirit of ’90s feminism represented by [author Judith Butler’s] Gender Trouble did not stop at “deconstructing” gender in the effort to move toward a world in which gender roles are divorced from biological sex. Sex too had to be subjected to such “problematization.” Radicals used the writing of Anne Fausto-Sterling, a biologist who admitted her work was fundamentally shaped by her “1960s street-activist heart,” to suggest that the sex binary was also an oversimplified social construction. Fausto-Sterling insisted there are at least five sexes: males, females, “true hermaphrodites” with one testis and one ovary, male pseudohermaphrodites with testes and “some aspects of female genitalia” but no ovaries, and female pseudohermaphrodites with ovaries and “some aspects of male genitalia” but no testes. Perhaps, she asserted, several of every hundred people might be in one of the three intersex categories, with — the clincher — an “infinitely malleable continuum” between them.
It was quickly pointed out that Fausto-Sterling had been deceptive in her estimate of the frequency of intersexuality. Leonard Sax, in the Journal of Sex Research, noted that she had counted phenomena such as Klinefelter’s Syndrome (biological males with an extra X chromosome), Turner’s Syndrome (biological females with only one X chromosome), and several other conditions typically not recognized as intersex. One of these alone — late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia (LOCAH), which involves the overproduction of adrenal androgens — accounts for 90 percent of Fausto-Sterling’s claimed figure of 1.7 percent of the population that is intersex. But LOCAH is not an intersex phenomenon. Many individuals who have it are never diagnosed because the symptoms are so mild, and all who have it are born with typical male or female genitalia that correspond to the male and female genotypes. Nearly all such individuals go through puberty with the typical sexual development for their genotype, as the condition generally does not manifest in women until the early 20s and in men much later. The true estimate of intersex individuals, Sax argued, is roughly 0.018%, about 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling’s estimate. That is, more than 99.98% of humans are clearly either male or female in terms of biological sex.
But the attack on “standard sex difference science” was undeterred by this decimation of Fausto-Sterling’s case. In Gender Trouble, Butler criticized the work of an MIT group that had just discovered the region on the Y chromosome responsible for sex differentiation, claiming these scientists ultimately had to invoke cultural symbols of patriarchy to legitimate their explanations. In her view, this betrayed the very notion of an objective science of sex difference. We are always trapped in culture, she wrote, which means we are always trapped in patriarchy. A science of sex is impossible. Radical sex/gender ideology attacked science as male knowledge and elevated female knowledge as superior on the basis that women as a class were treated as inferior. Like blacks and other powerless groups, women — at least, women with a feminist outlook — could critically understand the point of view of men and supplement its lacunae with the fuller vision of the female perspective. Marx made similar claims about the superiority of working-class consciousness, though he did not attempt to cast the very notion of science as a tool of oppression.
The MIT group’s finding that what we now know as the SRY gene determines sex is universally accepted science today, and Butler’s ideological criticism has aged poorly in scientifically literate circles. So has her wild overestimation that perhaps one in ten people is outside the normal sex binary.
