Self-Canceling Culture -- Postmodern Relativism and the Desire to be Nice

 

I recently watched a video regarding gender-neutral restrooms. The video followed an interviewer quizzing college students about how far personal opinions matter v. objective standards. While the interviews began with the question of restrooms, the interviewer asked many other absurd questions. This included questions as to whether he -- a white male standing 5'9" -- could call himself a 6'5" Chinese woman or a seven year old and so on. Most students, not wanting to insult, were willing to accept that this guy could claim things he was obviously not. They were OK with him being Chinese [I guess cultural appropriation is now a non-issue]. One person gave the rationale that perhaps the interviewer had some degree of Chinese ancestry. Who were they to judge? Another student offered the rationale that the interviewer could identify as a seven year old, perhaps because he felt young at heart or had the mental/intellectual capacity of a seven year old. Time and time again, each student avoided objectivity and rationalized things in the subjective. Was this the epitome of post-modernity and socio-cultural relativism? It was like pulling teeth to get any one of the students to think critically... Nobody wanted to insult.

Is this the earmark of the entitlement culture at work? Is this the millennial "everyone gets an award" mentality? Is this fair? Or is it overly-fair, to the point that belief circles around itself and collapses under the weight of irrationality?  It is great to be sensitive. Heck, my wife knows that I am uber-sensitive. But sensitivity ought not be complacent, patronizing, or willfully ignorant of realities just to be kind and cooperative.  

Another example comes from the TV show The Good Doctor, which my wife had on the other day. In one episode, the autistic protagonist doctor questions a male patient who turns out to be transexual and originally a woman, and now he was pregnant by his husband. The doctor asked the husband if he was gay because he was married to a trans-man, regardless of his intercourse via his husband's female genitalia. The husband affirmed that he was gay, which confused the doctor in light of the willingness to have intercourse with the female anatomy and the trans-man's desire to become a mother, despite reference to himself as a "daddy." It almost cancels itself out. Categorization seems to be largely null.

Think of many contemporary feminists who support transsexuality, which logically seems absurd, since the affirmation is toward femininity as co-equal to masculinity, and here masculinity and femininity become blurred. Is feminism really feminism in light of gender-fluidity? Does it matter anymore? And if it doesn't, then any degree of femininity or masculinity is viable, including toxic hyper-masculinity... Right? It's all relative within the spectrum, which to be intellectually honest must allow for all forms of sexuality, including pederasty, polygamy, polyandry, bestiality, and sexual assault, as all are driven by passions and internal drives. 

This is called the slippery-slope fallacy. One thing really doesn't mean that other similar things have validity. Still, if we apply relativism and over-rationalized passivity, such as the students modeled above through their answers, then the slope might have logical merit. I am not saying it will go so far, but within relativism, all is fair game. In the end, I think we need cultural checks and balances to control our baseness and address things in an orderly way. The dialogue ought not be over. We ought not yield to any one view without healthy discussion and research. We need to be cautious and not overly passive just because we want to play nice with everyone. 

Interesting times.