Declaring publicly that the emperor has no clothes may prompt him to get dressed. But how is that harmful?
In 2020, the Oxford University union held a debate on the resolution “religion has no place in public life.” The proposition made arguments that religion is false, damaging, and divisive and therefore warrants public exclusion and private disapproval. The opposition countered these arguments. But in doing so, the opposition did not resort to misrepresenting the proposition’s contempt for religion as contempt for religious people. After the event, journalists did not accuse the proposition of being genocidal maniacs, nor did broadcasters denounce the proposition as fascist.
Compare this to what happened after Michael Knowles said at CPAC that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life.” Here’s what Knowles said:
If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false, as it is, if men really can’t become women, as they cannot, then it’s false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it, especially since that indulgence involves taking away the rights and customs of so many people.
If it is false, then for the good of society — and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion — transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.
Rolling Stone reported that “CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgender People to Be ‘Eradicated.’” Other media outlets put out similar interpretations. When Knowles demanded retractions, on the grounds that he said no such thing, Rolling Stone changed its headline to read: “CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism’ — and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People.”
Somehow? Only very weak ideologies and very insecure subscribers to such ideologies don’t distinguish between belief and believer.
Someone who believes religion has no place in public life does not call for religious people to cease to exist. In calling for transgenderism — what he identifies as a “preposterous ideology” — to be eradicated, Knowles is not calling for people to stop existing. But perhaps some who have bought into the preposterous ideology, absent society’s widespread affirmation, would move on from it.
Declaring publicly that the emperor has no clothes may prompt him to get dressed. But how is that harmful?