Reductio ad Absurdum...

“The truth is a terrible thing, but not compared to falsehood.”
Jordan Peterson

Back in my favourite C Store this morning and enjoying temperatures in the mid 20s C. I would normally say that I was also enjoying the coffee, but this particular cup tastes a tad sour for some strange reason, a fact pointed out by several other customers. The lass behind the counter seems a little perplexed, she has the lid off of the coffee machine and is looking into it....
It’s been an intersting week or so. I have, via a VPN, had access to several sites that would normally be difficult to get here in China. During various discussions of late a certain problem has arisen again and again. In these debates, I have found myself somewhat surprised at being accused of being ‘right wing’ by those who identify with the left, particular the UK’s Labour Party, but also called ‘left wing’ by those who identify with the right, again in the UK those who would consider themselves Convservatives Party voters.
The issues were, in turn: transgenderism, austerity, people attempting to ‘work the system’ on council estates and trickle down economics. Apparently, at least according to those who responded to me, I am either a left wing loony or a right wing pig, at one and the same time it seems (to myself, I seem like a relatively gentle soul with an interest in the social movements of his times).
Firtsly, let me deal with each of these issues, albeit rather simplisticly as none of them are the point that I actually intend to address. I hope my readers will forgive my bluntness here. Countless books and articles have been written on each and it is not my intention to actually debate them today.
Transgenderism - doesn’t actually exist. No male with XY chromozones has ever transitioned into a female and, indeed, can ever actually do so. The same can be said of XX females ‘identifying’ as men. This is simply because it is impossible for one sex to ‘transition’ into the other. Attempting to maintain anything else is, how can I put it, absurd given the biological evidence.

Austerity - has been a failure everywhere it has been tried. It constricts economies and ensures that money is not allowed to flow through the system. It is almost a guaranteed way to bring on a recession. The UK government’s version hasn’t worked in Britain. The EU’s version hasn’t worked in Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece.

Council Estates - I lived on one for twenty years and my experience mirrors most other people’s. Whilst the vast majority of people were perfectly decent members of society, there was also a sizeable chunk who were anything but, doing anything and everything they could to ‘game’ the system. Denial doesn’t make such reprobates disappear.

Trickle Down Economics - this sacred cow of the right has been a failure everywhere it has been attempted. The notion is that of stacked champagne glasses; when you fill the top glass the overflow trickles down into the other glasses below it. That’s the theory anyway. In practice, as the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby noted, all that tends to actually happen is that the top glass grows bigger until it crushes all the glasses below it.

These issues are just examples of an underlying problem. that problem being the identification of oneself with a political party or movement, or even with seeing oneself as left wing or right. When this happens it seems that many people seem to feel the need to align themselves with all the postions taken on that side of the debate no matter how absurd or obviously flawed they are. Within themselves, many Tories must know that trickle down economics has been a profound failure and is a deeply flawed model but feel the need to defend it because their particular ‘tribe’ hold that position.
It is hard to believe that any sane person who understands that cells have either XX or XY chromozones can serioiusly pretend that transgenderism actually exists...but they do. Or, perhaps to be more precise, they say that they do. It is hard to beleive that in their heart of hearts, as the saying goes, they do not recognise the simple reality that such a notion is physically impossible.

Perhaps what is needed is for sane and rational people, and even politicians, to move away from the identification with left and right, with Tory or Socialist, and start to look at what is sane, what is rational, what is responsible; in short, what actually works.
Here in China they suffered many years under the sad delusion that they were building a utopian communist society. It was a disaster from start to finish, with literally millions dying in these ill fated efforts. Fortunately, in the early eighties, they were lucky enough to have one Deng Xiao Ping at the helm. As he himself said: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice!” He moved the country away from flawed ideologies and towards pragmatism (although one doubts if the Communist Party of China would actually agree out loud). Now China essentially has no political philosophy, left or right, but simply does what it perceives to work. Once the ideological nonsense was dropped, the resultant miracle here over the last thirty odd years has been truly stunning to witness.

So, in summary, my point is that perhaps we all need to mature beyond aligned party politics to a place where people are able to express blatant realities rather than feel pressured to keep up positions that, in reality, are untenable or even absurd. If it is not oxymoronic to say so, politics needs to become apoltical. Perhaps even, as political entities, we all need to grow up a bit?
Back in C Store, the very charming lass behind the counter has thoughtfully refilled my coffee cup with a freshly brewed concoction. It tastes a lot better than the last. We exchange friendly greetings through translation apps and go on to exchange views on the chaos taking place outside. Parking is a problem in Dongguan, too may cars and too few places, and it can be quite fascinating to simply gaze out of the window here and witness the ongoing disputes that seem to flare up every ten minutes or so. As ever, it is all very entertaining, but as with the issues outlined above, one can’t help but think that sometimes this is a very, very....mad World!