Will the woke claim a misuse of pronouns is hate speech, the Jennifer Ward-Lealand fiasco and goodbye Peter Singer

1. The woke, including the Human Rights Commission, are at the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if they ignored an actual hate crime committed by a state because the victim was white.

   • What you describe is not a crime against humanity.

     The images and stories that are routinely described as racists xenophobia or transphobic or what ever Twitter rant bullshit phobia is of course tragic. But, what we need in cinematic terms is slowly the camera pans out to reveal a wide shot of the social totality of what is really going on.

     So we should be asking who is doing this and I don’t think it started with Trump or Brenton Tarrant or who ever. When ever a crime against humanity breaks out in a third world country it should be assumed as it should be assumed in the west that it is a product of neo-colonializm or what ever BUT it isn’t true active colonialism in third world countries because it is passive, so should it be assumed in the west.

     So I am hard against the crown forcing us to integrate together by controlling how we think and speak. I think there should be degrees of separation in an MMP democracy.

     If you look closely at Brenton Tarrant he was not an extremist loner because he was deeply fascinated with western culture and he kind of fought it with envy. If anything these young people who’re ready to fight or to commit hideous crimes is reacting to a certain type of integration that doesn’t work.

     I am deeply in love with Asian cuisine and I think it would be a catastrophe if there was a Chinese take out on every corner like one big happy family. So we should fight the destructive nature of capital through transnational connections. The problems being IP (intellectual property) problems, ecological problems, these are problems that can only be approached by large national bodies cooperating which is different from individuals being forced to cooperate through enforcing hatespeech.

     Kiwis still hold on tight to the kiwi dream and it doesn’t matter if it is an illusion and this illusion has a certain political efficiency. New Zealand is the land of the long white cloud and it doesn’t matter if you combine a certain level of freedom and safety all with social solidarity above a minimum social welfare safety and fortress Aotearoa and so on. This is the part of New Zealand’s legacy that is worth fighting for.

2. [They] think they are inter-personal radicals when in fact they are emotional bureaucrats…

   That’s a pretty good summing up. This isn’t a left vs right thing, it’s a rationalism vs irrationalism thing.

   … the truth is that NZ simply doesn’t have the maturity of culture to discuss these issues without immediately taking toxic offence.

   Sure looks like it. There are utilitarians with admirable ethics – Singer is one, Diana Fleischman is another. The response to Singer last week was not just depressingly simplistic, it was sanctimonious.

3. Sky City feared being associated with Peter Singer might cause “reputational damage”. I’m surprised Peter Singer wasn’t worried about being associated with one of NZ’s leading causes of gambling addiction.

4. J W-L has done more for the preservation of te reo, music and the arts generally than most I know of.
   Its a shame she wasn’t on the RNZ board or even CEO. By now we’d probably have Concert FM AND a yoof network alongside more of a commitment to iwi radio. And it’d have been done without fanfare or self-promotion.

5. I’m starting to think the issue of hate speech is both intractable and unsolvable. Language alone is sufficiently complex that doubt can be interpreted in any communication if you look hard enough (often with crazy eyes), without even debating intent or guilt according to some subjective behavioural parameters. For example, if we can all agree on how we are to be addressed and lovingly accepted, will it then be okay to use pronoun adjectives when speaking of someone, such as ‘arse-eating (tranny)’ or ‘hysterical (bull queer)’? What about when used as words in a comedic set, or in a satirical column, or in a fictional setting such as a novel? Are some people going to insist this type of language needs to be annotated and explained in notes, that the use of potentially offensive language has been used here as a method to develop plot and character only, and that no harm was wished upon any member of society as a consequence of writing this language, and that advice was sought from professionals trained in the psychology of gender related themes in literature when writing this book? Or should we stop interacting with the world for fear of stepping on someone’s toes, for being a big meany, for fear of being cancelled by someone whom we share no interests or ideology with but respect their opinion and orientation? Should we all stay at home with the curtains drawn, and stop all outside communication, and sit cross legged in the middle of a darkened stale room, alone, head bowed, feeling safe that no-one can talk nasty to you and you will not hurt them?

   • for being a big meany, for fear of being cancelled

     This bloke’s been cancelled – must be a real big meany big meany cancelled

     • The meek shall inherit the earth

6. I agree Bomber, and I commented on this under your first blog on the planned hate speech legislation. One irony over this is the contradiction between protecting Muslims from hate speech, and allowing male bodied persons licence to use women-only facilities. Muslim women would not be able to use such facilities if they followed their religious practices.

   Free speech advocates mostly reject the claim ‘all men are rapists’, nor do they accept that all trans are dangerous, but unfortunately a few are. When violent people make women suffer, it needs to be said. If the violent are trans, it needs to be said. Censoring free speech is a form of violence.

   • +1 Janio

     (be careful because your ideas have come to be hate speech apparently in certain woke circles).

7. There are people in our society who have spent a lifetime viewing biological gender as a very useful tool, farmers, vets, zookeepers, doctors etc all being good examples. It can be hard for these people to accept the idea that gender is self-determined. If these people then face the consequences of hate laws, it will not be a helpful move towards social cohesion.

   As for calling individuals by the plural ‘they’, I suggest this only reinforces stereotypes that suggest these people are confused. Forcing people to use a plural word for an individual might be seen as an assault on language, and an almost orwellian doublethink, with possibly sinister implications on the way the state enforces it’s version of reality on to it’s subjects. Most people who believe in democracy prefer the state to respect it’s citizens, not enforce conformity on it’s subjects. I certainly will not be voting for Little Hate Speech.

8. I agree with Bombers post and all the comments so far and their different points of view that lead them to the conclusion that the hate speech legalisation is not needed or wanted.

   NZ used to be a safe and free country – we need to fight to keep it that way, and Chinese style self censorship and political criminality over thoughts, prayers and speech needs to be stopped.

   You have the right to pray, you have the right to say you don’t agree to pray.

   You have the right to be transgender, you have the right to be a feminist who has a different view from transgender.

   You have the right to be an arse hole and be against everyone in speech as long as it does not fall into discrimination in actions.

   What I really despise as well, is that it’s always the Labour party that loves to bring in disgusting social experiments like Rogernomics (all for our own good like trickle down and student loans and trade deals and selling NZ visas!) which backfire all the time and opens NZ up to even more fascism, more hate, more insecurity, more control as the right get into power on the backs of experimental Labour social policy that harms many people’s lives, and tweak it further and further. And instead of admitting they made a mistake, Labour keep trying to tinker to stop all the consequences which were obvious from the beginning of their above experimental turned socially harmful policies.

   NZ is often a head of the curve on many issues such as giving women the vote, Protesting Springbok tour, nuclear free, but equally have had many misses such as one of the highest student loan rates in the world when it was introduced, some of the worst labour laws in a social democracy, political human rights abuses in criminal cases aka Ahmed Zaoui and our obsession with foreign capital and immigration to mask the above consequences (aka brain drain) is making us a nation of cheap labour of polluting sunset industries and a bizarre desire to become a low wage, low skill economy owed by overseas multinationals that are as corrupt and thick as pig shit.

   If you have no freedom of speech you have no creativity or innovation or debate in a country.

9. That a philosopher is banned from talking about moral issues by a fucking Casino kind of sums up NZ intellectually right now.
   And unfortunately always has for a large section of the community Martyn.

10. So a statutory rapist choosing to identify as a child gets off? FFS

11. Re Singer – most SEVERELY disabled infants don’t live long after birth, if they are not stillborn. There is a general policy in hospitals of not supporting lives that are not viable.

    • Singer sees Down syndrome and spina bifida as being SEVERE disabilities….and he believes (after much deep and ethically focused thought) that unlucky parents of these babies should be allowed to kill them up to 28 days after birth.

      I am not sure what Singer believes about the death penalty for recidivist child rapists, but dig a little and he has some concerning opinions about rape of disabled people.

      See, in Singer’s capacious mind, if the person is of diminished intellectual function (by his standard (?)) they are not capable of consent so it could be argued (morally and ethically of course) that forcing sexual activity on them is not technically rape.

      If Singer embodies the very best of left wing philosophy then no wonder we’re so deep in the shit.

      Blind followers and flag-wavers of this man need to realise he holds some deeply disturbing views on people with disabilities.

      • Only the most hardened rightwing jingoist could sustain a conversation like that as if the state should have the power to euthanas disabled children because it all got a little to hard.

      • If you refuse to engage honestly with other people’s arguments, why should anyone take your comments seriously?

        • Psycho Milt: “If you refuse to engage honestly with other people’s arguments, why should anyone take your comments seriously?”

          You’re quite right. It’s wilful misunderstanding of Singer’s views; not worth the effort of responding, really.

      • Rosemary McDonald: “Singer sees Down syndrome and spina bifida as being SEVERE disabilities….and he believes (after much deep and ethically focused thought) that unlucky parents of these babies should be allowed to kill them up to 28 days after birth.”

        I wonder if you’ve read Singer. I read him at uni, many years ago. He’s a philosopher: it’s his job to apply philosophical principles to the task of examining difficult issues. And infants born with disabilities are just such an issue.

        No doubt you’re aware that many infants with Down syndrome have heart problems which require surgery very soon after birth. Some also have structural abnormalities with the digestive system, including oesophageal atresia. This can be corrected with surgery very soon after birth, but absent surgery, the child will die very quickly. And I’m sure that you’re also aware that cardiac and gut surgery is traumatic stuff for a tiny human to suffer, and not always successful.

        As for spina bifida, this is a condition which can vary from mild to very severe. I have seen children with the most severe form: it is very distressing.

        Singer himself remained uncertain about that 28-day period. He recognised that the moment of birth was for most people the marker of the beginning of personhood and the right to life. And that might be a sufficient reason not to consider a law change, so as to allow parents to euthanase a baby, or to allow it to die, within that 28-day period.

        But he’s right: it is for the parents to decide if they wish a severely-disabled newborn to have life-saving corrective surgery. Nobody else ought to have that right.

        “….they are not capable of consent so it could be argued (morally and ethically of course) that forcing sexual activity on them is not technically rape.”

        Given the definition of rape, that’s correct. It’s an awful thing to contemplate, but the sexual abuse of babies is also not rape, and for the same reasons. It doesn’t follow, however, that such behaviour isn’t egregiously wrong. I’ve not seen anything to suggest that Singer disagrees with that.

        “Blind followers and flag-wavers of this man need to realise he holds some deeply disturbing views on people with disabilities.”

        No. He doesn’t. Like many philosophers, he’s an animal rights advocate; I was surprised to discover, when I began studying philosophy, that as far as philosophers are concerned, the animal rights issue is a won argument. Singer developed the concept of the “cone of moral considerability”, into which some animals – notably primates – fit, and some severely intellectually disabled humans don’t.

        He’s saying that those concerned for animal rights must justify why they wish to privilege severely disabled humans over other animals which aren’t intellectually-disabled. Viewed in the context of animal rights, he’s correct: if people disagree with him, they must make a coherent counter-argument.

        In any event, he’s coming to NZ to talk about charitable giving: “give until it hurts”; not about his views on intellectually-disabled newborns. With regard to the latter, the proper thing to do is to present an argument against what he thinks. It’s wrong to attempt to prevent him from speaking.

        I must say, I’d like to see somebody present an argument against Singer’s views on charitable giving; in which enterprise, he practises what he preaches. Good luck with that!

12. In automatic slightly drunk mode, I accidentally said to a lovely transgender waiter at the weekend “Good man.” I was wanting to give them a compliment to their fine service.
    Under the new Little/woke laws I would now be in jail and my name smeared as a hate person.
    Seriously the Greens and Labour seem to be determined to lose the election.
    Don’t they read your blog? You are the only one who makes political sense these days.

    • @HM
      Ba ha ! That’s funny. No, really. It’s funny.
      Don’t worry about it.
      ” Life, is far too important to take seriously.”
      Oscar Wilde.
      Your gaff was born of good intentions so don’t worry about it.

13. ““How dare that white girl get an award for the Te Reo when all the indigenous wahine are something something colonisation something something cishet patriarchy something something white feminism.’”

    Hahaha….hilarious! You sum it up so eloquently, Martyn.

    I hadn’t known about the woke’s treatment of the unfortunate Jennifer Ward-Lealand (there’s a lot to be said for staying away from the aptly-named Twitter, and not having a FB account), but I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised at it. I do hope that she just ignores them from now on. Though I suppose it’ll be a 9-day wonder in any event.

    “….the looming hate speech legislation which Labour have insanely decided to push ahead with….”

    Chris Trotter has theorised that Little’s going ahead with this, and apparently there being no opposition from Peters, signals a weakening in Peters’ position within the coalition. However. I’m wondering if there’s something more Machiavellian afoot. Maybe Peters sees this issue as being the one that will cause Labour to lose the election, and that’s why he’s not front-footing it, as we’d all expect.

    “Hate speech protection for Trans, Queer and Intersex to one side, the desire to protect religious groups (like Muslims) from facing ridicule would collide with our desire to ridicule Christians.”

    It would be the apotheosis of irrationality to protect Muslims from hate speech (or as you characterise it, ridicule), yet not to extend the same protection to all other religious groups. That would be truly Clochemerle-ish.

    “That a philosopher is banned from talking about moral issues by a fucking Casino kind of sums up NZ intellectually right now.”

    Poor Peter Singer. I doubt that any of those screaming for his deplatforming have any real understanding of his philosophical writing. And – in any event – he’s coming here to talk about charitable giving, not moral philosophy. Giving till it hurts: a concept that’s foreign to the woke left, I’m guessing.

    He has another venue lined up, I believe, after Sky City cancelled his booking. Pusillanimous of it, but what we’ve come to expect.

    Nowadays, I rarely listen to Kim Hill, but Saturday morning by chance, I heard her interview Singer. She wasted a perfectly good interview, barking at him over his writing on severely-disabled infants, despite his visit having nothing whatever to do with the disability issue.

    • I’ll give this a wee try D’Esterre.

      Those “…screaming for his de-platforming” understand all too well the aspect of Singer’s ‘philosophy’…the bit where he would happily allow the active killing of disabled babies.

      Think about that for a minute.
      Some of Singer’s language around this issue frighteningly (to some of us) echoes the scripts of some of the Nazi propaganda justifying euthanizing disabled people.
      Invoke Godwin and see if I give a shit.

      Kim Hill gave Singer every opportunity the other morning to recant, to say he has had another think(after maybe spending time with disabled people like Harriet McBryde Johnson), to perhaps acknowledge that the biggest barrier to a decent life is the stigma some like him attach to disability.

      But no. The only concession the Wise One made was to say that today he would not use the term “defective”.

      Whatever other wondrous thoughts are generated from Singer’s venerable brain…his thoughts on the worth of disabled people render them nothing.

      • Rosemary McDonald: “…the aspect of Singer’s ‘philosophy’…the bit where he would happily allow the active killing of disabled babies.”

        I prefer what Singer himself has actually said and written, rather than what other people say he’s said. The points he makes are indeed radical, and subtle.

        Fetuses with genetic disorders – some non-viable, some not – are aborted every year, both here and elsewhere. Singer asks what the in-principle difference is, between such fetuses and newborns? It’s a legitimate question. He himself has said that the fact of birth may for most people – at least in this part of the world – mark the difference. But clearly not for everyone, everywhere.

        He doesn’t see euthanasia of severely disabled newborns as a compulsory thing. He has suggested, however, that legislation could be amended so as to allow the space for parents of such newborns to make their own decisions. As people now do in respect of abortions.

        He has said nothing about people with acquired disabilities, such as Huhana Hickey or Paula Tesoriero. Or people such as my unfortunate relatives, diagnosed in childhood with a truly awful degenerative disease.

        “…echoes the scripts of some of the Nazi propaganda justifying euthanizing disabled people.
        Invoke Godwin and see if I give a shit.”

        Your comments caused me to suspect that you know nothing about Peter Singer, beyond what you’ve read on Twitter, or somebody’s social media feed. Now I’m certain of it.

        Singer is a Jew. His parents fled Vienna in 1939. His grandparents, however, died in the Holocaust: his paternal grandparents were transported to Łódź, and never seen again, his maternal grandfather died in Theresienstadt.

        If you would know what happened to the Jews of Vienna, just before the war, you could do worse than read Edmund de Waal’s account, in his lovely, meditative book “The Hare with Amber Eyes”.

        You are, of course, free to say this stuff. And I am free to tell you that you’re profoundly ignorant and offensive.

        “Kim Hill gave Singer every opportunity the other morning to recant….”

        Christ…it wasn’t her place to tell him what to think. And she was completely out of line, barking at him about the disability issue: that’s not why he’s here. He wanted to talk about the purpose of his visit, yet she talked over him. Once upon a time I’d have expected better of her. But no more.

        If you had listened properly to that interview, you’d have heard that he completely denied that his views are in any way related to the Nazi project. And hectoring Hill ought to have accepted that. So should you.

        In any event, people who disagree with Singer should not be attempting to deplatform him. The proper course of action is to present a counter-argument. In order to do that, people need to be au fait with his views. It is evident that most – including you – are not.

        I’d like to hear activists present an argument against his views on charitable giving: give until it hurts. In which enterprise, he practises what he preaches, giving 40% of his income to charity. I doubt that there’s anything people can say that wouldn’t come across as first-world miserliness.

        Read his books: “Rethinking Life and Death”, along with “Should the Baby Live?”, which he co-authored with Helga Kuhse.

14. It’s seriously becoming harder to know who to vote for!
    – Breadcrumbs for beneficiaries
    – No real commitment to fixing Public Service broadcasting (we apparently need a bloody PWC report ffs!)
    – Tinkering over immigration and worker exploitation – even to the extent that the simplest things aren’t being done in the interim
    – No commitment to fixing our public service which has gone seriously astray
    – corporate welfare over public welfare

    After a lifetime, as things stand I just can’t do Labour anymore until I see some signs of real transformation BEFORE the next election. But … what’s the alternative?

    • OnceWasTim: “After a lifetime, as things stand I just can’t do Labour anymore until I see some signs of real transformation BEFORE the next election. But … what’s the alternative?”

      I’m in the same position. I’ve decided that, if the government can’t or won’t do what is needful to substantially improve incomes and living conditions for the poorest of our citizens, then my priority has to be the preservation of our freedom of speech. And: given that David Seymour is pretty much the sole parliamentary voice raised in defence of those freedoms, my party vote at the upcoming election is going to ACT. I’d add that never in my worst nightmares did I think that I’d be having to do this.

      • Shit! – well that’s pretty radical but I understand your frustration.
        It’s just a shame l-l-l-l-Labour can’t see it, and if and when it ever arrives, it’ll prpbably be too late.
        But so be it. Vote according to your conscience and leave them to theirs and just hope they wake the fuck up before it all turns to shite.
        I sometimes wonder – given their collective IQs, how the bleeding bloody obvious seems to get missed. But then if you look back over history (it hasn’t actually ‘ended’ as predicted) – same shit different stink

        • OnceWasTim: ” …given their collective IQs, how the bleeding bloody obvious seems to get missed.”

          I suspect two things: the milieu in which they move, and the advisors and policy wonks who do their policy work. It’s an echo chamber of sorts.

          • Indeed. Watching ONE News (Your News) with Our Simon and Our Wendy, Iain Lees-Galloway seems to have just done it all again.
            (issues regarding immigration, and bearing in mind I’m 2 degrees removed from some of those ‘officials’)

15. Are these going to be the subject of hate allegations in the future….

    Indian lawyer blames ‘racism’ apparently on not being allowed to bring more than two guests into Koro lounge and took Air New Zealand to court after they banned her with continued rude behaviour to their staff… Next time she could be taking them to court for hate crimes…

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/119766258/lawyer-fails-to-have-her-air-new-zealand-flying-ban-removed

    Some person writes a rude “racist” note about a person parking on the the footpath and making it dangerous for children (a common problem in Auckland as kids don’t matter, car’s rights do..)

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/119772684/racist-note-left-for-asian-woman-parked-outside-queenstown-housing-complex

    Gosh how many police and courts are we going to need with all these hate crimes of the future going to court over rude behaviour that now with identity concerns could be hate speech and someone gets 20 years for saying something wrong or not giving people what they demand!!!

16. Perhaps the simplest solution to this whole dilemma is to just stop taking what people say on social media so seriously, and treat it as the toilet wall it is? Imagine the news media reporting with a straight face that somebody had written a homophobic slur on the wall of a public toilet, and that gay rights activists had bravely turned up in large numbers to write comments challenging this homophobia on the same wall. Perhaps if enough of us just stop rewarding ignorant comments on these corporate-run toilet walls with our attention, instead give it to internet forums where people have respectful and insightful conversations about the issues of the day, we might stop feeling like we’re living in the world depicted in the disturbingly prophetic movie Idiocracy?

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