If forced to choose, would you consider yourself more of a lobster or a clownfish? It sounds bizarre, but this is the political battlefield of the future.
Under the noses of much of mainstream media, beyond the attention of most of the public, a conflict is brewing between the disciples of two different marine animals.
Lobster Capitalism
In the blue corner, under the banner of the lobster, stand Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Quillette, Evolutionary Psychologists and the rest of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’. Jordan Peterson famously compared human hierarchy and social roles to those found within lobsters. These lobster capitalists believe reasons for the existence of human social hierarchies can be found within genetics and heredity. Ever since the 19th century, conservatives have argued that poverty is a product of the characteristics of the individual, rather than a product of social dynamics. These lobster capitalists are not new, but rather an updated form of Social Darwinists. Appeals to rationality and logic disguise the emotional core at the heart of this position: a fear that pushes for greater equality will negatively impact those who are naturally ‘better’.
Clownfish Communism
In the red corner are many ‘science educators’, including President of Humanists UK Alice Roberts, and even Bill Nye who have committed themselves to the cause of the clownfish. They point to said clownfish to ‘prove’ that biological sex is more ‘complex’ than simply male and female, which opens the door to the postmodern deconstruction of gender otherwise known as queer theory. It is important to note that this is not founded on a rejection of science as such, but an attempt to use science to obfuscate reasonable categorisation. Going hand in hand with this are calls for ‘fully automated luxury communism’. Without a materialist understanding of inequality and oppression, the ideal of a new economic system is little more than a fantasy – the same kind of fantasy which religious groups promise awaits believers in heaven.
Despite the superficial differences, therefore, both sides effectively hinder our ability to comprehend and tackle the injustices of our present social order: one side claiming that biology is the root cause of inequality, and the other side rendering us unable to deconstruct those claims.
A future political battleground between lobsters and clownfish would be a disaster, except for medical corporations who would be given free reign to experiment on children and abusers who would flourish under the cover of ‘complex’ biology and oppression olympics on one hand, and biological justifications on the other. No wonder, then, that everywhere we look, we find such organisations and individuals pushing these ideologies.
The idea that we can make progress against any of this by aligning ourselves with one side or another is folly. Only an independent movement with independent organisations can push back against lobsters and clownfish and restore humanity to the political spectrum.
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