Top-Down Speed and Political Utility

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In this episode of 1Dime Radio, I am joined by Ashley Frawley, sociologist, senior editor at Compact, COO of Sublation Media, visiting researcher at the University of Kent, and author of Semiotics of Happiness and Significant Emotions. We discuss her Compact essay “How Society Got a Sex Change,” the rise of the “trans subject” as the ideal subject of contemporary capitalism, and why gender ideology should not simply be understood as a culture war distraction, but as part of the class war itself.

This conversation covers the politics of vulnerability, therapy culture, indigenous identity, “healing” discourse, the feminization of the ideal worker, faux feminism, the role of NGOs and international institutions, the EU’s promotion of gender ideology, and why the contemporary ruling class increasingly prefers subjects who are fluid, dependent on institutions, and detached from tradition. We also discuss the parallels between today’s gender panic and past moral panics, including the Satanic Panic and multiple personality disorder, and why social distress often takes culturally specific forms.

The second half of this conversation is available in The Backroom on Patreon.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA (The Backroom Preview)

00:04:00  Introduction to Ashley Frawley

00:09:00  How Society Got a Sex Change

00:13:00  From the Masculine Subject to the Feminine Subject

00:19:00  Women, Work, and the New Spirit of Capitalism

00:25:00  Faux Feminism and the War on Motherhood

00:30:00  The Trans Subject as the Ideal Capitalist Subject

00:37:00  Institutions, IVF, and the Managed Self

00:40:00  Is Gender Ideology Being Pushed?

00:45:00  NGOs, the EU, Canada, and Progressive Policy Diffusion

00:48:00  Happiness, Therapy Culture, and Psychological Solutions to Economic Problems

00:50:00  Multiple Personality Disorder and the Satanic Panic

00:58:00  Why Some Moral Panics Travel Across Countries

01:03:00  Gender Ideology, Power, and the Good Subject

01:06:00  Preview of The Backroom on Patreon

GUEST:

Ashley Frawley

• Ashley at Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/contributor/ashley-frawley/

• “How Society Got a Sex Change”: https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-society-got-a-sex-change/

• Ashley on X/Twitter: https://x.com/AshleyAFrawley

• Ashley at Sublation: https://sublationmedia.com/author/ashley-frawley/

• Ashley’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AshleyAFrawley

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