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Where Are Your Principles?

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Clarissa

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The same people who are up in arms against the shaming and persecution of those who want to control their own bodies in what concerns masks and therapeutics are losing their shit over a gymnast who refused to jump “for the public good” because she says she knows what’s best for her.

Either you control your body or the collectivity does. You can’t have it both ways. If it’s OK to require that a person perform a gymnastics routine against her will, then the collectivity definitely bcan command you to put medication into your body to assuage its anxiety.

Whining that the gymnast is a selfish snowflake while in the same breath refusing masks because “my body, my choice” is hypocritical.

It’s equally pathetic that the same people who want to force-medicate others against their will are now screeching that everybody should respect the gymnast’s choice not to risk her health if she doesn’t feel like it.

This is what happens when people have zero principles and are guided solely by tribal concerns.

14 responses to “Where Are Your Principles?”

  1. valter07 Avatar
    valter07

    I guess we are comparing apples and oranges here…
    At least for me not being properly entertained or my patriotic feelings not being properly stroked (gymnast) is significantly different from actions that, albeit with small probability, could cause other people bodily harm (COVID-related stuff).

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    1. Just George Avatar
      Just George

      A lot of people think that collectivists are people who think that the group should make decisions for the individual for the benefit of the collective.

      In reality though, groups of people who call themselves collectivists are often just a large group of very selfish individualists who care nothing for the collective and who just want to have their way, selfishly. I suppose you could call them a group of pseudo-collectivists or pseudo-pluralists.

      People who want everyone to have a COVID vaccine against their will are sometimes a good example imo. Many of them present themselves as people who care about everyone in society but really they just want everyone to be injected with an unproven so-called vaccine to make their own fear go away or so that they can go on holidays again.

      That said the issue of vaccines and olympic attire are different because a person carrying an infectious disease is a hazard to the individual while an olympians clothing is never a threat, but that is a matter for another post.

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      1. Just George Avatar
        Just George

        That post wasn’t meant to be a reply to valter07 but it’s no big deal.

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      2. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        I agree but I think it’s more than that. I think the insistence that everybody get vaccinated is an attempt to allay their own anxiety that they unthinkingly did something ill-considered that can’t be undone. Many did it to their kids, and parental guilt is a terrible burden. There are already countries in Europe that aren’t recommending this vaccination for underage children. The weight of this knowledge won’t be easy to tolerate. Just like the realization that keeping children locked up for a year is driving many to great rage. They can’t rage against themselves, so they invent an imaginary evildoer who is causing them great suffering by not observing lockdowns, not getting vaccinated, etc.

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        1. Just George Avatar
          Just George

          @ Clarissa: “I agree but I think it’s more than that.”

          I know. It is what you said and more, including the kind of corrosive revenge pathology that drives circumcised women to demand that their daughters or grand daughters also be circumcised, or that drives those deep in college debt to demand that all new students also be thrust deep into debt. It’s the kind of psychopathy that demands that something miserable be done to others because it was done to them.

          Anyway, the reason I wrote the above is because many people accidentally fall into a self induced false dichotomy, where they imagine that the only two groups are the collectivist/pluralists, or the individualists/monoists.

          That kind of thinking gives rise to misunderstandings that can only be explained by calling someone a hypocrite, which I think is a bad idea because some people belong in a third grouping, and are simply tyrants.

          In my opinion, tyrants should be identified and called out, rather than allowed to blend into groups of collectivists/pluralists or something.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Which actions can cause other people bodily harm? Specifically, which actions? If you are vaccinated and you believe you are protected, how can somebody else’s lack of vaccination cause you bodily harm?

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “respect the gymnast’s choice not to risk her health”

    I won’t pretend to know what’s going on with her but my guess would be something physically trivial which interferes with her technique enough that she’s afraid she could get badly injured. Not just something that’s physically painful (you don’t get to her level without learning how to work through pain) but something that’s interfering with her timing or spatial orientation.
    But “something’s a little off in a dangerous way” doesn’t play as well as going for the mental health card (which will trigger much media fawning and cooing).
    Also the lack of a crowd could be disorienting – lots of athletes are at their best with an enthusiastic crowd behind them – the little footage I’ve seen looks like a practice session more than a competition.
    It might also be that age finally caught up with her (she’s not young for what she’s doing) or that she’s losing whatever motivation she’s had (the olympics would be an extraordinarily awkward place for that to happen but it’s outside anyone’s conscious control).

    Whatever it is, it’s her choice and the people wanting her to risk a broken neck out of some sense of team spirit are…. not well (technically speaking, given her early performances pulling out probably gave the team a better chance so you argue that she was putting the team first).

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      This debacle totally reminded me of John Lennon’s “Imagine” being played at the opening of the Olympics. “Imagine there are no countries” – and who are you going to support? Who’s going to be “your team”? People with some micro-sexual identity that appeals to you?

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “John Lennon’s “Imagine” being played at the opening of the Olympics”

        I thankfully managed to miss that…. I do remember it during the early days of coronavirus (before it graduated to covid).
        You’d think that “imagine there’s no heaven” is not a great comfort to people facing a possibly deadly pandemic, but I guess celebrities have deeper insights than us proles…..

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  3. random reader Avatar
    random reader

    I genuinely do not understand the problem with an athlete withdrawing from a competition. I do wonder whether this is some kind of artificially stoked controversy (not her resigning, but all the crazy talk around it) so that people talk about something else than corona. The person who has the most at stake and the most to lose is her – athletes work so hard for a chance to compete at the Olympics, it must have been difficult for her to make that choice. In the end, there is another athlete that has taken her place and can provide people who still watch Olympics (does anyone really still care at this point?) with someone they can cheer on.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I agree. It does feel completely artificial. Montreal Canadiens lost the Stanley Cup in part because a crucial player didn’t play because of undisclosed personal problems. OK, he’s human, things happen. Would have been better if he could play but he couldn’t. That’s life.

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  4. AcademicLurker Avatar
    AcademicLurker

    I have no issue with an athlete deciding, for whatever reason, to drop out of a competition. I am annoyed, however, by the narrative that seems to be emerging in parts of the media:

    From The Week</>: “What Simone Biles did on Tuesday is more impressive than winning”

    From NBC: “It takes more strength to throw off enormous expectations than it takes to live up to them”

    It doesn’t exactly speak well of a society when its headlines are “Yay quitting!” and “Folding under pressure is so much more impressive than winning!”. Granted, it’s exactly what you’d expect from the sort of people who work in legacy media these days, but still…

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Is there anything that NBC has touched recently that it hasn’t turned into complete garbage?

      Where are news? Who is reporting actual news? All of this is just poorly worded, childishly argued, pouty opinion. These people can’t produce anything but opinion, and it’s not even the interesting, original kind. It’s all predictable and extremely repetitive.

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  5. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    Good twitter thread.

    “We could go over the racial issues of Simone and how she was put into a unasked for position “black girl magic” that is now in the past few years become endemic. Where for america to be good black men and women have to be the spearhead of everything to fix racism.

    I wonder if the elites of this country ever asked themselves if it would be a good idea to tell a young girl the country hates her and then ask her to represent the country that hates her , and to be the best gymnast ever too? No wonder she walked out.”

    https://twitter.com/tummymuncher/status/1420021796712206341?s=20

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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