Consent is not enough
When I was a committed Radical Leftist, I preached at anyone who would listen (and even - especially - those who would not) about consent. I rage posted this condescending video over and over, rubbing good men's noses in the mistakes I was told bad men (which, in the Woke Cult's schema, is all men unless they're a victim in some very public way) were making. I really thought that if men just listen to women's NO, then we women would be safe from men.
As is common about the Radical Left, I was angry on behalf of All Women Everywhere regardless of my personal experience (which is another way the Radical Left contradicts itself since it demands the absolute worship of individual lived experience while simultaneously encouraging adherents to shred their relationships "for the cause" whenever someone else's lived experience leads them to conclusions that disagree with the Woke Agenda). Now, of course I haven't changed my mind about the importance of consent: it's necessary, contingent, and time-bound. But it's come up recently in my life in very different arenas that consent is not sufficient: this thorough, illuminating and free course on the Constitution from Hillsdale College and this detailed, direct and brave book: The Case Against The Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry.
It's not just old adage: "since we do people know what they want?" It's that, to give true consent, you need to be fully informed. We that live in the Information Age think we have access to all the information we need to make any decision we face. But The Information Age is actually The Technology Age, which means that it is easier than any totalitarian ruler ever dreamed to control exactly who sees what (which is why it appears that Reds and Blues are working with "different" "sets" of "facts." It's actually not that Reds are stupid/backward/uneducated!**). We have far, far less information that we've ever had--or, more dangerously, than we think we do. Our yes cannot be yes unless we are fully informed. And when we regularly cut off relationships with people based on who they voted for or what side of the Red/Blue line they're on, we will never have all the information.
In minor, every day decisions, this might not be a big deal. But in voting (hello mid-terms!), in intimacy, in medicine, consent matters. And in the echo chambers that technology has enabled via the hypnotic promise of ease and convenience (might that be one reason life feels so meaningless these days?), we rarely have enough information to give consent fully. And when a yes is based off of 45% of the available data, it's only a 45% yes--which is a no, according even to the Radical Leftists because only 100% is a true yes--but how will you ever know? Until we can know when we really want to say no, consent (in sex, in government, in medicine, etc.) is not enough.
**More on this in my next newsletter