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When Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked the simple, commonsensical question What is a woman? of then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Judiciary Committees confirmation hearings and got back a legalistic reply that could only be described as trendy drivel, The Daily Wires Matt Walsh was caught up short.

The subject of the documentary that he had quietly been making for several years had suddenly gone national before he was finished. What would that mean for the film?

Not to worry. Not long thereafteron Aug. 15, actuallyWalsh was standing onstage at the historic Franklin Theater in Franklin, Tennessee, along with Blackburn and producer/director Justin Folk to receive the plaudits of a packed house that absolutely loved this hugely important film.

That includes me, possibly the lone Academy member in the audience, because the number ofconservative qualified Oscar voters might not even reach a dozen. In a just world, this movie would be competing for a statue in the documentary category, although as we have seen on multiple fronts lately, this isnt a just world.

The topic of the film couldnt be more timely. What Is a Woman? exposes what initially seemed to be a fad but now has metastasized into a full-blown epidemic: transgenderism.

This evil trend, or whatever you prefer to call it, particularly when it ensnares our children, teenagers and younger, is a form of extreme child abuse hitherto not seen in the history of the human race. Our young people are literally being poisoned for life with hormone treatments whose import no one fully understands.

Arguably, if you wanted to kill off Western Civilization at its root, massive transgenderism would be a good way to do itjust convince children that the developmental issues so many normally have are serious cases of gender dysphoria, and switching sexual identities is their road to salvation. More likely, its a road to suicide.

Cui bono? Big Pharma, of course. Once a child takes the first medical step into being transgendered, he or she (or whatever they want to call themselves) is on the way to spending millions on their health care over a lifetime. If you didnt despise Big Pharma before seeing this film, you will afterward.

Walsh, with excellent support from Folk, takes us on a literal global adventure to demonstrate all this. Often its infuriating, as it should be, often heartbreaking, but sometimes mercifully funny, as when Walsh travels to Nairobi, Kenya, to ask the question What is a woman? of some Masai. More perceptive and intelligent than the so-called experts, the tribesmen seem nonplussed that anyone would ask something that obvious and silly.

Other notable stops along the way are with a pediatrician (in the infuriating category) who is so devoted to administering blockers to children that she appears to have a monomania in favor of gender switching. No one, to her, is born male or female, despite the apparent evidence in front of our eyes. Also infuriating, not surprisingly, is an academic in a gender studies department.

On the heartbreaking side is a woman who underwent seven operations to be a man, spent much of his/her life sick and depressed because of this, and now regrets ever having made the change. This noble person has now formed an organization to advise others against following his/her path.

Near the end of the film, clinical psychologist and author Jordan Peterson makes an appearance to clarify things, as he often does. Male and female traits appear to some degree in almost all people. Its a sliding scale that has existed as long as humanity and isnt such a big deal in the end. Wherever you are on this scale, make the best of it, accept yourself and try to live a good life without drugs or disfiguring operations.

In all, Walsh has done a fantastic job here, adopting Michael Moores strategy of going on a search for truth with the viewer. But unlike Moore, the truth is actually on Walshs side, making the film more powerful. The Daily Wire pundit has a big future as a filmmaker should he want it.

The Daily Wire, too, is to be commended for financing this documentary, just as The Epoch Times is to be commended for its recent film about Jan. 6, 2021. The left still dominates the film medium and, even more ominously, the means of distribution, but we are making inroads.

To continue this trend, support movies like What Is a Woman? See it. Tell your neighbors, friends, and family to see it. You will be doing yourself and the world a favor.

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Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are The GOAT (fiction) and I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasnt Already (nonfiction). He can be found on GETTR and Parler @rogerlsimon.

Originally posted here:
Movie Review: Walsh's 'What Is a Woman?' Is an Absolute Winner - The Epoch Times

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with Lex Fridman for a wide-ranging two-hour conversation. Lex is a professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at MIT and anextremely popular podcaster. In this latter capacity, he has spoken to significant players in a number of fieldsJoe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris, to name just a few. Though his main interests are in the arenas of science and technology, he is quite open to discussing matters of a more philosophical and even religious nature. Fridman has a very engaging stylenot argumentative and confrontational, but rather curious, inquisitive. In the course of our two hours together, we talked about God, Jesus, life after death, morality, modernity, Nietzsche, Jordan Peterson, the Bible, faith, and the meaning of life.

Judging from the thousands of comments, the general reaction from his largely tech-oriented audience was quite positive. Many observed that they were pleased to hear a serious conversation about matters that went beyond what the sciences can describe. However, I dont want to focus on the encouraging reactions, but rather on the critical onesand there were plenty of them toofor they tell us a good deal about what young secularists are thinking in regard to religion.

Without a doubt, the most common negative reaction was that I was speaking gobbledygook, or tossing an unimpressive word salad, or using lots of words to say nothing at all. Much of this critique was focused on my opening exchange with the interviewer. Lex asked me very simply, Who is God? I responded, not sentimentally or piously, but rather in the technical language of philosophy. I said that God isipsum esse subsistens(the sheer act of being itself), in contradistinction to anything other than God, in which essence and existence are distinguished. I went on to clarify the meaning of these terms in the manner of Thomas Aquinas, attempting to be as precise and technically correct as possible. To be sure, there are many ways to talk about God, but I chose, with Lexs audience in mind, to use a more intellectual approach.

What most struck me in regard to my critics is that none of them actually engaged the argument I was making or endeavored to formulate a counter-position; they simply pronounced that what I was saying was gibberish. Anyone even vaguely acquainted with the Western philosophical tradition would know that I was, in point of fact, operating out of a system of thought developed by some of the most brilliant thinkers in the tradition: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Plotinus, Bonaventure, and yes, Thomas Aquinas. It was, to be sure, not scientific speech, but it was perfectly rational, philosophically disciplined speech. That so many in the comment boxes simply did not know what I was talking about was a sobering reminder of how narrow and cramped our educational system has become. In my responses to some of these critics, I said, Would you accuse a theoretical physicist, who was using the technical language of his discipline, of word salad, if you did not immediately understand him? Wouldnt you perhaps summon the humility to admit that you had a lot to learn? I am reminded of something Cardinal Francis George used to saynamely, that before we can even broach the question of the relation between science and religion, we have to reintroduce people to philosophy, the rational discipline that effectively mediates between them. Sadly, many in the Lex Fridman audience didnt know what to do with the sort of philosophical language in which much of our doctrine of God is expressed.

The second most common criticism was that my very Catholicism effectively disqualified me. How can you listen to a representative of the most corrupt institution in history? complained one commentator. Religionespecially the Catholic religionis responsible for the deaths of millions, said another. Here is my favorite: Of all the differing variations of Christianity, Catholicism is by far the most cynical, repugnant, crass variant. Its done more harm to the human species than any other religion, its kept us back from progressing. Um ... just off the top of my head: how anyone, after the murderous secularist and atheist regimes of the twentieth century, which piled up tens of millions of corpses, can, with a straight face, argue that Roman Catholicism is the source of the greatest corruption in history simply beggars belief. This sort of canard can only be construed as the result of the intentionally distorted recounting of history far too typical in our colleges and universities. Secondly, this is such a cheap trick of our woke era: identify your opponent as a member of a supposedly oppressive group, cancel him, and thereby conveniently avoid any obligation to make an argument or respond to one. Thirdly, even if we grant (as we should) that lots of Catholics have behaved badly in the course of a two-thousand-year history, what precisely does this prove? That Catholicism is essentially corrupt? That its doctrines, sacraments, liturgies, saints, and culture are fatally compromised? Hardly. That human beings are a bad lot? Sureand in point of fact, the Catholic teaching regarding the ongoing effects of original sin even in those who are baptized would lead us to expect as much. In a word, this sort of criticism is little more than a red herring, an intentional distraction from the issue at hand.

Over the years, I have made a slew of suggestions as to how we religious people canimprove our evangelical strategies, but I wonder whether I might offer a challenge to those too ready to dismiss religious claims out of hand. First, dont cavalierly characterize philosophy as word salad, and perhaps even try to study it. And second, drop the woke posturing and have the courage to enter into real argument with those who dont share your worldview.

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Some critics of religion need to pick up their game - Angelus News