what do you make of this?

I came away from the PJW video below with mixed feelings. I like what Watson says at the end about how naïve it is to think that all cultures can just mesh and blend together with no problems. That is demonstrably untrue. Watson's points about the need to respect other cultures' values, especially when you're in a foreign country, also resonates with me (he uses the recent example of foreigners being asked not to wear their LGBTQ tee shirts in Qatar, where the World Cup is happening). But at the same time, Watson expresses a sort of bitterness and vitriol toward the LGBTQ community/agenda that makes me uncomfortable. I get that plenty of "alphabet people" have gone from asking for tolerance to demanding an active embrace of their lifestyle, and I imagine that that's what Watson is pushing back against. What I fear, though, is that the pushback, by Watson and others (though I can't really say what Watson himself is thinking), may be hiding deeper, more inimical feelings against the alphabet community. I have a gay brother, and I feel very protective toward him. I think he should be able to live his life free from fear of harm or insult, especially since he means no harm to anyone else.* I don't want the pushback against the extreme elements of the alphabet community to become a more generalized hatred toward the moderate elements. We should all strive for tolerance, which never implies agreement, and we should avoid the temptation to become bitterly hateful toward those who are different from us. At the same time, Watson's point is well taken that Western values do not represent all human values—a fact that tee-shirt wearers need to remember when they go abroad.**

*There's a lot to unpack in that statement. Sean isn't flamboyantly gay; he once told he that he falls into a subclass called "straight-acting gay," meaning that, even with your gaydar in place, you'd be hard pressed to recognize that Sean was gay at all unless you saw him, say, kissing his husband. Sean is also not the sort of person to parade his lifestyle around for others to see, nor is he the sort to make the demands that the extreme LGBTQers are making. I don't know whether this is still true, but years ago, Sean identified as a libertarian, meaning he generally subscribes to a live-and-let-live policy. He just wants to play his music, teach his students, do his concerts, and develop himself as a person. He's not part of the "woke imperialism" that Watson is talking about.

**The whole values question is a fraught one—one I used to deal with a lot during this blog's early years. The problem when people with different values meet is that, for a value to be a value, it must be universally applicable (which is why postmodernism, in its rejection of universals, can never be about values, at least in principle; it's also why conservatives point out that feminists become strangely silent when it comes to women's rights in Muslim countries—suddenly, the feminists go We can't impose our values). Qatar takes a dim view of homosexuality, and I'm sure that the average Qatari would like to see homosexuality stamped out globally. Liberal Westerners, by contrast, tolerate or even accept homosexuality as a given, so when Westerners go to Qatar to watch some soccer, and some of them sport pro-LGBT tee shirts, conflict is inevitable. If you don't like the values that are ambient in Qatar, then my humble suggestion would be to stay away from that country. Having said that, I admit I occupy a somewhat liminal spot when it comes to the LGBTQ question. Loud, pro-alphabet expressions in the West often strike me as obnoxiously in-your-face. At the same time, I think straitlaced countries like Qatar could use a good dose of flamboyant gayness. It's like when I see a pink-haired person in the States versus seeing such a person in Korea: in the States, I just roll my eyes because the desire to be different only leads to another kind of conformity, whereas in Korea, pink hair is so rare that it's a brave statement, and I reflexively applaud it.