After contacting me, the columnist of The press Isabelle Hachey sent me her questions about my latest book on Thursday: Totalitarianism without a gulag. They all focused on the content of the work, except the last one, which clearly reflects the mindset with which she approached my work.
I'll take the liberty of repeating it since she forgot to quote it in her column:
“Finally, more generally, as a sociologist, why don’t you examine this type of information further before using it to support a thesis as serious as the one proposed in your essay?”
To which I replied: “I will therefore first note that your column is a frontal attack, since you did not even bother to wait for my replies before writing to me.” [les propos tout juste cités]. I conclude that this is an incriminating article. As a journalist, why don't you wait for the answer from your interlocutor before coming to such a serious conclusion as your questions suggest?
In other words, even before she had my answers, she was sure of her conclusion. What should we think of a journalist who draws such serious conclusions about the professional ethics of an essayist when she herself does not display the elementary level of prudence that requires us to wait for each other's answers before reaching a conclusion?
But let's get to the point. Normally I don't respond to such attacks, but this time I decided to make an exception because Isabelle Hachey, reading my book, shows such evil intentions and distorts the meaning of certain examples that I give there.
I will focus most of my answer on his examples related to gender theory.
Basics
While she is busy reproducing these examples in minute detail in the hope of invalidating and disqualifying them, she neglects what they have in common and what they are fundamental to: each time the person was punished because he went against was gender theory.
Far from decontextualizing these events, as Hachey accuses me of doing, I place them in the broad context that illuminates them: the emergence, normalization, institutionalization and then authoritarian radicalization of gender theory in Western societies, an absolutely new theory on the scale of our history Civilization (and the world) that posits that male and female are integral social constructions and that calling oneself a gender is enough to be one, to the extent that the sense of gender would be more important than the sexual body, the Anatomy becomes a kind of reactionary cadaver.
I'm talking about the genesis of this theory and what it all entails in terms of suppressing speech and obstructing freedom of expression.
This is the case in Canada when a father is forced by the courts to keep quiet about his child's gender reassignment. This is the case in Ireland when a teacher at a Catholic school refuses to comply with the specific mandatory use of new pronouns. This occurs in Ontario when a student objects to allowing boys who identify as girls to use girls' restrooms. This was also the case recently in Quebec, in one example after the book's publication, when a doctor was fired for three months for insisting on seeing his patient who had just begun a transition. socially, a woman and not a man, because from this doctor's point of view, calling yourself a new “gender” was not enough to abolish biology.
And so forth.
punishment
Obviously, punishment for dissent is not always “immediate” – it often occurs through administrative sophistry or what one might call a form of legal trickery. I also take the trouble to add in the book that these punishments are often imposed in a roundabout way (I note this particularly for the Irish teacher or the Ontario student, where I speak of “half-confessed” on page 186). “Punish”).
Let me summarize the matter so that we understand the ideological dynamics that permeate our societies: Imagine an employee having to undergo training on gender theory in business – or even EDI training. He refuses to take part because he thinks it's crazy. He is summoned by the human resources department, who criticize him for his lack of cooperation. He explains that no, he will not go to a training course during dinner where we risk explaining to him that a man can give birth (nor to a training course where it is stated as self-evident that Canada or Quebec companies to which it is subject). white supremacy). The HR manager, especially if he himself is driven by the EDI spirit, sees this refusal as a form of intolerance and, above all, refusal to obey – and the employee is then dismissed for refusing to obey. Isabelle Hachey will most likely say here that he was fired not because of his opposition to gender theory, but because he failed to fulfill his obligations at work. And will accuse the columnist, whose interpretation goes beyond this detail, of spreading fake news in the industry, of not offering a “full factual picture,” as if he wanted to hide information, of wanting to hide “everything” from the truth in order to better manipulate the public .
intimidation
What Isabelle Hachey does not see is the establishment of a direct and indirect repression mechanism. Its intimidation power is very real and ordinary people often prefer to remain silent to avoid problems. From then on, only those individuals who are most clearly hostile to the dominant ideology speak out, often those with very strong convictions, with the element of excess that can accompany them, making their caricature easier. However, this doesn't really change anything.
But Isabelle Hachey doesn't see anything. But absolutely nothing. Keep walking, there's nothing to see.
It must be said that at the time of the Mx affair in September 2023 I am talking about this “non-binary” teacher who wanted to be called Mx and not Madame, she did not see any problem in it and showed herself to be ignorant of the ideological meaning of this change – she saw it as a form of pragmatic adaptation to the demands of what we call non-binarity. Gender theory was thus imposed in schools without the slightest discussion – the discussion was generally considered illegitimate. In fact, Isabelle Hachey was particularly concerned that a parent of a student was concerned about this. That says a lot about his ideological prejudices.
When the young intellectual Philippe Lorange's conference before the Association of Psychiatrists of Quebec was canceled under pressure from participants who felt threatened by his presence (basically he was criticized for not thinking about what he should think), he refused They choose to see this as a form of censorship. She was happy with the lack of dialogue. You'll have to read Philippe Lorange's response to this other column by Isabelle Hachey to be convinced.
Likewise, at the time of the Lieutenant Duval affair, she declared that people who generally belonged to the current and could be described as conservative were not real defenders of educational freedom. “At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who are outraged by her, but with superficial indignation. These people don't care about freedom of education. They seized on the matter to rehash their obsessions with systemic racism, multiculturalism, Islamist leftists and right-wing thinkers…” I still wonder what right she had to claim that he was just a façade of outrage and that we made fun of freedom of education.
There is clearly a problem in the reading frame of Isabelle Hachey, who always accuses “conservative” nationalists of harping on about something unhealthy – that is obviously her right, but it is time to call out her bias and her lack of awareness of journalistic objectivity. I note in passing that the conservatives in question denounced in numerous works years in advance certain ideological trends that Isabelle Hachey became concerned about much later and on which she has built her fame in recent years.
In an environment where journalism is in crisis, La Presse readers have the right to know who they are dealing with.
The beginning of an answer can be found in the passage from his text on the centenary initiative. This project advocates a radical increase in immigration to increase Canada's population to 100 million by the end of the century. She tries to make me seem like a demagogue who rejects “untested” approximations: in her opinion, the federal government would not have made this a policy, as I claim in my book, under the pretext that they did not have it officially advocated or claimed (!).
However, it seemed to me that a fundamental principle of journalism is to judge a government not by what it says, but by what it does. Speaking is one thing, acting is another. This is the basis of methodological doubt, to get as close as possible to the truth (which no one can fully access). Will Isabelle Hachey accuse me of conspiracy for pushing analysis beyond government boundaries? Because I prefer to judge him by actions rather than words?
In an environment where journalism is in crisis, La Presse readers have the right to know who they are dealing with.
The beginning of an answer can be found in the passage from his text on the centenary initiative. This project advocates a radical increase in immigration to increase Canada's population to 100 million by the end of the century. She tries to make me seem like a demagogue who rejects “untested” approximations: in her opinion, the federal government would not have made this a policy, as I claim in my book, under the pretext that they did not have it officially advocated or claimed (!).
However, it seemed to me that a fundamental principle of journalism is to judge a government not by what it says, but by what it does. Speaking is one thing, acting is another. This is the basis of methodological doubt, to get as close as possible to the truth (which no one can fully access). Will Isabelle Hachey accuse me of conspiracy for pushing analysis beyond government boundaries? Because I prefer to judge him by actions rather than words?
Diversity ideology
Isabelle Hachey's column reminds us what pseudo-“fact-checking” all too often is: not a fact-correcting enterprise, but a process designed to prevent us from thinking about the meaning of events, their sociological significance. In fact, it is a technique for controlling public debate, to control its conditions and prevent it from going beyond the parameters of what I call diversity ideology. Isabelle Hachey does not correct errors in the facts: she establishes their only authorized interpretation.
Finally, I must come to a simple conclusion: Isabelle Hachey, who believes that she deconstructs my thesis, confirms above all that she is part of the system that I denounce. Anyone who has read it for a while already knew that.”