At NBCNews.com's "Think" section Wednesday, Marcie Bianco checked almost all of the left's outrage boxes, characterizing private-sector efforts to reach Mars as, among other things, "patriarchal," and evidence of male "midlife crisis ... laced with an imperialist ethos."
At first, "Think" appears to be an ambitious, off-the-wall effort at long-form parody. After all, it's hard to imagine articles like these are genuinely serious:
- "Allowing non-citizens to vote would prevent American authoritarianism."
- "How search algorithms reinforce racism and sexism."
- "Trump's totalitarian play-acting is more about pomp than not policy" (not policy?).
But this is a real enterprise with many submissions that are so far left Salon.com might reject them.
Thus, while Bianco's February 21 contention that "the patriarchal race to colonize Mars is just another example of male entitlement" was not intentional parody, it exemplifies self-parody.
Her bio at Stanford indicates she "is a feminist." What a surprise.
Bianco believes Elon Musk is trying to cope with a "midlife crisis":
... Frittering away your life savings on a red sports car is so last century. Instead, today’s man who is grappling with the limitations of his mortality spends $90 million on a rocket to launch a $100,000 electric car, helmed by a robot by the name of “Starman,” into space.
... Like a child, he (says) ... “Space races are exciting.”
After noting that Jeff Bezos and David Branson are pursuing similar efforts, Bianco went full-bore into male-bashing, with an obligatory reference to Donald Trump:
... The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one. Indeed, there is no ethical consideration among these billionaires about whether this should be done; rather, the conversation is when it will be done.
It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking. You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the p*ssy.
... the impulse to colonize ... (including) space — has its origins in gendered power structures. Entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership. The presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer and colonize something new.
... This 21st century form of imperialism is the direct result of men giving up on the planet they have all but destroyed.
Of course, Bianco is a gloomy "climate change" true believer, insisting it "globally affects women more than men," while ignoring the fact that progress has enabled female ingrates like her to hold privileged academic positions.
At bottom, it's clear Bianco believes that mankind humanity people have no right to leave this earth and explore space. One must conclude from her writeup that she believes we shouldn't even have gone to the moon — though that effort ultimately gave her the ability to widely distribute her screed.
"Think" about that, Marcie.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
