
The Eighth Meditation on Superweapons and Bingo - ggreer
http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html
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ajcarpy2005
I've certainly noticed a devolution into overly-simplified caricatures of
common arguments in modern discourse. However, some blame for this rests on
those who use simplified arguments, not just the respondent. But also much of
this simplification happens when debates, blog wars, or just general cultural
divisions are summarized.

When people communicate with others who hold very similar worldviews, there's
a lot of mutual tacit knowledge that needn't be explicitly referenced because
it can be easily and reliably inferred. But so often when we discuss or debate
something with someone or an audience which we know holds views radically
opposing our own, we don't realize that it's the tacit knowledge or
perspective which is likely more important than the summarization of the
common or official arguments & tenets.

I like to think of this tacit or 'unseen' rationalization structure as the
matrix of graphite that supports the fine point at the end of a pencil.

~~~
ehartsuyker
I think your point that everything is oversimplified because of summaries
could in part be mitigated by having high schoolers take one philosophy
course. I took a couple in college, and I quickly learned there's a reason
that simply stated argument have enormous treatises written on them to avoid
ambiguity through simplification.

~~~
SilasX
So people fall for this stuff people they haven't learned about Plato's law of
forms, that contradictions suck, and that words can have multiple meanings.

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chipsy
The premise of the article is that you should be able to have a dialogue with
anyone. But this isn't the case; some people want a way to shut you out - not
because they hate you, but because they're tired of seeing the same discussion
over and over.

w/r to today's feminism and sj, it's the norm to get called out provided you
are active for long enough. This is not entirely bad, but it does reflect the
ease with which post-structural theory can be weaponized.

~~~
ffbellfhtlflf
all language can be weaponized, see "Politics and The English Language"

~~~
jerf
All language can be weaponized, indeed. However, Postmodernism did add an
effective tool to the arsenal, which is to insist that you get to redefine the
terms your opponent is using to suit your whims, _and_ (watch the "and" here,
it's important) it smeared a patina of academic correctness over that process.
(Yes, it has happened since time immemorial, I'm sure, but the intellectual
traditions of the past several centuries would at least have rejected it.)
Intellectuals now considered this not only legitimate, but a _desirable_
method of argument. They put fancy terms around this process like
"deconstruction", but "redefinition" is really at the core. And some really
sophisticated "redefinition" it is, to, as befits "intellectuals", that
includes the ability not only to redefine the things your opponent said, but
_also_ to redefine the things they _didn 't_ say.

Nobody's argument can survive a "deconstruction". I don't just mean, nobody
can convince anyone in the presence of deconstruction, I mean, the _argument
itself_ can not survive.

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boomlinde
It's interesting how the article makes a great effort explaining why and how
stereotypical "bingo" strawman pattern matching is counterproductive, and then
goes on to categorize feminism as a "conceptual superweapon" using a bunch of
shallow strawmen itself.

~~~
Symmetry
I think the author is going too far in his last part and most of the people
who describe themselves as feminist who I've met aren't anything like the
stereotype he gives. But it's also true that I have met people who call
themselves feminists who do behave in the way he describes. So it might be
stereotyping, but it's not a straw man.

~~~
boomlinde
I guess that calling it a strawman is kind of a stretch to begin with. My
point is that his reasoning somewhat embodies the same phenomenon that he is
criticizing.

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bdg
There's 51 points to this link and only about 11 comments.

I'm very curious how many people are avoiding commenting simply because
they're terrified of being dragged into an internet pissing match.

~~~
enko
At the risk of self-identifying as a coward, I never touch anything to do with
sexism, feminism or "women in tech" in any kind of conversation except with my
closest friends. I wasn't always like this, I used to be quite outspoken, but
I got myself into trouble a couple of times (almost into really big trouble
once at a conference, I mean career-ending trouble) and well, never again.

Sexism/women in tech is basically the Afghanistan of topics. No-one has ever
prevailed and you won't either. The only way to win is not to play. I wish it
wasn't like that, but it is.

~~~
ipsin
I think "the Afghanistan of topics" is a great metaphor, but no reason to
avoid the subject.

Here I'm talking not to you specifically, but the generic vocal male "you":

If you have a strong urge to share your opinion, consider where that impulse
is coming from. Pause and absorb what's actually being said. Mull it over. It
might sting a little bit, but you might also gain a new perspective.

If you're male and privileged, it's hard to think about what it's really like
to be not male or not privileged. You can try, but you can't know.

If you've ever observed the dynamic of conversation, it can be uncomfortable
to see how men and women are (typically) socialized to interact together.

I have rarely seen women talk over men in the same way as the reverse.

[And yes, I realize that I am not taking my own advice here]

~~~
tragic
Well, this is more the problem I have with these arguments than the
superweapon bingo thing in the OP. In the kind of feminist/SJ arguments that
are gaining currency in the tech world, what's put at the forefront is
people's _feelings_.

People are not robots; their feelings matter. But they're the worst possible
route to the truth, and thus to effective action to redress injustices. A nice
illustration is provided, in fact, by this little exchange - so the GP feels
scared to get involved with debates on the women's question. It's perfectly
legitimate to argue that men have more power and are socialised in certain
ways, etc; but this man's (if it is a man) emotional response will not take
that into account. People are as emotionally traumatised by bad break-ups as
they are by amputations. The human emotional response has no sense of
perspective, and never will. When we discuss matters such as sexism, we are
necessarily discussing the greater public good - which _has_ to be indifferent
to such things. (For example, we do not allow the relatives of murder victims
to determine the sentence of the perpetrators - for good reason.)

So arguments get personalised - eg, "Julie Ann Horvath is lying" vs "Julie Ann
Horvath would not lie about this" \- and thus depoliticised.

All this "you can't know what it's like" stuff, if it were followed
absolutely, simply makes reasoned argument impossible. Indeed, I can't know
what it's like. But if everything is reduced to 'what it's like', then my only
possible response is to shut up - or to browbeat an interlocutor into doing
so. I cannot convince anyone to have different feelings. I _can_ convince
people that their _arguments_ , on the basis of logical consistency or
empirical evidence, are erroneous - but only if we can collectively agree to
forget about everyone's feelings.

And so you end up in topsy turvy world. A classic example:

> If you have a strong urge to share your opinion, consider where that impulse
> is coming from.

So now the opinionated are supposed to feel guilty about it! It's utterly
bizarre. _More_ people should share their opinions ( _including_ racists,
sexists and suchlike); they should not shut up on the off-chance it _might_
make people feel better about themselves. Otherwise those opinions will go
unchallenged, and fester in the dark.

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icegreentea
I really enjoyed reading this article. I will however point out one of the
difficulties that arises when you try to implement this 'threshold'. For one
thing, the scale that you measure over is often not as constrained and clear
as in the cancer case (for example). What is considered 0 and 100 by some body
of people could very easily be just 25 to 75 on another scale, or absolutely
beyond the pale of another group's scale of thinking. And it's not always easy
to spot when things like this happen. Often the issue is that when you have
different groups with different conceptions of what this scale entails, that
is when you have hilariously "bad" interactions, and can result in ridiculous
drives to the extremes of the "platonic" scale.

Another common pitfall (I think anyways) is that some of these drives to
extremes are driven at least partly out of a sense of the current 'threshold'
being placed far too far away from where they 'should' be. Large disparities
create large pressures. Coupled with wanting to see things change soon
(obviously), and that people have an intuitive motion that if you try to push
against something to reach X, you'll probably end up with X-1 or something,
you can at least kind of understand some of the drive to extremes.

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smoyer
Wouldn't it be even better if there was no need for feminism? And isn't it sad
that some feminists devolve to hate all men? Turning a cause that has merit
(but hopefully not forever) into hatred is self-harming. But railing against
those causes doesn't help either.

Chill out everyone!

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ssdfsdf
This is brilliant, the whole world needs to read this!

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etanazir
Argue with the Supreme Ruler of the Universe?

