"Thus university academics bizarrely espouse versions of gender or race critique while feigning the authority of the encyclopaedia - a misguidedly partisan political project that is as comical as it is fractious." - Great insight. Much enjoyed. Those persnickety inconsistencies... and so arrogantly held despite wise folk trying to get through in every generation. The worst are indeed "full of passionate intensity." A substack meme pointed out the other day how followers of gender theory today will tell you that genitalia do not determine gender, but that surgery to remove (or add) genitalia is desirable (if not necessary) to establish one's gender. How are these two ideas part of the same paradigm?
Thanks for your kind words, Asa! My perspective inevitably diverges from your own in some significant ways.
I've spent more than a decade calling for diplomacy on these issues to little avail, having been intellectually 'close by' when the initial hostilities broke out between classical lesbians and trans activists, long before most people knew there was trouble brewing. In some respects, I do have some sympathy for Judith Butler's project to 'queer gender', for all that I still see it as fundamentally misguided. However, it failed in the most spectacular way once it escaped from philosophy and got into the wild. (Actually, the failure may precede the 'escape', but these details are largely unimportant.)
Gender metaphysics today is a hodge-podge of engrained habits of moral horror - increasingly on all sides, alas - and this Gordian knot is not going to be easy to resolve. I personally do not find the questions raised by gender to have been adequately dealt with in any context, and am largely unimpressed with everyone's position right now. Partisans fail to be citizens, and we need the latter much more than the former right now.
The root problem today lies in the attempt to enforce one set of gender metaphysics as 'necessary' more than it does in the specific nonsense of any given metaphysical beliefs about gender. We've seen all this belligerence unleashed before in other corners of metaphysics... I can find nothing but ever-growing disaster in reliving the wars of religion in the context of gender. And yet, here we are!
Thus my position can only be that freedom of thought (the underpinning to freedom of speech) requires that we accept people's gender metaphysics and that, yes, this is going to mean some bizarre claims in circulation - even total nonsense. This is not actually anything new, as far as metaphysics goes. The historical solution was always not to talk about it - which often worked far better than we like to admit! Sadly, these days we 'don't talk about it' in a much more unproductive and uncivil way than ever before...
Not sure where the divergence is in this case. (I recall a disagreement with your take on de Beauvoir, but I don't think that's the zone we're in here.) Most people don't care about what others do with their genitalia or what relationship they have with their bits until it comes down to sharing them. The notion that one's identity is fixed on one's genitalia is clearly shallow and unproductive. That said, neither I nor anyone I know has any problem accepting (as you say) the bizarre sexual fetishes of their peers. The trouble right now is that activists would force us to care and more than accept, indeed, change our language and our behaviour to suit their sexuality and dysphoria. I have never been uncivil toward the alphabet people, but they have often been uncivil toward me.
I don't think our specific divergences matter in this case, Asa - but it is clear from our discussions around de Beauvoir (as you say) that we do hold some disagreements over gender. In my case, I believe this is essentially true for *everyone*, since my own position does not really accord with anyone else's as far as I can ascertain. But I'm not willing to mount an assault on the entire intellectual edifice of gender, which I feel confident would be an absolute waste of my time! 😅
As for uncivility, there is a crisis of civility right now - I am heartened (but unsurprised) that you are not part of the problem, and sorry (but equally unsurprised) that you have come under fire. I have too... for doing nothing but cautioning diplomacy. These are the wretched times we live in - intolerant tolerance is such a difficult habit for people to break. The Rainbow Alliance cannot be treated as a single 'bloc' any more, since it is embroiled in its own internecine strife, alas. Throughout all of this carnage, nobody wants to admit that what might be evoked as 'kindness' or 'compassion' is all too often merely a cover for an immense hatred of tradition.
These problems would be much easier to resolve if the younger generation had not been trained by social media companies to pursue isolationism as an alternative to discourse. It is likely this problem will get worse before it gets better.
The rainbow/spectrum metaphor broke down when specific colours were singled out. Once the alphabet was introduced, the spectrum was atomised (ad absurdum). There seems to be a wave-particle duality at play here.
Thank you Asa and Chris for the public dialogue. Fortunately, I think, I have only the foggiest notion about what you are talking about!
Frank, you are most certainly the lucky one if this is the case! 😁
"Thus university academics bizarrely espouse versions of gender or race critique while feigning the authority of the encyclopaedia - a misguidedly partisan political project that is as comical as it is fractious." - Great insight. Much enjoyed. Those persnickety inconsistencies... and so arrogantly held despite wise folk trying to get through in every generation. The worst are indeed "full of passionate intensity." A substack meme pointed out the other day how followers of gender theory today will tell you that genitalia do not determine gender, but that surgery to remove (or add) genitalia is desirable (if not necessary) to establish one's gender. How are these two ideas part of the same paradigm?
Thanks for your kind words, Asa! My perspective inevitably diverges from your own in some significant ways.
I've spent more than a decade calling for diplomacy on these issues to little avail, having been intellectually 'close by' when the initial hostilities broke out between classical lesbians and trans activists, long before most people knew there was trouble brewing. In some respects, I do have some sympathy for Judith Butler's project to 'queer gender', for all that I still see it as fundamentally misguided. However, it failed in the most spectacular way once it escaped from philosophy and got into the wild. (Actually, the failure may precede the 'escape', but these details are largely unimportant.)
Gender metaphysics today is a hodge-podge of engrained habits of moral horror - increasingly on all sides, alas - and this Gordian knot is not going to be easy to resolve. I personally do not find the questions raised by gender to have been adequately dealt with in any context, and am largely unimpressed with everyone's position right now. Partisans fail to be citizens, and we need the latter much more than the former right now.
The root problem today lies in the attempt to enforce one set of gender metaphysics as 'necessary' more than it does in the specific nonsense of any given metaphysical beliefs about gender. We've seen all this belligerence unleashed before in other corners of metaphysics... I can find nothing but ever-growing disaster in reliving the wars of religion in the context of gender. And yet, here we are!
Thus my position can only be that freedom of thought (the underpinning to freedom of speech) requires that we accept people's gender metaphysics and that, yes, this is going to mean some bizarre claims in circulation - even total nonsense. This is not actually anything new, as far as metaphysics goes. The historical solution was always not to talk about it - which often worked far better than we like to admit! Sadly, these days we 'don't talk about it' in a much more unproductive and uncivil way than ever before...
Thanks as always for your comments!
Not sure where the divergence is in this case. (I recall a disagreement with your take on de Beauvoir, but I don't think that's the zone we're in here.) Most people don't care about what others do with their genitalia or what relationship they have with their bits until it comes down to sharing them. The notion that one's identity is fixed on one's genitalia is clearly shallow and unproductive. That said, neither I nor anyone I know has any problem accepting (as you say) the bizarre sexual fetishes of their peers. The trouble right now is that activists would force us to care and more than accept, indeed, change our language and our behaviour to suit their sexuality and dysphoria. I have never been uncivil toward the alphabet people, but they have often been uncivil toward me.
I don't think our specific divergences matter in this case, Asa - but it is clear from our discussions around de Beauvoir (as you say) that we do hold some disagreements over gender. In my case, I believe this is essentially true for *everyone*, since my own position does not really accord with anyone else's as far as I can ascertain. But I'm not willing to mount an assault on the entire intellectual edifice of gender, which I feel confident would be an absolute waste of my time! 😅
As for uncivility, there is a crisis of civility right now - I am heartened (but unsurprised) that you are not part of the problem, and sorry (but equally unsurprised) that you have come under fire. I have too... for doing nothing but cautioning diplomacy. These are the wretched times we live in - intolerant tolerance is such a difficult habit for people to break. The Rainbow Alliance cannot be treated as a single 'bloc' any more, since it is embroiled in its own internecine strife, alas. Throughout all of this carnage, nobody wants to admit that what might be evoked as 'kindness' or 'compassion' is all too often merely a cover for an immense hatred of tradition.
These problems would be much easier to resolve if the younger generation had not been trained by social media companies to pursue isolationism as an alternative to discourse. It is likely this problem will get worse before it gets better.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
The rainbow/spectrum metaphor broke down when specific colours were singled out. Once the alphabet was introduced, the spectrum was atomised (ad absurdum). There seems to be a wave-particle duality at play here.