Toxic Gender Philosophy

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:08 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2024 7:35 pm Firstly, it's a her.
"It"? Shouldn't that be, "He's a she.
Are you holding us all to formal English, in this context? I wasn't aware there was any such agreement. It seems to me that people here use all sorts of informal sentence structure -- fragments, dangling participles, split infinitives, starting sentences with prepositions, or ending them with them, clauses and phrases, and slang and quips of all kinds...Are you going to start policing all that? Have you cleared that with anybody else?

It's very interesting to me, though, that every time you're losing an argument you do something irrelevant to distract, instead of providing something substantive. You go ad hom, or suddenly change the subject, or start nit-picking grammar, as here. It's as if you think that's a subtle strategy.

But it's really not. And it's rather obvious, to say the least.
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Iwannaplato »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 2:42 am I suppose the anti-regendering police in this thread think we must stick to our natural genders. But I don't see why.
I did a quick scan of the thread. It seemed like 1) there is the idea that Gender Studies/Theory is one position. It's not there are a variety of positions held by the scholars in the field, including what could be called recently traditional ones in the West or some such. We certainly hear a lot more in the news and elsewhere about the more recent radical ones. 2) Generally when I see discussions of this issue by what could be called conservatives, I often agree with some of their critiques. At the same time I notice that they don't seem to realize that Gender Theory, say in the 50s, was loopy also. They didn't call it Gender Theory, but the ideas of what men and women were and should be were clearly confused. The ideas were rigid boxes and incorrect about what both men and women were capable of and even could draw satisfaction from.

It's a bit like when PC is drawn and quartered.

It's as if there was no PC before the Left PC got going.

It's as if there was freedom to say what you wanted, in the 50s say. LOL.
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Consul
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Consul »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 1:03 amOh, come off it. Gender is a social reality as well as biological one…
But what is gender if "gender" isn't simply used as "a euphemism for the sex of a human being" (Oxford English Dictionary)?
"'Gender' doesn't pick out any one thing; it equivocates among many."

(Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even Is Gender? New York: Routledge, 2023. p. 5)
Gender/sex norms, roles, and stereotypes are social realities, but they are social norms, roles, and stereotypes associated with the two genders/sexes rather than (nonbiological) genders/sexes themselves.

For example:
"Gender is a term that has psychological and cultural rather than biological connotations. If the proper terms for sex are 'male' and 'female', the corresponding terms for gender are 'masculine' and 'feminine'; these latter may be quite independent of (biological) sex. Gender is the amount of masculinity or femininity found in a person, and, obviously, while there are mixtures of both in many humans, the normal male has a preponderance of masculinity and the normal female a preponderance of femininity."

(Oakley, Ann. Sex, Gender and Society. 1972. Reissue, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. p. 116)
Of course, as we all know, there are (more or less) feminine men and (more or less) masculine women; but "the amount of masculinity or femininity found in a person" doesn't constitute any nonbiological genders/sexes in addition to the (two) biological ones. No matter how feminine a man is, he is still a man, because "the amount of masculinity or femininity found in a person" doesn't define her/his sex.

I fully agree with Alex Byrne that…
"[ U]sing 'gender' to mean anything other than sex is to obscure important issues for no good reason. …[S]ex is binary. There are exactly two sexes, female and male, and everyone (or very nearly everyone) is either one or the other. Sex ist not 'a vast, infinitely malleable continuum' or socially constructed in any interesting sense. …[W]omen are the mature females of our species, men the mature males. Orthodoxy in feminist philosophy and gender studies is tragically wrong. …[C]ore gender identity, 'the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs', is universal. It is not, however, gender identity as it figures in the received account of being 'trans' or 'cis': that kind of gender identity is a myth."

(Byrne, Alex. Trouble with Gender. Hoboken, NJ: Polity, 2024. p. 195)
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Consul
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Consul »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 6:39 am I did a quick scan of the thread. It seemed like 1) there is the idea that Gender Studies/Theory is one position. It's not there are a variety of positions held by the scholars in the field, including what could be called recently traditional ones in the West or some such.
The term "gender theory" is ambiguous, because it can be used to refer to one particular theory of gender (or sex), and it can be used to refer to gender studies in general, which can comprise several theories of gender (sex). In the latter sense, "theory" is practically synonymous with "philosophy", such that gender theory = gender philosophy. (In the political context, many call gender theory gender ideology.)
"[W]ith the arrival of poststructuralism in North America, "theory" was born, in the freestanding sense of the term that became so familiar in subsequent decades: not theory of this or that – not, for instance, theory of narrative, as structuralist narratology aspired to be – but theory in general, what in other eras might have been called speculation, or even indeed philosophy."

(McHale, Brian. The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. p. 48)
——————
"What, then, is a "theory." In literary studies people have come to speak of taking or teaching a "theory course," of being interested in or hostile to theory, or of working in theory, without further specification (theory of what?). Theory in this sense is not a set of methods for literary study but an unbounded corpus of writings about everything under the sun, from the most technical problems of academic philosophy to the body in its relations to medical and ethical discourses. Jacques Derrida calls the concept of theory a "purely North American artefact, which takes on sense only from its place of emergence in certain departments of literature" ("Statements" 71). The genre of theory includes works of anthropology, art history, gender studies, linguistics, philosophy. political theory, psychoanalysis, social and intellectual history, and sociology. Its works are tied to argument in these fields, but they become theory because their visions or arguments have been suggestive or productive for people not working primarily or professionally in those disciplines."

(Culler, Jonathan. "Literary Theory." In Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, 2nd ed., edited by Joseph Gibaldi, 201-235. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1992. p. 203)
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Consul
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Consul »

Consul wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:22 pmThe term "gender theory" is ambiguous, because it can be used to refer to one particular theory of gender (or sex), and it can be used to refer to gender studies in general, which can comprise several theories of gender (sex).
For example, within gender theory/philosophy we find a distinction between (what I call) transbinary naturalism and (what I call) transbinary antinaturalism (constructionism):

1. transbinary naturalism: There are objective, natural sexes, but sex isn't binary.
Possible views:
1.1 There are more than two discrete natural sexes.
1.2 There is a continuous spectrum of natural sexes.

2. transbinary antinaturalism (constructionism): Genders exist, but not as objective, natural sexes, only as socially constructed, performatively realized, or identity-based genders, such that sex is nothing over and above gender.
2.1 Gender is not binary.
Possible views:
2.1.1 There are more than two discrete genders.
2.1.2 There is a continuous spectrum of genders.
2.2.1 Genders (gender identities) are fixed, stable.
2.2.2 Genders (gender identities) are fluid, unstable.
2.3.1 Gender identity is innate.
2.3.2 Gender identity is non-innate.
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Consul
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Consul »

As for the concept of identity:

Identity (as objective identity):
1. numerical sameness (x = y)
1.1 synchronic sameness, sameness at the same time (x_t1 = y_t1)
1.2 diachronic sameness, sameness at different times (x_t1 = y_t2)
2. qualitative sameness = perfect likeness (exact resemblance/similarity)
3. whatness/whoness = what/who something/somebody is (identity as "quiddity" or essence)

A person's (subject's) mental identity in sense 3 consists in (the psychological traits or dispositions constituting) her/his personality, character, or habitus; and her/his sexual identity consists in her/his (fe)maleness.

However, when psychologists (especially psychoanalysts) speak of identity and particularly of gender identity, they usually don't mean identity in the objectivistic sense but "subjective identity", which is actually nothing but self-identification (as/with sth/sb). (Analogously, "subjective truth" is not a kind of truth alongside objective truth, but belief or conviction.)

One's self-identifications are part of one's personality or character. Self-identifications are one psychological sort of self-representations (to oneself or others). For example, other sorts are self-perception, self-cognition (self-knowledge), self-conception (self-image), self-interpretation (self-understanding), self-evaluation, self-expression, self-presentation.
For a comprehensive taxonomy, see: Paul Thagard & Joanne V. Wood: Eighty phenomena about the self: representation, evaluation, regulation, and change

A crucially important point is that one's gender = sex isn't defined or determined by one's subjective gender identity = gender self-identification. A male person cannot become female or a woman by representing himself to himself or others as female or a woman. This certainly contradicts one of the dogmas of gender philosophy:
"We’ll start by sketching the received understanding of “gender identity” in the collective imagination:


7. It is one’s “gender identity”, and not one’s physiology, that properly determines whether one is a woman or a man (or both or neither)."

(Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even Is Gender? New York: Routledge, 2023. p. 21)
Iwannaplato
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Iwannaplato »

Consul wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:22 pm The term "gender theory" is ambiguous,[q
As is Gender Philosophy (in the title of the thread).
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2024 5:38 pmNoteable in the world of "gender" theory is the lauding of feminity, and the persistent effort to debase masculinity. The dominant discourses position men as "oppressors" and inheritors of the illegitimate benefits of "patriarchy," and women as the "victims," whose values have been "marginalized," and must now be "re-centered."
One of my own efforts here on this forum is to try to extract out of what people write my understanding of what their core predicates are and, as well, what they are actually advocating for.

Immanuel Can is in some senses an *easy study* because of his religious fundamentalism which, from time to time, comes out starkly. For example when he says (I paraphrase) "In just a little while you will die. And then you will know if I am right or I am wrong" -- the reference being to either going to heaven or finding oneself in a hell-realm.

However, I find it a good deal harder to parse out of these social and political statements, seemingly grounded in *Conservatism*, just what his ultimate argument is. That is, what he is advocating for. Since he does not state it openly (it does not appear to me that he does) it must be divined and extracted.

If I examine the first quote I would have to say that, though he is referring to the ascent of those theorists of gender theory, and the upheaval in our own social world, and the social and ideological battles that present themselves, the so-called 'lauding of femininity' is an attitude that originated in second-wave feminism and quite a while back. To laud the female, and women as such, can perhaps be seen in the same way as that of the phrase "I'm Black and I'm proud".

Thus a comparison can be made between Black activism and Feminist activism and, given the politics of the 1960s, once cannot dismiss the social and political concepts that operate: Were Blacks restricted and did they have limited opportunities and were they, say, *under-recognized* in a predominantly White-European American society? Yes, without question. Similarly, were women restricted and did they have limited opportunities and were they, say, *under-recognized* in a predominantly male dominated and masculine-dominated American society? Yes.

So it must be noted, and many have noted it, that during that time of social upheaval Marxian praxis was definitely a tool used by feminist activists as an ideological armament. None of this is difficult to understand and none of it controversial. The notion of the *oppressed woman* and a social structure, and a family structure, that held, contained and in that sense dominated her -- we can all recognize the *logic* in these views, though we may also believe that Marxian politicization of the male-female relationship would have many *problematic* consequences.

So if I may say I do not have an issue examining the intrusion of Marxian analysis, and praxis, into the male-female masculine-feminine dynamic. And if I am not mistaken this is, primarily, Immanuel's *intention* in his OP. Certainly one of the sources that influence his views is James Lindsay who examines from a critical perspective and in great detail the ideological world of all such *theory-based* activism. I mean 'theory' in the sense that Consul defined it just now: ideological platform and platform of ideological activism.
Of course, all this is quite ridiculous in the sort of world in which women's values already manifestly predominate.
I read this in this way: Immanuel seems to be saying that, as a result of the activism of second-wave feminists, that it came about that their activism was largely successful and that now "women's values already manifestly predominate". My interpretation of this statement is that a while back this was likely not so; but now as a result of social, cultural and political activism it is now so.
IC writes: But continued success for the Feminist movement requires an on-going enemy. So the tendency has become for Feminists to pile-on, constantly finding new ways to assert that the mythical "patriarchy" remains, in some form, and thus there is still work for Feminism to do, and legitimacy to their always-increasing political hegemony through the media, institutions and government.
My impression, if I may diverge a bit, is that all activist movements be they radical or conservative/traditional, all seek *enemies* that can be identified and called out. And I think it fair to say that Immanuel Can himself, right on this forum, has created if you will a personage with an ideological platform that excites and enthuses those *enemies* needed in order for him to bring out his cherished ideas. All those of us who take such strong issue with his assertions employ him in this sense. (My view is that we seek out and in a sense we *need* our cherished enemies.)

However, and here I think Immanuel Can's general analysis of *the world* and what is going on in it becomes, perhaps, less defined or perhaps less capable of trenchant or militant analysis. Because if what I say about *enemies* is true, and with reference to the huge divides and divisions that have opened between people (as evinced certainly on this forum) then it seems we must step back from any specificity (women and their activism for example) and look at a far wider world of struggle. The larger reference-word, though it is loaded and problematic, is the term 'globalism' and the assertion that behind this is a nefarious movement, generated and propelled by *elite interests*, that desires to unify the world-system under a dominant ideology, economic system, world system, or perhaps *world regime*. If one wanted to push that view, that narrative, even a bit further one might then say that some form of global communism is taking form in our present.

Have I taken an unrealistic leap in saying this? That is, if my effort is to really get to the bottom of what Immanuel Can's activism is and then to define, if possible, where he wishes to go?

It is definitely proposed by some, including James Lindsay, that DEI
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are organizational frameworks which seek to promote "the fair treatment and full participation of all people", particularly groups "who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination" on the basis of identity or disability. These three notions together represent "three closely linked values" which organizations seek to institutionalize through DEI frameworks.
Is a plank of ideological activism within a larger and general political/economic movement dominated by elites capable of managing it and certainly applying it universally (globally).
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2024 6:22 pm
Consul wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2024 5:20 pm The biological story of human sex is not the end of the story of human sex, because it also has a psychological dimension and a sociological one.
Yes, of course. The vexed question, though, is not whether the social and psychological dimensions of sex exist, but rather whether the purely psychological can completely override the biological, the factual, and the physiological, such that imagination, not biology, becomes determinative of the truth. That's what "gender," as a concept, requires.

Can a man be made into a true woman because he says he feels he wants to be? Can a child be socially raised into being a genuine woman, when he's actually a boy? That's what "gender" ideology thinks can be done. And ranged against that absurd postulate is all the force of biology and empirical reality. And the cost of this absurd ideology is the slicing and dicing of the mentally ill, to their painful detriment, to their sterilization, to their early demise and to the regret of those 'lucky' enough to realize their error and detransition before the worst happens. So it's worth fighting.
Using Marx's distinction...
Marx is the most homicidal ideologue in human history, statistically speaking. I don't suggest we try drinking from that polluted fountain. Not even today's Neo-Marxists try to defend everything he said, he was so frequently wrong.
Here, Immanuel (in response to Consul) lays out the *core* ideological cards. If I am not mistaken it was, or is, a core tenet of hard Marxist-Leninism that man can be made and remade and his *essential nature* is doubted or in any case denied.

Gender Theory, Queer Theory, and the bulk of the recent *theory* proposals are, indeed, activist and ideological. They can be, and they should be (?) examined critically and, even, resisted and opposed. That is definitely James Lindsay's focus and -- if I may insert my own view -- he makes many good points and is certainly onto something.
Alexiev
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexiev »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 5:20 am
Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:08 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2024 7:35 pm Firstly, it's a her.
"It"? Shouldn't that be, "He's a she.
Are you holding us all to formal English, in this context? I wasn't aware there was any such agreement. It seems to me that people here use all sorts of informal sentence structure -- fragments, dangling participles, split infinitives, starting sentences with prepositions, or ending them with them, clauses and phrases, and slang and quips of all kinds...Are you going to start policing all that? Have you cleared that with anybody else?

It's very interesting to me, though, that every time you're losing an argument you do something irrelevant to distract, instead of providing something substantive. You go ad hom, or suddenly change the subject, or start nit-picking grammar, as here. It's as if you think that's a subtle strategy.

But it's really not. And it's rather obvious, to say the least.
I'm not "holding" you to anything. I'm simply trying to give you a few tips on how to improve your writing. Strunk and White advise avoiding modifiers. "I find it very interesting...." ignores this advise, and is redundant. Your readers assume that you wouldn't write the sentence if you didn't "find it interesting", although your penchant for verbosity makes that assumption perilous.

Also, I was born male. It is only you who have decided to transgender me. That's OK. I'm cool with it.

Ae far as distracting anyone from our tedious and repetitious argument, I hope I have been able to do any lurkers that favor.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:28 pm Also, I was born male. It is only you who have decided to transgender me. That's OK. I'm cool with it.
On what basis did he do that? Something you said? To annoy?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:28 pm Strunk and White advise avoiding modifiers.
So your new campaign is to standardize the English of participants in this forum? I wish you great luck. :lol:

Well, I can pretty much guarantee you that if the goal is to observe Standard English, I can exceed you, should I wish to do so. But it seems too petty, to me, to bother with such trivialities in a definitely-informal forum like this.

In any case, I don't believe that's what you're aiming for, at all. Your goal, instead, is to distract. You've run out of logic, and now have to find some way to derail the conversation, because you can't bear to run out of objections, it would seem.
Also, I was born male.
Really? Well, the mistake is mine, I guess. Your manner of conversation is highly feminine. Men usually stick closer to the claim being made, more on the logic than the speaker. Shaming, ad homs, distractors, nit-picking and denigrating logic are ordinarily the tools of those who are unable to separate an argument from a person in their thinking, and so lapse into insulting as if that addresses a particular truth claim...and most of those seem to be women.

But there you go. There are no absolute rules about these things. Fair enough.
Alexiev
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexiev »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:06 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2024 5:38 pmNoteable in the world of "gender" theory is the lauding of feminity, and the persistent effort to debase masculinity. The dominant discourses position men as "oppressors" and inheritors of the illegitimate benefits of "patriarchy," and women as the "victims," whose values have been "marginalized," and must now be "re-centered."
One of my own efforts here on this forum is to try to extract out of what people write my understanding of what their core predicates are and, as well, what they are actually advocating for.

Immanuel Can is in some senses an *easy study* because of his religious fundamentalism which, from time to time, comes out starkly. For example when he says (I paraphrase) "In just a little while you will die. And then you will know if I am right or I am wrong" -- the reference being to either going to heaven or finding oneself in a hell-realm.

However, I find it a good deal harder to parse out of these social and political statements, seemingly grounded in *Conservatism*, just what his ultimate argument is. That is, what he is advocating for. Since he does not state it openly (it does not appear to me that he does) it must be divined and extracted.

If I examine the first quote I would have to say that, though he is referring to the ascent of those theorists of gender theory, and the upheaval in our own social world, and the social and ideological battles that present themselves, the so-called 'lauding of femininity' is an attitude that originated in second-wave feminism and quite a while back. To laud the female, and women as such, can perhaps be seen in the same way as that of the phrase "I'm Black and I'm proud".

Thus a comparison can be made between Black activism and Feminist activism and, given the politics of the 1960s, once cannot dismiss the social and political concepts that operate: Were Blacks restricted and did they have limited opportunities and were they, say, *under-recognized* in a predominantly White-European American society? Yes, without question. Similarly, were women restricted and did they have limited opportunities and were they, say, *under-recognized* in a predominantly male dominated and masculine-dominated American society? Yes.

So it must be noted, and many have noted it, that during that time of social upheaval Marxian praxis was definitely a tool used by feminist activists as an ideological armament. None of this is difficult to understand and none of it controversial. The notion of the *oppressed woman* and a social structure, and a family structure, that held, contained and in that sense dominated her -- we can all recognize the *logic* in these views, though we may also believe that Marxian politicization of the male-female relationship would have many *problematic* consequences.

So if I may say I do not have an issue examining the intrusion of Marxian analysis, and praxis, into the male-female masculine-feminine dynamic. And if I am not mistaken this is, primarily, Immanuel's *intention* in his OP. Certainly one of the sources that influence his views is James Lindsay who examines from a critical perspective and in great detail the ideological world of all such *theory-based* activism. I mean 'theory' in the sense that Consul defined it just now: ideological platform and platform of ideological activism.
Of course, all this is quite ridiculous in the sort of world in which women's values already manifestly predominate.
I read this in this way: Immanuel seems to be saying that, as a result of the activism of second-wave feminists, that it came about that their activism was largely successful and that now "women's values already manifestly predominate". My interpretation of this statement is that a while back this was likely not so; but now as a result of social, cultural and political activism it is now so.
IC writes: But continued success for the Feminist movement requires an on-going enemy. So the tendency has become for Feminists to pile-on, constantly finding new ways to assert that the mythical "patriarchy" remains, in some form, and thus there is still work for Feminism to do, and legitimacy to their always-increasing political hegemony through the media, institutions and government.
My impression, if I may diverge a bit, is that all activist movements be they radical or conservative/traditional, all seek *enemies* that can be identified and called out. And I think it fair to say that Immanuel Can himself, right on this forum, has created if you will a personage with an ideological platform that excites and enthuses those *enemies* needed in order for him to bring out his cherished ideas. All those of us who take such strong issue with his assertions employ him in this sense. (My view is that we seek out and in a sense we *need* our cherished enemies.)

However, and here I think Immanuel Can's general analysis of *the world* and what is going on in it becomes, perhaps, less defined or perhaps less capable of trenchant or militant analysis. Because if what I say about *enemies* is true, and with reference to the huge divides and divisions that have opened between people (as evinced certainly on this forum) then it seems we must step back from any specificity (women and their activism for example) and look at a far wider world of struggle. The larger reference-word, though it is loaded and problematic, is the term 'globalism' and the assertion that behind this is a nefarious movement, generated and propelled by *elite interests*, that desires to unify the world-system under a dominant ideology, economic system, world system, or perhaps *world regime*. If one wanted to push that view, that narrative, even a bit further one might then say that some form of global communism is taking form in our present.

Have I taken an unrealistic leap in saying this? That is, if my effort is to really get to the bottom of what Immanuel Can's activism is and then to define, if possible, where he wishes to go?

It is definitely proposed by some, including James Lindsay, that DEI
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are organizational frameworks which seek to promote "the fair treatment and full participation of all people", particularly groups "who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination" on the basis of identity or disability. These three notions together represent "three closely linked values" which organizations seek to institutionalize through DEI frameworks.
Is a plank of ideological activism within a larger and general political/economic movement dominated by elites capable of managing it and certainly applying it universally (globally).
This is all reasonable, but we should recognize that all theories are "political". Even mathematical theories assume the precedence and value of logic and logical thinking. When we examine theories about social structures and cultural belief systems, the theories are further politicized.

It's easier to notice the political bent of new theories, like Queer Theory or Gender Studies theory. But traditional thinking has its political prejudices as well. When Can (in another thread) lauded the "masculinity" of motorcycle riders, as opposed to bicyclists, he was adopting the theory that masculinity correlates not with physical strength, but with machinery. Feminine fecundity (this theory might propose) is natural, like flowers and trees. Masculinity is artificial and created, like firearms and motorcycles. Men are steely and hard, like metal. Women are soft and in need of protection, like flower gardens.

Christianity is political. Religion is by its nature conservative. The scientific world view envisions progress, because Newton saw further than others by standing on the shoulders of giants. The religious world view envisions a fall from Eden; a diminution of our relation to Jesus since the time of the Apostles. For the Greeks, the Gods and demi-gods treaded the earth in the past, and then disappeared. O, for those halcyon days!

The notion that women's values now predominate (IC's words, with which you agree) is at best dubious. In certain subcultures (Gender Studies Departments at Universities, for example) this may be true, but here in America, where we elected Donald Trump once and have overturned Roe v. Wade, this seems a stretch. Of course homosexuality has become more widely accepted (good thing, don't you agree!), and transexuality, while still controversial, is not as stigmatized as it was in the past. But many people, Can for one, battle for more traditional values. If the notion that gender can be an individual decision is political, so is the notion that it cannot be.
Alexiev
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Alexiev »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:58 pm
Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 3:28 pm Strunk and White advise avoiding modifiers.
So your new campaign is to standardize the English of participants in this forum? I wish you great luck. :lol:

Well, I can pretty much guarantee you that if the goal is to observe Standard English, I can exceed you, should I wish to do so. But it seems too petty, to me, to bother with such trivialities in a definitely-informal forum like this.

In any case, I don't believe that's what you're aiming for, at all. Your goal, instead, is to distract. You've run out of logic, and now have to find some way to derail the conversation, because you can't bear to run out of objections, it would seem.
Also, I was born male.
Really? Well, the mistake is mine, I guess. Your manner of conversation is highly feminine. Men usually stick closer to the claim being made, more on the logic than the speaker. Shaming, ad homs, distractors, nit-picking and denigrating logic are ordinarily the tools of those who are unable to separate an argument from a person in their thinking, and so lapse into insulting as if that addresses a particular truth claim...and most of those seem to be women.

But there you go. There are no absolute rules about these things. Fair enough.
Your bigotry is showing. Apparently you do not wish to "observe Standard English". "Observe"? What they hey? "Exceed you"? Good grief, in a post in which you laud your own writing, you write like a third grader.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Gender Philosophy

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexiev wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:05 pm
Really? Well, the mistake is mine, I guess. Your manner of conversation is highly feminine. Men usually stick closer to the claim being made, more on the logic than the speaker. Shaming, ad homs, distractors, nit-picking and denigrating logic are ordinarily the tools of those who are unable to separate an argument from a person in their thinking, and so lapse into insulting as if that addresses a particular truth claim...and most of those seem to be women.

But there you go. There are no absolute rules about these things. Fair enough.
Your bigotry is showing.
Right back to the ad hominem. :lol:

Well, there's your proof.
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