Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:14 pm
Well, there's your proof.

i'm glad you agree that I"ve proved your bigotry. But I can't take credit. You did that yourself.

NB: I never called IC on it, because attacks and critiques of men, and of ourselves, are essential, but very often he himself has employed traditional ad hominem attacks.

Here’s the key though: he resists being seen, understood and labeled. These labels are ad hominem in his view. But these discernments are essential.

He seems to imagine conversation occurring in a totally abstract real and absent of the man who forwards, advocates for, believes in, defends, the stance that that man takes.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:25 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:14 pm
Well, there's your proof.

i'm glad you agree that I"ve proved your bigotry. But I can't take credit. You did that yourself.

When do you trot out the "I know you are, but what am I?" line. That's such a kindergarten line! I haven't heard that one in many decades.

Well, the topic here is Gender Theory. And you're so desperately trying to shift it to your assessment of the character of the speaker. But that's been said already, and we'll leave that where it is.

Your main problem, though, is that nobody really cares. Anybody with half a brain can see that your whole point is to avoid having to deal with the issue, because you're realizing that Gender Theory is utterly incoherent, and you can't find any way to defend it...and yet, you don't want it pointed out. So to protect a bad argument, you're forced to go irrelevant, in one form or another. Relevant discussion would result in defeat, you fear.

So what you're actually confirming is that you have no case, and are "gassed' so far as intelligent thought goes. If you had anything, you'd be on topic.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:01 pm I am pretty certain that when women gained far more access into that *world* that was dominated by men that they, naturally and normally, brought their ethics into these worlds and areas. The arrival of women into so many different areas has certainly changed and shifted values. Is that not completely obvious? It is non-controversial to note it, it seems to me. I think to understand what IC is getting at you could refer to that now-famous interchange between Jordan Peterson and Helen Lewis. Have you ever watched it? Peterson, with admirable skill and great self-assured calm, points out to her a great deal that she could not see. Because of activist ideological predicates (which tend to be self-blinding).

The debate with Cathy Newman was even a bit more pointed.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:36 pm Anybody with half a brain ....

Ad hominem, according to IC's cherished definitions.

I mistakingly overwrote my own post with the one just above with the link to Cathy Newman's interview).

This one should have preceded it:

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 10:01 am
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!

Within most religions there metaphysical principles are defined. How one defines Life and the reason for living, or the lack thereof, certainly determines how one will live. So I believe that I agree that religions tend to be conservative.

If that is so, then what eats away at religiously-defined principles and also metaphysical constants? That would be in argument and in theory that challenges or opposes the defined metaphysics, right?

Alexiev: The religious world view envisions a fall from Eden; a diminution of our relation to Jesus since the time of the Apostles.

I have become more interested in mythic speculation and the patterns of myths that were defined long before Judeo-Christianity became the predominant system through which mythic views were expressed. *The Fall* seen through Platonic lenses offers a far wider picture of what is meant by the myth or what it intends to communicate. The myth seems solid and convertible into dogma and doctrine but in reality the mythic is far more fluid and was never intended to be take *literally*.

Alexiev: 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.

First, I understand some of the principles that drive and enthuse Immanuel Can. So that in certain areas I may agree with the principle while I simultaneously resist or oppose his (as I understand them) doctrinaire reductions.

I am pretty certain that when women gained far more access into that *world* that was dominated by men that they, naturally and normally, brought their ethics into these worlds and areas. The arrival of women into so many different areas has certainly changed and shifted values. Is that not completely obvious? It is non-controversial to note it, it seems to me. I think to understand what IC is getting at you could refer to that now-famous interchange between Jordan Peterson and Helen Lewis. Have you ever watched it? Peterson, with admirable skill and great self-assured calm, points out to her a great deal that she could not see. Because of activist ideological predicates (which tend to be self-blinding).

[Trump, Roe vs Wade, homosexuality, transsexuality -- these are all topics that require a separate analysis. I can see homosexuality and transgenderism as being susceptible to empowerment by radical politicization, so certainly I would offer my critiques. But I am uncertain how Trump's advent could be fitted into our present topic.]

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 5:02 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 4:36 pm Anybody with half a brain ....

Ad hominem, according to IC's cherished definitions.

Well, no. Ad homs rest the possibility of the truth of particular claims on the character of the speaker. But it's not worth arguing about anyway, because like most of what has been said before, it has zero to do with the topic in hand.

I am bemused by the determination of present participants not...repeat not...at all costs...to speak about the actual topic. Understandable, since Gender Theory is quite rationally-indefensible. What can one say about an ideology that demands that a man can become a woman, or a woman can become a dog, a rabbit or a horse -- but by no means, under any circumstances, can a white woman become a black woman?

Apparently, species-transition and gender-transition are possible: but a little additional pigmentation is unthinkable.

I am here to save the day, Immanuel.

I can do pro hominem and ad hominem an beautiful concert.

Well, no. Ad homs rest the possibility of the truth of particular claims on the character of the speaker.

It works best when one’s opponent is an asshole ….

Just kidding!

it has zero to do with the topic in hand.

Actually, wrong. But carry on …

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 5:47 pm I am here to save the day, Immanuel.

But interestingly, not to save Gender Theory. Not even to dare to talk about Gender Theory.

I started with initial comments about your OP. To try to ‘locate’ your concerns within a larger frame.

I then validated (I believe) a critical opposition to Marxist praxis —which is your (central?) motive.

If any conversation about gender issues (as insanity, social sickness, mass hysteria, etc.) is to take place it might happen when these things, pertaining to your (semi-occulted?) stance are dragged out into full view.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 6:36 pm If any conversation about gender issues (as insanity, social sickness, mass hysteria, etc.) is to take place it might happen when these things, pertaining to your (semi-occulted?) stance are dragged out into full view.

I'm not a Gender Theorist. In any case, who I am has absolutely zero with whether or not Gender Theory is a defensible thing. If it's defensible, it can stand on its own two feet; if it cannot, then it cannot.

So you're just misdirecting again. You've got nothing relevant to say, it seems.

Here's a quick post about gender theory:

Immanuel writes (concerning his claim that I am a woman):

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.

First, he is lying. He was not mistaken about my gender, since I had specifically discussed being a single father, and how, if they want to, men are capable of gaining custody of their children. Instead, he thinks he is insulting me by claiming my "manner" is "highly feminine" (I guess he didn't read my Strunk and White post about avoiding modifiers). Why does he think this is insulting? Clearly because he is bigoted against feminine behavior.

He goes on to describe a "feminine manner": "Men usually stick closer to the claim being made, more on the logic than the speaker." Really? I suppose men also avoid the " Shaming, ad homs, distractors, nit-picking and denigrating logic" that typifies "feminine" argumentation.

This is IC's approach to gender theory? It seems more than a little sexist and bigoted.

In keeping with IC's penchant for Latin, fiat justitia, ruat caelum.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 9:30 pm Here's a quick post about gender theory:

Immanuel writes (concerning his claim that I am a woman):

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.

First, he is lying. He was not mistaken about my gender, since I had specifically discussed being a single father,

As I recall, you said "parent." You didn't say explicitly "father." But check back and see.

In fact, the mistake was a very honest one. You argue in a very feminine sort of way. If that's an insult, it's an inadvertent one. And I very fairly pointed out that it's only "some" women who argue that way, and that certain weak males are also often susceptible to the same sorts of spite-motivated, irrational and off-topic sorts of deflections.

Really? I suppose men also avoid the " Shaming, ad homs, distractors, nit-picking and denigrating logic" that typifies "feminine" argumentation.

Certainly some...and generally, more among women than men.

That's just how it is. I guess you can live with it, or not.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 7:40 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 6:36 pm If any conversation about gender issues (as insanity, social sickness, mass hysteria, etc.) is to take place it might happen when these things, pertaining to your (semi-occulted?) stance are dragged out into full view.

I'm not a Gender Theorist. In any case, who I am has absolutely zero with whether or not Gender Theory is a defensible thing. If it's defensible, it can stand on its own two feet; if it cannot, then it cannot.

So you're just misdirecting again. You've got nothing relevant to say, it seems.

See, you are unable to understand that I am not so much interested in *gender theory* as an abstract topic, but the opposition to it, and the reasons why, in people, for example, like you.

You (Immanuel Can: Evangelical Christians; a wide class of people in our present) are not intellectual abstractions. You are people with motives, designs, undertakings and consequences-outcomes.

You want to jerk-off intellectually within your cherished abstractions. As if you are not there. Whatever turns your crank! But you are there, very much so.

You are a counter- or anti-gender theorist. And you have a whole range of reasonings why and, I’ll also add, a *project*.

Surely you can understand what I’m saying, no?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 10:03 pm
As I recall, you said "parent." You didn't say explicitly "father." But check back and see.

In one of my posts:

As an unmarried, single father I had a joint custody agreement and had equal rights with my son's mother.

It doesn't much matter, though. You prove your bigotry by thinking it an insult to post in a "feminine manner".