The gap between theoretical arguments and lived reality

[Cloo]

Trying to get this idea out of my head somewhere... this stems from something (one of the many things) bothering me about trans exclusionary radical feminists, AKA TERFs, and what I find grating in their arguments. I get the idea of women as a politically oppressed class, it's totally true. But I don't think the acceptance of trans women as women literally destroys the meaning of 'woman' or 'women's rights'. A lot of the argument seems to be along the lines of 'If men [how they view trans women] can have women's rights, then women's rights are meaningless and women have no rights'.

I mean, maybe if you drag the concept out to its most hypbolic extent you could say that, but that doesn't mean that's the effect it will actually have on lived reality? You get people saying 'Well now he, she, his, hers etc has no meaning because they can mean anything and it's all about how people feel and that's meaningless'. But surely in lived reality, something can have a meaning 99% of the time and the odd exception? Maybe that's not great ontology, but it's how we navigate existence - it's not all absolute rules.

It's like a lot of the TERF ideology makes no account for the difference between a theory and what actually is likely to happen in lived experience. You can use sophistry to make a lot of things seem to mean a lot of things in the abstract, but it doesn't make it a reality. I see a lot of people asking these supposed GOTCHA! questions and I just find myself thinking 'It doesn't fucking matter because that's not the effect it will have on reality'.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I don't think it's a coincidence that your standard TERF is middle class and possibly not that well acquainted with the concept of 'real problems'.

Most people don't need to invent these spurious existential threats because they have so many real ones. Picking an example at random, trans folk face an existential threat in the form of TERFs themselves.

 

[Knotted]

In general, not just this particular controversy. I think people often think that if you don't know a word's precise meaning you don't know its meaning. Here's the definition, here's its use this is how you use it. If you deviate from that then the word has no meaning any more. But this is not how language works in practice. Language can be both flexible and robust, playful but meaningful. I'm a big fan of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations on this sort of thing.

Another example of this sort of dim wittedness would be conservative US commentator Ben Shapiro on rap not being music. You need melody and harmony dontchaknow....

 

[rutabowa]

"Lived reality" (ie actually interacting with real people rather than just watching youtube videos etc ) is the antidote to a lot of awful "theoretical arguments" imo

 

[Knotted]

I don't think people are motivated by these theoretical definition/logic chopping arguments btw. I think these arguments have purchase because they have a certain resonance. If you're worried about trans women in the changing rooms or your kids coming out as trans then you might reach for a world view that restores rigidity and strict clarity.

 

[Cloo]

I don't think people are motivated by these theoretical definition/logic chopping arguments btw. I think these arguments have purchase because they have a certain resonance. If you're worried about trans women in the changing rooms or your kids coming out as trans then you might reach for a world view that restores rigidity and strict clarity.

I have been struck by the way these are arguments that have no capacity to bring anyone round to your view. They'll have your own side nodding along but no one's going to go 'Oh my god, no one knows what a woman is anymore, I'd never thought of it that way!'

 

[Knotted]

I have been struck by the way these are arguments that have no capacity to bring anyone round to your view. They'll have your own side nodding along but no one's going to go 'Oh my god, no one knows what a woman is anymore, I'd never thought of it that way!'

Yes! This really is the strangest thing.


The only effect of this is to troll the other side. The average punter is just going to be perplexed by it. It's a weird little twitter world bursting out of its confines.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I have been struck by the way these are arguments that have no capacity to bring anyone round to your view.

That's because they're always post-hoc arguments. A rational defence for an emotional response, something that didn't come from rational thought in the first place. We all do this to some extent of course, but most of us will at some point stop and have a think about the possibility that we might be full of shit. If that possibility never enters your head, then you're dangerous. Doesn't matter what your position is, if you're not self-reflective about it in any way then you'll turn into some kind of monster eventually.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Thread title: interesting topic for discussion. Applicable to all sorts of stuff.
Thread comments: concentrating on the Terf/Trans wars, predominantly seeing any problems as emanating from one side of the controversy only.
Worth continuing with it? Dunno. Not looking hopeful.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Thread title: interesting topic for discussion. Applicable to all sorts of stuff.
Thread comments: concentrating on the Terf/Trans wars, predominantly seeing any problems as emanating from one side of the controversy only.
Worth continuing with it? Dunno. Not looking hopeful.

It's only a war because one side is determined to make it into one. They could at any point decide to leave people the fuck alone and it'd be happy ever after for all concerned. They'd lose nothing from doing so.

If you're not interested in contributing, other threads are available.

 

[mojo pixy]

There are ten thousand cans of worms here just waiting to open, the many and varied interfaces between (theoretical) Privilege and (actual) Lived Experience to take a multifaceted example. I've got a house to clean just now but this is me peering in, back later no doubt.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

It's only a war because one side is determined to make it into one. They could at any point decide to leave people the fuck alone and it'd be happy ever after for all concerned. They'd lose nothing from doing so.

If you're not interested in contributing, other threads are available.

There are people on both sides of the argument determined to fight a war. I can see that even if you can't. I was just expressing my disappointment that this topic, which could have been general, looks like it is being diverted down the same old terf/trans track

 

[kabbes]

Yes, I’m interested in a discussion about how reality is constructed and what impact that has on how it is lived. However, I have zero interest in doing so against the ongoing backdrop of this particular culture war. It’s too painful for too many people.

 

[Knotted]

U75 still has a transphobia problem. But even on here I don't see people going down the "concept of woman is being destroyed" rabbit hole. This stuff is the further reaches of it.

 

[SpookyFrank]

U75 still has a transphobia problem. But even on here I don't see people going down the "concept of woman is being destroyed" rabbit hole. This stuff is the further reaches of it.

I've seen people here claiming that the word 'woman' is being cancelled. When I've asked them exactly what form that has taken and what it looks like in the real world, answers have been unforthcoming.

It seems to be just people repeating something they heard from somewhere else, without applying a 'does this bear any relationship to my lived experience' filter to it. Why this is so common with some issues and not other I couldn't say. I think it's social cues as much as anything. If you move in certain circles you'll get reinforcement if you talk about immigration getting out of hand that you won't get if you talk about capitalism getting out of hand. That will inevitably shape your perception of reality

 

[xenon]

Oh FFS, trans / terfs again is it.

Locked by Monday morning.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Another informative contribution.

 

[Cloo]

Thread title: interesting topic for discussion. Applicable to all sorts of stuff.
Thread comments: concentrating on the Terf/Trans wars, predominantly seeing any problems as emanating from one side of the controversy only.
Worth continuing with it? Dunno. Not looking hopeful.

It's actually turned out better than I thought, as in it hasn't derailed into a thread about trans rights, which this is not a thread for - hence my title not mentioning the example I led with. By all means Kevbad, bring in the other examples - it's just this was the obvious one to me and I think to many others. I'm genuinely interested where else 'This could be theoretically extrapolated in this way, therefore that's what it literally means'.

 

[LDC]

It's actually turned out better than I thought, as in it hasn't derailed into a thread about trans rights, which this is not a thread for - hence my title not mentioning the example I led with. By all means Kevbad, bring in the other examples - it's just this was the obvious one to me and I think to many others. I'm genuinely interested where else 'This could be theoretically extrapolated in this way, therefore that's what it literally means'.

The 'No war but the class war' slogan/position in relation to Ukraine. Or pacifism maybe? Something a person might hold as an absolute, then then collapses in the face of a reality, that kind of thing you mean?

 

[Red Cat]

It's actually turned out better than I thought, as in it hasn't derailed into a thread about trans rights, which this is not a thread for - hence my title not mentioning the example I led with. By all means Kevbad, bring in the other examples - it's just this was the obvious one to me and I think to many others. I'm genuinely interested where else 'This could be theoretically extrapolated in this way, therefore that's what it literally means'.

Why did you start with something so provocative then? The premise of your example can't be challenged without bringing on that debate, it's as though you see your own position as non-ideological.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I've known people who held certain things as absolutes. Obviously they didn't live according to all of them all of the time, because you can't in a society which contains other people and a universe with physical limitations; but they did often reserve the right to excommunicate anyone else suspected of not abiding by those absolutes. Just watching this happen from outside is exhausting, can't imagine what living it must be like.

But of course I have a few absolutes of my own. Although they're calibrated so that everyone should be able to adhere to them. Don't be a scab. Don't charge rent. Don't drive drunk. Be kind.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why did you start with something so provocative then? The premise of your example can't be challenged without bringing on that debate, it's as though you see your own position as non-ideological.

I do wonder what it's like to be a trans person and see that every time the issue of their right to exist gets raised, even in passing, everyone groans and rolls their eyes and whinges about how much they hate having to hear about it. The people doing that probably feel like their position is neutral, but it's really not. It's not going to read back well in ten years time either; any more than all the 'casual' sexist shite we had on here back in the good old days reads back well today.

If this issue doesn't interest you, either talk about something else (and the thread topic is broad enough to include just about anything) or go away. Don't just fling shit about how bored you are about a topic that always gets dragged down by people who really need everyone to know how fucking bored they are by it. Because it's boring.

 

[Red Cat]

I didn't say or imply any of that. You just made all that up.

 

[Cloo]

Why did you start with something so provocative then? The premise of your example can't be challenged without bringing on that debate, it's as though you see your own position as non-ideological.

Because that's what got me thinking about it - I knew it was fraught with risk of derailing but honestly it's the example I've seen, and I can't think of others off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are ones. But I was interested to see whether I was just, y'know, imagining it as poor argument form for real-life issues or if other people thought it was a thing as well, clearly my position is ideological in this example.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I didn't say or imply any of that. You just made all that up.

Sorry no, not boring. Provocative. And by implication, therefore not worth mentioning.

My post wasn't only directed at you anyway, but everyone who has rocked up on this thread to say nothing besides, 'why are you talking about this?'

 

[Red Cat]

Sorry no, not boring. Provocative. And by implication, therefore not worth mentioning.

My post wasn't only directed at you anyway, but everyone who has rocked up on this thread to say nothing besides, 'why are you talking about this?'

Because Cloo said she didn't want it to 'derail' into a thread about trans rights when its hard to see how that wouldn't happen if people were to disagree with that first post.

 

[JimW]

Well, in the spirt of the thread and airing unpopular opinions, I find on the trans issue I am supportive and sympathetic of everything except this insistence that you are a woman because you say so, which is not how I think the real world works and seems to me the epitome of insisting on a theoretical position. That's not a view exclusive to this issue, I don't think self-identification for anything is a socially useful or defensible concept.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I don't think self-identification for anything is a socially useful or defensible concept.

Here's a lovely example of a statement that seems reasonable but which bears zero scrutiny. The last time you met someone and they told you their name, did you demand to see some ID? Have you recently been called upon to prove your own name, sex, gender, home town, occupation, favourite colour or shoe size? No, because people self-identify all those things as a matter of course.

 

[JimW]

Here's a lovely example of a statement that seems reasonable but which bears zero scrutiny. The last time you met someone and they told you their name, did you demand to see some ID? Have you recently been called upon to proves your own name, sex, gender, home town, occupation, favourite colour or shoe size? No, because people self-identify all those things as a matter of course.

Well, of course you take people at their word in those situations but that hardly exhausts the limit of where an identity counts, and certainly one with the social consequences of gender. That's why I say it seems like an unfortunate theoretical insistence, as the practical issue is surely that people get afforded the rights they want and deserve where they matter regardless of what I or anyone else thinks in some abstract sense.

 

[Pickman's model]

Here's a lovely example of a statement that seems reasonable but which bears zero scrutiny. The last time you met someone and they told you their name, did you demand to see some ID? Have you recently been called upon to prove your own name, sex, gender, home town, occupation, favourite colour or shoe size? No, because people self-identify all those things as a matter of course.

To be fair it didnt really seem a reasonable statement