4 ms·

I liked this, but the point that I feel it ignored—that a lot of similar essays ignore—is that having a dialog with someone about an external right (like proper

I liked this, but the point that I feel it ignored—that a lot of similar essays ignore—is that having a dialog with someone about an external right (like property rights, that the author mentioned) is very different than arguing with someone about a right to their own identity. How do you have a dialog with someone, even someone arguing in good faith, when the dialog is about whether you have the right to be who you say you are? I could have dialogs all day about external principles, but internal ones, it’s a lot harder to talk about with someone who disagrees. It’s all well and good to decry cancel culture, but these are people who have had to fight tooth and nail to even get a seat at the conversation table in the first place.

luckylion 6y ago
Is there fundamental disagreement in people arguing in good faith about everyone's right to be who they say they are? Doesn't the problem usually start when they ask to be treated in a special way, that is, compel others to do things (which tends to collide with the fundamental idea of not-being-forced)? I'm not sure that cancel culture-people actually had to fight a lot. It seems to me that people who are similar to them in some regard had to fight, but they themselves did not. And those who came before them and had to fight for their rights are usually not among those who seek to cancel others, and will sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of a struggle session, administered by the sons and daughters of their revolution.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > Doesn't the problem usually start when they ask to be treated in a special way, that is, compel others to do things (which tends to collide with the fundamental idea of not-being-forced)? I don’t think so—black people have been asking to be treated like their lives have value, gay people have been asking to get married, trans people have been asking to be allowed to exist. Those seem to be pretty fundamental rights—I don’t see any of that as asking for special treatments.
  - 4bpp 6y ago
    Two out of three of these points seem to be primarily polemic. I am not aware of anyone (okay, maybe outside an insane fringe) who, in any meaningful way, is seeking to "forbid trans people to exist" - how do you not allow someone to exist, except by, you know, stopping them from existing, i.e. killing them? Instead, the fights, and cancellations of those deviating from the approved positions, tend to focus on issues such as whether people should be compelled to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns, or whether trans people should be allowed access to their preferred gendered facilities (be it bathrooms or battered-women shelters). Do trans people die or pop out of existence when you refer to them by the wrong pronoun? If so, that would be a whole new level of fragility (a word I gather social justice advocates really like to bandy around in situations where it is far less appropriate than here), and it seems like a more appropriate response to someone whose existence is so precarious would be more akin to how we sustain those who are born without an adaptive immune system (https://www.rarediseasereview.org/publications/2017/8/7/living-without-an-immune-system https://www.rarediseasereview.org/publications/2017/8/7/livi...). (Gay marriage, on the other hand, has been (rightly) legalised and enjoys majority support, but even there I think that the problem was that the state presumed to have a say in the definition of marriage to begin with. If any reference to marriage were struck from the books - perhaps by making a neutral construct of civil partnership or something else that can inherit its functions for property-sharing and mutual spokesmanship take it place - then the claim to marriage as a negative right that Scruton would have no cause to interfere with would become apparent.)
    - mcphage 6y ago
      > how do you not allow someone to exist, except by, you know, stopping them from existing, i.e. killing them? You tell them “you are not who you think you are, you’re wrong about your own life” > whether people should be compelled to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns, or whether trans people should be allowed access to their preferred gendered facilities Those are perfect examples—have you ever had a problem getting someone to refer to you by your preferred pronoun? Have you ever been denied access to your bathroom? For me, such things are unthinkable. > trans people die or pop out of existence when you refer to them by the wrong pronoun? Well, their existence as a trans person does, when you reject their own identity and replace it with one you have chosen instead. So: yes, you’re telling the person that you’re talking to that they don’t exist, that someone else, with a different name and gender exists instead. > even there I think that the problem was that the state presumed to have a say in the definition of marriage to begin with That’s an odd solution—gay people want to get married also? Well then: nobody can. Making everybody miserable instead of happy is one way to put everybody on the same footing, but not one I don’t think many people would have been happy with. Definitely I’m glad they didn’t go with that.

luckylion 6y ago

Is there fundamental disagreement in people arguing in good faith about everyone's right to be who they say they are? Doesn't the problem usually start when they ask to be treated in a special way, that is, compel others to do things (which tends to collide with the fundamental idea of not-being-forced)? I'm not sure that cancel culture-people actually had to fight a lot. It seems to me that people who are similar to them in some regard had to fight, but they themselves did not. And those who came before them and had to fight for their rights are usually not among those who seek to cancel others, and will sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of a struggle session, administered by the sons and daughters of their revolution.

mcphage 6y ago
> Doesn't the problem usually start when they ask to be treated in a special way, that is, compel others to do things (which tends to collide with the fundamental idea of not-being-forced)? I don’t think so—black people have been asking to be treated like their lives have value, gay people have been asking to get married, trans people have been asking to be allowed to exist. Those seem to be pretty fundamental rights—I don’t see any of that as asking for special treatments.
- 4bpp 6y ago
  Two out of three of these points seem to be primarily polemic. I am not aware of anyone (okay, maybe outside an insane fringe) who, in any meaningful way, is seeking to "forbid trans people to exist" - how do you not allow someone to exist, except by, you know, stopping them from existing, i.e. killing them? Instead, the fights, and cancellations of those deviating from the approved positions, tend to focus on issues such as whether people should be compelled to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns, or whether trans people should be allowed access to their preferred gendered facilities (be it bathrooms or battered-women shelters). Do trans people die or pop out of existence when you refer to them by the wrong pronoun? If so, that would be a whole new level of fragility (a word I gather social justice advocates really like to bandy around in situations where it is far less appropriate than here), and it seems like a more appropriate response to someone whose existence is so precarious would be more akin to how we sustain those who are born without an adaptive immune system (https://www.rarediseasereview.org/publications/2017/8/7/living-without-an-immune-system https://www.rarediseasereview.org/publications/2017/8/7/livi...). (Gay marriage, on the other hand, has been (rightly) legalised and enjoys majority support, but even there I think that the problem was that the state presumed to have a say in the definition of marriage to begin with. If any reference to marriage were struck from the books - perhaps by making a neutral construct of civil partnership or something else that can inherit its functions for property-sharing and mutual spokesmanship take it place - then the claim to marriage as a negative right that Scruton would have no cause to interfere with would become apparent.)
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > how do you not allow someone to exist, except by, you know, stopping them from existing, i.e. killing them? You tell them “you are not who you think you are, you’re wrong about your own life” > whether people should be compelled to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns, or whether trans people should be allowed access to their preferred gendered facilities Those are perfect examples—have you ever had a problem getting someone to refer to you by your preferred pronoun? Have you ever been denied access to your bathroom? For me, such things are unthinkable. > trans people die or pop out of existence when you refer to them by the wrong pronoun? Well, their existence as a trans person does, when you reject their own identity and replace it with one you have chosen instead. So: yes, you’re telling the person that you’re talking to that they don’t exist, that someone else, with a different name and gender exists instead. > even there I think that the problem was that the state presumed to have a say in the definition of marriage to begin with That’s an odd solution—gay people want to get married also? Well then: nobody can. Making everybody miserable instead of happy is one way to put everybody on the same footing, but not one I don’t think many people would have been happy with. Definitely I’m glad they didn’t go with that.