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Finally somebody has had the courage to point out the "critical flaw" in contemporary modern feminism, a philosophy noted for it's static nature and universally

Finally somebody has had the courage to point out the "critical flaw" in contemporary modern feminism, a philosophy noted for it's static nature and universally shared beliefs! Your thoughts and ideas are reasonable enough but you should have a little more intellectual humility when presenting them. My only counter to what you've said is that I think while you acknowledge the inertia of the status quo makes on current gender dynamics, you are not appreciating how making even the slightest decision against the prevailing culture is incredibly difficult. For example, I have a male, married friend who had a child and they used the mother's last name. This seemingly minor, insignificant little protest has already caused him like 10 problems because nobody can imagine a child not having their father's last name. Going against the status quo is not easy!

scarmig 4y ago
Note I said contemporary popular feminism. Obviously feminism contains multitudes, but what dominates the mass and social media is much less sophisticated take that doesn't do justice to the thinkers who conceptualize it.
deleted 4y ago
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traverseda 4y ago
Not normally something I'd get involved in (and I don't necessarily agree with OP), but I think you need to take a hard look at how you interpreted that. When you say sarcastically say "noted for it's static nature" and OP has already added the "contemporary, modern" qualifiers, well you're pretty much straw-manning them. They've already addressed the point that they don't think it's static, that they're pointing to specific ideas at a particular time in the best way they can. So like, OP predicted your argument and tried their best to explain that's not what they meant, and you ran with that interpretation anyway. Unless there's some edit shenanigans going on that I don't see, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a polite way to say this, but like from where I'm sitting you don't look like you're responding to OP, you look like you're responding to a straw-man that OP went out of their way to explain was not what they were actually saying.
- peter422 4y ago
  > Men, of course, also use their agency to create this world with restrictive gender roles. > The large majority of women choose the tradeoff that results in the current social structure we see. As I said, the OP has reasonable points but to skate over these two obviously connected points while pointing out a "critical flaw" in feminist theory is very incomplete. It it also a disingenuous argumentative technique to say that his points are so dangerous that to bring them up would get somebody called names. Most if not all academics would be happy to argue any of these points without name calling. And also it is ridiculous to say that "contemporary, modern feminism" is a well defined term that means the same thing to everybody. What's modern conservatism mean? Modern liberalism?
  - traverseda 4y ago
    Nothing is a well defined term that means the same thing to everybody, so if those are the standards you keep it's going to be impossible to have any kind of discussion. None the less it is possible for people to communicate, even given the vagaries of language, if you're willing to extend people the benefit of the doubt and try to actually understand what they're saying. I think you were remiss in your duty to extend that benefit of the doubt, to try to understand what OP was saying, and I think that's why you were dismissed and they're not responding to your more substantive arguments. You might benefit from a read through of these articles: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words-can-be-wrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-th... Particularly the bit on "The Cluster Structure of Thingspace" >>A verbal definition works well enough in practice to point out the intended cluster of similar things, but you nitpick exceptions. Not every human has ten fingers, or wears clothes, or uses language; but if you look for an empirical cluster of things which share these characteristics, you'll get enough information that the occasional nine-fingered human won't fool you.
    - peter422 4y ago
      Ok, what's the generally agreed on definition of popular modern conservatism?

scarmig 4y ago

Note I said contemporary popular feminism. Obviously feminism contains multitudes, but what dominates the mass and social media is much less sophisticated take that doesn't do justice to the thinkers who conceptualize it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

traverseda 4y ago

Not normally something I'd get involved in (and I don't necessarily agree with OP), but I think you need to take a hard look at how you interpreted that. When you say sarcastically say "noted for it's static nature" and OP has already added the "contemporary, modern" qualifiers, well you're pretty much straw-manning them. They've already addressed the point that they don't think it's static, that they're pointing to specific ideas at a particular time in the best way they can. So like, OP predicted your argument and tried their best to explain that's not what they meant, and you ran with that interpretation anyway. Unless there's some edit shenanigans going on that I don't see, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a polite way to say this, but like from where I'm sitting you don't look like you're responding to OP, you look like you're responding to a straw-man that OP went out of their way to explain was not what they were actually saying.

peter422 4y ago
> Men, of course, also use their agency to create this world with restrictive gender roles. > The large majority of women choose the tradeoff that results in the current social structure we see. As I said, the OP has reasonable points but to skate over these two obviously connected points while pointing out a "critical flaw" in feminist theory is very incomplete. It it also a disingenuous argumentative technique to say that his points are so dangerous that to bring them up would get somebody called names. Most if not all academics would be happy to argue any of these points without name calling. And also it is ridiculous to say that "contemporary, modern feminism" is a well defined term that means the same thing to everybody. What's modern conservatism mean? Modern liberalism?
- traverseda 4y ago
  Nothing is a well defined term that means the same thing to everybody, so if those are the standards you keep it's going to be impossible to have any kind of discussion. None the less it is possible for people to communicate, even given the vagaries of language, if you're willing to extend people the benefit of the doubt and try to actually understand what they're saying. I think you were remiss in your duty to extend that benefit of the doubt, to try to understand what OP was saying, and I think that's why you were dismissed and they're not responding to your more substantive arguments. You might benefit from a read through of these articles: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words-can-be-wrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-th... Particularly the bit on "The Cluster Structure of Thingspace" >>A verbal definition works well enough in practice to point out the intended cluster of similar things, but you nitpick exceptions. Not every human has ten fingers, or wears clothes, or uses language; but if you look for an empirical cluster of things which share these characteristics, you'll get enough information that the occasional nine-fingered human won't fool you.
  - peter422 4y ago
    Ok, what's the generally agreed on definition of popular modern conservatism?