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> 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 t

> 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?
  - traverseda 4y ago
    There isn't one, and yet we still manage to have conversations about the alt-right and republicans and overturning abortion. Also I'm not from the US so this really isn't my fight at all, I'm not arguing with you about this I'm just trying to point out where you're making a mistake that is going to make it difficult to communicate. Here's an example, instead of saying "you can't point at contemporary modern feminism because language is hard and ideas are fuzzy" you can say "I don't think that the vice you're accusing these people of really comes up that often". Instead of trying to debate whether true feminists are whatever OP accused them of, you can just say that you don't think whatever OP accused them of is really a big deal that affects very many real people. Skip the definitional debate (you know what group they're trying to point at) and get right to the meat of the argument, whether that issues actually shows up in real life.

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?
- traverseda 4y ago
  There isn't one, and yet we still manage to have conversations about the alt-right and republicans and overturning abortion. Also I'm not from the US so this really isn't my fight at all, I'm not arguing with you about this I'm just trying to point out where you're making a mistake that is going to make it difficult to communicate. Here's an example, instead of saying "you can't point at contemporary modern feminism because language is hard and ideas are fuzzy" you can say "I don't think that the vice you're accusing these people of really comes up that often". Instead of trying to debate whether true feminists are whatever OP accused them of, you can just say that you don't think whatever OP accused them of is really a big deal that affects very many real people. Skip the definitional debate (you know what group they're trying to point at) and get right to the meat of the argument, whether that issues actually shows up in real life.