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Would strongly recommend checking out Baudrillard's ideas. I am the complete opposite of a relativist when it comes to the territory, but clearly the maps we m

Would strongly recommend checking out Baudrillard's ideas. I am the complete opposite of a relativist when it comes to the territory, but clearly the maps we make of that territory are influenced by social and cultural history. So they are worth questioning or "deconstructing". The main way the right is unmoored from reality is in saying that the maps that have traditionally existed are the territory, or at least are indistinguishable from it. That is plainly incorrect, for the simple reason that a faithful model of reality must be as complicated as reality itself. And if you insist that your simplistic view is the right one, the inevitable result is that you'll violently reshape the territory to fit the map (which is what the current regime has been doing).

PathOfEclipse 2y ago
Thanks for the info. Can you give an example of someone on the right mistaking a symbol for reality? I've seen, I believe, the opposite in play. I've seen, for instance, thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau argue the exact opposite; that a symbol is an approximation but also that it's utility is tied to fidelity with reality. And, over-simplistic viewpoints are found in abundance on the left. As an example, a leftist over-simplifies that all group disparities must be caused by systemic injustice. This is deeply untrue, and, for instance, Sowell's "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics" is a treatise on the myriad of complexities that can result in group disparity that have nothing to do with social oppression or even occur in spite of it. But the SJW has a "map" of the territory, and it gives a seemingly univariate explanation for everything.
- sunshowers 2y ago
  > Can you give an example of someone on the right mistaking a symbol for reality? Gender. The observed behavior among humans is clearly very complex, but the right keeps insisting that its binary/immutable map is the territory. This leads to recent moves like the administration saying that trans people are inherently dishonest and saying false things -- which is a claim about objective reality, and specifically that the simplistic map they have is reality. Note, I am not saying that gender is just a social construct. It isn't, there are clearly deep affinities and anti-affinities related to gender built into our brain wiring. But it's not as simple as the right makes it out to be either. > As an example, a leftist over-simplifies that all group disparities must be caused by systemic injustice. As someone on the left I don't believe this at all. I think systemic injustice explains a large part of disparities but not all of them. I'm not a fan of univariate or monocausal explanations in general.
  - PathOfEclipse 2y ago
    > I think systemic injustice explains a large part of disparities but not all of them. I appreciate your statement of nuance, However, most letists behave as if systemic injustice is the primary cause, and the only cause worth dealing with, regardless of whether evidence or research suggest otherwise. In fact, they are actively hostile to even attempting to find and compare other causes. And thinkers like Kendi outright say that all disparity is evidence of discrimination: https://dailycampus.com/2020/09/21/no-disparity-does-not-imply-discrimination/ https://dailycampus.com/2020/09/21/no-disparity-does-not-imp... > Gender. The observed behavior among humans is clearly very complex, but the right keeps insisting that its binary/immutable map is the territory. I have no problem believing a person can invent a definition of gender with complex meaning. Most conservatives, however, simply reject these formulations as a mixture of false, societally destructive, and causing far more harm than good. Before the 20th century gender was a word related to grammar only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender From Wikipedia: "The concept of gender, in the modern social science sense, is a recent invention in human history.[26] The ancient world had no basis of understanding gender as it has been understood in the humanities and social sciences for the past few decades.[26] The term gender had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s." It was John Money and colleagues who lead the way with popularizing gender's redefinition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction, And, as we all know, Money proved a very evil human and poor scientist, as his seminal research was entirely and thoroughly debunked. Conservatives argue that the best definition for gender is a synonym for biological sex, which for humans has two functional categories. I have yet to see an iota of real proof that a more complex definition is truer or better.
    - sunshowers 2y ago
      > I have no problem believing a person can invent a definition of gender which complex meaning. No! I am not a relativist. Observed behavior is what it is, and a scientific mindset means creating the best possible models for it. Some models are objectively better than others. (At a meta level, I also believe that the naturalistic/scientific way of looking at the world is objectively better than other ways. At an even more meta level, I believe what I believe because, modulo uncertainty, it is the objectively best set of beliefs; if I believed otherwise, I'd change my beliefs in that direction.) > Most conservatives, however, simply reject these formulations as a mixture of false, societally destructive, and causing far more harm than good. Exactly. Conservatives believe their simplistic map is the territory. > Before the 20th century gender was not used to meaning anything beyond male/female. Not the terms maybe. But there is existence beyond signs and signifiers, which is exactly what Baudrillard and others have said. > It was John Money and colleagues who likely lead the way with its redefinition, and, as we all know, Money proved to be a twisted, despicable human being. His seminal research was also proven profoundly and completely false, making him an extremely poor scientist as well. I care about reality, not some scientist being a fuckup. There are plenty of scientists who describe reality better than conservatives do and also have unimpeachable integrity. > Conservatives argue that the best definition for gender is a synonym for biological sex, which for humans has two functional possibilities. I have yet to see an iota of real proof that something else is better. Well, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You have the simplistic belief that your binary/immutable map of an observably complex territory is the territory. Reality is quite complex, so more complex models are in general going to describe reality better. That alone should make people be suspicious of simpler models when more complex models have greater explanatory power. (Occam's razor only applies when multiple explanations describe the world with equal predictive power. As a first cut, a maxim of going against Occam's razor will generally lead to better results.)

PathOfEclipse 2y ago

Thanks for the info. Can you give an example of someone on the right mistaking a symbol for reality? I've seen, I believe, the opposite in play. I've seen, for instance, thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau argue the exact opposite; that a symbol is an approximation but also that it's utility is tied to fidelity with reality. And, over-simplistic viewpoints are found in abundance on the left. As an example, a leftist over-simplifies that all group disparities must be caused by systemic injustice. This is deeply untrue, and, for instance, Sowell's "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics" is a treatise on the myriad of complexities that can result in group disparity that have nothing to do with social oppression or even occur in spite of it. But the SJW has a "map" of the territory, and it gives a seemingly univariate explanation for everything.

sunshowers 2y ago
> Can you give an example of someone on the right mistaking a symbol for reality? Gender. The observed behavior among humans is clearly very complex, but the right keeps insisting that its binary/immutable map is the territory. This leads to recent moves like the administration saying that trans people are inherently dishonest and saying false things -- which is a claim about objective reality, and specifically that the simplistic map they have is reality. Note, I am not saying that gender is just a social construct. It isn't, there are clearly deep affinities and anti-affinities related to gender built into our brain wiring. But it's not as simple as the right makes it out to be either. > As an example, a leftist over-simplifies that all group disparities must be caused by systemic injustice. As someone on the left I don't believe this at all. I think systemic injustice explains a large part of disparities but not all of them. I'm not a fan of univariate or monocausal explanations in general.
- PathOfEclipse 2y ago
  > I think systemic injustice explains a large part of disparities but not all of them. I appreciate your statement of nuance, However, most letists behave as if systemic injustice is the primary cause, and the only cause worth dealing with, regardless of whether evidence or research suggest otherwise. In fact, they are actively hostile to even attempting to find and compare other causes. And thinkers like Kendi outright say that all disparity is evidence of discrimination: https://dailycampus.com/2020/09/21/no-disparity-does-not-imply-discrimination/ https://dailycampus.com/2020/09/21/no-disparity-does-not-imp... > Gender. The observed behavior among humans is clearly very complex, but the right keeps insisting that its binary/immutable map is the territory. I have no problem believing a person can invent a definition of gender with complex meaning. Most conservatives, however, simply reject these formulations as a mixture of false, societally destructive, and causing far more harm than good. Before the 20th century gender was a word related to grammar only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender From Wikipedia: "The concept of gender, in the modern social science sense, is a recent invention in human history.[26] The ancient world had no basis of understanding gender as it has been understood in the humanities and social sciences for the past few decades.[26] The term gender had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s." It was John Money and colleagues who lead the way with popularizing gender's redefinition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction, And, as we all know, Money proved a very evil human and poor scientist, as his seminal research was entirely and thoroughly debunked. Conservatives argue that the best definition for gender is a synonym for biological sex, which for humans has two functional categories. I have yet to see an iota of real proof that a more complex definition is truer or better.
  - sunshowers 2y ago
    > I have no problem believing a person can invent a definition of gender which complex meaning. No! I am not a relativist. Observed behavior is what it is, and a scientific mindset means creating the best possible models for it. Some models are objectively better than others. (At a meta level, I also believe that the naturalistic/scientific way of looking at the world is objectively better than other ways. At an even more meta level, I believe what I believe because, modulo uncertainty, it is the objectively best set of beliefs; if I believed otherwise, I'd change my beliefs in that direction.) > Most conservatives, however, simply reject these formulations as a mixture of false, societally destructive, and causing far more harm than good. Exactly. Conservatives believe their simplistic map is the territory. > Before the 20th century gender was not used to meaning anything beyond male/female. Not the terms maybe. But there is existence beyond signs and signifiers, which is exactly what Baudrillard and others have said. > It was John Money and colleagues who likely lead the way with its redefinition, and, as we all know, Money proved to be a twisted, despicable human being. His seminal research was also proven profoundly and completely false, making him an extremely poor scientist as well. I care about reality, not some scientist being a fuckup. There are plenty of scientists who describe reality better than conservatives do and also have unimpeachable integrity. > Conservatives argue that the best definition for gender is a synonym for biological sex, which for humans has two functional possibilities. I have yet to see an iota of real proof that something else is better. Well, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You have the simplistic belief that your binary/immutable map of an observably complex territory is the territory. Reality is quite complex, so more complex models are in general going to describe reality better. That alone should make people be suspicious of simpler models when more complex models have greater explanatory power. (Occam's razor only applies when multiple explanations describe the world with equal predictive power. As a first cut, a maxim of going against Occam's razor will generally lead to better results.)