From afed030b345b7ac56bf94cea5a482a86228f636a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2017 16:01:58 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] drafting "There's a Land ..." --- ...hat-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md | 29 ++++++++++--------- 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md b/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md index f5f9f92..1319638 100644 --- a/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md +++ b/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md @@ -19,19 +19,17 @@ Status: draft We socially-liberal individualist/feminist people—I _hope_ I'm still allowed to use the first person here, although the reader will ultimately judge that for herself—have this beautiful moral ideal, where we want all people to be free to maximize their potential, unencumbered by oppressive cultural institutions specifying roles and destinies in advance. We want everyone to be judged on her or his _own_ merits rather than treated as a representative of their race or sex. We believe that if a trait is virtuous in a man, it _has_ to be equally virtuous in a woman—as a matter of sheer logical _consistency_. -And _because_ we care about the beautiful moral ideal, we tend to assume that psychological group differences don't exist or are superficial or are socially-constructed and will naturally dissipate after the revolution. +And _because_ we care about the beautiful moral ideal, we tend to assume that psychological group differences don't exist, or are superficial, or are socially-constructed and will naturally dissipate after the revolution. (... the scintillating but ultimately untrue thought.) -But this is _so crazy_ on _multiple levels_. Philosophers since the days of D. Hume have recognized the distinction between _is_ and _ought_: +But this is _so crazy_ on _multiple levels_. +Firstly, philosophers since the days of D. Hume have recognized the distinction between _is_ and _ought_, and have identified the [naturalistic fallacy](TODO: linky) of direct inference from the former to the latter. [...] -analogy to spelling - - -http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biology-is-mutable/ - +Secondly, the nature _vs._ nurture dichotomy not only fails to hold up to basic scrutiny (everything is both; the question has been compared to asking whether the area of a rectangle is caused by its length or its width), it also isn't even adequate to doing the inferential work that people expect of it: [not everything biological is immuatable, and not everything social is easy to change.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biology-is-mutable/) (Consider the case of [spelling reform](TODO: linky): no one would suggest that the myriad quirks of English orthography are _genetically_ determined, and yet the entirely social difficulties of getting everyone to coordinate on more logical spellings seem insurmountable.) +[...] I _want_ to believe that sex differences in personality and interests are small-to-nonexistent. I _want_ to believe that trans women are women. @@ -39,8 +37,7 @@ out of the three women present— (or four if you believe in gender identities, because on that worldview, I'm obviously a trans woman in denial) -—they're _all_ trans, and _none_ of them come _close_ to passing. - +—they're _all_ trans, and _none_ of them come _close_ to passing. And my suspension of disbelief shatters. Maybe [Good Is Dumb](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsDumb) doesn't _have_ to be [Truth in Television](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision). @@ -51,11 +48,15 @@ _I want to make the stupid dream real._ But to _get_ to the good world—whateve OUTLINE OF POINTS TO HIT— - * beautiful moral idea of equality - * —makes people believe that group differences are superficial/fake/social - * but this is crazy because: - * is does not imply ought - * social vs. biological isn't even the axis you care about + * ✓ beautiful moral idea of equality + * ✓ —makes people believe that group differences are superficial/fake/social + * make sure to explicitly explain _why_ this is appealing + * ✓ but this is crazy because: + * ✓ is does not imply ought + * people feel the need to accept the naturalistic fallacy _inference_, + but deny the antecedent and perform _modus tollens_—I think it's more + tenable to reject the conditional + * ✓ social vs. biological isn't even the axis you care about * but, we also assume things are biological/fixed when that's convenient for "minority" things we want to protect (sexual orientation, gender identity) * requiring crazy beliefs in order to be a good person is a drain, a drag, and -- 2.17.1