Everything else is only distracting from the point of communication through words, and how to describe emotional reasoning and connotations - i.e. those things that are part of our language beyond (and including subtle nuance of) definitions. Please don't do that.
With respect, I think you have to do that. Because, as I've tried to highlight, "emotional reasoning" isn't good enough, if we're trying to discuss morality (or worse, demand it of others). When we rely on emotional reasoning, language is not the root issue, and all the subtle nuances in the world are useless. For example, if you want to say "check your privilege" to someone and have anyone take you at all seriously, it pays to rely on some logical or empirical reason for them to do so, not just your own personal emotional feelings about it. And that applies equally, regardless of whether or not they know the phrase and its usage.
I can understand what you're saying, but I think we're actually agreeing, but... humorously, to me... failing to communicate the point due to language and emotional reasoning.
I am not attempting to say that emotional reasoning is the sole of communication. Point in fact, I'm attempting to get people to clarify past their own internal emotional reasoning - either as they present their case, or as they digest someone else's.
Again, it's why I use a multitude of words: if I don't, inevitably a nuance of my own wording will cause another to read intent or meaning into something that I simply don't have (either because I have none, or because I have a different one).
And, as has been proven here and now, even that is insufficient, at times, because people have their own emotional reactions to subtle elements that make it extremely difficult to read another's emotional intent (even if the intent is, in fact, rational, and attempting to present itself as such in, what the person sees as rational argumentation).
I'll take what you were discussing about the side-view: it specifies "give the boat" - i.e. from what you took it and quite readily, there was a transaction that the ownership of the boat fully and entirely transferred along with the transaction.
This is not something most people got from reading the scenario. Dare I suggest, I think it would be unlikely, even if the wording was changed, as, when you suggested "pay for the boat at half cost" my interpretation was still not "she gets sole ownership of the boat".
This is, I think, part of the discussions beyond SJ issues, and walking right into that old standby of arguments, "RAW" as well.
And it heads right back into one of my favorite refrains: English is (and, I'd imagine, most languages are) as many different languages as there are people who speak it.
While a general consensus can be had based off of definitions, there are always going to be arguments because there are elements of text-based communication that are fundamentally necessary to "presume" beyond what is written down - otherwise, you end up with entirely nonsensical phrases, and/or posts larger than even mine in order to give someone a basic greeting each day.
And would likely question where Anne's father was in all this, since he should be deciding such matters - with proper ceremonies and arrangements for the care of the inevitable children.I don't think its very fair of you to bring up Anne's father who is situated on another moral quandary/metric test called Shark Island.
Right now they are currently debating if he should cut off part of his left hand, use his son's (Joe) leg or Anne's dead mother's body (Mabel) as bait to throw in the water for the sharks while other swims out to the adjoining island to use the pay phone that is located right in the middle of the island (surrounded by palm trees).
So what is it - Hand? A Leg? Or the remains of their beloved wife/mother who demanded a traditional funeral before she died?Personally I think their whole stupid family should invest in some tools and learn how to build a damn boat.
That's probably just my privilege speaking..er typing.
...The dead body. How is this even a dilemma?
Or hell, PART of the body, since apparently a hand or leg would suffice. That way you can re-use it when the guy who makes the convenient phone call needs to swim BACK.
I'm sure their wife/mother, if she actually loved them, would understand her husband/son not deciding to pointlessly mutilate themselves (in the best case. They'd likely bleed out or die of infection far from a hospital.).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Tacticslion, I think you're still missing a part of my point.
Pretend all of the language issues were cleared up, and everyone understood exactly what everyone else was saying.
There would still be disagreements that could not be resolved.
System Administrator
|
| 16 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oy. I really don't want to get into this, but if we're going to talk about this, it's going to involve things that cause a lot of grar. Mainly, I'm talking about privilege and violence.
Look guys, I've been in the trans community since the early 90's like, actually in it and I've been teaching in that environment for a long time. I've some a lot of stuff go down. I've had friends beaten and raped just because of who they are. I've had friends arrested for going to the bathroom. I've known a lot of people 2nd hand who have been killed for being trans and even people who have been killed for dating someone trans. If you want to see how that played out, watch Soldier's Girl. I know Calpernia and while we've grown apart in recent years she had a very traumatic experience. All of this is to say that sometimes trans people lash out at the people who do these things to them. It's a statement of anger and pretty much no matter what you called them, those anger statements would persist. When people are hurt they tend to say things they don't mean to try to hurt people that have hurt them.
The other case you may often see Cis talked about outside of trans circles is when discussing privilege. When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system. It is super difficult to be very very specific when talking about large systems so you tend to use generalizations and hope the reader understands that when discussing large systems there are nuances and people who might otherwise be categorized as cis or white or male who are absolutely exceptions to a large generalizations. In that, just like stereotypes, you can't apply them to individual people. I can honestly say that cis honestly don't understand a lot of what goes on in our community. That isn't to say there aren't plenty of cis allies out there looking into and listening and helping us defend our rights as people deserving of compassion and understanding. It's just, generally speaking, most people don't think about it.
Also, I've been around a long time. Transgender people in general do a lot of navel gazing and think a lot about words describing people especially ourselves. Every now and then we have large discussions about the right term. When I was starting, "transsexual" was the correct term to describe us and transgender was a much more umbrella term that included basically everyone that was gender different and wanted the label. Now, we see it often used to mean the same as someone who wants surgery which has kind of confused the topic. Transsexual was applied to us by scientists long ago, just like transvestite before it. It was never self ascribed and transgender was later ascribed to us. You can find the writing call it different things throughout history but it's always been applied to us though now we're gaining some ground to discuss how we want to be described. I personally feel that transgender is a little too broad for people like me to have the specificity we need to discuss our specific problems and kind of confuses those with really particular healthcare with those that have less specific healthcare needs, but it is a result of those discussion that I was watching happen 16 or 17 years ago.
Cis came about because we needed to discuss, quite often, our differences. Likely you've not seen a lot of that discussion because you don't go out and look for it, you just see discussions where trans people are trying to defend their lives and getting a modicum of dignity and respect for how we live them. So you see people talking about how cis people are acting negatively on them and thus have attributed cis with some negativity from the trans community. But that is just the tip of a very large iceberg in both scientific and sociological discussion on trans people and trans lives. Cis grew out of a need to not refer to cis people as normal which was othering or genetic which was really inapplicable in many cases. While you may feel that it's negatively applied it doesn't hold anywhere near the same power as calling someone a nasty name. Noone has heard of someone call them cis right before waking in the hospital or not waking up at all. At least not unprovoked. I've literally never met a transwoman who thought of cis people negatively or of cis as something that should be negatively applied except in those two circumstances. Cisgendered people are not systematically oppressed by being cis. Trans as a prefix meaning the other side of and cis as a a prefix meaning on the same side of. As a scientific term which transgender grew out of, it was specifically thought up as means to accurately convey those who are not trans without othering and to be as neutral as it can be and it is quite often used very neutrally. It might also be because transgender and trans might have a negative connotation in your eyes so you assume that cis must also have a negative connotation. Perhaps you just don't understand or like discussions of privilege but they are pretty necessary for people who receive all sorts of oppression and cis is extremely useful for discussing how those privileges affect both trans and cis people.
I don't know guys, as someone who has been called terrible names based on just some small facet of who I am, who has run from people shouting it at me, I'm not seeing it. =/
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, when we do introduce new language ("privilege", "cissexual"), it's immediately attacked and becomes the new flashpoint for argument.My rankings on the problem (since this is the only interesting part of rehash thread #726838939).I'm curious: where is this a normal conversation? I've not actually seen a thread explicitly about the problem of communication due to language barriers between folks who both speak the same language (outside of the occasional posts - mostly my own).
I'd be interested in any sort of education you could give me.
Almost every other thread about race and privilege - even those that do not start out as such often turns into a melee between definitions, buzz words and people talking past each other due to personal views and belief systems.
You addressed this a communication issue as it concerns addressing SJ discussions, then it devolves into another SJ debate. Discussions between diametrically opposed, (or just opposed) groups are pointless because we do not the same language, valuation, morality, perception of power dynamics are not even on the same plane of thought. Hence the need for new language by parties involved.
I'm not going to argue it here, this has already been done.
Of course it is, because language influences thought. (Insert any ol' 1984 reference here)
Whoever gets to define the terms of the debate gets to decide which ideas are easy and simple to express, and which are difficult. So definitions and language become the first battleground.
Take, for instance, the case of Bahar Mustafa, who got in trouble on social media (and recently arrested) for saying things like "#KillAllWhiteMen." She insisted that she could not be racist or sexist against white men, and from her perspective she was right, because her (liberal academic) definition of racism and sexism involved things like power structures and privilege. But according to the definition used by most people (more or less that racism is thinking bad things about people because of their race), she probably was racist.
But not only did she not agree with the idea that she was being racist, it seemed to be literally incomprehensible to her, because that's not what racism means. The definitions she learned prevented her from seeing other people's perspectives.
We're human beings. Emotional reasoning is unavoidable.
That doesn't make it useful. And it can be minimized, through discipline.
You can't discuss morality without emotional reasoning. There's no starting point.
Then it's up to humanity to come up with one, because I think it's too important a subject to leave up to that.
If morality is defined by emotion only, then the world is ruled by drama queens. "I feel very, very, very strongly that you're wrong!" becomes "you are a bad person and need to be punished," especially if the person being accused is only "very, very" sure that it's you who is in fact wrong. Self-doubt becomes not a rational tool for reflection, but a fatal weakness.
Hopefully we can see that there's no good end that can come from that.
Alright, Kirth. Here's the thing. Syssil did a great job of providing an immediate derail of this thread, and current you are feeding it.EDIT: WELP, I GOT NINJA'D AND KIRTH PUT US RIGHT BACK ON TRACK. EGG ON MY FACE. (I blame children.)
My apologies, Kirth. And thanks.
The exercise was to point out "everyone has a different moral compass" and it has done so - what I got out of it, though, was that the whole thing could have been resolved if Ann and Bob had simply agreed about "What is love?" as everything else flowed from that.
IU'm not at all sure "What is love" is the fundamental disagreement, but much might have been simplified had they just talked about it. Lack of communication may be the root, but not necessarily the meaning of love.
Of course, if she'd just kept her mouth shut, that also would have been a happier ending.
Also my mind keeps going back to Casablanca and Capt Renault seducing refugee women in exchange for visas. That one country couple as Ann and Bob, Renault as Charlie and Rick as Dave. No real Erik, since Dave intercedes and of course in that case Ann is attempting to get both herself and Bob away from danger and to a better life.
While I understand what you're getting at, it fundamentally is the problem.
And the reason it's fundamentally the problem is,
We're human beings. Emotional reasoning is unavoidable.
You can't discuss morality without emotional reasoning. There's no starting point.
... as you said: emotional reasoning is unavoidable.
One had the emotional reasoning that "love is doing whatever it takes to be with the other person" (or at least, that is what her actions indicate*) - when Bob rejected that (unspoken) promise, the "love" was broken, because it never really existed for both of them in the first place. This was a basic miscommunication.
One had the emotional reasoning that "love is about purity, devotion, and steadfast faithfulness" (or at least, that is what his actions indicate) - and when Ann broke that (unspoken) promise, the "love" was broken, because it never really existed for both of them in the first place. This was a basic miscommunication.
Both of them used terminology that they both thought they understood - and indeed, had they looked up "love" in the dictionary, they probably would have agreed on all the definitions they found there - but because they also had subtle emotional/cultural/etc. reasons that were riders along with that which were never clarified... well.
Oops, I guess.
Ann, unless she has mental problems (a presumption we make), would not have gone to be with Bob by selling her body/sex-time for a boat, had she known that Bob would reject her.
Bob, unless he has mental problems (a presumption we make) would not have spent all that time shouting how much he loved her had he known she would sell her body/sex-time for a boat to come see him.
* If we take them at their word that they believed they loved each other.
|
Of course it is, because language influences thought. (Insert any ol' 1984 reference here)
Whoever gets to define the terms of the debate gets to decide which ideas are easy and simple to express, and which are difficult. So definitions and language become the first battleground.
In effect this is a power grab by those who feel disenfranchised and are in the minority, while those in the majority want to keep the status quo.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not seeing it. =/
That seems to be, interestingly enough, the entire point of your post.
You say "I've literally never met a transwoman who thought of cis people negatively or of cis as something that should be negatively applied". I believe you.
I say I've never met a person (IRL, having any kind of online presence makes us both liars there) that has said derogatory thing about trans people (I don't claim to be a mind reader, so I can't say whether they "think negatively" or not). Which is also true.
That doesn't mean both things don't happen. Granted by its very nature the amount of trans people doing this is much smaller (a percent of a percent as opposed to just a percent), which again makes it much less of a problem. But still an extant problem.
"I don't see it" and "It doesn't exist" are not synonymous.
All that said, I don't have any problem with the term cis itself, besides the fact that it's very short and awkward to say aloud. It's terms like "cissy" and "cis scum" that are all too rampant among especially ONLINE communities (which is again I believe the original topic? Social Justice discourse in circles like this?) that are bothersome.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, when we do introduce new language ("privilege", "cissexual"), it's immediately attacked and becomes the new flashpoint for argument.Since IMO its function is primarily divisive vs. being inclusive, yes it's going to end up as a flashpoint for argument. See how that works?
This assumes that things weren't divisive before the new term.
Marginalizing people into the corner and not allowing them to speak isn't "inclusive". It's just quiet.
If morality is defined by emotion only, then the world is ruled by drama queens. "I feel very, very, very strongly that you're wrong!" becomes "you are a bad person and need to be punished," especially if the person being accused is only "very, very" sure that it's you who is in fact wrong. Self-doubt becomes not a rational tool for reflection, but a fatal weakness.
Hopefully we can see that there's no good end that can come from that.
I think we can, and I think we agree - the division comes at the word "only" - I think few people truly believe that only emotion rules, but, by the same topic, I think it is impossible to have emotion-free reasoning because, by itself, that is an emotional conclusion - i.e. that there is a "right" way to come to a conclusion.
The the latter, the "right" is backed up (potentially) by empirical evidence, i.e. "it is right, because..." but it is, fundamentally, also emotional.
That is, the two are not as separate as they seem.
I agree that it can be minimized, however, I don't agree that it always generates useful results.
1+1=2 may () be fundamentally true, regardless of how people feel, but it hardly has any say on morality or value judgments.
And that's part of the problem. "Emotion" doesn't mean "ruled by" but rather, "includes as part of" - and that's not something that people are going to be able to shed without shedding being people.
Post of Awesome
This is, more or less, what I'm talking about.
Lissa was able to use an emotional, "here is what my experience has been, and why" reason while also giving as much history, context, and understanding to the term as possible. This is awesome.
One of the things she also included was a lack of experience with evidence for an opposing view - i.e. "I've never seen" type language. This is a powerful and useful movement within language that explains the emotional context of the person doing the discussion - but it is only in her plethora of words that those without that emotional context can functionally grasp the whole of what she's saying.
I'm not seeing it. =/
That seems to be, interestingly enough, the entire point of your post.
And mine, and most peoples, I think, whether we understand that or not.
That's part of the problem with communication - Lissa is extremely well educated, and, in turn, educates others, which is a phenominal thing to do.
The problem, of course, comes in when she uses terms in her education that, to others, seem like they are accusatory, or phrases things in a way that seems denigrating - as I accidentally seem to have done in my first post.
In that way, though, we can read past such things by taking in the whole of her post that we can get a broad idea of what is actually, functionally happening, both rationally and emotionally.
The fact that Lissa has a deeply dissonant experience from me means only that I can understand that she is coming from a different place when she uses terms than I am, and can set out with a broader understanding of her use of those terms in the future.
If there is any question, then, hopefully, posts like hers can be pointed to in the future (as I edited into my OP a link to Chris' post) for deeper insight into what the discussion actually is, and where the post is actually coming from, rather than presumptions made (or the poster - in this case Lissa - having to explain it all again).
And that's what I mean: having a method of clarifying both your history and your understanding is useful, because it means that you can clarify your stance relative to others' instead of having presumptions (or making presumptions) about what he/she/they/xe/etc* mean.
*
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1+1=2 may () be fundamentally true, regardless of how people feel, but it hardly has any say on morality or value judgments.
Given the current near-total lack on any attempt to assign them, that's currently true. But it doesn't have to be.
We know that, in real life, not all solutions are zero-sum. Some approaches to social problems result in a net gain for all parties (relative to their previous condition), others in a net loss for all. I don't think it's insane to imagine that we could one day assign tentative values to the gains and losses, and equations to calculate them, and use enough observations to calibrate our equations and find out where we're wrong.
Granted, some people would declare that this is itself immoral, because it fails to agree with their traditions, scriptures, and/or emotions. I still think it's a "better" (more useful) approach if it's calibrated to the well-being of everyone, including the people complaining.
To be more blunt, I think at times we as a species are best served by ignoring the emotional content of what passes for "moral reasoning." I might get really, really offended that not everyone observes all the tenets of Kirthism. I might get more angry from that than anyone about anything ever. But no one -- including myself -- is well-served by translating that into me having a license to murder non-Kirthites, for example, as a "lesser evil" (because less emotional). Rather, everyone --including me -- is best served by saying, "Kirth, I know you're emotional about this, but that's not really going to help anything, so please put a lid on it."
The other case you may often see Cis talked about outside of trans circles is when discussing privilege. When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system.
Too big to be useful. You're trying to describe a confluence of every human inter action ever that may as well be described as society and then adding onto it the biology of someone's brain/body synchronization. You're doing that with a term that implies an unearned entitlement or advantage over everyone else.
I don't understand why its not just phrased as people who are trans face a lot of discrimination and need a very long and expensive medical process to get their brain and body in sync. It has the same net effect and points out the same problems without implying that people just getting by have won some sort of lottery.
The only difference I can come up with is that it makes everyone else the point of reference... implying their normality?
I didn't really want to call her out on that because I'm not really expecting a coherent response but, yeah, if the system is "too big to explain"...what use is it?
It's not a defined system at all if nobody can explain either the purpose or how it works.
1+1=2 may () be fundamentally true, regardless of how people feel, but it hardly has any say on morality or value judgments.
Given the current near-total lack on any attempt to assign them, that's currently true. But it doesn't have to be.
We know that, in real life, not all solutions are zero-sum. Some approaches to social problems result in a net gain for all parties (relative to their previous condition), others in a net loss for all. I don't think it's insane to imagine that we could one day assign tentative values to the gains and losses, and equations to calculate them, and use enough observations to calibrate our equations and find out where we're wrong.
Granted, some people would declare that this is itself immoral, because it fails to agree with their traditions, scriptures, and/or emotions. I still think it's a "better" (more useful) approach if it's calibrated to the well-being of everyone, including the people complaining.
While true, what you're missing is the fact that "the betterment of all is better" is, in itself and emotional assignment - it is a moral judgement that is internally consistent and works with external evidence, but is still a decision based on the (loosely termed) "emotion" (which is not the same as "emotional").
And, thus, I think we might just maybe have found a different place where communications-breakdown has occurred. And it is, in part, due to my vocabulary: my lexicon is currently too small to distinguish between the use of rational emotion and the use of current drama-esque emotional displays in any meaningful or succinct ways.
But the point is "better" has it's own views associated with it... which is where communications may break down (though, in this case, I agree that it is, in fact, better, in, what I perceive/think to be a solution similar to, if varying in nuances and exact understanding from, your own; I could be wrong though).
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, when we do introduce new language ("privilege", "cissexual"), it's immediately attacked and becomes the new flashpoint for argument.
And that's an issue.
As I was at pains to point out earlier, there are words that I know, but don't use. I don't even know about the words I don't even know about (obviously). And one of the reasons for ignorance on my part is unfamiliarity with the groups to whom those words are important.
Or, put more simply, words that are important to YOU are not necessarily important to ME -- and that's MY problem, not yours.
"Cis" is one of those words. It's not important to me, because just as I live in a bubble where hunger and unemployment benefits aren't really issues, I also live in a bubble where anti-Semitism isn't really an issue, and where anti-transgender prejudice isn't really an issue. (You can tell that I live in that bubble precisely because I need to use an awkward phrase like that. Is "transphobia" a word?)
Fortunately, I'm at least partially aware that I live in a bubble. I say "partially" because, of course, I'm not even aware of the ways that I'm not aware of my bubble-osity. Or, as the social justice warriors have it, my "privilege," because bubbleosity is a really stupid word.
Reminding me, or anyone else, to "check your privilege" is a quick reminder of the bubbles that so many of us live in, and to think about whether or not your reaction ("oooh, someone called me `cis' -- I've been insulted") is caused by bubble-influenced ignorance.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't really want to call her out on that because I'm not really expecting a coherent response but, yeah, if the system is "too big to explain"...what use is it?
It's not a defined system at all if nobody can explain either the purpose or how it works.
Except that she didn't say the system was "too big to explain", did she?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
While true, what you're missing is the fact that "the betterment of all is better" is, in itself and emotional assignment - it is a moral judgement that is internally consistent and works with external evidence, but is still a decision based on the (loosely termed) "emotion" (which is not the same as "emotional").
I tend to view that not so much a language thing as a not-thinking-this-through thing. A net loss solution is a net loss regardless of whether some mug talks himself into thinking it's awesome. I do agree that the word "better" is itself emotionally-laden and hence very suspect, and I suspect that it would be useful to have a whole new vocabulary geared specifically towards moral/ethical reasoning, so as not to drag needless baggage into the discussion -- but, that said, I still think that cleaning up the communication is something to be done in support of allowing for better solutions, and does not in itself comprise a moral solution.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Reminding me, or anyone else, to "check your privilege" is a quick reminder of the bubbles that so many of us live in, and to think about whether or not your reaction ("oooh, someone called me `cis' -- I've been insulted") is caused by bubble-influenced ignorance.
This is, frankly, awesome, and exactly what I'm trying to point out.
My only addendum is that the bubble(s) actually exist in multiple different ways and communities.
Also, Orfamay is actually quite aware of his own "bubbleosity" (), which is helpful in engaging him with dialogue, but it's also worth noting that whoever it is that you're discussing things with might not have that same awareness - and, in fact, even if they're aware that they're in a bubble, they might not be aware of some facets or limits thereof.
Another really excellent way of making my earlier point with fewer words. I love it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Except that she didn't say the system was "too big to explain", did she?I didn't really want to call her out on that because I'm not really expecting a coherent response but, yeah, if the system is "too big to explain"...what use is it?
It's not a defined system at all if nobody can explain either the purpose or how it works.
Her exact words:
When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system. It is super difficult to be very very specific when talking about large systems so you tend to use generalizations and hope the reader understands that when discussing large systems there are nuances and people who might otherwise be categorized as cis or white or male who are absolutely exceptions to a large generalizations. In that, just like stereotypes, you can't apply them to individual people.
That translates to the exact same thing, I believe. It's "super difficult" to be specific so only generalizations are used.
By her words it's not even really a "system". It's applied separately to each individual in different degrees and mixes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And then we're back down in the mire of pointing out all the ways in which you do contribute to the discrimination, mostly without malice.
Thats a monk level leap of logic. There is discrimination, therefore you (individually) are somehow on double secret probation contributing to it. How on earth does that follow?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The other case you may often see Cis talked about outside of trans circles is when discussing privilege. When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system.Too big to be useful.
"Life" is also a big system, but there are literally millions of people who find it useful, including but not limited to working biologists. And billions if you include the people who benefit from their uses.
"Privilege" is a very big system precisely because there are so many different ways in which people can have differential interactions, and every one of those differences can, in principle, be examined. Some forms of privilege may actually be beneficial; some may be neutral, and some may be negative in their effectsbut we-as-society may not have gotten around to addressing them.
On the other hand, anyone who really wants a free and fair society should, in principle, be opposed to harmful privilege.
And at least we have a framework that works (after a fashion) for discussing the individual differences, because what we can't discuss, we can't fix.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Even the ones we agree on, much less those crazy things you believe that are completely unlike the equally unfounded, but obviously correct ones I believe.
Some things that one or both of us believe might lead to net-gain solutions. Some might lead to net-loss solutions. That's the only "truth" or "foundation" in them -- whether they're empirically useful, and to what degree. And they retain that usefulness (or lack thereof) regardless of how highly our emotions tell us to value them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to view that not so much a language thing as a not-thinking-this-through thing. A net loss solution is a net loss regardless of whether some mug talks himself into thinking it's awesome. I do agree that the word "better" is itself emotionally-laden and hence very suspect, and I suspect that it would be useful to have a whole new vocabulary geared specifically towards moral/ethical reasoning, so as not to drag needless baggage into the discussion -- but, that said, I still think that cleaning up the communication is something to be done in support of allowing for better solutions, and does not in itself comprise a moral solution.
To paraphrase Martin Luthor's famous quote (well, from a movie: look, I don't read German anymore, and I was way to young to care back then), "Words are the thing: the more power I give them, the more they demand, and keep taking and taking for themselves." And as the phrase made famous in X-Men, "People hate and fear what they do not understand."
Or, in other words, it's a bit of a catch-22.
Even within our communication, we use baggage-laden vocabulary to describe the need to find non-baggage-laden vocabulary, and, because of the way people are themselves, the moment we create new baggage-free vocabulary, it immediately becomes baggage-laden - not just from fear (unlike what the X-Men posit), but because people are emotional sorts who attach sentiment, meaning, and importance to things that it may or may not have (sometimes discovering such things that it has accidentally).
And this is where things like,
Discrimination actually is an accusation, while privilege really isn't. Or at least doesn't have to be.
... are pretty awesome, because they reveal an intent - and an willingness to acknowledge that things outside that intent exist and are present - and work within them to explain the view of those who hold them in a manner that doesn't (or attempts not to) disparage those of an opposing viewpoint.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Prove it.
Remember, I'm a scientist. Nothing is ever "proven," so that's a meaningless challenge. Some axioms lead to better predictions than others, that's all. And that's something that can be applied to moral axioms as well. "The state would be more stronger if all dissidents were just re-educated in the gulag" is a testable hypothesis, and has been found to be false, in the sense that its predictions don't come to pass. That applies equally whether or not you think a stronger state is "better."
"Ann would have found lifelong stability in a relationship if she hadn't compromised herself with Charlie" is likewise testable. I don't really care if a lifelong stable relationship is "good" or "bad," only that methods prescribed for achieving it usually don't work, and they don't work because no one ever bothers to quantify the variables and see how they combine. It's still a moral question -- a question that deals specifically with the consequences of our actions, and how they affect ourselves and others -- but just not one that requires some kind of infinite-regression to some kind of a BS "eternal Truth" or whatever it is you're looking for.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not an attack on you. It's not an accusation. That's a good part of the reason "privilege" is better to talk about than "discrimination", because privilege is just something that happens to you and around you without you doing anything to cause it, while discrimination is something active. Discrimination actually is an accusation, while privilege really isn't. Or at least doesn't have to be.
No, it is an accusation. It is a valuation and assessment of an individual on face value. How are you making an assessment that someone has privilege in the first place. How? Why? Their perceived race, their perceived gender? Or how it appears to the one calling privilege?
This is bias and prejudice dressed up in another word.
Edit: I got to get back to Shark Island, I have a module to work on for tonight's game.
|
System Administrator
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't really want to call her out on that because I'm not really expecting a coherent response but, yeah, if the system is "too big to explain"...what use is it?
It's not a defined system at all if nobody can explain either the purpose or how it works.
Every system is often generalized. Without generalization we can't discuss many things including sciencey things. The entire discipline of sociology is generalizing and finding patterns. We can discuss large systems fairly easily, if we are willing. Most of the time we are unless they affect us negatively. We believe in all kinds of systems that we can't explain fully, we know they work because we can observe how they affect things in different ways and if they are significant, we can say that this is often the case. We believe in evolution because we can observe how it has changed peoples and animals even though we don't understand exactly how it works. But we do what we can to try to understand it so we come up with words and theories to describe it. That's what people do. You can't call me out for that. You can me out for applying generalizations to individuals and I should be called out for that but generalizations are important for many many reasons including scientific reasons. Saying we can't do that is... well, I feel it's anti knowledge.
And no one's saying that privilege means you get to win at everything. It's a lot like luck and you may see some privilege as luck. As someone who is a keen study of human nature, I've seen a lot more of it than many many people. I've been well off, I've been poor, I've been considered male, I've been considered female, I've considered both and neither as well, I've observed it working in many ways from third person to first. We can and should discuss the ways in which that affects us and how privilege affects people dissimilar from us. There is no shame in privilege as long as one can see that they might have some advantages that others never had.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If we're talking about moral arguments we're exactly talking about whether a stronger more productive state is better, not the methods of getting there.
Then you're talking about nothing. From now on, all actions shall be judged based on how many glugnargs they accrue. The accrual of glugnargs is, of course, something that I just decide randomly based on how I happen to feel at the time, and has no bearing on anything at all. That being the case, why worry about it?
To me, a meaningful distinction is one that manifests -- no matter how many steps removed -- in actual observable outcomes. Arguing over whether a stronger state is "better" does not. The former is based on empirical evidence, and the latter on emotional reasoning.
Again, both are "moral," in the sense that they deal specifically with the consequences of our actions, and how they affect ourselves and others. They are not both equal, because one maps to reality and the other does not. You can't just take the one that doesn't, and declare that only that one "counts."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, it is an accusation. It is a valuation and assessment of an individual on face value.
Which is one of the sources of privilege, "face value." And, yes, it's fairly evident to anyone, which is part of what makes it privilege.
How are you making an assessment that someone has privilege in the first place. How? Why? Their perceived race, their perceived gender?
Yes.
It's not prejudice to note that prejudice exists. I can, for example, cite academic research that job applicants with black-sounding names get fewer responses to applications. (And it's fairly easy to establish which names are "black sounding" through survey data.)
It follows as a matter of course that having and using a name that isn't black sounding is a form of privilege; it gets you [unwarrantedly] easier access to job interviews.
You may be making the mistake of thinking that privilege is binary -- you either have it, or you don't. This, of course, is false -- as I put it earlier, "here are so many different ways in which people can have differential interactions," or as Tacticslion put it, "the bubble(s) actually exist in multiple different ways and communities." A white transgender Christian man will have a different set of problems than a cisgender Jewish man, who will in turn have different problems from a black woman. But one thing they all have in common is their "otherness," their difference from an assumed norm that many people (most?) aren't even aware they're assuming.
... which fairly directly turns into prejudice against them that doesn't apply to people who more closely fit the assumed cultural norms. (Look at this paper for a demonstration of how "otherness" can take many forms.)
The other case you may often see Cis talked about outside of trans circles is when discussing privilege. When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system.
Too big to be useful.
"Life" is also a big system, but there are literally millions of people who find it useful, including but not limited to working biologists. And billions if you include the people who benefit from their uses.
"Privilege" is a very big system precisely because there are so many different ways in which people can have differential interactions, and every one of those differences can, in principle, be examined. Some forms of privilege may actually be beneficial; some may be neutral, and some may be negative in their effectsbut we-as-society may not have gotten around to addressing them.
On the other hand, anyone who really wants a free and fair society should, in principle, be opposed to harmful privilege.
And at least we have a framework that works (after a fashion) for discussing the individual differences, because what we can't discuss, we can't fix.
And then we're back down in the mire of pointing out all the ways in which you do contribute to the discrimination, mostly without malice.
Thats a monk level leap of logic. There is discrimination, therefore you (individually) are somehow on double secret probation contributing to it. How on earth does that follow?
H'okay, so, I want to pipe in and say that not only is it useful despite it's broad terms, the conclusion that BNW comes to in the last post - entirely comprehensible, based on the wording used, and emotional follow-ups - is missing a fundamental point: not only does it happen, but everyone - everyone - does this, to some extent, no matter their position, "privilege" or other whatever-you-have-its.
The thing is that it's a very psychological probing.
While I'm not down with the vocabulary - I think I've been clear enough that it's a hard sell for my mind for some reason - some of the ideas therein are absolutely useful in many cases to examine all sides of a debate: it's just that our personal connotations and rider/addendum-definitions get in the way of us actually understanding them.
Prove it.
Remember, I'm a scientist. Nothing is ever "proven," so that's a meaningless challenge. Some axioms lead to better predictions than others, that's all. And that's something that can be applied to moral axioms as well. "The state would be more productive and stronger if all dissidents were just re-educated in the gulag" is a testable hypothesis, and has been found to be false, in the sense that its predictions don't come to pass. That applies equally whether or not you think a stronger state is "better."
Yes, absolutely it does. And that's where some arguments arise - because some use the phrase meaning only the empirical data, and some, as noted above, use it as broad generalizations complete with emotional import. And people mix and match interchangeably.
In my OP, I imply that better communication is better - it is better not because it makes the universe function "better" but because it makes dealing with people easier, regardless of your disagreements.
It may not solve your problems, but at least you're arguing about the actual problems, not secretly agreeing with each other with high levels of stress and frustration.
But empirically? There can be no value beyond the "emotional" value of "other people are great, I probably shouldn't hate them" that we (well, I presume most of us) have.
And herein lie the crux of these communication problems: Lissa uses terms laden with "emotional" generalizations, and does so knowingly, not in an attempt to pigeon-hole individuals, but in an attempt to have a broad ground for common dialogue.
Without that basic agreement - i.e. "things trend toward this" - there is no dialogue, because one person is saying "I like the color orange" and the other is saying "the moon sure is bright tonight" and they're each arguing that the other is wrong, using their own banner to "prove" it: two different conversations being held at the same time.
At the same time, the empirical evidence just kind of shrugs, like Atlas*, and says "these are the general trends, make of it what you will"** - and people do, either by suggesting that the empirical evidence is wrong (and it may well be misleading to those who use it to prove a point) or by basing new linguistics off of it, and forging ahead from there.
And that's... well, that's awesome. That's people.
But when engaging, verbally, with people, it's important*** to recall that they have a whole host of things that they apply to empirical data - that you do, to - and they have this host of things without knowing that they do, and simply, naturally, following the course that has been charted by their actions and natures and the actions and natures of others, usually unconsciously, with occasional bits of "now I choose my direction" thrown in there for good measure (and sometimes, they even choose different from how things have progressed so far).
Compare this to breathing. A creature who lives in the planet earth is actually pretty rocking with their privilege, if they breath oxygen... and, meanwhile, plants are pretty rocking if they breath carbon dioxide. Why? Because plants and animals pollute the ever-loving daylights^ out of the planet by breathing - but fortunately, they both breath things that the other needs to live, creating a kind of "balance" between them.
There is a definite power-disparity between the two, though. Animals can (and do) actively alter plants - either destroying them at whim, or altering their structure or physiology, or whatever, for their own purposes - and plants rarely have the power to do the same.
Nonetheless, both exist with a kind of "privilege" - an unseen effect that they have just by living that dramatically alters the lifestyles of all around.
This isn't something they (necessarily) intend: no one (well, few, I'd guess) actually want to destroy all plants (and plants don't "want" anything - they just survive, mindlessly).
But it's how the system works.
This can be applied, similarly (though the analogy has its outer limits^) to the "power dynamics" (as they're often called) of "privilege" which is the terms people who've sat around thinking about these exact sort of things have come up with to describe these exact sort of things.
Those people are often conflated with a given community or set of communities (really, it's both^^), simply because members of said community/communities tend to be the ones doing that a lot (by percentages), which leads to (accidentally) a very insular-seeming and self-affirming set of vocabulary that feels (to some) divorced from - or even affronting against - their everyday life.
... which is why the burden lies with both^^^ sides of a given issue, to clarify what they mean so accurate communication can be attained.
* Oh, snap! ... no, I didn't actually "tell" anyone, I just wanted to be cool and use that phrase. And a pun. ... sorry.
** But not literally, 'cause empirical evidence doesn't talk. It lacks vocal chords, air passages, or a brain, or any of the other host of necessary things to actually talk. Look, it's a metaphor.
*** VALUE JUDGEMENT*!
^ Metaphorically. Also, it's a pun.
^^ Because there are sub-communities within a broader over-reaching community - like states within countries, and counties within states, and cities without counties, and...
^^^ There are, as always, far more than "two" sides. But two, in this case, is a kind of generality using broad terms...*
^^^^ I don't have a better broad word. "Bully" feels too specific, and "oppress" just opens up way to many cans of worms - all of them, in fact.
Every system is often generalized.
Its not the generalization that's the problem for privilege its the scope. You're trying to use the word to describe what is functionally the entirety of society.
There is no shame in privilege as long as one can see that they might have some advantages that others never had.
Everyone that is alive has some advantage compared to some other people. You are thus describing every single facet of people over every single facet of every other person. If a word describes everything then it means nothing. Its vague, accusatory, and an absolutely horrible paradigm to try to build a conversation around.
|
System Administrator
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Privilege is weird. It specifically involves many things you probably aren't aware of. Many little things; tiny little bits that on their own don't amount to much if anything but over the course of a lifetime can have a profound affect or none at all.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Except that she didn't say the system was "too big to explain", did she?I didn't really want to call her out on that because I'm not really expecting a coherent response but, yeah, if the system is "too big to explain"...what use is it?
It's not a defined system at all if nobody can explain either the purpose or how it works.
Her exact words:
When you talk about privilege, you are talking about something that is a very big system. It is super difficult to be very very specific when talking about large systems so you tend to use generalizations and hope the reader understands that when discussing large systems there are nuances and people who might otherwise be categorized as cis or white or male who are absolutely exceptions to a large generalizations. In that, just like stereotypes, you can't apply them to individual people.That translates to the exact same thing, I believe. It's "super difficult" to be specific so only generalizations are used.
By her words it's not even really a "system". It's applied separately to each individual in different degrees and mixes.
And I see it as a mischaracterization. Which is kind of the point of the thread. Mischaracterizing other people's words to fit into our own paradigm and then disagreeing with that.
Instead of just outright looking for what's wrong in her words, why not ask questions and seek to understand what was meant?
Privilege is weird. It specifically involves many things you probably aren't aware of.
People generally do not accept double secret probation unless its feeding into an already held belief.
Many little things; tiny little bits that on their own don't amount to much if anything but over the course of a lifetime can have a profound affect or none at all.
*paints their Kosh Costume black and purple*
"What do you want?"
"How does defining things in terms of privilege help you get it? *
|
System Administrator
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Every system is often generalized.Its not the generalization that's the problem for privilege its the scope. You're trying to use the word to describe what is functionally the entirety of society.
No, we are discussing specific systems about the way society works. That's important work.
There is no shame in privilege as long as one can see that they might have some advantages that others never had.Everyone that is alive has some advantage compared to some other people. You are thus describing every single facet of people over every single facet of every other person. If a word describes everything then it means nothing. Its vague, accusatory, and an absolutely horrible paradigm to try to build a conversation around.
It's not every single facet. When we talk about privilege we are talking often about specific types of things and how they differ and what their affects may be. It does require a certain amount of perspective to see. It is the calculus of society and it is a difficult concept to grasp. It attempts to see how the river flows and why it chooses to flow somewhere but not somewhere else.
And I see it as a mischaracterization. Which is kind of the point of the thread. Mischaracterizing other people's words to fit into our own paradigm and then disagreeing with that.
Instead of just outright looking for what's wrong in her words, why not ask questions and seek to understand what was meant?
It is! In fact, however, I think the mischaracterization goes in all directions, mostly accidentally.
For example,
It is a valuation and assessment of an individual on face value. How are you making an assessment that someone has privilege in the first place. How? Why? Their perceived race, their perceived gender? Or how it appears to the one calling privilege?
This is bias and prejudice dressed up in another word.
... is actually quite accurate (if edited to make it so), as is...
Everyone that is alive has some advantage compared to some other people. You are thus describing every single facet of people over every single facet of every other person.
- the problem is that "prejudice" and "bias" are emotionally-laden words that have come to have powerful connotations (and, perhaps by now, even denotations?) that push them directly into the "THIS IS BAD" category, even if they still serve in non-bad ways.
As an example, I am biased against venomous snakes. Why? I don't want to be bitten.
How does this translate? I avoid the things as much as possible, and if it's not possible, I either work to shoo them off my property with snake-b-gone, or kill them with my hoe .
The kicker is, this is actually kind of reasonable: though snakes have no intention of ruining my life, they are, in fact, dangerous to me, and the fact that I know people who have been bitten and thus harmed means that I'm more likely to hold venomous snakes as "THIS IS BAD" - a definite bias.
Similarly, however, I have a bias about people. I like them. A lot. People are awesome and thoroughly necessary, and pretty much rock the world (metaphor- ).
People are great, and I love them. They do, however, pose lots of potential dangers to my safety and well-being. Hypothetically, I could be safer if I killed some nearby.
But that would be a terrible thing to do. Because it's wrong, yes, and because it's illegal and I'd get in trouble, true, but also because I like people too much. I've made a value judgement that they are worth keeping alive.
If a word describes everything then it means nothing.
This is, I think, about half true. "Everything" describes "everything" pretty well, and is often useful, as a reference point. By way of example.
But being too general is, I think, a potential problem of engaging in this sort of discourse. It can discourage people by making a host of different inferences, based on the person using the terms, and thus make all sorts of issues rise that would never have been there - or weren't at all - prior to their use.
Its vague, accusatory, and an absolutely horrible paradigm to try to build a conversation around.
... and this bespeaks of experience (at least, I presume) that bears the emotional baggage that I was talking about.
If there are representative of group AT (for "All of Them") who use words in a certain way to group AU (for "All of Us") than AU is going to presuppose that all of AT uses those terms in the same way - and making those first impressions become critical, and something that is often mishandled by the impassioned (because they're the impassioned, don't you know), as those initial impressions can become difficult to nearly impossible to shake, later; the majority of contacts thereafter are also critical, however, as those contacts will either mitigate (or even remove or reverse) or firm an initial impression. The same is true in reverse.
This becomes even more sticky when certain terms are utilized that already exist and have their own emotional baggage, even barring the baggage brought by initial contact.
Add to this the charge of differing environments and emotional context of the person when the term is introduced, and you've got a well-reasoned, and understandable impression that is very hard to dislodge.
What does this mean?
People are messy. Simple reductions and presumed reasoning is often flawed at its base premise because one of the tenets that actually serves us very well in life in general - our ability to generalize - actually causes severe problems when dealing with individuals.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not every single facet. When we talk about privilege we are talking often about specific types of things and how they differ and what their affects may be.
What would be an example of something that isn't privilege?
Privilege is weird. It specifically involves many things you probably aren't aware of.People generally do not accept double secret probation unless its feeding into an already held belief.
Many little things; tiny little bits that on their own don't amount to much if anything but over the course of a lifetime can have a profound affect or none at all.*paints their Kosh Costume black and purple*
"What do you want?"
"How does defining things in terms of privilege help you get it? *
Listen BNW, I'm not trolling, this is an honest question; you mention double secret probation fairly often in threads about privilege. What exactly do mean when you say that, and how is it relevant to the subject of privilege?
Edit: Given my post up thread, I feel a need to clarify that when I say privilege, I'm usually talking about an assumption that my (or whoever's; any individual, I suppose) experience is more valid than another person's.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"How does defining things in terms of privilege help you get it? *
It's a discussion framework.
Most people understand "fairness" to be a virtue and "privilege" to be a violation of fairness. (Talk to any four-year old and you'll find out just how important "It's not FAIR!" is an an argument. Talk to any four-year old about why she has to go to bed an hour earlier than her nine-year old sibling and you'll see her understanding of "privilege" as well.)
So, if there's something that I want, and you can get it as a matter of course, showing that it is an unwarranted "privilege" that should be more equitably distributed can be an effective argument.
The job callback data I cited earlier is a good example. Apparently having a English-sounding name can increase my chances of getting a callback by something like 50% over an applicant with a minority-sounding name. This isn't anything that I have control over -- it's just my name. But to an employer who is concerned about "fairness," this suggests that some sort of name-blind screening procedure might be a good idea.
Of course, this is harder to do for other forms of privilege. The second paper I cited suggests that a degree from a foreign university, even a "good" foreign school, is a handicap compared to a degree from a mediocre local university. Does it make sense to disregard where a job applicant got their degree? (Perhaps..... Google is making steps in that direction, although I can't find the link right now.)
It's not every single facet. When we talk about privilege we are talking often about specific types of things and how they differ and what their affects may be. It does require a certain amount of perspective to see. It is the calculus of society and it is a difficult concept to grasp. It attempts to see how the river flows and why it chooses to flow somewhere but not somewhere else.
This is, I think, a very important concept that is hard for me to grasp, even when (I think) I do - and it's hecka hard to compare how it should be handled or discussed "properly".
For example, the fact is, that BNW is right: everyone has "privilege" in some regard or another (even the dead, depending on how you want to define it - their lives echo in our own present, helping to shape the course of our future... something that would make many of them happy to have known in their life).
At the same time, he misses the point that "privilege" as a concept (as it's being discussed and described by Lissa) is something that is fundamentally important and relevant: it is a thing that we all do/have, like breathing, the long-term consequences of which are often difficult, or even impossible to predict; <insert your own chaos theory/butterfly effect reference here>.
At the same time, use of an emotionally-laden word, like "privilege" is fraught with peril, because it has some major - - connotations - connotations that vary from group to group and person to person - to it that rankle, harm, or cause defenses to be raised, just by its use. Thus, as a term, it's dangerous, and "sparky" in the way that people interact with it.
At the same time, anyone that comes up with terminology must (for normal people to understand) come up with terminology that is both fitting and comprehensible. Making up a new gibberish word is going to sound like you're trying too hard.
It's this colliding mass of contradictions and difficulties that make talking about SJ issues - and, for that matter, RAW debates on the forums - such a thorny issue.
People speak their own language that is functionally extremely similar to a large group of others. But when dealing with emotional issues (such as morality)... you're going to pull out a looooooooooot of things that don't normally come out in conversation.
It's not every single facet. When we talk about privilege we are talking often about specific types of things and how they differ and what their affects may be.
What would be an example of something that isn't privilege?
Theoretically, something that doesn't determine any sort of advantage relative to another person or group.
Realistically, that is synonymous with "nothing at all".
Your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, those all determine that.
Your religion determines that.
Your interests determine that (people who like sports have a bit of an edge when it comes to social interactions. A larger social pool, and even better business opportunities because it then becomes easier to make common ground with a potential partner or boss).
Where you live and how much you make determines that.
Your appearance determines it, even outside of the obvious race/gender bits.
All of these things and more can give you advantages and disadvantages in society.
Which leaves...what? That everyone is the same species?