Very very potent
Philosophers chat:
I have been surprised that this point has not been more salient. It is shocking.
@Valar_Festivus TFW you realize that AOC was widely condemned across the political spectrum for suggesting that jails for migrants were like concentration camps but Bret Stephens can compare being mocked on Twitter to the Holocaust and everyone is fine with it.
White male privilege is very very potent and should never be underestimated.
Yes, McKinnon actually said that, apparently without irony.
Or maybe it’s more bragging? “Potent” is an interesting word to use.
You can’t help wondering if his whole thing is just an elaborate hoax performance to prove a point about the power of bullshit or something. It certainly doesn’t help that his dissertation is basically an examination of the relationship between bullshit and truth:
I don’t really believe in the performance-art-hoax conspiracy theory. (Well, I mostly don’t, but tbh I haven’t written it off entirely!) I think it’s more likely his his narcissistic struggles with his fantasy of being female have led to his academic fascination with asserting things that are bullshit, and his attempt to put bullshit in a positive light and make it look comparatively as “good” as truth. That’s the sense I’m getting so far as I try to read his diss. He’s an outrageous narcissist who’s twisted his mind into knots trying to resolve the cognitive dissonances in his head.
When someone makes an assertion (“I am and have always been a woman”) does it matter whether the person really believes it? Or only partly believes it? Do the intentions behind making the assertion matter? Is it sufficient for the speaker to merely give the impression that they believe it? He struggles with these questions, and arrives here:
As I read on, I’m guessing it will become even more apparent that his true goal is to be able to take this specific assertion about himself — “I am and have always been a woman” — and somehow make it true, or as close to true as possible. My bet: he’ll argue that even if we can’t literally make it “true,” then truth really doesn’t matter and it’s just as well that an assertion is justified or valuable or useful or some other positive-sounding attribute that he’s gonna insist matters more than mere truth at the end of the day. (I’m no philosopher, but this smells more like theology than philosophy if you ask me!)
I think that depends on whether the person was born a woman or not. If born a woman, and recognized their whole life as a woman, they are not to be listened to when talking about women, being a woman, or what it means to be a woman. Hell, they probably aren’t even right that they are a woman, because cis-privilege and blah and something else and blah blah and shut up TERF.
Maybe somebody needs to write a book about “Why Truth Matters”? ;-)