Things that affect real people
Earlier today –
Fellow academic Alison Phipps responds:
I am particularly struck by “These issues are not abstract thought experiments but things that affect real people.” This is a working academic talking, remember – a working academic claiming there is a gulf between things that affect real people and discussion of such things among academics. If that’s what she thinks why is she even an academic?
Sex, gender, justice, equality, identity, material reality, truth, fantasy, lies, social contagion, intersectionality, rights, law, fairness, body, mind – all are “things that affect real people” and that’s why we discuss them and try hard to get them right. What an admission it is for an academic to say she thinks that discussion is just idle chat between unreal people.
The item about “Two cis women debating trans equality” is also absurd, of course. It would be two women discussing whether men who call themselves women are literally women in all senses and also more marginalized than not-trans women and thus entitled to demand that feminism “center” them.
I guess we should conclude that Phipps isn’t confident she can defend that claim and so is making silly excuses.
What the hell? Yes it can, that’s the whole point behind engaging in reasoned debate. Showing an idea to be unsupported by reason is the whole point of such discussions. An excellent example would be those debates between biologists and creationists. Creationism is a prominent unreasonable position, yet it is grappled with all the time.
Reasonable debate is only impossible (or merely pointless) if one side refuses to engage with it. And… I see only one side refusing to engage in it.
This much I agree with. Debates on stages in front of audiences are media events first and foremost; a better format would be an informal conversation. No competitive rules beyond a basic conversational decorum, no audience.
Hah! Hah I say! Hah! “Debate is inappropriate unless both sides are selected on the basis of whether they already agree with me” *stomps foot*
The fucking nerve!
An excellent example of using the term “transwomen” gives too much away. It gives TRAs the ammunition for the stupid “trans women are women the same way that black women are women and disabled women are women” argument. No, they’re not women in the same way at all. They are trans identified men
And judging from the experiences of Dr. Stock, the treatment of these issues has also affected her, a real person. Is she not allowed to discuss them?
What a stupid question. Of course not. Sorry, I lost myself there for a moment.
I mean … Reasonable ideas are those that are shown to be so by analysis, dialectic, and yes, debate. Unreasonable ideas are those that are defeated and their counters discovered by analysis, dialectic, and yes, fucking debate.
What a clod.
It’s like explaining to people that the only speech that needs legal protection is exactly the speech that we dislike, because popular speech is protected by numbers.
No, it’s like a Christian and an atheist debating the existence of God—instructive and appropriate. Christians don’t get to evade debate or examination of their claims by asserting their veracity and personal importance.
And stop abusing “equality” like it means the same thing when you say it as when MLK did. He meant equality; you mean privilege. Stop it, you dishonest twonk.
“Reasonable debate cannot counter unreasonable ideas.”
Yes, I see. And how should we determine which ideas are unreasonable?
Oops. Yes. What Nullius in Verba said.
Once again let’s compare gay activism to trans activism. The gay rights movement was all about debate and discussion. Our mantra could have been “Debate me, bro!” We leapt at any opportunity to argue our case, because we were confident that our case was reasonable and that open debate would expose our opponents as unreasonable and motivated by fear and irrationality. Gays were all over daytime talk shows; we were eager to have gay rights debated and discussed on campuses. We WANTED people to hear our opponents’ views, like Anita Bryant’s, so we could meet them head-on and take them apart. It was the other side, the Anita Bryants, who wanted to prevent us from having a platform to make our case.
Compare that to the trans activists of today, whose mantra is literally #nodebate. Their entire strategy consists of shutting down debate. No-platforming, online harassment, violent protests, death threats, all with the goal of preventing their views and objectives from being openly discussed and critiqued. That’s not activism at all — it’s authoritarianism; it’s censorship. I suspect that on some subconscious level they know that their arguments are too fragile to hold up to democratic debate and scrutiny. They have to rely on force because they know that’s the only thing they’ve got.
They’re taking their tactics directly from the playbook of the homophobes, the misogynists, the racists, always the conservative side in the civil rights-debates of the past. But when you look deeper at the content of trans ideology, maybe that’s not so surprising.
The “no debate” strategy is taken from the playground. The bully wants to tease the nice children and make them cry. Teacher storms out and sends the bully home.
“But … but … but I want to tell them why they’re poopy heads!” cried the Bully.
“Reasonable debate cannot counter unreasonable ideas!” is the teacher’s ringing reply.
The nice children were made to feel unsafe. Now they are safe.
Unreasonable ideas = nonsensical blither concocted out of hate.
Safe and Reasonable Child-centered debate: “I’m a nice child, I am.” “Yes. Me, too.”
#5
Ahem.
*glances at comment 1 paragraph 1*
*cringes at spotting the redundant phrasing in consecutive sentences*
Still tho.
Not redundant; emphatic.
It’s interesting that creationism was mentioned above. I’ve always been sympathetic to Dawkins’ view that “creationism vs. evolution” debates are not a good idea, partly because they put unscientific ideas on a stage they haven’t earned, and partly because the debate format is not great for resolving the merits of many issues, because the most persuasive debater may not be on the side of truth.
And in general, “DEBATE ME” is often the cry of every clown on Twitter. (Or “I demand that you debate my hero and champion, Ben Shapiro (or Sam Harris, or Charles Murray, or whoever)!”) So I’m usually on the side of the person turning down the debate challenge.
But there are some interesting differences here:
1) Phipps is the one advocating for a change in the status quo. Stock isn’t some nobody demanding attention for her fringe theory. As I understand it, Phipps wants Stock and others like her to be fired from their jobs and deplatformed generally. The burden of persuasion ought to be on Phipps, and Stock has a moral right to be heard on these questions.
2) Phipps is attempting to do so through means of persuasion, either directly persuading universities or by persuading others to pressure said universities. This is inherently an exercise in lobbying people, so debate isn’t a bad tool for that.
Phipps’ other excuses seem to miss the mark. She complains that two cis women shouldn’t be debating these issues, but presumably she intends for cis women and men to take action — firing/deplatforming Stock, or lobbying for others to do so. To smear someone as dangerous to trans people and then, when challenged, throw up your hands and say “NOT OUR PLACE TO DISCUSS” is hypocritical and cowardly.
But the reason things like creationism, climate change, the Holocaust, the link between smoking and cancer aren’t up for debate is that they’re already settled beyond any reasonable doubt. It’s more accurate to say those things aren’t up for debate anymore. The idea that biological sex doesn’t exist, by contrast, is a brand new concept that hasnt been debated or held up to criticism at all.
Artymorty,
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was trying to get at in my point (1). You said it more clearly.
Of course, the reality is that many of the “cis” women are debating the impact on women (known to some as “cis” women). They are not debating the rights of trans women, but the rights of women to private spaces. Yes, that involves keeping those spaces for women, which trans women see as an invasion of their rights, but the actual debate is about the safety and well being of “cis” women.
Therefore, having trans women debate that is, well, sort of patriarchal, right?
Even though women aren’t the ones doing the invading.
I’d love to hear an honest, non-hyperbolic explanation of exactly what “rights” TIMs are lacking, exactly what rights women are denying them. I think the “denying their right to exist” and the “actual violence of misgendering” rhetoric is a smokescreen to cover the fact that what they actually want are more accurately described as “demands” or “concessions” rather than rights. Demands more akin to the newly minted “rights” to sex and to surrogacy which, similarly, require women and girls to surrender their safety and consent.
There’s some baggage that comes along with the word “debate” that I think might be peculiar to Americans. Holms mentioned it.
I gather that debating is an American high school… what? Sport? Activity? Extra-curricular activity? I don’t quite understand the role it plays because we don’t (or at least didn’t when I was at school in the UK, back before the old king died) have the same thing. That kind of debate seems oddly formal with rules that seem arbitrary to me and there’s an implied or explicit idea that there’s always a winner.
That kind of debate is the one Dawkins has (rightly) said looks better on creationists’ CVs than on his. Debating Dawkins hands creationists credibility and since it’s up to people watching to decide who ‘won’, it’s an extravagant way of achieving fuck all. It arms both sides in customary arguments, which I’m not sure is helpful, and cements the concept of the debate – as I’m using it here – as a useful tool in establishing truth, when it definitely isn’t.
I’m reminded of the debate between the often-wrong but brilliant Christopher Hitchens and his very definitely less-gifted and even more wrong brother, Peter, Daily Fucking Mail columnist. Peter was entirely outclassed and made to look a fool (which, to be fair, he is) but that outcome was achieved as much by Christopher’s mastery of that debate format as it was from the fact that he was, you know, right and his brother was wrong.
Then there’s the sort of debate I suspect Stock was trying to encourage. Let’s get this out in the open. Let’s lay our cards on the table. Let’s strip everything down to the bone and see where the evidence leads. The proper response of an honest academic, I’d say. Well that’s different, isn’t it? That’s the sort of debate that overturns unreasonable norms. It’s anything but a cage fight between two people, it’s a tackle-out, hammer-wielding sort of thing where things like flinching and equivocation and gaslighting and personality and dog whistles and gish-gallop eventually don’t matter because it (hopefully) establishes what evidence is needed to have a hope of settling the matter.
I know you all know all this and I’m aware that I sound condescending (I really don’t mean to) but when I see people of the American persuasion talking about ‘debate’, the two different meanings seem to slide all over each other and drip – glistening unpleasantly – into to waters, muddying them. Whereas we Brits, of course, have a more imperial understanding of ‘debate’ ;)
Sorry, a lot of words to describe a possible gulf between ‘debate’ and “debate” as seen by artefacts of different educational systems.
latsot #15 wrote:
This is an excellent point. One of the problems with scientists debating pseudoscientists on a scientific topic is that science really is what could be considered an “elitist” area, in that it involves technical expertise in a field where demonstration and debate has very strict rules for achieving consensus.. A general audience is simply not going to be equipped to evaluate the distinction between an excellent scientific explanation and scientific-sounding gibberish.
But trans ideology is more of a political and social topic than a scientific one. It’s constantly being connected to trans people’s lives and evokes obligations to listen to the voices of their personal experiences. If the premises aren’t true, that matters.
They also insist it’s a scientific issue, with studies of brain scans and sciencey attempts to extrapolate new categories from exceptions to the old categories. But I wonder. If, hypothetically, it was conceded that all the criticisms of their scientific case were valid, and that the trans ideology which says that “trans women are women” and “trans men are men” admittedly rests on nothing more than an individual’s firm subjective belief that this is true — would anything change for them?
That is the sort of philosophical question which helps strip everything down to the bone. For the TRAs to pretend the whole matter is one of human dignity vs. hatred is disingenuous in the extreme.
latsot made some valuable points, and one thing that he didn’t mention is that many of the creationist debaters are extremely skilled at this sort of thing, while many of the scientists aren’t. If you’ve ever watched William Lane Craig destroy a scientist or atheist who has a much stronger basis in facts, you know what I mean. They are preachers; the others are scientists. Rhetoric and presence matter so much more in a debate than facts; charisma is also important.
That’s one place where I think the TRAs don’t have the edge. When you actually listen to these men (even if they’re wearing dresses), they are not glib or charismatic, they are nasty and bullying. They don’t sound like women when they talk about make up and dresses, but like some crude caricature of women. I suspect their claims would be easy to dismiss in a formal debate. That’s another reason not to have formal debates like latsot is saying – dismissing their claims because of crude vulgarity and obvious not-womanness is just as wrong as dismissing the scientists because they aren’t as preachery as Craig.
The type of debate Stock appears to want is the one we need to have. You present your evidence, without hyperbole about murder rates (present actual data, not unsubstantiated statements), without calling women TERFs or bigots, without baseball bats. Our side does the same. They don’t want to do that, because they don’t have the solid evidence to back them up, and what evidence they do have is easily demonstrated to be collected so poorly as to be irrelevant.
They don’t want the other kind of debate, either, because I suspect they know that standing in front of any audience that was not yet convinced will not help them. They can put on a dress and nail polish and the “woke” will accept and cheer. They could go in with a beard and their genitals hanging out of their pants to show they were clearly men, and the “woke” would loudly proclaim them women and cheer. This is the only kind of audience they want. They don’t want to face a challenging audience, because they are so obviously not women, and don’t know the first thing about being women, that few audiences outside the already “woke” would not accept them as women.
yep.
Yeah, “debate” in the sense of “an ongoing public discussion where everyone is free to provide their evidence and critique the other side’s at length” is much healthier than the intellectual sport that pits one person’s three-minute sound bit against the other person’s, repeat ad nauseum.
@latsot Debate is a popular American high school extracurricular activity, but I think the structure and rules of the event actually come from these guys:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Union
Well as we know, Oxford’s a complete dump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKuHYO9TM5A
Hey, watch what you say about Oxford! I found one of the best thrift stores I’ve seen in Oxford. Oh, wait, you mean Oxford, England, not Oxford, Nebraska, right? Never mind.
LOL I only recently binge-rewatched all of Blackadder. Brought back some weird memories–the first time I saw Blackadder 2 was at the British consulate in the sub-Saharan African country I was working in at the time. Oxford England does actually have pretty good thrift stores, but the students will get all the good stuff before you most of the time. This btw is the best thing about Oxford, and one of the best things about England:
https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/
I’m guessing that the Oxford Union debate is derived from classes in Rhetoric, which every (male) noble pretending to an education would have been expected to study, if not master. After all, once upon a time Oxford was the preserve of the ruling elite. Even (especially?) in the middle ages rhetoric was considered one of the critical pillars of a nobleman’s education. How else do you persuade the mass uneducated rabble to see things your way and to make this seasons opponents into the unacceptable deserving of death and last seasons opponents (now allies) our forever friends.
Speaking of the Oxford Union – fun fact: about a year ago I was actually invited to do an Oxford Union debate. I have to confess I felt quite flattered. I looked into it a little though and found that they pay travel expenses, which usually means a train from London and back. I suspected they weren’t budgeting for travel from Seattle so I tactfully told them I couldn’t really face the 9 hour plane trip there and the other back for just one evening. I still have the glory of being asked though!
But was I keen on the debate part? No. It was never a thing at my school, and it’s not a format I like.
Ophelia, opinions about Oxford U aside, being asked is a big deal. You can feel rightly proud of that.
Well I don’t exactly feel proud, because Surely Some Mistake, but I definitely feel flattered. (I Googled the people asking, to make sure it wasn’t a joke, but they were the people they said they were.)
In fact there was debating as competition after the king died:) I should know, I got to county level at state school in the midlands. I am an old fogey though. maybe it doesn’t happen now.:)
And you passed up an opportunity to meet Fortran? What is wrong with you?
Fortran was going to be in Oxford that day??
You wouldn’t travel 228 miles to meet Fortran?
Well, I would, of course.
I’ve been such a fool.
I like cats. I frequently have owners of skittish or slightly wild cats say ‘he won’t sit on you’ or ‘you’ll loose your hand’. The masochist risk taker in me wants to know if Fortran would hop up for a snuggle, or rip off my arm and beat me with it. One day maybe.
Well, she’s…. unpredictable. It could go either way.
Just now she climbed onto her customary spot on the table behind my desk and rolled onto her back with her legs in the air, purring like a jet engine. Then when I stroked her she bit more or less clean through my thumb.
And this morning I found her in bed with another cat (really. I don’t know where the other cat came from.)
We definitely got our money’s worth with her.
I saw your tweet about the other cat. That’s just plain hilarious.