Guest post: Sometimes, people are just wrong
Originally a comment by Enzyme on A trouncing.
Note the sleight of hand from Sally Hines about how other cultures have “recognised” that sex is not binary.
To say that they’ve recognised it is to say that it is the case, otherwise there could be no recognition. But these other cultures having divvied up the world in another way is what Hines presents as evidence that sex is not binary. And that’s question-begging. In effect, she’s saying that we’re entitled to say that sex is not binary because other cultures have recognised it as such; but they can only have recognised it as such if it is, in fact, not binary. This point stands whatever we happen to think about sex and sex-categorisation.
Another, related, point: what entitles these other cultures to say that sex is not binary? Presumably, it’d be some appeal to a fact of the matter. But if that’s the case, we have two competing sets of claims: one built around sex’s being binary, and another built on it’s not being binary. The competing merits of these claims could then be assessed.
I will not offer odds on which set of claims is the more likely to be truth-tracking. And their truth-trackingness has nothing to do with which culture is making it. Sometimes, people are just wrong.
(And sometimes, they’re misrepresented by dimwit sociologists. But I digress.)
Maybe Hines is being sloppy with language: maybe “recognised” is the wrong word to use. But in that case, it’s not at all clear what she’s on about.
But that much we’d all guessed anyway.
Nah, I don’t think she’s being sloppy with language. She’s saying precisely what she means: other cultures have been privy to a truth that ours has denied.
This part seems more like an appeal to questionable authority. “Other cultures have said sex isn’t binary. Therefore, sex is not binary.” Where it gets circular is in the answer to your related question. How do we know those other cultures are/were authoritative on the topic? Why, because they determined that sex isn’t binary, you silly goose.
I mean, this is what I’m always on about. These people actually do say what they mean. What they say just sounds so obviously wrong that reasonable people have an immediate reaction of, “Well, that clearly can’t be what they mean. They must mean something less deserving of mockery than that, probably blah blah blah blah …” Brazen stupidity actually shields them from being seen as stupid. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes woven large.
Yes but there’s also the philosophical mandate of charitable interpretation. I took Enzyme’s offer of “maybe sloppy language” as that courteous stipulation, before going in for the kill.
Oh, I know. The principle of charity is crucial to actually, ya know, communicating with people. Charity only goes so far. We go too far with it when we don’t acknowledge that sometimes people are just wrong. Sometimes, people really do mean the stupid things they say, and failing to come to terms with that lets the stupidity flourish.
How many claims, opinions, and observations from these other cultures apart from their “recognizing” the non-binary nature of sex do these activists accept as wholeheartedly? What about their actual allotment and enforcement of gender roles? Female infanticide? Polygamy? Women’s property rights and inheritance? Just the one thing they like (and misinterpret) I’m guessing. TAs are like creationists who eagerly seek out and gather stories of floods and dragons (“dinosaurs” in creationspeak) from other cultures when they can hijack them to support their own agenda, but reject and oppose every other aspect of these peoples’ world views, especially their religious beliefs.
Sadly, I think that many TAs / wokeists may actually like the first three of those very much, though they wouldn’t state it in those terms.
Then crap on everyone who eats a taco for cultural appropriation. As they happily appropriate indigenous cultures (and do it wrongly) and women’s spaces and experiences (which they also do wrongly). Hypocritical much?
First up, thanks to Ophelia for making my comment a fully grown-up real post.
Second: I agree with everything said so far.