Precisely the confused thinking
My Discuss: of course they do, because they can’t do anything else, because the confused thinking is baked in, because the whole idea is confused and absurd and solipsistic.
Or maybe not? Maybe it’s all just gloriously simple.
Ohhhhhhh…now I get it. A woman pretending to be black is not the same as a man pretending to be a woman. Cool! We can all go home now.
But the two are not the same. Claiming that gay men are not men is not the same as saying that men are not women. I suppose I would be annoyed if someone I respected called me broccoli or Albania or Ted Cruz, but that’s not the same as saying that men are not women. One of these things IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER.
I have no doubt about that. Just like discussions of whether a woman’s brain is inferior to a man’s cause me distress.
Yes, but how oppressed are they? And why do the discussions of women as “Karens” and “cis-privilege” and “TERF” not trigger the same response? Women are oppressed, have historically been oppressed, and will likely continue being oppressed into the future for an indeterminate amount of time. Some women are oppressed literally to death.
So a group of privileged (mostly) white (mostly) middle-class men of privilege adopt the “identity” of an oppressed group, and declare themselves “the most oppressed”, even while being unable to provide legitimate documentation of that “most oppressed” status, other than vague statistics that don’t mean what they are said to mean, and don’t show what they are said to show.
Those of us who are genuinely oppressed, did not “identify” into that status, and cannot just “identify” out of it are not allowed to discuss this, because it might cause distress to those who are showing the legacy of their life of privilege and entitlement by their very attitude.
They’re not “rejecting” Dawkins invidious comparison; rejection would require admitting the existence of the thing being rejected. Instead, they’ve deliberately mischaracterized what he said. They’re trying to pretend he was saying something completely different, and defamatory, changing his actual statement (which they do not quote) into a belittlement, and trivialization, of Black identity. I’m surprised that Dennett is not pointing this out instead, as I think this behaviour on the part of AHA , because of its fundamental dishonesty and maliciousness, is actually more dangerous than the hypocrisy of an “apparent inconsistency” in their position.
Fucking analogies—how do they work?
Of course, they’re not the same! “How oranges are like oranges,” is a trivial and vacuous. “How oranges are like lemons,” however, is a comparison with actual meat (and seeds, and rind, etc.).
God damn, Sam.
Re #3
Exactly. He posed two things that get different responses, and asked people to discuss those things (and why they get different responses). To explain the “correct” interpretation beforehand is not discussion, it’s parroting, it’s doctrine.
I think, too, that part of the reason Dawkins got the amount of criticism he did over this tweet has to do with wording. He referred to men/women who choose to identify as women/men, clearly indicating that he sees this as a choice. And the emphasis in the tweet is on the vilification for THIS statement but not THAT statement (or, rather, you will be vilified if you DENY that second statement), indicating that he was mostly interested in the reaction, not so much arguing the truth of the contentious statements.
Dawkins’s imperious “Discuss,” gets my dander up.
If he really wanted a genuine discussion, he would have participated himself. It’s pot-stirring. This time, some of it splashed on him, but he set it up with possible deniability for himself. It’s cowardice, as evidenced by his almost immediate and complete capitulation. He never used to care about offending religion. He never has cared about offending women.
I’m happy that Daniel Dennett appears to be coming through on the side of reason (and astonished that I should find this gratifying.) I do not know if he is gender critical or not, but at the very least he doesn’t buy into the claim that failing to fall over yourself affirming trans identities means you’re hurting vulnerable people.
I’m curious about what most experts in evolutionary biology think about an innate gender identity located in the brain from birth. Such a thing must have evolved. It seems pretty redundant to me. A female has to have a special ability to know she’s female in a way unrelated to mating? Why?
So far, from what I can tell, people known for their expertise in evolution who don’t seem to be endorsing innate gender identity include Dawkins, Dennett, and Coyne. On the other side is Myers. Anyone else know more? Or correct my error?
I see today that Hemant Mehta is criticizing the defenders of Dawkins in the confused manner I’d expect on this topic. Among the defenders are Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, Peter Boghassian, Jerry Coyne, David Silverman, Michael Sherlock, Daniel Dennett (as discussed in this post), Todd Stiefel (that one is going to hurt some groups financially), Steven Pinker, and Rebecca Goldstein, and more to come, I’m sure. I have issues to varying degrees with many of those people, but I think they are right on this topic.
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/04/22/heres-how-well-known-atheists-are-defending-richard-dawkins-anti-trans-tweet/
And sneering at treating the subject as “some kind of academic debate” – in other words he’s sneering at the whole idea of questioning truth claims, asking what they’re based on, prodding at the arguments, and the like. It’s loud proud anti-intellectualism, as it has been all along. It’s enough to make you sick.