If I understand the direction @popobawa4u is going…
…and I can’t really claim to because I probably haven’t read all their comments as closely as I should…
…it seems like they are trying to approach social situations by making the minimum amount of assumptions about their interlocutor. For example, they don’t want to tie the person to a particular gender so they won’t assume that the person’s current gender performance is indicative of that person’s identified gender.
This is a pretty cool way to think about being as non-judgmental as possible.
On the other hand, categories are basically the software we use for almost all cognitive tasks; the relevant tasks are building an identity (“I am an X, I am not a Y”) and communication (“I am X because I think the Y was a Z”). So ignoring categories that are already part of the ambient culture puts interlocutors in the position of having to basically invent a private language to talk to each other. We have to re-write our communication software from scratch. This puts a big limit on the amount of stuff we can usefully converse about!
This is a “bottom-up” approach; a “top-down” approach would be to slavishly appeal to the dictionary every time we wanted to understand a word the other person used. I think social interaction, like pretty much everything else about humans, is better approached using a “middle-out” approach: start with the communication software you already have, look for signs of miscommunication, and tweak your communication software as required to carry the conversation forward.
This is more difficult to do well than it is to cite a dictionary, but I think it’s worth the effort.
YES, this is what I am getting at. With the exception that I think of it as radically increasing what we can usefully converse about, because the default reflexes of glossing over our categories and values unconsciously (to feel as if we have shared meanings - despite the impossibility of demonstrating this) so drastically limit most people.
Let me rephrase. I think we’re actually talking about a space/time tradeoff, where using a dictionary optimizes for time, but your approach optimizes for space (in the sense of space of possible categories to be considered and discussed, or similar).
So I guess I’m saying to have enough time to have the discussions we want to have, we need to cut down on the space of possibilities we are willing to explore. And of course, we can negotiate this tradeoff on a case-by-case basis depending on how rushed we are and how open-minded we want to be.
I need to go back and read your comment to @jmr32 because there seems to be a lot to unpack there, but I’m curious what you think about the “cluster in thing-space” approach to the gender dichotomy?
Proclaiming ideals does not inoculate a person from having biases. Refusing to examine categories does not preclude you from creating and using other arbitrary ones, nor are those wholly original and free from cruft.
Is there a “real you” somewhere underneath your constructed identity, such that the identity you construct hides the real you? Or does the “mask” not really have a face behind it? Or, if there is a face, is it possible that it is actually another mask?
If you wear a mask or play a role for so long that it comes to feel more natural than your previous mask or role, is it still hiding the “real you”?
I tend to agree that it’s probably not possible and almost certainly not wise to simply abandon the operating system we currently use to simultaneously navigate society and contribute to it. On the other hand, seeing how far we can push these boundaries is a worthy project.
It’s certainly possible that @popobawa4u has some unacknowledged blind spots, but every interaction I’ve had with them suggests that they are completely sincere and willing to consider other perspectives and try to learn from them.
Of course! It really is masks all the way down. It is the persona itself - the “identity” - which is insubstantial. To some, masks might implicate the notion of concealing a “real” identity, so I would instead describe each mask as being a model. A sort of emergent process of models coalescing over time, and desiring to posit an illusion of continuity between them. These models are based upon some combination of what came before, not unlike Markov chains, with the addition of new stimulus - hopefully (but not necessarily) based upon our current best data.
Probably not. Avoiding ideals doesn’t either. The most important thing I suspect might be to simply avoid identifying with the biases one encounters. I encounter countless people who feed their own worst habits because deciding that “it’s me” seems to absolve them of responsibility for their choices.
Sort of. When one examines a pre-made category, it seems that one’s own perceptions are still making one up from scratch. Not unlike how the landscape can be safely assumed to exist - despite one’s own immediate picture of it was created on the spot between the eyes and the brain. It is a symbolic fabrication which we can hope more or less closely corresponds to a “reality” which we do not directly experience. So all meanings seem to be a collaboration existing somewhere which is neither ever wholly original nor interpreted.
Is the ability and privilege to be unaffected not itself passively participating in the system? You don’t have to agree with it, to learn about feminism, or understand regressive forces to benefit from the current system in place.
I should really look up more writings on feminism and autism to bridge that perspective gap.
I think I’m at a different point on the spectrum to @popobawa4u, but here’s where I find some alignment of my thinking with theirs:
Other people seem to have a much clearer sense of identity than the one I have. I don’t have a strong gender identity, or even a strong self-identity at all. This isn’t uncommon for people on the spectrum - a number of studies have put the incidence of gender dysphoria and transgender identities at eight times the rate for neurotypicals. It doesn’t mean that there’s no shape to who I am, but I feel like anything I do is an act and any way I present myself is a mask. This is obvious to me all the time, and has been all my life. I don’t have high executive function (also common), so asking how I should do something and asking how society should promote certain behaviour are very similar. I think about challenging assumptions, adjusting environmental factors etc., not encouraging discipline or just trying harder. Many high functioning autistic people (myself included) dress, act and even generally look kind of androgynous. I first grew a beard because I looked really young and was sometimes asked about my gender. On top of this, this whole separation of the sexes into interests, mannerisms etc. probably seems more arbitrary to autists than others, on the whole (especially as the finer details where a lot of the actual differences lie are at a level that we’re generally not good at noticing). So it’s easier to look at an issue like this and say “well, there’s your problem. Like, all of this arbitrary categorisation of people.” On the other hand, it’s important to recognise that there are structures that affect people, whether or not they believe in them. It’s valid to focus on race and gender, even if we don’t think they should be that important in people’s lives.
So you’ve probably read this or some other presentation of the same theory. Let’s assume it’s true, or at least a contributing factor.
We now have a perspective from which we can attribute some percentage of the crimes committed over the last century to lead poisoning.
But we still have to acknowledge the validity of another perspective: each crime was committed by someone who made the choice to commit those crimes. We can switch back to our other perspective to say that this person couldn’t help themselves due to the lead poisoning, but we’re still left with two apparently irreconcilable causal models: one in which a sentient agent makes choices based on its preferences and one in which the element Pb has particular effects on certain bioelectric networks.
So free will vs. determinism. The notion of “passively participating in the system” vs. “actively working to change the system” is – I think inarguably – constrained to the “free will” perspective. From the determinist point of view, everyone and everything is an object passively participating in a system.
What you perceive as a disagreement is really a difference of perspective. Your model says there is a moral imperative
to act because otherwise you are passively participating in and benefiting from a system of exploitation. The other guy’s model says that system X interacts with system Y using interface I, but that measured quantity Q would be greater if X and Y interacted using interface J instead. From the free will point of view, people make free decisions to commit crimes but are morally wrong in doing so. From the determinist point of view, lead poisoning lowers executive function and the ability to plan and understand long-term consequences of one’s actions, increasing the probability of criminal acts being committed.
You’re using the directions app on your iPhone and your friend is using a AAA map. You actually agree on the destination, but your mental models of what is required to get there look pretty different from each other.
If you thought I misunderstood or misinterpreted you, you should have said so, maybe in not so much a defensive manner. I never attacked you. Disagreement is not attacking. [quote=“anotherone, post:121, topic:80272”]
Thanks for your time.
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First off, I want to say that I’m with @wysinwyg in appreciating the dialogue, and hearing your perspective on things. And I apologize for framing the conversation as “you” vs any “rest of us”. Your perspective is a unique one, that I’ve never seen articulated in quite this way, but I recognize the irony of imposing that type of categorization here.
Where I think we disagree, and I hope I am not misinterpreting your position, is that I do see value in “commonality,” and collective action. I can agree with you that there may not be any “universal” goals or values, but I do think that individuals can share goals and values, and if a group of people can agree on a common problem, there can be great merit in working together to find a solution. Yes, this can definitely be problematic, and can lead to the tribalism and xenophobia you are talking about, but I don’t think that it always has to. I believe that individuals working together towards a common goal can achieve things that would otherwise be impossible, and that that promise can be worth the potential pitfalls involved. Especially if we can go in with our eyes open to other perspectives (which again, is why I do appreciate the dialogue).
It’s not “unthinkable” to me that individuals coexist outside of that type of social construct, or that I would insist that we create that commonality, I’m just weary of taking it to its extreme, where we never attempt to work together to solve problems, because this inherently excludes certain individuals who see the world differently, and may not even agree on the nature of the problem. Everyone needs to make their own value judgements, and while they should recognize that there will be others with different perspectives, and try their best to understand where those perspectives are coming from, that doesn’t, in my view, mean that they should abstain from making those judgements altogether. There may be billions of paths forward, but ultimately, individuals need to choose the one that they judge to be the best. I believe that working together to examine the world, and explore those paths, can lead to better outcomes, just as it potentially can lead to worse ones (as in your example of the pre-Enlightenment Catholic Church).
I think @Mindysan33 is probably right, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Indeed! So I have a challenge about how men and women (or rather, the gender roles assigned to men and women) view the world differently. Watch any episode of “Game of Thrones” written and directed by a man that has a sex scene and then watch “The Wedding” episode from “Outlander” which was written and directed by two women. Take notes. I’ll wait.
