I should never have downloaded The Guardian app

Every day I open The Guardian on my phone and every day I see more and more opinions from Americans making absurd left wing statements that they know wouldn't fly if they were published in the United States.

See: Jessica Valenti

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...to-be-offended

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Chait’s real problem, it seems, is that he doesn’t understand why his privilege – or anyone else’s – should impact how people perceive what he says. “Under p.c. culture, the same idea can be expressed identically by two people but received differently depending on the race and sex of the individuals doing the expressing,” he writes.Well, yes! Context matters, and it’s no secret that a man using a word like “cunt”, for example, often has a completely different resonance than when a woman uses it.

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See when a man calls someone cunt, he is degrading someone else. When a woman calls someone a cunt she is...empowering herself at the expense of another!

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Instead of rolling our eyes at the intensity of the feelings people have over these issues, we should be grateful that they care so much, because racism, misogyny and transphobia can and do kill people. If the price we all pay for progress for the less privileged is that someone who is more privileged gets their feelings hurt sometimes – or that they might have to think twice before opening their mouths or putting their fingers to keyboards – that’s a small damn price to pay. That’s not stopping free speech; it’s making our speech better.

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Am I going crazy when I begin to understand what Fragony is saying about leftists?


Can someone explain to me how this idea came about that identity politics != racism/prejudice as long as you are of the right category.

Sometimes Fragony is absolutely correct, does that surprise you?
He just expresses himself in a way that other people don't rather often, which leads to misunderstandings.
And have you found any leftists who love islamic terrorists and want to import more of them to the West?

Also kinda reminds me of liveleak comments about "mudslimes" with pictures of bombers over the kaaba.

Either way, I also get disgusted when I see these leftist knucklehead rioters who call the police nazis and fascists and then throw stones at them. It's not exactly a message of peace and tolerance there.

Don't black people call eachother the N-Word but when a white guy does it he's a racist? Even for people who say your category shouldn't matter, it does often matter. Like how we shouldn't use animals as food but when animals use other animals as food, it's somehow okay because they are not as clever as we are. And I've never seen any animals speak out against this, they just stand on the sidelines while animal rights activists try to trample all over my rights to eat the animals standing on the sidelines.

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See when a man calls someone cunt, he is degrading someone else. When a woman calls someone a cunt she is...empowering herself at the expense of another!

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What?

Dude: polysemy.

I expect more credible complaints from you.

Honestly! Anyone else ever hear of the Natural Right to be free from Offence?

It is simply an attempt at controlling the liberties of others.

If you feel a strong need not to be offended, stay home. You do have a right to privacy…except from the government anyway.

There are limitations on Freedom of Speech when it is used to cause harm to others maliciously. This is why you cannot run into airports shouting "bombombomb", or why threatening/harassing/bullying is disallowed.

It is why the 'right to bear arms' is not the right to shoot everyone. Similar principle.

Which is why I specifically used liberties, to imply that they must be exercised responsibly.
:bow:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

What?

Dude: polysemy.

I expect more credible complaints from you.

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Cunt has no multiple meanings. It is solely derogatory. It is a bad example from the author and nevertheless there are symbols which have multiple meanings and yet western countries still shy away from having those symbols expressed, such as various Nazi symbols in Germany.

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Originally Posted by Husar

Sometimes Fragony is absolutely correct, does that surprise you?
He just expresses himself in a way that other people don't rather often, which leads to misunderstandings.
And have you found any leftists who love islamic terrorists and want to import more of them to the West?

Also kinda reminds me of liveleak comments about "mudslimes" with pictures of bombers over the kaaba.

Either way, I also get disgusted when I see these leftist knucklehead rioters who call the police nazis and fascists and then throw stones at them. It's not exactly a message of peace and tolerance there.

Don't black people call eachother the N-Word but when a white guy does it he's a racist? Even for people who say your category shouldn't matter, it does often matter. Like how we shouldn't use animals as food but when animals use other animals as food, it's somehow okay because they are not as clever as we are. And I've never seen any animals speak out against this, they just stand on the sidelines while animal rights activists try to trample all over my rights to eat the animals standing on the sidelines.

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Honestly, I know Frag is right on some topics. However what I was getting at was his strong sentiment about leftists in general, it was not an insult at his views. Maybe I am spending too much time in university at this point, I used to bash right wingers a lot more when I lived in a conservative area. Years of college liberals have got me more and more annoyed at the left in general.

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Cunt has no multiple meanings. It is solely derogatory.

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That's the thing - what you say is just not the case.

Here's a simple example:

1. Your best friend says "Watch it, moron!" after you walk into him and almost push him down.

2. A strange man who has 6 inches on you says "Watch it, moron!" after you walk into him and almost push him down.

The notion that these are identical situations with identical meanings in the exchange is a complete delusion.

I'll break it down further: the idea that "meaning" is some discrete thing propelled into and snatched out of some 'semiotic ether' is yet more ridiculous humanist crap. Meaning is uniquely constructive and is actually so:

The signifier and the signified are two sides of the same coin and are expressed through the same medium, which is behavior.

Why? Because meaning is neurobiological, or it is not at all. Dictionaries or your personal statements do not encapsulate meaning.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

That's the thing - what you say is just not the case.

Here's a simple example:

1. Your best friend says "Watch it, moron!" after you walk into him and almost push him down.

2. A strange man who has 6 inches on you says "Watch it, moron!" after you walk into him and almost push him down.

The notion that these are identical situations with identical meanings in the exchange is a complete delusion.

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That works with moron but not cunt. Obviously you have never watched Curb Your Enthusiasm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-D23qX2iHk

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I'll break it down further: the idea that "meaning" is some discrete thing propelled into and snatched out of some 'semiotic ether' is yet more ridiculous humanist crap. Meaning is uniquely constructive and is actually so:

The signifier and the signified are two sides of the same coin and are expressed through the same medium, which is behavior.

Why? Because meaning is neurobiological, or it is not at all. Dictionaries or your personal statements do not encapsulate meaning.

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Well if meaning depends entirely on how you receive the message and not how the individual intends it, then judging a message based on their sex or on the color of someones skin is exactly the opposite of progress.

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then judging a message based on their sex or on the color of someones skin is exactly the opposite of progress.

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Do you consider yourself a hippie?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Do you consider yourself a hippie?

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I shave, so.....no

Then cut the "We are the World" BS.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Then cut the "We are the World" BS.

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When did I give that impression? I'm just pointing out the problems when you apply the idea of identity politics and the reality is that many people don't like to identify themselves by the categories they didn't choose to be in, many don't like to be categorized by anything at all. If messages are offensive based on the interpretation of the received and not on the interpretation of the sender, then it still makes no sense to argue for a blanket "privilege check" on certain groups since you are presupposing a background and characteristics of an individual based on traits that are not linked to those characteristics. That's the opposite of what the original argument was asking for in the first place.

It's an inherent problem of humanity I guess. Noone likes to be put into a category but everyone uses categories because that is what our brain does. I guess the biggest difference you can find is the number of categories people use.

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it still makes no sense to argue for a blanket "privilege check" on certain groups since you are presupposing a background and characteristics of an individual based on traits that are not linked to those characteristics. That's the opposite of what the original argument was asking for in the first place.

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You're missing my point, but I'll go ahead and address this different issue.

When SJWs are talking about privilege, they virtually never refer to individual privilege. Their notion of privilege is actually a group-based construct. So what any particular individual thinks makes no difference.

If whites are in power, and whites are the majority, and whites prefer other whites (in a broad sense) to non-whites, then there you have it: privilege. Now, as Subo liked to point out, privilege is contextual and fluctuates quite a lot

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but that doesn't change the fact that, as an aggregate, whites have more privilege than anyone.

When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

When SJWs are talking about privilege, they virtually never refer to individual privilege. Their notion of privilege is actually a group-based construct. So what any particular individual thinks makes no difference.

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So we ignore the individual? We are not saying you need to be quiet because you are white, but because of whites in general?

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If whites are in power, and whites are the majority, and whites prefer other whites (in a broad sense) to non-whites, then there you have it: privilege. Now, as Subo liked to point out, privilege is contextual and fluctuates quite a lot

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So who is the arbiter of when and how much privilege has occurred? Is this a list that all need to satisfied, or any one condition? Non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the southwest. If the California State Assembly and Senate members reflected the current demographics, are California whites suddenly less privileged than the rest of American whites?

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but that doesn't change the fact that, as an aggregate, whites have more privilege than anyone.
When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

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It is easy to recognize that whites (in America) are on average better off than the average non-white (with the possible exception of Asian-Americans). But how this necessarily leads to the policies advocated by SJW's make no sense.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

So we ignore the individual? We are not saying you need to be quiet because you are white, but because of whites in general?

So who is the arbiter of when and how much privilege has occurred? Is this a list that all need to satisfied, or any one condition? Non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the southwest. If the California State Assembly and Senate members reflected the current demographics, are California whites suddenly less privileged than the rest of American whites?

It is easy to recognize that whites (in America) are on average better off than the average non-white (with the possible exception of Asian-Americans). But how this necessarily leads to the policies advocated by SJW's make no sense.

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Privilege often comes with massive blinder. If you never felt systematically negatively treated because of race/gender/sexual orientation/class, you're probably having privilege on it. Active positive treatment is more complex, since it can have different sources. The spoiled upper class is different from a woman taking advantage of flirting and courting in a place were women are rare because of general hostility.

I'm not sure were your stand on this really are, because it often end up with the "right to be rude/a jerk/an asshole without anybody complaining" and "since I don't see a problem (and most of the time aren't expected to see the problem either, since you aren't expected to be affected), there is no problem so stop talking about it, because it causes the problem".

While you do have the extreme ones that demands more, it mostly boils down to "don't be rude", "think before you speak" and "not everyone has lived like you, so they might have different experiences and thus some words are more offensive to them than to you". And the cases were some minority group are going to claim that this neutral word is now offensive is quite rare. Half to fully insulting words are way, way more common.

I don't browse the Guardian as much as I used to. I think they are trying to hard to be at the forefront as what they see as being some sort of gender revolution. Its getting a bit silly and they are starting to look like a parody of themselves. I'm sure I read titles along the lines of:

"A Feminist Perspective on the Ukraine Crisis"
"Are Gender-Specific Determinative Pronouns the Burqas of the West?"

I don't take it so seriously as a paper anymore.

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Originally Posted by Husar

Like how we shouldn't use animals as food but when animals use other animals as food, it's somehow okay because they are not as clever as we are. And I've never seen any animals speak out against this

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Muppet show, anyone?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

The signifier and the signified are two sides of the same coin and are expressed through the same medium, which is behavior.

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The signified is not homogeneous either. It is like a layered cake: at the bottom is the significative element of meaning, common for all speakers, it is overlaid by the denotative element of meaning, unique for each speaker, and on top comes the connotative element of meaning which is related not to the signified, but to the speaker (the time and place in which he lived/lives, the social group he belongs to and, most importantly, his attitude to the signified). Having this in view, it is easy to explain different influence of the same word (or, to be precise, words with identical/similar meanings) on different people.

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So we ignore the individual?

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Not at all. We're talking about specific concepts here.

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Non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the southwest. If the California State Assembly and Senate members reflected the current demographics, are California whites suddenly less privileged than the rest of American whites?

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Possibly. It depends on the socialization of the Hispanic population in the area, as well as that of other groups or subgroups, communities... Countervailingly, less whites might mean that the remaining whites there - as well as 'visiting' whites - accord more privilege to those whites they do encounter. And so on...

Stop approaching a complex and nested situation like a 15-year-old, though I understand many SJWs encourage that sort of thinking. But that's not surprising; it is, in fact, the norm for all ideologies, obviously.*

*Except for certain ones with only a single individual endorsing them. :smug: :tongue:

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We are not saying you need to be quiet because you are white, but because of whites in general?

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This is a strawman unless you're attacking a specific commentator. SJWs typically want the privileged group to come to terms with that privilege and take it into account when developing their ideologies or policy stances - or even day-to-day conduct.

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But how this necessarily leads to [particular]policies advocated by SJW's make no sense.

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In many cases, I would agree. At its core though, the social justice movement is really like most others, even as a heavily-libertarian one: it's about transferring power from some groups to others, even if they deny that power in the current world-system is a zero-sum game. This is why I abrogate justice, as it is basically analogous to morality. In other words: conflicts between moral systems are boring at best.

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

at the bottom is the significative element of meaning, common for all speakers

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No way, Chomsky.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

I don't browse the Guardian as much as I used to. I think they are trying to hard to be at the forefront as what they see as being some sort of gender revolution. Its getting a bit silly and they are starting to look like a parody of themselves. I'm sure I read titles along the lines of:

"A Feminist Perspective on the Ukraine Crisis"
"Are Gender-Specific Determinative Pronouns the Burqas of the West?"

I don't take it so seriously as a paper anymore.

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Not from the author of the original article. Which are why I'm sort of wondering. Sure some of the rhetoric needs you to know and understand things like privilege, but I'm not seeing anything extreme with the article.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

No way, Chomsky.

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The significative element of meaning is the "core" meaning without which it would be impossibble for speakers to understand each other thus it underlies all other components of meaning. We may agrue, though, on the "place" of the said element within the whole structure. One may imagine meaning not as a cake but as as a field with a nucleus and periphery. However, it doesn't change the sense of what I said.

That's a fundamental point of disagreement. Such a stipulation doesn't take epigenetics into account.

acin, you should never have told us you downloaded The Guardian app.:gah2:

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Originally Posted by Gregoshi

acin, you should never have told us you downloaded The Guardian app.:gah2:

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Why, is my privacy at risk?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

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One problem is that technical correctness is just one part of the equation. When talking about humans, the statement "[remember] you are dealing with a human here" is technically always correct, but that doesn't mean it is neither relevant nor meaningful to bring up for a topic.

Another problem is that in actual application, 'privilege' tends to be applied on an individual level. If you take a random individual x from a statistically privileged group X (not defined by its privilege, but by some other characteristic), there is no guarantee that the privilege this group statistically has meaningfully applies to x. Yet this exactly how 'privilege' is very often applied: group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged. This is a fallacy.

Conversely, not every member y of a statistically disprivileged group Y is disprivileged, and quite a few y might even become more privileged than the average x if members of Y are given benefits that are meant to counter their disprivilege.

There are, of course, certain groups that are defined by a privilege, such the rich. But even then, as per my first paragraph, this privilege is not always relevant; and it's not hard to see how it can be used dishonestly in rhetoric.

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Yet this exactly how 'privilege' is very often applied: group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged. This is a fallacy.

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No. There is an assumption that you're missing, that you would have to confront in order to challenge the point.

The assumption is that group identity is judged towards an individual by other individuals, not by the individual itself.

If this assumption holds, then it is tautological to say that "group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged".

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

No. There is an assumption that you're missing, that you would have to confront in order to challenge the point.

The assumption is that group identity is judged towards an individual by other individuals, not by the individual itself.

If this assumption holds, then it is tautological to say that "group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged".

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Not sure what you are trying to say (do you mean that group membership is decided by others?).

The only assumption made is that it has not been proven that the definition of the group leads to every member of the group being privileged due to circumstances, or - leaving strict logic - at least that the probability that a random x is privileged is very high.

That is, given

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group membership is decided [or minimally, confirmed] by others

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then every member of a group has the same global privilege and everyone who has that global privilege is a member of that group.

Now, you could problematize that by introducing the contextual fluidity I briefly mentioned earlier, since if individuals decide group membership then it must also be the case that in a given situation a particular individual's privilege will be 'processed' given other individuals' own valuations and socializations. What this means is that privilege cannot be unmitigated or pragmatically homogeneous; furthermore, there is deep interaction between the differing privileges of group identities/statuses within a single individual. To put it succinctly, then, the consequence is that any SJW precept that all members of some group benefit or are harmed/disadvantaged in the exact same way by their privilege can't really hold.

However, it should even so be very unusual for the confluence of white malehood privilege to provide no benefit, even in a context featuring an encounter with Black Panther feminists.

Ultimately, the most useful application of the concept of "privilege" is in highlighting the difference of experiences ad valuations between groups. For instance, it might be tendentious for SJWs that whites experience racial bigotry, but not when it is acknowledged that this bigotry has very little 'sting', so to speak. The most useful way to bring it up, then, is to use it simply to point out why the grievances of other groups might not seem to make sense to them (i.e. the highest-status group-members).

An analogy to global warming might help to further illuminate the issue:

Just because it snows one day, or even if it snows more than usual one winter, it can't be concluded that global warming is bunk and that global average temperature is not rising.

On the other hand, a drought in itself does not make global warming an infallible concept without some other contributions (e.g. empirical data). Notably, it also doesn't make sense given this hypothetical drought to disestablish the biggest polluters in hopes of somehow saving the smallest polluters, who are anyway potential "big polluters" themselves.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

That is, given

then every member of a group has the same global privilege and everyone who has that global privilege is a member of that group.

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Which real groups would this apply to? Gender and skin colour are biological factors, and there is normally not much leeway for interpretation when it comes to which group an individual belongs to here, so you'd still have a fallacy - any x not experiencing the privilege is still part of X.

To give an obvious counterexample: if a man is the only human left in the universe, he cannot have any [social] privileges for being a man rather than a woman, yet he is still clearly a man.

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However, it should even so be very unusual for the confluence of white malehood privilege to provide no benefit, even in a context featuring an encounter with Black Panther feminists.

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What can be noticed about examples such as these, is that they are dependent on things like geographic location. If you live a place where there are no 'blacks', you have no meaningful privilege in not being 'black' any more than you have privilege in not having a fictitious skin colour that could theoretically give a disadvantage. Unlike proper privilege groups where the privilege is a constant (like rich people), it is here circumstantial. A very real risk is that privilege is assumed where it did not actually exist, something only a deeper investigation could uncover.

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Ultimately, the most useful application of the concept of "privilege" is in highlighting the difference of experiences ad valuations between groups. For instance, it might be tendentious for SJWs that whites experience racial bigotry, but not when it is acknowledged that this bigotry has very little 'sting', so to speak. The most useful way to bring it up, then, is to use it simply to point out why the grievances of other groups might not seem to make sense to them (i.e. the highest-status group-members).

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The problem with a focus on nebulous concepts like 'privilege', is that it invites to ignorance of complexity, which in turn invites false inferences. As per usual, not all correlations are the implications intuitively one could expect them to be. I believe in discussing separate issues separately (until a link is not just superficially plausible), because similar results can be produced by very different mechanisms.

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Which real groups would this apply to? Gender and skin colour are biological factors, and there is normally not much leeway for interpretation when it comes to which group an individual belongs to here, so you'd still have a fallacy - any x not experiencing the privilege is still part of X.

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As I said, internally it is a tautology.

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To give an obvious counterexample

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As I said, internally it is a tautology. If you don't introduce factors outside the scope of the case, and that challenge co-assumptions, then you would be getting somewhere.

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If you live a place where there are no 'blacks', you have no meaningful privilege

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Aha, let's say then that there are no non-whites in the area or even anywhere else - then other forms of privilege come into play, though more of ones that don't depend on particular upbringings or birth.

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Unlike proper privilege groups where the privilege is a constant (like rich people)

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Why do you think wealth has to be a constant in terms of differential privilege? There's no relevant metaphysical difference between wealth and ethnic group here.

In fact, all forms of privilege are "circumstantial".

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A very real risk is that privilege is assumed where it did not actually exist, something only a deeper investigation could uncover.

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I've already addressed this. Under the specified assumptions, all members of a group as judged by all relevant existing populations will have a "group privilege".

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because similar results can be produced by very different mechanisms.

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Go on.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

In fact, all forms of privilege are "circumstantial".

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Elaborate.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

As I said, internally it is a tautology.



As I said, internally it is a tautology. If you don't introduce factors outside the scope of the case, and that challenge co-assumptions, then you would be getting somewhere.

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I didn't use an abstraction to escape the real world, but to avoid the baggage associated with specific claims of privilege.

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Aha, let's say then that there are no non-whites in the area or even anywhere else - then other forms of privilege come into play, though more of ones that don't depend on particular upbringings or birth.

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It was not intended to be about whether or not you can be in a privileged position, but about how notions of privilege due to X can be misleading in cases where X does not guarantee privilege (and converesely: cases where Y does not guarantee disprivilege). Even in places where people have different levels of skin pigmentation, the concept of a 'black person' does not have to exist, just like we normally do not categorise people according to eye colour and talk about 'blue-eyed privilege' or 'green-eyed privilege'.

People's ideas about privilege depend heavily on where they are from, and this focus on 'white' vs 'black' is a typical US thing. In much of Europe (and many other places), nationality is hardly less important than skin colour.

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Why do you think wealth has to be a constant in terms of differential privilege? There's no relevant metaphysical difference between wealth and ethnic group here.

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There is, because wealth is relative; which is what privilege is as well. Per definition, being rich means that you have more valuable stuff than most people around you (where valuable is defined as something fundamentally desirable; such as something being able to feed you), so then you are in a privileged position. An exception would be in the scenario where you had a lot of valuable stuff, but was unable to use it for whatever reason; which would cancel out the privilege.

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I've already addressed this. Under the specified assumptions, all members of a group as judged by all relevant existing populations will have a "group privilege".

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I don't see what you are trying to say here.

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Go on.

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That's easy. Two different cultures (or sub-cultures) live within the same city, and the youth belonging to one of those cultures (A) are far more likely to end up in jail than youth from the other culture (B). In A, heavy drinking is considered normal; while in B, abstinence from alcohol is considered something to strive for. So why are the youth from B less in trouble with the law than youth from A - privilege or cultural differences?

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in cases where X does not guarantee privilege

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What I'm pointing it is that from the social justice perspective privilege is guaranteed - by their definition. So challenge the definition rather than equivocating.

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I don't see what you are trying to say here.

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See above.

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just like we normally do not categorise people according to eye colour and talk about 'blue-eyed privilege' or 'green-eyed privilege'.

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Importantly, it's perfectly possible - though by-the-by blue-eyed privilege is a thing, since it's typically associated with blonde whites.

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There is, because wealth is relative

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That's beside the point, since we're not currently preoccupied with privilege through time, its causes and trajectories, etc., excepting the following.

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privilege or cultural differences?

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Well, privilege per se wouldn't be a cause - it's a symptom. The cause would include culture*, but an important part of the story would be what contributed to both the privilege and the culture, which would be one group's domination over another.

*But I do agree that culture in the present day plays a significant role in the economic performance of underprivileged groups in societies, as per Max Weber. One of my biggest beefs with the social justice movement is that they attribute everything to culture except economic performance, and moreover manage to turn whites into perfect agents (taking agency as a concept for granted momentarily), stemming of the movement's libertarianism, but only when it comes to actions with respect to non-whites, who have no agency in that relationship. In all other cases, apparently, the roles are reversed, with marginalized ethnic groups having the agency. It's a true example of schizodoxia.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

What I'm pointing it is that from the social justice perspective privilege is guaranteed - by their definition. So challenge the definition rather than equivocating.

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Definition of what exactly? They are not defining men by privilege, and they are not likely to have a different definition of privilege, either.

No, this is not about definitions.

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Importantly, it's perfectly possible - though by-the-by blue-eyed privilege is a thing, since it's typically associated with blonde
whites.

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Obviously, it is possible. What to take note of, is that what is advantageous varies from place to place. It is to say that 'X privilege' is an inaccurate concept (at best) since X might not be advantageous (in a non-trivial manner) or give the same or similar advantages in other places. So if you want to be accurate, you need to specify a place (society) where this privilege is supposed to exist, because even if a trait were beneficial in all known societies, this benefit is not likely to be uniform, but vary a lot.

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That's beside the point, since we're not currently preoccupied with privilege through time, its causes and trajectories, etc., excepting the following.

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? Time was not invoked.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Gender and skin colour are biological factors

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The former is wrong. Sex is a biological factor, gender is a social construct.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Even in places where people have different levels of skin pigmentation, the concept of a 'black person' does not have to exist

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In the former USSR countries where no "native" blacks are in evidence, the term "black" was derogatorily referred to Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaidjanians and other inhabitants of the Caucasus. Curiously, "black" (referring both to the above mentioned nationalities and afrowhateverians) has a derogatory and offensive connotation, while "Negro" is considered to be neutral.

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

The former is wrong. Sex is a biological factor, gender is a social construct.

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Some use the word gender to refer to a social concept, others to refer to a biological concept. No bonus points for correctly guessing which group I belong to will be given.

Viking, you're using privilege in a different, more general, sense. In your usage, it is correct to say that privilege (i.e. advantage) is highly contextual.

In the SJW terminology, it is contextual as well, but it has a different sense. For them, privilege is not merely an advantage or disadvantage incurred related to some group membership. Rather, it wholly covaries with the group membership in itself, since the emphasis here is on the assumptions those with or without privilege carry, which in the case of (group-)powerful contributes to net advantage as well as certain mindsets. Succinctly put, SJW "privilege" is simply the other side to the coin of (group) power.

I have already explained how this kind of usage can be improved upon.

I've just been trying to point out how usages vary, and how this should be taken into account when criticizing some view. For example, as HT was fond of pointing out, "estimate" has a popular usage and a technical-mathematical usage. I really don't want this to come to an argument over what X really means, or an in-depth look at SJW ideology, since one is an invalid, quasi-psychoanalytic question, and the other isn't something I care too much about.

Of course it is important who says what.

I hazard a guess that everyone here would have a different feeling about the following statement depending on whom said it, either your mum or your girlfriend:
"What to have sex with me"

So be honest, does the same statement from a different (I hope they are different) people make you react differently? If so welcome to the real world, if not I have some real estate in Tasmania I can offer you...

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

I hazard a guess that everyone here would have a different feeling about the following statement depending on whom said it, either your mum or your girlfriend:
"What to have sex with me"

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I think I would be concerned for both cases considering that sentence doesn't make sense. /joke

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

In the SJW terminology, it is contextual as well, but it has a different sense. For them, privilege is not merely an advantage or disadvantage incurred related to some group membership. Rather, it wholly covaries with the group membership in itself, since the emphasis here is on the assumptions those with or without privilege carry, which in the case of (group-)powerful contributes to net advantage as well as certain mindsets. Succinctly put, SJW "privilege" is simply the other side to the coin of (group) power.

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I still don't see what kind of mechanism this is supposed to be. No group membership carries infinite weight or remains unmodified in the company of other group memberships. Simply put, in real life, you can hardly ever simply be a man (or anything else), unless you are e.g. described anonymously in a news story - but even then you are likely to have an age or something else describing you.

Er, but I even said that.

Which is another way of saying that membership of X does not guarantee any statistical privilege associated with X.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Which is another way of saying that membership of X does not guarantee any statistical privilege associated with X.

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Yes, but privilege also means that you can suddenly find yourself in situation where it's active without you doing anything to create a personal reputation. Say that police stops you and treats you very different depending on what race/gender/class you belong to.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

Yes, but privilege also means that you can suddenly find yourself in situation where it's active without you doing anything to create a personal reputation. Say that police stops you and treats you very different depending on what race/gender/class you belong to.

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That can mean anything, so it means nothing.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Some use the word gender to refer to a social concept, others to refer to a biological concept. No bonus points for correctly guessing which group I belong to will be given.

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No, gender is actually a social construct, different people fit the construct to differing degrees (and that's biological) but under a different gender construct those people would fit differently. For example, in a highly homosocial society homosexuality is a norm and men who are mildly intersex become objects of desire (as they are less threatening to Alpha males) whilst highly feminine women become less desirable than more "boyish" ones. Conversely, we live in a society which has normalised heterosexual relationships and constructed highly differenced genders in support of this which means that intersex people are naturally threatening.

It's like sociopathy, it's only a bad thing if your particular sociopathic tendencies are considered negative in your society.

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Originally Posted by CrossLOPER

That can mean anything, so it means nothing.

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Murder can mean anything, since unlawful can vary (it has been quite a bit of people who has been literally incapable to commit murder, no matter how many people they personally killed), so it means nothing. Thus we don't have murder, or any other form of crime.

Female journalists get on average more harassment, in particular of the sexual violence kind. A native has way less risk of having their work application thrown away after someone simply looked at the name, compared to the foreigner.

That doesn't mean that there are exceptions, but those does not nullify the existence of privilege.

The term comes from that since the "norm" doesn't experience the extra difficulties, it often doesn't even occur for the "norm" that those difficulties exist at all.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

Yes, but privilege also means that you can suddenly find yourself in situation where it's active without you doing anything to create a personal reputation. Say that police stops you and treats you very different depending on what race/gender/class you belong to.

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This is where the fact that any individual belongs to a whole lot of different groups enters the picture: the effects of a disprivileged group membership can more than cancel out the effects of a privileged group membership. For almost any group that is privileged on average would you be able to find members who in sum are less privileged than members of a disprivileged group. The only way to make sure that you end up with a truly privileged group, is to define the group by the members being privileged in some way; in which case gender, skin colour and similar categories are too broad and arbitrary.

To give an example, a foreign male can easily be less privileged than a native female (no difference in physical appearance between the foreign male and native males is needed).

In terms of the so-called male privilege, it is interesting to note that in almost every country (including Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia), female life expectancy is higher than male life expectancy, typically by several years.

You'd expect disprivilege to have a negative impact on health, so why does the supposedly most privileged gender end up dead earlier? On the surface, it does in no way add up. This is obviously not to say that women in countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are on average disprivileged in many aspects, but it is to say that men in those countries (and almost any other country) may be disprivileged in aspects that have the potential to shorten lifespans; which would be a fundamental disprivilege.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

No, gender is actually a social construct, different people fit the construct to differing degrees (and that's biological) but under a different gender construct those people would fit differently. For example, in a highly homosocial society homosexuality is a norm and men who are mildly intersex become objects of desire (as they are less threatening to Alpha males) whilst highly feminine women become less desirable than more "boyish" ones. Conversely, we live in a society which has normalised heterosexual relationships and constructed highly differenced genders in support of this which means that intersex people are naturally threatening.

It's like sociopathy, it's only a bad thing if your particular sociopathic tendencies are considered negative in your society.

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I guess I wasn't clear enough: I am using the biological definition of gender (which some people insist on referring to as sex), which is based on the production and/or presence of germ cells.

This most basic definition describes something that is invariant with culture, even when given some natural extensions in the case of infertility (if you had what looked liked egg cells or sperm cells (and were fully capable of delivering them/having delivered to them), but were incapable of producing offspring with other humans due to an incompatibility of the germ cells, you'd be neuter according to the most basic definition; as biological gender forms a pairwise binary by compatibility of germ cells and delivery mechanisms (or, in theory at least: a higher order system, such as a trinary or a quaternary)).

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Originally Posted by Viking

if you had what looked liked egg cells or sperm cells (and were fully capable of delivering them/having delivered to them), but were incapable of producing offspring with other humans due to an incompatibility of the germ cells, you'd be neuter according to the most basic definition

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So pensioners are neuter gender, I see.:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

So pensioners are neuter gender, I see.:laugh4:

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This is relates to the natural extensions I mentioned (though most male pensioners are still fertile, so it's not necessary for them...). Even if the reproductive organs were completely removed, most big organisms would still have plenty of secondary gender characteristics that would make it meaningful to talk about male and females. Some common examples are size, physical strength, colouring, shape and what they feed on.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Some common examples are size, physical strength, colouring, shape and what they feed on.

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Again, seniors tend to show great similarity in the aspects you enumerated, at least in physical strength, shape and food they consume.:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Viking

This is where the fact that any individual belongs to a whole lot of different groups enters the picture: the effects of a disprivileged group membership can more than cancel out the effects of a privileged group membership. For almost any group that is privileged on average would you be able to find members who in sum are less privileged than members of a disprivileged group. The only way to make sure that you end up with a truly privileged group, is to define the group by the members being privileged in some way; in which case gender, skin colour and similar categories are too broad and arbitrary.

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Let me put it this way. A female Saudi Arabian minister knows more about being a woman in Saudi Arabia than the average very poor Saudi Arabian man living on the streets. Agreed? So that means that the average man in Saudi Arabia doesn't know much about being a woman there. So when he's talking about women, he'll talk from an uninformed position and will miss tons of details that are obvious for a Saudi Arabian woman and that affects them negatively. Now change that poor man to a man in power. He'll know about as much and as an extra bonus will make laws about women he knows very little about.

Privilege as a term is all about that matter. It's a term about things you can't normally know through first hand experience since it will never happen to you. But for the other group it's common knowledge. Basically the term originates from white poor people knowing all about being poor, but they still know nothing about being black and living under Jim Crow laws. They might think they do, but they don't.

It's also a vector word, rather than a summary. Male privilege is on a different scale than native privilege, with poverty as a third, etc.

The term "check your privilege" is basically a term for maybe your base assumptions, made from your experiences, might not match the reality (for the group you're talking about, as an example). And since its origin and what is most interesting for a certain type of social studies are about groups with notable weaker power than the norm, that will be the focus of the term.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

Let me put it this way. A female Saudi Arabian minister knows more about being a woman in Saudi Arabia than the average very poor Saudi Arabian man living on the streets. Agreed? So that means that the average man in Saudi Arabia doesn't know much about being a woman there. So when he's talking about women, he'll talk from an uninformed position and will miss tons of details that are obvious for a Saudi Arabian woman and that affects them negatively. Now change that poor man to a man in power. He'll know about as much and as an extra bonus will make laws about women he knows very little about.

Privilege as a term is all about that matter. It's a term about things you can't normally know through first hand experience since it will never happen to you. But for the other group it's common knowledge. Basically the term originates from white poor people knowing all about being poor, but they still know nothing about being black and living under Jim Crow laws. They might think they do, but they don't.

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This describes a different and unrelated concept relative to the most basic definition of privilege. The female would not know what life is like for the male, either. She would only be able to make assumptions. This lack of knowledge is invariant with a group's privilege.


(a privilege by law is also a rather different beast than privilege by general socialisation)

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The term "check your privilege" is basically a term for maybe your base assumptions, made from your experiences, might not match the reality (for the group you're talking about, as an example).

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Many of those who speak about privilege are themselves from the supposed privileged groups, which becomes problematic from this perspective: they do not know what they are talking about any more than those who are sceptical of the presented concepts of privilege, but simply make other sorts of assumptions - perhaps based on a different set of anecdotes.

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Originally Posted by Viking

This describes a different and unrelated concept relative to the most basic definition of privilege. The female would not know what life is like for the male, either. She would only be able to make assumptions. This lack of knowledge is invariant with a group's privilege.

(a privilege by law is also a rather different beast than privilege by general socialisation)

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That's because everyday speech is different from social studies speech. Its focus is entirely on how weaker groups relate to the norm, and the disadvantages the weaker group has by deviating from the norm. And those belonging to the norm doesn't notice those disadvantages and don't have them and are thus privileged.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Many of those who speak about privilege are themselves from the supposed privileged groups, which becomes problematic from this perspective: they do not know what they are talking about any more than those who are sceptical of the presented concepts of privilege, but simply make other sorts of assumptions - perhaps based on a different set of anecdotes.

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It depends of course. You can be very well read about the issues another group has, and it's possible to know more about the general issue than the average person belonging to that group (the specific issues are another matter).

It's also possible to talk positively about terms you never really got.

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Originally Posted by Viking

the most basic definition of privilege.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

That's because everyday speech is different from social studies speech.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I've just been trying to point out how usages vary, and how this should be taken into account when criticizing some view. For example, as HT was fond of pointing out, "estimate" has a popular usage and a technical-mathematical usage.

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lol

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Originally Posted by Ironside

That's because everyday speech is different from social studies speech. Its focus is entirely on how weaker groups relate to the norm, and the disadvantages the weaker group has by deviating from the norm. And those belonging to the norm doesn't notice those disadvantages and don't have them and are thus privileged.

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Not really relevant; it's an observation of how such a phenomenon cuts both ways. This may have non-trivial consequences; such as both exaggeration and underestimation of disprivilege.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

lol

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Not relevant here.

But I and my 200 000 friends could define 'Nazis' as those who disagree with us; and if some people object to our usage of that term, we can just say "well, we define 'Nazi' that way, so go eat a biscuit". You specifically mentioned 'SJWs' in that post you quote, and they are generally not academics. They also use these terms intentionally outside of their own circles; just as it was used in the article that sparked this topic.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Not really relevant; it's an observation of how such a phenomenon cuts both ways. This may have non-trivial consequences; such as both exaggeration and underestimation of disprivilege.

Not relevant here.

But I and my 200 000 friends could define 'Nazis' as those who disagree with us; and if some people object to our usage of that term, we can just say "well, we define 'Nazi' that way, so go eat a biscuit". You specifically mentioned 'SJWs' in that post you quote, and they are generally not academics. They also use these terms intentionally outside of their own circles; just as it was used in the article that sparked this topic.

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You have to have a term talking about the tendency for the US police to kill black people and get away with it despite all evidence indicating that it was more or less murder, while still having a black president, who ended up accused of not being US born (a peculiar accusation), despite his opponent being not US born (born in at the time in US territory).
Or other such generic disadvantages.

Of course, when that spreads outside academic circles, they'll keep the language.

And considering how often Nazi is thrown around as an insult, I'm not sure I follow you on that. If you want to be picky, in that case, it's the academics who use the word sparingly, while the general population blurs it out.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

You have to have a term talking about the tendency for the US police to kill black people and get away with it despite all evidence indicating that it was more or less murder, while still having a black president, who ended up accused of not being US born (a peculiar accusation), despite his opponent being not US born (born in at the time in US territory).
Or other such generic disadvantages.

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You do expect the choice of a term to be related to the common or normal meaning of it. The less related it is, the more inappropriate it is to use it outside of an academic context.

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Of course, when that spreads outside academic circles, they'll keep the language.

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But the concepts they have in mind may not be copied so faithfully. Either way, if people are going to use common words with non-obvious meanings, it's imperative to specify and/or explain these meanings - as long as there is a desire to be understood correctly.

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And considering how often Nazi is thrown around as an insult, I'm not sure I follow you on that. If you want to be picky, in that case, it's the academics who use the word sparingly, while the general population blurs it out.

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Its usage as an insult is typically relatively arbitrary and sporadic. What I was suggesting was for e.g. a movement to include 'Nazi' in its regular terminology, but with a meaning that is unrelated to the original meaning; and where the usage of the word has obvious rhetorical potential.

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in its regular terminology, but with a meaning that is unrelated to the original meaning; and where the usage of the word has obvious rhetorical potential.

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That is actually perhaps the big problem with SJW-ism (metaphysical or epistemological quarrels aside).

Terms like "appropriation", "privilege", and "racism" with a lot of rhetorical baggage in non-obvious and often unelaborated or equivocal ways.

One might even say that they are the ones practicing "appropriation" of a sort. :creep:

It doesn't help that a big chunk of the popular part of the movement uses these terms carelessly or without awareness and purely as put-downs or insults, i.e. without what some call "propositional" content. So, in other words, it becomes very difficult to discuss an issue with them, since there is a lurking need to clarify definitions. Often, the movement will prove so diverse that different members will use the same terms in contradictory ways, or in ways that contradict the core tenets of other sub-sets of the base.

For example: "Cultural racism" is sometimes invoked as opposed to "naturalistic" racism.

I feel it's disingenuous to borrow the connotations of the latter (with reference to its roots in the justifications for prejudice in the 18th and 19th centuries) to discuss cultural influences on behavior, as discussing cultural influence on behavior is what everyone, including SJWs, does anyway. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems to conflict with a common SJW predilection for sociologism and emphasis on culture in behavior. Furthermore, the implication seems to be that culture is effective generally in behavior except specifically in economic performance. I have never seen such a thing flatly stated or defended, but that's the implication, and it seems difficult to defend on its face.

Or when "racism" is defined specifically as a relationship from more powerful to less powerful groups, and as specifically systemic. Depending on how this sort of definition is composed, it can actually become impossible to describe an individual as a "racist", since obviously most individuals are not major power brokers in their societies. Clearly, to subscribe to this definition and still call an individual "a racist" is sophism. But "bigot" doesn't have the same "weight", and using new, more precise terms would would obviously have an uphill struggle first within academia, and then throughout the rest of the public consciousness.

Clarity and precision is definitely a huge deficit in SJW-ism. The movement really needs to consolidate its positions before it can be considered seriously. As of now, the only unifying characteristic is a rhetoric of morality and self-righteousness - which makes them indistinguishable from the right-wing, in my point of view.