I agree.

:D

It looks like we agree. How would you determine that we really do think the same things? As opposed to just appearing to? — frank

I think we assume truth and trust in communication until we have a reason not to trust. So insofar that there's no reason to disbelieve then you're probably close enough to count for "really agreeing" as opposed to "apparently agreeing".

And I think it reasonable to suppose that this case can be generalised, such that if in any conversation we were to list the points of agreement against the points of disagreement, it would be unusual to find the former to be shorter than the latter. — Banno

In any conversation -- I think that makes sense. We usually end conversations when there's too much disagreement or we're confused.

And truth be told, given the intuition I presented on beliefs -- that they evaporate rather quickly -- that'd be enough to counter my example.

This is of course a simplification of Davidson's more rigorous argument concerning the incommensurability of conceptual schemes, from which I am convinced, contrary to the popular view, that talk of the map not being the territory mis-pictures what is going on; that in the case of language one cannot distinguish the map and the territory in this way.

And that's what I think is in error in the posing of the question in the title.

I think you're right in the case of language. The closest thing to a map of language is something like the OED -- but they keep on adding things because we keep on coining new words. So you can't really go back to the map to figure out the meaning of a word -- you have to use it.

The peculiarity of gender and sexual identity in this culture is that what Nature contrives must first be hidden from public gaze, and then indicated by conventional signs of hairstyle, clothing, and behaviour. This invests sex and sexual identity with totemic power that makes this thread significant in a way that a discussion about, say, eye colour is not. Genitals are hidden like The Holy of Holies, and other such religious mysteries. Sex is the religion of modernity, and this thread should belong in the philosophy of religion section, except that no one here is questioning the foundations of practice and belief. — unenlightened

I agree that sex is the religion of modernity. Individual romantic love with a sexual partner is constantly shown not just as the positive relationship that it is, but as a kind of cure-all for life.

Also I think I'd like to develop this relationship between gender and religion more. There's a strong analogue there -- it could be that religion satisfied needs which gender now does, which would explain why people dig in. Also I like that religion doesn't have traits or behaviors really associated with it, though partially so -- much like gender.

I'm asking why it's only society that has the mandated role to play, why is my responsive behaviour socially restricted along gender lines, but not the performative behaviour of the actual person whose gender it is? — Isaac

I think that's just how pronouns work. If you misgender a cis person then you are corrected, right?

It's the same correction.

I think perhaps the problem with the term 'toxic masculinity' is that it is not clear-cut. From previous posts, we can see how meanings vary with more or less violence attached. It can suffer from vagueness and being overgeneralised.

That is why I try to supply real examples. I read current news. What's going on? To bring it back to your question of 'Ethics'. However, the post re Iranian women and the 'morality police' was ignored. Why? — Amity

I read it, couldn't think of a response, moved onto the next post and then continued to pursue that thread.

Basically I got distracted.

Yes. Isn't that why you posted the thread in the 'Ethics' subforum?
Why is it hard to get to a 'should'? Is this all Hume's fault? The is-ought problem? — Amity

It is why I put it in the ethics subforum.

It's hard to get to a "should" because most will feel that any "should" is either obviously true or obviously false. People's minds are usually solidly made up on matters of ethics, and they're not interested in changing their mind, so they're not interested in exploring the logical or conceptual relationships between their ethical beliefs.

I think it's our attachment to moral commitments that makes it hard to get to a "should" -- we can easily accept the is-ought problem and then proceed from there (I tend to favor moral anti-realism via error-theory, but clearly I care about ethics even though I'm more "pro" is/ought distinction these days -- it's something I go back and forth on though)

And so it goes with gender, sex, and identity.

When you see something that is clearly wrong, isn't there an impulse to do something about it?
But not everybody knows or cares enough about whatever 'it' might be.
Some believe it is above their pay grade.
Sometimes, we feel helpless, frustrated, and impotent. After all, what power do we have?

However, when enough people are adversely affected, there can be spontaneous collective action. Sometimes there can be coordinated efforts by different activist groups.
Unfortunately, even after apparent success or progress, the problem is shown never to have gone away.

Today, I read of Iran's 'reinstatement' of the 'morality police': 'to deal with civilians who “ignore the consequences of not wearing the proper hijab and insist on disobeying the norms”.
This comes 2 months ahead of anniversary of the death in custody of Mahsa Amini for not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf.

Among those killed during protests after Amini’s death was Minoo Majidi, a 62-year-old mother who was shot with 167 pellets. She reportedly said to her family before attending protests in Kermanshah: ‘If I don’t go out and protest, who else will?’ Her daughter Mahsa Piraei said her mother always valued women’s rights and freedom.
— No other option but to fight - Iranian women defiance against morality police

***
I admit my ignorance. I had wrongly assumed that those policing the women, in what some term 'gender apartheid' by the clerical regime, would be a male-only force. So, I was surprised when I looked at the Guardian's headline photograph of 'Two veiled ‘morality police’ approach women on the streets of Tehran.' Then again, there is nothing new about women v women. Females are not all 'sisters'. Just as males are not all 'brothers'.
So, who are the morality police?

For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Komiteh was comprised of religiously devout followers of the regime who joined the force at the encouragement of clerics. However, by the early 2000s, Iran’s population was comprised mostly of young people. When Ahmadinejad made the Komiteh an official police force, a number of young men joined to fulfill their mandatory military conscription. This younger generation was more lax than their older counterparts, leading to inconsistent patrolling.
— Who are Iran's Morality Police? - The Conversation

And here we have it. A question for wonderer1: Is this a result of 'evolutionary psychology'?
A changing sense of morality? Young men unwilling to act against their modern (possibly secular) beliefs yet are forced to do so.

A line from the film 'Australia':
Just because something 'is', doesn't mean it should be.
Who polices the 'morality police'? — Amity

This is the part that threw me off before. I'm not sure what to connect this to. So mentally I marked your post as "get back to" -- but then got distracted.

But in terms of "What is to be done?" -- my answer, as ever, is to organize.

But on this site I think all that can be done is to philosophize. And that is as it should be. There really should be more spaces where people can express their weird thoughts and pick them apart.

I'll gladly follow along with a parents' observations over my own thoughts, though offer my thoughts if asked for.

I can definitely see the thumbing your nose stance. I often times feel that, but then I'm drawn back because so many people are attached to these things in various ways.

Gender is more important than I thought it was, at least, as a has-been abolish-gender international class-first anarcho-marxist.

if I make predictions using my model and they turn out relatively unsurprising. If they don't, I've been dishonest — Isaac

So this is different than I'd think -- the predictions are beforehand, and if it feels right to break your predictions then I'd say that's more honest than trying to predict ahead of time if I'm going to do this or that.

Though I'm a creature of habit and am certainly predictable in many ways -- I just think honesty with self has more to do with being in tune and less to do with predicting yourself. I'd say when we're honest with ourselves that's when we're most likely to find out what's different from our predictions about ourself.

If the trans woman can say to me "use 'she' that's what you say to women", why I can't I say "wear a dress, that's what women wear". — Isaac

Because men and women and all the others can and do wear dresses -- and women also don't wear dresses. That is, the behavior doesn't define the identity, nor do traits. Whatever identity is, it's not those (though some identities identify with those). There are some roles which are slotted for the genders which people are attached to, but people also overcome these along with traits-based views while maintaining their gender identity: Think here not of trans but of cis -- how many cis people have you known who undergo physical and occupational changes which don't align with their self-picture, but still manage to identify as their gender? Does a man cease to be a man if he doesn't have a job? Does a man cease to be a man if he has erectile dysfunction? Does a man cease to be a man if he has feminine feelings?

Who is best to decide these things other than the person whose identity it is? How could you possibly answer these questions for someone else ahead of time without talking to them? Remember the scenario posited was a stranger -- there's something to a point of view being important to a person's identity. It'd be awfully odd to conclude about a person's identity without ever talking to them, but instead making predictions from afar? If not then functionally I'd say the algorithms know us better than we know ourselves -- but there's a sense in which measurement of a person changes how they are. The very presence of a standard changes how we think and act.


I'll go back to the Morman's as a community with a public notion of gender which at least was strictly binary: publicly "I'm not that" is an available locution, even there. If the public is ignorant of how I am, which they certainly were, then I can always reach for that publicly known meaning. And when given the option between two choices I can always say "neither" -- even if it leads to contradiction in the concepts in play, the option is available. In a way I'm asking the community to shift how they use words to accommodate me, sure. And when it comes to something basic like my own identity the ask is on pain of rejecting the community -- I may not have a lot of power, but I can at least leave and make my own community with other people who agree with me.

And the people who disagreed? Well, now that we have a publicly available meaning, we can say -- as they did -- that they're just wrong. If it's your safety that's at stake, then "they're just wrong" is a remarkably easy justification.

But that's exactly what I want to avoid. I don't think we're incommensurable, in principle -- though we like to put up our barriers in practice, I believe we'll be able to weather the tide of gender changes and find ways to communicate again (while, of course, capital will try and use any identity conflicts or differences to split us up)

Of them all, I think this one: 'artificial lights resemble the frequencies of light emitted by the sex pheromones of female moths' is quite apt with regard to 'the man playing at philosopher'. — Amity

The origin of philosophy as the artificial satiation of sexual desire?

Or the act of philosophy as mating ritual without an object?

What do you mean by 'identity'? — Amity

Something important to a person which orients them in the world. In particular an identity is not traits-based or behavior-based, in my articulation, but is more akin to being-in-the-world, but I'd rather not rely on that formulation because it concerns itself with equipmentality which seems different to me than identity.

What to mean by "identity" is a more general version of the question, what is a man? Whatever a gender-identity is, an identity is a generalization from even that.

What is the malformation, how does this present and who gets to diagnose it? — Amity

I'dd say the malformation is at least related to the definition of toxic masculinity offered, the way toxic masculinity presents is violently, and we are the ones who get to diagnose it. I'm not sure the term can be used in terms of self-identification unless someone feels penitent, but for the most part I think it's a diagnosis from the outside rather than a self-identification. It is a kind of violence, as I said earlier to @unenlightened -- but given the violence of the world it's justified. In some ways the psychological-type is an attempt at understanding how someone could come to make the decision of hurting their romantic partner. What's up with the continued violence women are subjected to in our society? One possible explanation is that we have unhealthy identities which makes it feel right (enough, at least) to use violence.

So, the characteristic of being 'masculine' in mind, body or spirit can be 'malformed'.
If it means not fitting what is usual, the correct shape or way of being, this could be applied to any person without it necessarily being toxic, ugly or frightening. It depends on perspective and context. A group identity related to ethnicity, culture or country. — Amity

Right. So the focus is on harm to self and others, not difference. Even if most people are not malformed, in this way, the one who is would be better off -- or at least more content -- if they weren't.

The undesirability of systemic 'toxic masculinity' concerns more than what a 'real man' is, or is not. — Amity

True.

Though I don't think we'll be able to encompass all concerns with a single antidote, right? This answer more in the spirit of answering the original question, or riffing on the notion of real man which I reject at the outset.

What would you propose as antidote?

Yup, definitely in the wheelhouse of where I'm coming from.

Clearly at least listening would be a good start. — Srap Tasmaner

It's the hardest thing to learn and teach and practice, in my opinion.

Levinas' phenomenology is what comes closest to an exposition of listening, but it's also part of the Bad Guy philosophy so it's hard to float with people who prefer the Good Guy philosophy.

A lot of my own personal thoughts revolve around the concept of listening as primary, which means it plays a central role in my thinking but I have no good articulation for it -- which is why I come back to it.

Okay so this is exactly analogous to "Believe women". It's not that you can't exhort people to hold some belief, but the basis being offered -- and reasons will be required here -- is essentially that you can't be wrong about this, that identity beliefs are special and incorrigible.

I'd really love to see a different solution. — Srap Tasmaner

Me too. What do you think I'm doing here? Scratch padding my way to that. I don't think "can't be wrong" or "incorrigible" are the right predicates. Those are obviously fatal in that we can be wrong, and we can improve our own self-understanding. A standpoint, yes, but not incorrigible. And I believe there is something to defending standpoints in other scenarios too -- such as the case of expertise, for instance. And it's not a case of the knowledge being special, but the more mundane part of having more knowledge or being in a better position to not make mistakes (though experts also make mistakes)

But I'm not sure how to articulate it. I'm still unsatisfied with my attempts here.

when was the last time you were honest with yourself? — Isaac

This is a perfect question to get at what I'm trying to get at.

How could I tell if I am honest with myself or not?

One way would be to set up a standard for myself -- the beliefs which make me feel sad about the world and myself are the ones which are more honest, and the beliefs which make me feel happy about the world and myself are the noble lies.

But I'd be lying to myself in setting up that standard since honesty with yourself isn't about sorting yourself into categories but being in tune with who you are.

So another way would be to allow an outside observer have a standard.

The problem there is that the outside observer is in a relationship with me, but is being asked to pretend that they are not in a relationship with me to make objective determinations about whether I am being honest with myself or not. So they'll stop listening to me while listening to me from the analyst's perspective. It's no more honest than the self-determination I started with because the analyst would be lying to themself about what they see, denying the relationship that we're in.

Which is to answer your:

Better how? — Isaac

It's better at building a relationship, which I think is how we come to feel our identities in the first place. The conversation is two-way at all times, even if we are using words slightly differently. We come to learn more about ourselves as we learn more about others, just like with history we come to know about the past just as much as we come to know the storyteller and it matters both the topic and the speaker.

In a relationship it takes two, and identity is found in relationship with others.

For me I always believe we should respect the self-expression of others. I've been in enough situations where I've had to figure out how I'm supposed to act to know how alienating that feels, so I tend to favor self-expression over whatever categories I happen to hold to at the time. But what this has taught me also is that listening to another's story is better for learning more about the world and yourself -- otherwise it's very easy to get trapped in my little web of thoughts.

my earlier post (you either missed or ignored) re ethics and 'morality police' was in response to this stand-alone post: — Amity

Heh, sorry. The moth is drawn to the light, and the man playing at philosopher is drawn to disagreement.

If there is a part of humanity which is deemed 'toxic' as in poisonous, what is the antidote? — Amity

My thought is that a toxic masculinity is a malformed identity. Now if...

identification is necessarily divisive. No us without them. No male without female. Hence the famous story about the Buddhist visiting N.Ireland being asked insistently, "Yes, but are you a Catholic buddhist of a Protestant buddhist?" The very idea of being both or neither threatens everyone's own identity and the very laws of logic themselves. — unenlightened

this may not work, because I'm contrasting it with what I'd consider a non-divisive identity, at least with respect to itself. A healthy identity leads to a happy life, and an unhealthy one leads to needless pain for itself and others.

I think there is such a thing as an undivided self, I suppose. But it's not in a category -- a healthy identity leads to contentment with life. In a meta-ethical way this can be questioned on the basis of The Good, but I more or less take it for granted that a content life is better and let those who want to be discontent to work out how that works over there in that part of the philosophy jungle.

Getting side-tracked...

"Toxic masculinity is an identity of the masculine which identifies itself with power, and the feminine with love, and denies itself the feminine. If you feel love, the feminine, then that is a weakness which the powerful wouldn't need to succumb to, and insofar that you feel love you should act to purge it to become a real man."

An attempted antidote: a real man feels and acts on love before the pursuit of power, or at least on virtue before the pursuit of power, and does not deny himself his feelings or attack himself for the feelings that he has. A real man is content with his discontentment, and learns to live with himself as he is.

Heh. Long-haired men solidarity! :strong:

If you want to say that we don't take their word for some things but we do for others, the identity things, then you're back to having to clearly demarcate those identity things even to make your point. Your religion example, for instance -- I could tell you a long story about my second marriage that would undermine claims that self-reported faith is reliable. So maybe sometimes it's an identity thing and sometimes it's not. What are we doing here? — Srap Tasmaner

I think my point can get off the ground insofar that we agree we take people at their word on anything at all.

I thought @Isaac might view religious identification in the same way as gender identification in that there are people who claim these things, they insist they are different, but divinity and gender do not exist. That's why I chose the example.

I'm just not sure you can make good on identifying identity such that identity related claims should be treated as incorrigible. I would rather we not even require something that messy become tidy just to make political progress.

I agree here.

Though this thread is anything but tidy, so I think I've even gone some way to demonstrate my agreement ;)

Consider this. If I want to be seen as what I feel myself to be, you taking my word for it that I am what I claim to be is just not the same thing, is it? If you truly don't see me as I desire, what does your taking my word for it amount to? Even if you manage to do both, how will you handle the cognitive dissonance?

When I think "taking your word" I guess I mean I believe it. So if you have cognitive dissonance the next step would be to ask something, if you have that level of trust, or make a choice, or hold onto it to think about it awhile.

Seems to me the "taking my word for it" is a cheap substitute for the real thing. And it might be worse than nothing, because one way of handling the cognitive dissonance is to try not to see me at all, so you can continue to endorse my claim without discomfort. That's not what I wanted!

True. I think I understand where you're going with this. Hopefully you see this isn't what I'm endorsing?

Politically, it looks like the "take my word for it" view is all but openly a stopgap, a kind of expedient compromise. There's something similar in dealing with rape: "Believe women." Well no that's just dumb, but it's a deliberate over-correction to the overwhelming tendency to dismiss women's claims. If there ever comes a day when women's words aren't discounted, no one will think "Believe women" a suitable rallying cry.

My attempts here are to express it as something more than a stopgap, though I feel it has been inadequate and is still a work in progress.

I think we usually take each other's word for it. We both believe we're expressing our opinions on this site, rather than trolling one another from afar. And language doesn't work without some level of give-and-take, though we find words to disagree upon for various reasons.

I'm not advocating a categorical imperative here as much as saying if you want to be able to theorize gender identity you have to begin with the face-to-face relation to the other. (but without so many words).

But to come back to the point Isaac was making, there seems to be a demand that we all not do what we all do, that we not even consider the possibility that particular sorts of stories people tell about themselves are not perfectly true. You argued that we need to just ask and take people's word for it when they answer, but we don't do that for anything and it's an unreasonable demand. — Srap Tasmaner

Is that the demand? I wouldn't go so far as to say people cannot tell false things about themselves. Sure they can, and we do.

But when it comes to someone's basic identity that they live with I'd say we take people's word for it almost always. Maybe we think there's this bit or that bit which we'd say different, but we don't ask if the person is talking about something unrelated without a reason. "Are you sure you're Baptist? That sounds Catholic"

In the case of gender I think that reason is there are individuals who don't follow popular beliefs about gender, but they are just as genuine as any expression of gender.

That is excellent, because the way it enters is via the devilish wrong understanding, like wot da Bible say. — unenlightened

Totally unintended -- I think we started with toxic masculinity in the old vein of trying to understand the normal from the abnormal.

But I think there is also a simpler, and much more general explanation of the conflict which is that identification is necessarily divisive. No us without them. No male without female. Hence the famous story about the Buddhist visiting N.Ireland being asked insistently, "Yes, but are you a Catholic buddhist of a Protestant buddhist?" The very idea of being both or neither threatens everyone's own identity and the very laws of logic themselves.

I, to prove your point, disagree with your opening, which means we are now two.

I think trans identity works as you describe though -- that it violates the very laws of logic by threatening everyone's identity.

As an old hippy, I well remember the horrified complaint about men with long hair – "but you can't tell whether it's a boy or a girl!" And as I have said at tedious length, sex is of fundamental importance to a patrilineal society, and not so much if at all to a matrilineal one, thereby allowing more focus on which end one opens one's boiled egg at breakfast (all right thinking folk, men and women alike, are obviously little-enders), and other such vital issues.

Heh. Weird that the conservative spaces I lived in can give similar experiences across time -- we called ourselves punk rock, but it's basically the same thing and I also got picked on for long hair.

I agree that sex is important only because of patrilineal descent of property. How else, prior to modern molecular biological technology, could you tell that your child was your child?

But on eggs -- as is typical, I'm that weirdo who starts in the middle

Oh! You should have said the opposite. Identity is precisely an issue of the autobiographical self. — Srap Tasmaner

Heh. My thinking would differentiate between mere autobiography and History :D -- Biography, sure! That's history. Autobiography? That's primary literature.

Self-knowledge is precisely the autobiographical self? That's close, but then there's the kind of knowledge I act on without articulation and have to articulate later. I knew what I was doing and who I was the whole time, but the articulation -- categories -- come after the fact.

But it is a story and serves a purpose. It's not just the unvarnished truth. — Srap Tasmaner

Oh yes.

A simple fact that can be complicated.

Still, there is something to this kind of knowledge, as you admit. Even calling it a "knowledge" -- there are various known deficiencies in recollection, but I'll still know better than a total stranger about my life story, while in a court room or a psychotherapist's session I could come to believe entirely fabricated memories.

Right. It is just not one of the purposes of the autobiographical self to be a truthful record of your life. So yes truth and falsehood are irrelevant to its function -- for you. Not entirely irrelevant to other people I think. We do tend to make judgements about how self-aware people are, because we need to know how seriously to take what they say about themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

I make the judgment, but I'm not sure that I tend to make the judgment of others' self-awareness for the various things I've been thinking through and about. I think what I've found is that it's far too easy to believe you have judged another's self-awareness when there's something missed.

Yeah, that's right. Insofar as there's something immutable and sacred there. I mean, you made a really good showing, but you'd have to admit that your paragraph explaining what an identity is was hardly clear. I don't think it's beyond reason to think that the reason you're having trouble pinning it down is because there's nothing there to pin. — Isaac

I agree that it's not beyond reason. An interpretation of Hume asserts that we're nothing but bundles without an intrinsic nature (another is that reason fails to grasp who we are while the heart doesn't). And, definitely it's not clear to me. That's part of why I find it interesting! And why I think about it from the philosophical perspective. Not just that it's unclear, but that it may be a feature of the very thing we're talking about. Or, at least, this is how I see things: that another explanation for vagueness is that the phenomena is such that it's not really pin-able. I tend to believe there are at least two "kinds" of knowledge -- scientific and historic. They are similar in that they are about reality, make claims about what's happened and what's happening and what will happen, and are based upon facts that can be demonstrated in some fashion. Historical knowledge is what a knowledge of identity is amenable under(though not uniquely, as I think self-knowledge isn't exactly history), but historic knowledge doesn't have all the benefits of scientific knowledge. Namely it's not falsifiable, and it comes in narrative form as its primary mode -- it's based on facts, but it's as much about the storyteller as it is the story because it's even more theory-laden than science without the benefit of being able to demonstrate a disproof from prediction. Further the notions of how the world works change between historians moreso than between scientists with respect to their subject of expertise (scientists disagree all the time, but usually there's a large body of agreement on the knowledge they're working on)

Think -- what are the scientific data which can even be correlated with, say, the meaning of Homer's epic poem? There are no ancient Greeks whose brain we can measure, but we're able to translate meaning from then into our own. Would the correlates which a person has while reading Shakespeare change the theme of Hamlet? Aren't most of the things in our life that we care about not really reducible in this way?

Primarily I'd say identity is like this. And reading your exchange with @Srap Tasmaner (ah! I didn't finish this thought because the post was too long already -- I picked up on the notion of performance and worked it in below though)

Let's say I ask you - what is your identity? How did you learn what word would do the job to explain to me what it is? Why 'Woman', or 'Man'? Why not 'cat'? How did you learn that 'Man' and 'Woman' were legitimate answers to that question, but 'cat', or 'the capital of France' didn't make any sense?

It's from you language community, right? So 'woman' has no meaning outside of what we use the word for -we, the language community. It can't mean only what you use the word for, that wouldn't make any sense, the word wouldn't do anything and you couldn't possibly know that you were using it to mean the same thing one day to the next (messy rehash of the private language argument).

But 'woman' is not like 'cat', it seems to be used to do different things in different contexts. Sometimes pretty biological taxonomy, sometime social roles, sometime behaviours... but these thing all have one thing in common, the one thing all language does... the terms are publicly available. I can learn from you what 'woman' means in your language game, and you can learn the same from me. That way we can use language in our cooperative ventures.

It's my belief that when we describe aspects of ourselves, we're reaching for these publicly constructed models to best explain what are essentially just interocepted nerve signals, memory re-firing of past neural patterns, and no small amount of random noise.

What I don't believe for a moment, is that a) some constitution of this mental goings on is correct, immutable and sacred, and b) known only to you and not picked off the shelf of publicly available models associated with the word you choose.

I don't believe (a) because we see too much the same mental goings on interpreted as different constructions by the same people at different times. We're wildly unfaithful even to our own models and we've absolutely no better idea what's going on than the person sat next to us.

I don't believe (b) because we don't just pick random words to describe these 'identities', we pick words we've learnt, and we can only have learnt those words from a community of language users, who must, therefore, know what the word means, which means, by definition, you could be wrong. — Isaac

I don't think I'd foist the problem of identity onto language use. I believe the Private Language Argument to hold in that it demonstrates there is no such thing as a private language. But I don't think that identity-talk relies upon a notion of a private language as much as it relies upon a standpoint of some kind, which is much more defensible than a full-blown Subject.

I think a lot of people feel that their identity is immutable, sacred, and private. Upon coming back to thinking on The Subject I think while they are technically incorrect there's more. While there are philosophical reasons to reject immutable and private -- sacred, I think, is something which most people still hold to, and I'm not sure there are philosophical reasons for that outside of a flat denial of the sacred (it's more an ethical question than an ontological one where the sacred shouldn't be profaned) -- In terms of how we converse people will know more about themselves than you know about them because they've been around themselves the whole time. This not in a fancy way, but the simple fact that people will be better able to construct a story about themselves than strangers who know nothing about them. There is a kind of knowledge there about themselves, their preferences, what they've done, what they'd like to do, how they feel, and all that which I only have access to through language if they are willing to tell me. I can make guesses, and be correct, and I can know an individual person better than themself in a particular way (especially in intimate relationships where you do share feelings), but they'll always have that perspective of themselves that I do not have.

To step away from gender and look at another scenario, how would you know a Baptist from a Buddhist? They are both ways of life that don't rely upon traits -- and, in truth, people rarely live up to the behaviors of their way of life. But a person could still be a Baptist or a Buddhist, yes? It's not like it's false for them to be either of these things, to feel this certain way about the world and their place within it, to know what they care about.

Now you've gone all the way so the analogy wouldn't work for you. Identity isn't real because...

It's my belief that when we describe aspects of ourselves, we're reaching for these publicly constructed models to best explain what are essentially just interocepted nerve signals, memory re-firing of past neural patterns, and no small amount of random noise.

But then how do Baptists and Buddhists talk to one another about the divine? Are they incommensurable worldviews, or could they find a way to talk to one another in spite of their differences?

I bring up religion because from the anthropological angle I don't see much of a difference between performances of Buddhism or Baptism from performances of Masculinity. They are central to a person's identity in a similar way and help guide a person in their place within the world. I'd go further and note that even though all identity is a kind of performance that doesn't make it false -- or, rather, the truth and falsity isn't as relevant as the significance of one's identity. Whether there is an existent which correlates with claims of identity isn't important at all. What matters is being heard and recognized as a person. (How could I respond to a person who believes I do not exist? What possible retort is there? What is true about asking others to do?)

That a particular language community doesn't have a language-game that recognizes me, for instance, wouldn't stop me from expressing myself as best I can within the context I find myself in. In fact, existentially, I couldn't stop expressing myself, as I am always myself regardless of the words I happen to know. If in a community of Morman's (switching to something I know more) who believe in the gender binary as at least sacred and immutable (though not private) I'll still say "I'm not that". The act of negation will always be open, even if the way the public uses words right now doesn't seem to match how I want to use them. That's not a private language, that's just how language works -- it morphs along with the use such that the meaning changes over time rather than sitting on a shelf for the public to pick up (at least, in my metaphor of language)

(a bit of an afterthought on the PLA -- you can jerrymander who the public is as to give your meaning preference)

Do I? That seems to be begging the question. If there's such a thing as an 'identity' and it's as important as you claim, then yes, I'd obviously have to take people at their word on it, it'd be mean not to. But that's only if such a thing exists. If it doesn't, then taking people at their word on it would be saying that I have to buy into their model, but they don't have to buy into mine, ever. Is conversation not a two-way cooperation? — Isaac

It is.

To be fair, most people don't think identity simply does not exist -- they think there is this or that thing to be said about identity. Further, that's the usual sentiment that trans individuals face -- that they are non-existent or confused -- so it's unlikely to find a person who has to deal with that on the daily be willing to entertain it in a philosophical spirit. It's like saying "I do not exist" -- the reverse cogito which disproves itself.

But this is a space for philosophical thinking, and I'm willing to entertain the notion. You've certainly entertained mine.

If there is no such thing as identity then my method is question-begging (as an aside, I tend to believe all beliefs about existence beg the question, but that would take us way too far astray).

So you'd commit to error-theory, then? Or at least the analogy that all identity talk is as existentially important as talk of horoscopes?

The point here is that it's not bigotry to disagree with the world-view you've just so carefully laid out. It's fine you think that way, but others don't. You can see, surely how those couple of paragraphs of nebulous uncertainty cannot drive even mandated social relations, let alone law. I can't justifiably be compelled to act in accordance with a notion you can even explain without resort to "hard to get at", "not sure that identity is amenable to scientific analysis", and "Being-in-the-world"...?

Why ought I believe someone who believes in the notion of 'identity', any more than I believe someone who believes in the notion of 'an eternal soul', or 'innate evil', or 'destiny'? — Isaac

By all means disagree with me. I've laid it out as philosophy, and that's the usual mode of conversation.

I don't think most people who are describing their identity are doing so in that vein, though. They're asking for recognition, which in turn means safety, whereas I'm attempting to at least reflect on the phenomena from a philosophical distance.

Disagreeing with a world-view is one thing. I think the push-back you receive is that it's not just a world-view that's at stake -- unlike here, where we really are just talking about ideas. Serious play, but at a distance so we can look at how we're thinking and reflect.

But once we exit the philosophy room the whirl begins again, and most people don't have a taste for philosophy, in my experience.

The thing I'm being asked to refer to is a thing I don't think exists. Can you see how that's a problem for me? — Isaac

Yes. That would certainly make everything confusing! You'd have to more or less ask the other person to make clear what we're talking about, and here I am saying "it's not clear, but it's not that -- you have to take people at their word" :D

I asked someone earlier if they believed gender-identity to be on par with, say, horoscopes -- a meaningful set of phrases that are all of them false, more or less offering an error theory of gender-identity. It seems that you'd commit to that? -- it's identity-talk, but we generally understand that as a set of phrases horoscopes cannot hold without context because they're purposefully written to be ambiguous so that we can find the correct context, and so it doesn't work to the standard of, say, a definition of a set.

I don't think error-theory works here, though, because gender is one of those things which gets re-expressed in many different ways throughout various cultures. At the very least, looking as societies as under a kind of natural selection, those which landed on rules where reproduction excels will have more numbers which leads to more relative power, which in turn, throughout history, has overwhelmingly favored patriarchal societies. The patriarchy is older than most of the systematic social structures I point out -- outlasting even the major economic changes, to go against some interpretations of the Base-Superstructure theory of Marx. And here I am certainly talking about the patrilineal descent and control of property as the background social structure that this all gets organized around

So I see it as there being something very basic, which is hard to get at that underlies this re-expression (what I've referred to as a way-of-being, in contradistinction to both traits and behaviors). I'd say our identities exist, but maybe not in the same way, or at least the way we usually talk about existence doesn't seem to work here since it's neither traits nor behaviors. I'm not sure that identity is amenable to scientific analysis, though I think historical analysis works. I've been situating gender within culture, because I think that's what gives shape and meaning to gender identity.

But when I do that -- that's when I land on these notions which are far from the lock tight demonstrations. The concepts are fragile, half-formed, and morphing along the way. How does anyone describe a way of doing things? We can say, in general, Being-in-the-world -- but that's the ontological expression rather than an expression of identity.

What I'm brought back to is that I think we all do this with respect to identity. How we relate to others isn't so much about the traits they hold, and is only partially dependent upon behaviors (consider how you can judge the same behavior as good or bad -- the perception of a person's overall reputation will guide how a perceiver judges a behavior).

Yeah. I can see that. I'm wary though of putting too much stock in 'that sounds plausible'. I've had too many theories that sounded plausible turn out not be the case on examination. But still, for what it's worth... that sounds plausible. — Isaac

Heh please don't put too much stock into it. I don't think it a universal theory, as much as a generalized observation of how people react to trans people. Especially on the psychological side -- it's pretty hard to predict what emotion is going to be the reason for actions in general, at least for me. I'm not sure it's always disgust, but it can be all kinds of emotions which still functionally lead to enforcing the central patriarchal norm -- the gender binary -- which is where I think the connection really comes from. It's because the binary is being violated that they are targets, since patriarchy relies upon the binary for its own justification.

And if I asked where the cup is, your answer, I hope, would be "It's in the cupboard", not some obtuse construct like "I don't know, but if you were to open the cupboard you might experience cup-ish-ly". — Banno

Oh yes. Complete without any sort of fancy theory of re-interpretation which says "what you really mean is" or some such.

I'm uncertain about the justification coming from an overwhelming set of beliefs we agree upon. How many beliefs does one mind hold? That we can come up, in a conversation, with beliefs we agree upon doesn't indicate that we have overwhelming agreement. If there are few beliefs that a mind can hold then overwhelming agreement comes from us agreeing upon statements within a conversation -- here's the set of beliefs we agree upon. But then we do not have a basis for inferring that our beliefs overwhelmingly agree -- we've just agreed to a base for disagreement to take place, rather than compared how many beliefs we have and judge whether there is overwhelming agreement or not. Instead we've agreed to a set of beliefs that can serve as a background for disagreement.

Do you mean trans women? With trans individual you're in danger of falling into the very caricature Tzeentch was painting where 'patriarchy' is simply a rather misandrist catchall term for every bit of oppression going on, and misogyny likewise for just 'being a dick'. — Isaac

At least insofar as I understand things, no. I believe patriarchy targets trans people as it targets women -- it's the same systematic cause. I don't think this is accidental or the result of a generalization to oppression, but rather that trans people are targets because they are living counter-examples to the belief that one's identity is determined by one's trait-based biology.

It's because of erroneous and emotionally volatile views on gender that a trans person is a target for patriarchy. Women are the declared targets of this enforced gender binary, as the group which is born to be subservient to men. Trans individuals, as living counter-examples, are also objects of patriarchy. Trans men aren't really given any more credence than trans women by our hypothetical misogynist, and it's still a disgust, at least, born from this view -- not quite resentment, but disgust, another ugly emotion.

The point of Baroness Falkner's argument, the point of the Equalities Act itself, is to protect a group of people who've been abused, both historically (and so in need of reparation) and currently. That group is defined by the abuser, not the abused, and it is based on biological characteristics (mostly to do with reproduction). That group need protection from that abuse, which means they need to be identified as a group. — Isaac

Heh. I don't think I'm ready to bring the law into the mix. The law is a whole perspective unto itself -- the need for identification is the need of bureaucrats who want their jobs to be easy. But as soon as we write it into words then the original method I proposed for knowing a person's identity -- asking them -- can no longer be relied upon. If a law is written then there's usually a reason to lie somewhere because the law is not a reflection of our identity, or even anywhere close to what an identity is. The law is an ancient bit of social technology which simultaneously protects the rights of kings and commoners in a weird mish-mash of historical concerns that gets us whatever the beast is now. In terms of politics the law is the description of the front -- what claims you can enforce, what claims you can't, and so on. The law is written by a small party of motivated interests, and the primary viewpoint that's never questioned in the law is the viewpoint of administration -- if your view cannot be administered, then the law is a feel-good law that has little effect. But if it can be put into a manner which others can deliberate then you can ensure something is going to happen, whatever that happens to be (we hope as intended, but...)

The scenario we were debating before would never be as crystalline as it is in our imaginations. One of the things about the scenario is we can simply specify "and this boss is a misogynist" when in real life that'd be a lot harder to determine. It's perfectly acceptable to posit that in a scenario to judge how our concepts, in this conversation, are relating to one another -- but I don't think it wise to take crystalline imaginations as a model for laws.

Lastly, I suspect that identity is such that the law cannot be satisfied. Even if we were to take the perspective of a gender-based definition in law, what then would our administrator think of the gender-fluid person, whose gender identity changes by the day? That would make an administrator's life difficult.

But surely we can identify however we identify, have it be genuine, even if the legal administrator can't understand us?

Women can be just as committed to their bliblical understanding of gender roles as the men they marry and whose children they raise. — Srap Tasmaner

Oh yes. Something that's often missed is that women can be patriarchal -- it's not an identity, but a system which is supported through cultural habit and technology. For it to persist you'd better not ignore roughly half of the population's habits!

A bit of a challenge to @Banno's idea that agreement is overwhelming --

I don't even think about it after I put it in the cupboard. I go off and do other things. Them beliefs are long gone the moment I put it where I want it.

I feel as if I've posted this one before, but if so I missed it while looking:

I like this because "should" finally entered the theory -- I really believe this is a topic in ethics more than ontology/epistemology! But it's hard to get there.

Got it.

We can continue using "love" with this clarification. I'm a little uncertain that the two kinds are unrelated, but I believe as we are more aware of the violence that can come from love we're also more able to choose the peaceful love rather than the violent love: There's a distinction to be made even if they are related emotions.

So, back to the theory -- oppression is power without the love that takes on pains, the love of laying down one's life for another, or brotherly love in the sense of taking on the pains of your brother despite the pain.

Toxic masculinity is an identity of the masculine which identifies itself with power, and the feminine with love, and denies itself the feminine. If you feel love, the feminine, then that is a weakness which the powerful wouldn't need to succumb to, and insofar that you feel love you should act to purge it to become a real man.

"Affection" works, especially with the clarification that we're not meaning it like that.

Well yes. we're back to power here, are we not? — unenlightened

Yes! Power differentials -- or as the anarchists put it, hierarchy -- is a common root to oppression. Or at least a pretty good abstraction of the various kinds of oppression.

The part I'm uncertain about is onboarding love to the general theory of oppression -- that it is power without love. In the case of a toxic masculinity I think you make sense here:

Thus masculinity becomes toxic to the extent that it identifies itself with power, and femininity with love. — unenlightened

But the main reason I'm uncertain about love is that while it is at least on the positive side of the spectrum, it is also a deeply violent emotion if what we love is threatened. Power combined with love can lead us to the most terrible, and justified, violence. That's the thought in the back of my mind at least.

Once the scenario is changed to one of law, rather than a conflict I can see, I feel my intuitions turn about. Consider the same scenario where a trans woman is skipped over promotion because our misogynist believes the woman is a confused man. Then the harm is directly because of the misogynist's mistaken categories, but we can still see this as a reflection of patriarchy.

With the scenario of law, and in taking into consideration the wider system of patriarchy, I'd say that trans individuals are targeted by patriarchy as much as women.

heh, but again, chauvinism in popular discourse is associated with men -- I suppose I just have to stipulate I'm talking about the system here, something that men and women can do -- the way that a country can be chauvinistic towards another country. That's the sort of chauvinism I mean.

Why do you call it paternalistic rather than maternalistic? Don't confuse paternal with patriarchal here. — unenlightened

Good point. I should intead say "chauvinism" as a better description -- something that can be practiced by paternals and maternals. That's basically what I mean, and I agree that it's important to keep paternal separate from patriarchal. I think the English speaking world associates fathers with the system of paternalism, and so we have these locutions, but I agree with the need to keep paternal distinct from patriarchal.

The infant is helpless, so the power relation is real and necessary and its neglect would be the abuse. But even here, the nature of love is communicative - one does not force feed the infant, though one does force clean them because one literally does know better. — unenlightened

True!

Interesting that in your example 'ignorance' is expressed as 'knowing better'. Something to look out for, along with infantilising language. But voting is for adults, and one does not marry one's father, so that particular 'knowing better' is patriarchal rather than paternal, I think. I treat my children as children, until they become adult, and then love has to grow towards respect and equality. I recall there was a radio 4 disability series called "Does he take sugar?" — a gentle reminder of how easily one can fall into that kind of ignoring, belittling ignorance. Sometimes, of course, a disability is a communication difficulty, but a communication difficulty is necessarily mutual in this sense:- one expresses inadequately and the other understands inadequately; although in the other direction of communication there may be no difficulty.

Makes sense.

That's a bit oppressive of you, isn't it? If your theory is also — unenlightened

Yes I think so. It's a violent identification from the outside, that is, from me onto them. They aren't speaking about themself, I am speaking about them without asking. And I find myself nodding along with you here:

The philosopher psychologist assumes the position of superiority, which is a power relation whereby even bosses are what we say they are. The man/woman at the centre of the hypothesis is a cypher, and we do not care a jot about their identity for themselves, or whether or not they even want promotion. Of course our power is also hypothetical here - our writs do not run the world. But they are to a great extent a product of the way the world is run. — unenlightened

Guilty as charged. I am playing at being Hegel's phenomenologist while simultaneously believing that to be an impossible position.

I think the way out of this jungle is to see that oppression is power without love. The inequality between men and women or black and white or whatever, is one of power, and that is why it is always the boss who is oppressive in relation to his minions, even though they may all have equally uncaring and prejudicial views, and the minions may have their own pecking order.

Thus masculinity becomes toxic to the extent that it identifies itself with power, and femininity with love.

I agree with the conclusion -- that's getting close to the phenomena. But there is a counter-example I can't let go of when I think of your opening here -- the oppression that is a loving power. A person can be cruel and mean, and that's what we've been talking about when it comes to toxic masculinity, and I think identifying oneself as a powerful person (and especially not a loving person) would cause all kinds of internal conflicts that seems to fit the bill.

But sometimes there is the loving oppression which is paternalistic in nature. It comes from a place of love, but the power differential matters if the loving person is ignorant in some way of their amor's needs. To take this far, far back to first wave feminism, some would argue that women don't need to vote because their husbands would vote for them and had their interests at heart (plus, being men of the world, they knew better anyways)

But I don't think that's a toxic masculinity. So it's a bit of a side show to the original question of identifying the conditions under which we know there to be a toxic masculinity.

So here again it's unclear how a set of traits can be identified by an outside observer as expressing a property which is given by the person 'manhood'. There are traits/expressions/ways-of-being which result in hatred of an identified group (identified by the one doing the hating), but then you link those traits/expressions/ways-of-being to a property (manhood) which is self-identified. How is it that you (the third party) are doing the linking then? — Isaac

In a way this is a re-expression of the question. How am I doing this linking? How do any of us do it? That's a good question.

The first thought in defense of my idea that I have is to say that the misogynist will identify as a man, at least, if not a misogynist -- but my honest reply is that I don't apply the golden standard of asking people what their gender identity is most of the time. In some spaces that's considered polite, but in most spaces which aren't hyper-aware of gender issues it's considered rude: "Can't you tell?!"

What I'd have to supply is some justification for being able to determine someone else's way-of-being aside from just asking them about their identity, which is all I've provided so far as a method for doing so.

But I'll just admit I don't have that theory in hand here. It's something I have to think about.

To give a concrete example. Let's say a boss at a bank is traditionally toxicly masculine (bullying, competitive, and misogynistic). He favours the promotion of a man over an equally qualified female colleague because he somehow feels a man would be 'better for the job'. Later he finds out that the female colleague he overlooked identifies as a man.

What has happened in that instance? Has he, unbeknownst to him, not been a misogynist because he resented a man? Or has he been a misogynist all along, but the target of his misogyny is not self-identified? — Isaac

Trying to parse the scenario: The boss is at least discriminating on the basis of sex because he identified the female colleague as a woman and then denied herhis* promotion for the reason of herhis perceived identity. And because the boss is a misogynist in the scenario we can conclude that it's due to a toxic masculine relationship to the type "woman".

So I'd go with your latter -- he has been a misogynist all along, but the target of his misogyny is not self-identified. The misogynist probably identifies women by their traits, and treats people with those traits accordingly.

*Luckily these are hypothetical people! But, as you can see, I still make that mistake, too.

I took a peek and didn't see. Link

Hrm! People don't identify as misogynists, so that'd be problematic! And I don't think men usually identify as "toxic" either, so the judgment of "toxic" is more a my-sided thing rather than a them-sided thing. (or, rather, if they do identify as toxic, it's not something people like to declare, and I certainly have the claim that there are toxic masculinities to defend with what I've said so far so it's problematic either way)

The object of misogyny is identified by the misogynist. If we were talking structural problems, like patriarchy, then it'd make sense to talk about a social determination -- but at the level of identity I don't think it makes sense to say that's a social determination. Or, at least, it's not the same (clearly we're a social species and all that, but that seems to be talking at a different scope).

Also I'm not sure that an identity is a trait as much as it's a manner of expressing traits. "Tall" is a trait that's relative to the group, being between such and such heights on average is a range of traits associated with some group, and expected behaviors are one step away from traits. But the manner of expression is what differs.

So a toxic masculinity is an identity which results in misogyny -- misogyny being the hatred of the type "woman" over something to do with perceived power. Or I've been saying resentment too, which isn't the exact same as hatred. What can I say: I'm theorizing. I'm not totally certain where I'm going.

So it's a way of displaying one's manliness, or expressing one's manhood, or being a man that results in the hatred -- in this general sense that's not specifying the bundle of emotions because I'm trying to remain more functional (given the problems of identifying the type) -- of women-as-a-type. And likely there are also tokens of the type -- so not just an idea, but rather an idea coupled with lived and interpreted examples.

It'd have to be the tokens which give me evidence of the identity though, since I'm not a mind-reader. So there is a social input of sorts in making the identification -- but it's not the default that I think of. It's just a possibility I'm aware of given what men do to women and say about women.

Simply put, who or what is the object of the misogynist's hatred? — Isaac

I don't know to what extent Incels are real, but that serves as a more concrete example of what I think of as basically the worst kind of misogyny -- not even just identifying with resentment (there's a lot more to an identity than that feeling too I should note, and that too can pass), but an active despising that's re-expressed and becomes central to a person. So I think the person doing the identifying here is the misogynist. But "like this" doesn't need to be very specific. "Woman", to the misogynist, probably has a collection of traits associated with it but I wouldn't be too keen on accepting the Type as the misogynist sees it either. I'd likely say "you have the wrong notion of woman", or something along those lines.

Active patriarchs are another -- as in people that want the patriarchal family structure not just for themselves, not just for their community, but want it enforced by the state up to and including restrictions on birth control. Here there are traits which don't necessarily have to be pinned to womanhood, but the patriarch sees women in a particular way and wants that to have social force behind that view. Here the object of hatred are the women who aren't doing the right thing -- again, it's the misogynist that's doing the identifying.

But then there's me doing identifying, and I'd include trans women as women which means I'm more liable to make the type about self-identifying than about some set of traits. Not that self-identity is the whole of gender, but rather that it's a good way for determining what category someone belongs to -- rather than looking for traits I'll just ask them, given that it's their identity, and as long as they aren't lying then that's a better measure than inferring based upon their traits, be they physical or mental. What I mean isn't anything close to what the misogynist's notion of "woman" means.

So from my perspective the object of the misogynist's hatred is partly a fantasy. I think it has something to do with resentment of the perceived power of women over men: hating that women have a kind of power over them. That's when I think it gets nasty.

Something like correctness conditions for the predicate "is an instance of toxic masculinity"? — fdrake

Coming at this from a more functional perspective rather than an imagined type of psychology: a toxic masculinity is an identity which results in misogyny. In my previous psychological type I ought to have said not "the world" but more specifically "the women's world" -- resentment of women as a type of person seems to get closer to the psychological type, but functionally it wouldn't matter what the psychological type is if it results in misogyny either way.

More the point: I believe that we talk about women's bathrooms because we live in a patriarchal society. One of the classic responsibilities of men is to protect women from bad men, and that's how the issue is framed by the opposition because people have views which are cemented about genders that makes this an appealing story. What could have been a series of discussions where a person explained how everyone has special needs and in public we should accomodate everyone became an issue on women's health, which in turn relied upon what various people thought "woman" meant -- when the issue was health.

So I thought asking about masculinity was fairly on target for the original topic. If we are spurred on to defend this or that view because of our masculinity, it makes sense to start asking what is the value of this masculinity? What else other than our masculine identities is contributing to this confusion?

Plus I do actually like thinking about this stuff, and thought that our usual regulars might have more to say on the topic of masculinity than the meaning of "woman".

EDIT: I should note that this isn't a dig. I would not have started the thread without the impetus, and all that. I felt the need to justify my approach though.

Everyone can resent. What flavours of resentment are uniquely masculine or essential characteristics of toxic masculinity? Can you give a list of contributors to toxic masculinity? Something like correctness conditions for the predicate "is an instance of toxic masculinity"? — fdrake

True! And just because one feels resentment or acts on it I wouldn't say that's even an identity.

Whatever "identifying with" means -- if you identify with your resentment and simultaneously identify that resentment with your identity as a man ("It's because I am a man that...") and want to do something about it against not just a person, but the world -- that seems to get closer. But I hasten to add I'm being creative and attempting to build something. I'm sure I missed something.