This seems like an oversimplification. why would no one play victim? We're on a thread where half the human population are being at least implicated in oppressing the other half. We've heard the insensitivity of white folk to their privilege. there doesn't seem to be any hesitation in assuming all sorts of malicious (conscious and subconscious) behaviour on the part of the currently vilified (whites, men, cis), so why would minority groups suddenly become so angelic? — Isaac
I wouldn't reach for guilt-removal/repression-expression as much as I'd reach for learned callousness -- people learn to be selfish and pursue their own needs. — Moliere
It's not that people weren't somewhere on the gender-bender spectrum, it's that it has become acceptable in some circles to be yourself in that way. In another time people would re-express in various ways, but -- in the positive spirit of capitalism that Marx likes -- we've invented new social forms because it was profitable to do so. — Moliere
People really are different in their various ways of relating to their gender, their body, and their identity or gender-identity. — Moliere
I just don't believe in this notion of a 'true self'. People tell themselves stories and usually these stories are ones they pick from those society offers, or construct from parts thereof. I don't think these are true (nor false either). They just more or less provide a way of understanding the sometimes contradictory mental goings on they have. — Isaac
So, if a reasonably explanatory story offers good social capital, it's a selling point. Truth doesn't enter into it. — Isaac
it all seems too static, as if 'society' has a list of acceptable moves and you have to pick from those else you're speaking nonsense.
But exactly what we're talking about is creating the social capital you acquire by changing the rules of the game. — Srap Tasmaner
what we're talking about is creating the social capital you acquire by changing the rules of the game. — Srap Tasmaner
The stories we tell and the social moves we make may have to work with conflicting intuitions. I'm not going to be on board with sexuality being purely social, that just seems crazy to me. — Srap Tasmaner
choosing involves more than just a good fit, and there's no denying these other motivators. — Isaac
but at that level it's just axons firing, nothing of the sort we could categorise into natural kinds — Isaac
Sure, but there's rules for that too. Like how all neologisms evolve, I suppose someone started them, but "I declare 'bobby' is now a type of cake!" isn't going to make it so, it's not a legal move in the game
So, sure, we ought to add some dynamics to the model, but dynamics isn't anarchy. — Isaac
What that layer comes up with might be puzzling sometimes, not just to others but to ourselves, and obviously that's an opportunity for culture to step in and offer to tell you what you actually think or feel, since you're evidently confused. — Srap Tasmaner
Those inferences might be in some ways more nuanced and in some ways less -- they don't care how elegant or comprehensive or consistent the taxonomy we make out of them is. — Srap Tasmaner
Things like 'gay', 'woman', 'trans', 'geek', 'leader', 'hippy',... are pretty much needed as almost fully built units because the cost of building from scratch is just too high. — Isaac
The construction of something as complex as a selfhood is really difficult, I don't believe it's even possible outside of a social context where key parts are available to build from. — Isaac
these are only useful approximations -- even when they're descriptive not of a person but of a role we need them to play. — Srap Tasmaner
I'd like to be distinguishing here and there between 'cultural' and 'social' but without doing that I've been giving short shrift to the necessary social context. -- Sexuality is obviously a social thing even when it's not cultural (among other mammals, say). — Srap Tasmaner
I think this is at the core of how we see things differently. I just don't believe in this notion of a 'true self'. — Isaac
Your meaning is clear -- my identity is a lie because I ought select from the binary on the shelf like everyone else so that we can get onto the important things — Moliere
or else you're just clearly playing the victim so you don't have to deal with the guilt of living in the global north but can instead play the victim of the people you sympathize with while simultaneously not realizing your material life depends upon their suffering. — Moliere
I've been trying to highlight how identity isn't a scientific concept, and that we utilize it not on the basis of our shared language, but on a day-to-day basis for understanding one another and ourselves. — Moliere
Since meaning is use, after all, new meanings are invented daily as we re-encounter new contexts. Every use of the word is itself a new meaning which isn't fixed by a Public Shelf of Meaning, but is instead invented as we provide charity for creative uses in new contexts. — Moliere
There's a sense in which identity is performance, and so it's not truth-apt. But that's not to say it's not real. — Moliere
I don't think the difficulties of specifying identity are unique to trans individuals, but have always been there -- it's just that this topic has highlighted these difficulties for people. — Moliere
Every use of the word is itself a new meaning which isn't fixed by a Public Shelf of Meaning — Moliere
@Judaka I generally have the same issue with those who view word meanings as having stringent, objective definitions
It's why I'm comfortable saying there's no such thing. Identity isn't a psychological state one 'discovers' by interoception, it's part of our naming and storytelling practices, like 'hippy', or 'geek'. We collect performances into useful groupings and name them. The utility is about them playing a role in our stories so they're less surprising, and that works both ways - it's not imposed, it's agreed upon. — Isaac
I'm not saying that we ought select from publicly available narratives, I'm saying we do. I'm making an empirical claim about the way the human psyche works. We do not construct unique and detailed identities from scratch through some internal interrogation. We pick from the stories we see around us, the identities, like parts in a play. I'm not making an ethical claim. You are ethically free to construct your identity from scratch. I don't believe you either can or will. — Isaac
It's not an 'or else' but yes, I'll stand by that. We have a victim culture, and I believe guilt is at least a major part of the reason. We all know how much better off we are and we all know it's grossly unfair. If that didn't have an effect we'd be zombies, and if that effect was universally positive we'd be saints. I don't believe we're either. — Isaac
Your second second half belies the first. You claim "we utilize it not on the basis of our shared language, but on a day-to-day basis for understanding one another and ourselves". That's a scientific claim. It's making a statement about how humans (a clearly empirical object) think. You can't claim the concept isn't scientific and then give a detailed account of how it works. — Isaac
I don't see how language could possibly work that way. We'd never understand what each other were saying if we just allowed new meanings to constantly spring forth. I wouldn't get five minutes into my day if those I'm speaking to had no foundation to judge my meaning. Sure, language evolves, but that's not that same as saying anything goes. Some neologisms take, others don't. None just spring forth fully formed from day-to-day. — Isaac
Because even using the old meanings in a new context is already a new meaning, under my notion of language at least. So it's a failure of charity on both parts, in terms of mis-communication at least.And why does 'charity' get invoked with new meanings but not with the retention of old ones?
But that's not what's happening here. I'm not being asked to merely understand a new use of gender terms, I'm being asked to partake in it. And not just that, I'm being asked to entirely replace my previous use with this new one, and further in many cases being accused of hate speech and bigotry if I don't.
I really think it's stretching credulity to lump all that under mere request for charitable interpretation. — Isaac
Yes, were on the same page here. It's why I'm comfortable saying there's no such thing. Identity isn't a psychological state one 'discovers' by interoception, it's part of our naming and storytelling practices, like 'hippy', or 'geek'. We collect performances into useful groupings and name them. The utility is about them playing a role in our stories so they're less surprising, and that works both ways - it's not imposed, it's agreed upon. — Isaac
Yes, I agree. There's a tension between the expectations of public roles and the utility of having them at all. It's not all one way though. Knowing what to do next is fiendishly complicated and fraught with uncertainty. A device for resolving some of that uncertainty isn't always a bad thing. — Isaac
A heterosexual child doesn't have to wait long for his or her culture to supply the "guide book" for what "heterosexual" means. On the other hand, a rural homosexual child may recognize that he likes other boys, and understands that this is an outlier desire, best not discussed. He may not have a "homosexual identity" until he comes into regular contact with urban homosexuals who can supply the gay "guide book". — BC
Having these broad stories for ourselves helps us make sense of our own actions and thoughts, put them into context, give them a purpose and a coherence (that they might otherwise lack). — Isaac
it might be better to finish with some other kind of identity -- like identity in general — Moliere
A heterosexual child doesn't have to wait long for his or her culture to supply the "guide book" for what "heterosexual" means. On the other hand, a rural homosexual child may recognize that he likes other boys, and understands that this is an outlier desire, best not discussed. He may not have a "homosexual identity" until he comes into regular contact with urban homosexuals who can supply the gay "guide book". — BC
It seems to me that in taking up a narrative, you don't so much buy a copy as make a copy, so even though there's going to be some, maybe considerable, family resemblance among the copies of a story each member of a community are carrying around, they are still going to be idiosyncratic. — Srap Tasmaner
The archetype may still show through, but quite a few of the details might have changed. In fact, over time one narrative might split into two, if there are populations that started with different versions of the original. And by now it should be really, really obvious that what we're looking at here is evolution. — Srap Tasmaner
I think we have to say something about how whatever you've got before you acquire the new story (to use on yourself or others) is going to color your version of the story. At the very least, what else is already in your repertoire is going to shape your use of the new script -- some people will use it more and some less, depending on what else they've acquired and how they use them. (You can know a hundred stories and always reach for the same two or three.) — Srap Tasmaner
I'm interested in the mechanisms of acquiring and using these stories. The individual's narrative repertoire will be idiosyncratic in exactly the way their genes and their idiolect are, but we can say general things about how people are individuated in these ways.
Which might get us some ways toward Moliere's sense of individuality. — Srap Tasmaner
it has to get into the game earlier than our post-facto stories and justifications and rationalizations. — Srap Tasmaner
Rather than a claim about the general structure of the human psyche this is an aspect of humanity that is largely social: a kind of reason that's beyond the brain, shared across bodies and brains through our practices. — Moliere
for most they'll accept the line that capitalism is what will set us free, and that it's just a matter of progress and time for the less fortunate to be lifted up by its magic insofar that we're able to curb the excesses of capital (themselves measured by a nationalist, rather than internationalist, measure) — Moliere
I think there really are just that many victims. Capital is violent. — Moliere
I'm guessing that we also have different notions about science's relationship to ontology and philosophy in addition to our respective stances on The Subject. — Moliere
what if lowering surprise isn't the social goal for linguistic use? — Moliere
You don't have to convert to the new religion. But you might need to offer some persuasion as to why the old system which punished people for being themselves is preferable in order to earn any charity to be extended to the old uses. — Moliere
I think there's value across generational divides, and that we'll be able to work out our differences. — Moliere
My thought is identity is a social creation entirely, but that it's also entirely real and we can be right or wrong about it. The person whose in the best position, most of the time, for making that judgment is the person whose identity it is — Moliere
absolutely nothing of social life, no "mental furniture", ideology or even motivational state, survives the parsing — fdrake
This is too meta for me to understand. :( — Srap Tasmaner
that the moves you've made the last few pages undermine the starting premises of the debate. — fdrake
This discussion contains laws and identities. Identities are suspect whereas laws are not. The criterion Isaac is using to dissolve identitywouldcould also dissolve law. And all the other abstractions we'd use to understand social scenarios. — fdrake
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