Trouble is not everyone conforms to your specification of what it means to be intelligent, so a pragmatically minded person will take pains to avoid sowing the seeds of confusion by refraining from claiming that they are some particular ist without taking into account that they do not qualify as such in terms of what that ism is generally taken to involve.

There is no point claiming that you are some ist if you don't satisfy all of what are generally considered to be the requirements for being that ist. In general it is simpler just to outline your position or argument without any reference to isms at all. Isms are always already stereotypes, and you cannot justifiably blame others for stereotyping you if you identify yourself with a stereotype. With minds of a certain calibre it seems to be always a matter of someone else being at fault if they are not understood the way they demand they should be understood.

So does that mean you are a Fistist? You can't be a Fistist if you don't agree with fisting!

I share your distaste for labels, but you were the one that made reference to what intelligent people do. I followed suit. Rich that you then saddled a high horse about it. Doubly rich you went ahead and resorted back to doing so when you referenced a “certain calibre” of minds.
I disagree with you about where the onus lies. If a person refers to themselves as an ism, and another person assumes that they possess any number of traits or beliefs based on their own preconceived notions of what that encompasses then I think tha’s fine, but if the first person then corrects the person about the preconceived notion then the onus is on the second person to adjust their view, not say something like “...but you said you were a so and so ism!” or somesuch.
Now, Im not talking about you specifically here, I do not know what exactly the beef with Terra is. Im making a general point for discussion here. I get the sense you may think I was calling you a half wit or a whiny bitch. You might be I do not know, but that wasnt directed at you specifically.

A middle section of two extremely opposite aspects is inevitable to surface into a discussion by consequential considerations. Evaluating proposed dispositions of each aspect, it is inevitable that people would want the established problem to be resolved by another aspect that's just: moderate, common, the exact middle. For example, atheism and theism = agnosticism. Determinism and free-will = compatibilism. Would that middle section, which is inherently not any different from an ism, be a problem as well? — SethRy

Yes there's still a problem, because the undefined middle will be subjectively warped according to how we each conceive of the poles (either end of the spectrum).

For example, you stated that agnosticism is directly in the middle of theism and atheism, and while in some sense that is vaguely true, atheists do not see it that way (we see atheism as the refusal to take a positive position, not a denial of one). For most atheists, agnosticism is on an entirely different spectrum (an epistemological spectrum, not an ontological/existential spectrum) because we reject the belief-disbelief dichotomy outright. Agnosticism is one of the most frequently misused words in discourse about gods, so I can hardly blame you for missing its specific meaning. It is actually "the positive belief that evidence pertaining to god(s) is unavailable", and It only becomes important to clarify on the journey towards soft-atheism because as a theist there is no practical difference between someone who denies your god because they believe it does not exist and someone who denies your god because they have no proof or good evidence that it does exist.

Consider your stance toward Zeus. You cannot prove Zeus does not exist (not without some effort), so you certainly don't "believe in" Zeus, but do you actually believe Zeus does not exist? If you said yes, and I accused you of having no actual proof, how would you respond?

The more controversy there is surrounding a label, the better you would do to avoid it unless you're argument is semantic in nature (i.e: trying to reclaim a word). "Isms" usually point to broad categories of belief, making them inherently ambiguous. It seems like a situational dogma because "isms" suffer severely from the problem of ambiguity, but really it's a fundamental problem of all language.

Post-modern thinkers like Foucault will tell you that "the gap between the intended meaning of the author and the received meaning of the reader can never be fully bridged", but it's not an insurmountable problem (the post-modern clutch has always been melodramatic). We just need to be clear enough...

I didn't think you were referring to me with the insulting epithets and would not care if you were. I agree with you that suitably intelligent people should be able to reassess their pigeonholing of other's positions, but it is not the case that we are always dealing with suitably intelligent people on these forums. We might be dealing with someone who carelessly pigeonholes themselves for example.

Well yes, that is where we disagree I think. People don’t pigeon hole themselves via someone elses assumption. That doesnt make sense to me. Rather the one with assumptions, even justified ones, bears the responsibility of any mislabeling of a persons stances. Its them who should maintain a stricter awareness. If its the other way around, we are all at the mercy of other peoples assumptions.

If a person refers to themselves as an ism, and another person assumes that they possess any number of traits or beliefs based on their own preconceived notions of what that encompasses then I think that’s fine, but if the first person then corrects the person about the preconceived notion then the onus is on the second person to adjust their view, not say something like “...but you said you were a so and so ism!” or somesuch. — DingoJones

Yes, I agree with that, and with what Terrapin has said.

Its similar to the logic behind my stance on offensive language. If the onus is on the person saying things, we are at the mercy of peoples sensitivity to offense.

It's similar to the logic behind my stance on offensive language. If the onus is on the person saying things, we are at the mercy of peoples sensitivity to offense. — DingoJones

I'm with you on that one in a number of conceivable cases, but not in others. I don't agree with casual references to a person or a group of people in racist language, for example. But I'm not absolutely against the use of that language or any language at all. So long as the context makes it okay, it's okay. It can be okay in comedy or sarcasm or irony or fiction or in talking about the terms themselves or in reappropriation. And if people are still offended regardless, then that's on them. I'm not in the wrong by default just because they're offended. They'd need to be justified.

sometimes it is better to take the long-winded approach by avoiding labels in exchange for a description of the thing the label is intended to point to. Your writing will become less concise, but your intended meaning will be much clearer. — VagabondSpectre

Good suggestion. If one cannot do this, then they really do not know what it is that they are talking about anyway.

The trouble I see with -isms is how we tend to become tribally identified with them, with a particular side of a conflictual divide on a question. It often seems that it ends up being more about protecting that group identity than trying to get closer to the truth. So people dig in, no matter how well the opposition argues.

I see problems with self-limiting beliefs. Identification of most any kind is a self-limiting belief. We can trap ourselves with statements like "I am X". We also tend to encourage identification, tribalism, and so on in others when we label them.

And we fail to persuade and communicate when we say things like, "What you Y-ists fail to understand is..." We just encourage a combative reaction and further radicalization and deeper identification with that side. We make ourselves the enemies of those we declare as belonging to an enemy tribe.

Obviously, this is a problem in politics. We get these divides like left versus right. But it happens in philosophical communities as well. We tend to divide along common lines of disagreement. Materialism versus Idealism is an example. I remember taking my first course in philosophy. Our text was called The Philosophical Journey, by William F. Lawhead. I remember it presenting itself to me as a menu of choices I could make as I was forming my first tentative philosophical identity. Here is another fence. Which side do I want to be on? Do I like A or B better? I think I'll join the A-ists and then argue with the B-ists. Here are the available tribes and their beliefs. Do you want to be a goth or a jock? Shitkicker or metalhead?

It seems weird to me that whether a person believes that humans are changing the climate is more a matter of tribal identity than an actual, sincere consideration of evidence.

If I am identified with a position, when that position is attacked, it feels like an attack on me! Instead, ideally, I should hold positions provisionally and welcome better reasoning that might lead me to another conclusion that better conforms to reality or justice. Consider how Socrates suggested that if shown to be clinging to bad ideas, we should accept this and thank our interlocutors for removing our ignorance and bringing us closer to the light. Instead, we think we would like to die before being proven to be wrong or part of the bad tribe! This is what we want: I am right! You are wrong! Notice the "I=good" thing in there.

If, instead, we do not identify with the position, if we simply present it for consideration as one among a number of possibilities, if it is destroyed, we aren't destroyed with it. The ego isn't threatened. I carry the idea. I find it somewhat compelling absent good evidence against it or for a competing idea. But I am not identical with it. So if it gets destroyed by my interlocutor, I can thank that person for improving my understanding, for gifting me their hard-won insight, for removing some of my intellectual barnacles.

But we are so prone to tribalism and identification that this is easier said than done. Nevertheless, we should try. I am trying, more and more, to eliminate "I am X" thoughts from my inner dialogue and speech. That goes especially for "I am an X-ist". I find that I am becoming more flexible. I am allowing myself to really consider the arguments of those that were once my political enemies.

Agreed. For me, its about intention. Whats the intent of the language? Thats what makes the difference to me. Is the person intending offense?

The trouble I see with -isms is how we tend to become tribally identified with them, with a particular side of a conflictual divide on a question. It often seems that it ends up being more about protecting that group identity than trying to get closer to the truth. So people dig in, no matter how well the opposition argues. — petrichor

People simply assume that they know what the others think. Why listen or engage in a discussion then?

Well yes, that is where we disagree I think. People don’t pigeon hole themselves via someone elses assumption. That doesnt make sense to me. Rather the one with assumptions, even justified ones, bears the responsibility of any mislabeling of a persons stances. Its them who should maintain a stricter awareness. If its the other way around, we are all at the mercy of other peoples assumptions. — DingoJones

I completely agree with you that people don't pigeonhole themselves via someone else's assumption they pigeon hole themselves via identifying their standpoint with some ism or other. And sometimes they do something even worse, they carelessly and misleadingly pigeonhole themselves by identifying their standpoint with some ism that they don't totally agree with, rather than simply giving an account of their own standpoint or preemptively making it clear just what part(s) of the ism they don't agree with, and then they complain if people are too stubborn or perhaps too suspicious to revise the initial misleading impression they were given.

I am not, by the way, excusing those who are too inflexible, suspicious or stupid to revise their viewpoint in the presence of good evidence that it had been mistaken.

I'm not in the wrong by default just because they're offended. They'd need to be justified. — S

If reason is and should be slave to the passions then you cannot be in the wrong (in matters that are not empirically decidable) if you feel you are right. On that RIASBSTTP view they don't need to be justified for any sense of being offended by your view, either.

If reason is and should be slave to the passions then you cannot be in the wrong (in matters that are not empirically decidable) if you feel you are right. On that RIASBSTTP view they don't need to be justified for any sense of being offended by your view, either. — Janus

You know that I'm a moral relativist. Do I really need to explain how that works again?

Egotism! I know I’ve done so many times in my past.

Should we assume people mea offense or give them the benefit of the doubt? For myself this is a matter of personal judgement, but I like to think I’m open enough to consider that they mean something different and so (if in a balanced mood!) I will fish for clarification directly or indirectly so as not to antagonise ... and I have to admit sometimes antogonising does help the discussion (but it’s generally a last resort for me and hardly ever seems to produce a positive outcome.)

Note: I am not talking about NEVER asking what these terms mean and think it is a highly productive activity to explore the nuances of meaning within a philosophical context. I’m simply opposed to declarations forced on myself, or others - by myself or others - unless it is presented as a “gist”.

I am not saying such problems are ONLY present on forums either. It is quite clear that terms such as “communism,” “capitalism,” “liberalism,” “conservatism” and “socialism” are bandied around as if they are simplistic wholes in order to defeat the opponent in a discussion - or rather to drive the discussion off the rails and end up rolling in the dirt while the destination of the discussion remains a distant dot on the horizon.

As an example of an “-ism” let us look at a quote from wiki regarding “fascism”:

Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.[14] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.[14] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.[15][16][17][18] Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[19]

In the above there are ideas that are not absolutely disgusting in and of themselves. Generally speaking the movement gained popularity because it had sensible elements to it that made some practical sense at the time. The elements that are sensible within this scheme are the ideas of “self-sufficiency” and “the rejection that violence is automatically negative” - the issue not address is the limitation to such ideas which is where public opinion was hoodwinked leading to a basically simply and sensible view being taken beyond its immediate aims (self-sufficiency and the ability to protect citizens by violent force if necessary).

Of course I am not suggesting “fascism” is a good idea! Haha! :D yet it reminds me of what happened in a recent discussion on the subject of SJW’s and why the term now has a negative connotation, or even why some people mistakenly assume saying “nationalism” without consideration of the historical landscape surrounding this term.

We find more and more of late (or so it seems to me?), on all fronts, that people attach the label of “socialism” to one nation that suits there position but not to another that doesn’t (be it for OR against socialism as a force of good/bad). The goes for practically all other political perspectives.

I’m just asking if it would serve a better purpose if we were to discuss political issues and hold off, as best we can, from attaching some arbitrary label to someone else’s view as being X or Y and if we REALLY felt the pull to be too strong to ignore to announce this to the person in a none combative way (as an inquiry into a better understanding).

Note: I am writing this not as as someone who is seeing the mistakes of others, but as someone who is seeing the mistakes in others because I make the same mistakes myself - it is a reminder to myself that I’m an idiot and more prone to unfounded judgements of others than I’d like to admit and blind to them due to some weird psychological defense mechanism (being human I think it’s called?) that twists my thoughts into believing I err less than others.

I was wondering whether you know you are a moral relativist, but in any case, I've just explained it to you, so we're all good.

You know that I'm a moral relativist. Do I really need to explain how that works again? — S

You’d have to expand on that for me given that it tells me very little about what you think. This is not as big an issue regarding the OP though as I am more concerned with political terminology than with philosophical perspectives or “ethics”.

DingoJones
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↪Janus


Well yes, that is where we disagree I think. People don’t pigeon hole themselves via someone elses assumption. That doesnt make sense to me. Rather the one with assumptions, even justified ones, bears the responsibility of any mislabeling of a persons stances. Its them who should maintain a stricter awareness. If its the other way around, we are all at the mercy of other peoples assumptions. — DingoJones

One of the big problems with labels or descriptors has to do with whether the label or descriptor is being self-applied or applied FROM someone else.

In political discussions I am often labelled a "liberal" because I mostly favor a progressive agenda. But I insist I am NOT a liberal...which is a label. I am satisfied to offer my views on anything...and prefer that those views not pigeonhole me with a label.

Self-applied labels makes lots more sense to me. If a person tells me they are "an agnostic" (liberal, conservative, atheist, theist) I have an idea, within boundries, of what they are trying to communicate.

Not so when someone says (often "accuses") someone else of "being."

In political discussions I am often labelled a "liberal" because I mostly favor a progressive agenda. But I insist I am NOT a liberal...which is a label. I am satisfied to offer my views on anything...and prefer that those views not pigeonhole me with a label. — Frank Apisa

Giving labels to other people and then attacking the worst stereotypes of the followers of that "ism" is an easy method to circumvent actual discussion. It's quite luring to do this. Just think your own actions if you, as a mostly progressive person, would have to make small talk with a person who would start with saying "I voted Trump in the last election".

Nobody starts small talk with a stranger like this anywhere. If the other person is totally on the opposite side, the situation is awkward. Of course it shouldn't be so, if we truly would be open to ideas of others and respect each other.

ssu
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In political discussions I am often labelled a "liberal" because I mostly favor a progressive agenda. But I insist I am NOT a liberal...which is a label. I am satisfied to offer my views on anything...and prefer that those views not pigeonhole me with a label. — Frank Apisa

Giving labels to other people and then attacking the worst stereotypes of the followers of that "ism" is an easy method to circumvent actual discussion. It's quite luring to do this. Just think your own actions if you, as a mostly progressive person, would have to make small talk with a person who would start with saying "I voted Trump in the last election".

Nobody starts small talk with a stranger like this anywhere. If the other person is totally on the opposite side, the situation is awkward. Of course it shouldn't be so, if we truly would be open to ideas of others and respect each other. — ssu

Right on the button, ssu.

One of the reasons I am at a Philosophy Forum right now, is because these days, any political discussion tends to quickly go off the tracks.

So you or others might consider R intelligent where

(1) S says, "I'm an F-ist,"
(2) R associates the belief that e with F-ism (because it's a common enough association),
(3) R asks S about their belief that e, or comments about their belief that e,
(4) S says, "Oh, I don't believe that e,"
(5) R keeps talking about S's belief that e
?

If you might consider R intelligent in that situation it would explain a lot.

I was wondering whether you know you are a moral relativist, but in any case, I've just explained it to you, so we're all good. — Janus

You didn't indicate an understanding of moral relativism in your reply, because you claimed that I couldn't be wrong, when obviously under moral relativism I can be wrong, relative to others. They do need to be justified, relative to my ethics. If, by their ethics, they don't need to be justified, then that's on them. I don't go by such an ethics, because to me, justification is important.

You completely missed out the relativism part of moral relativism, so it's pretty funny that you are giving out the impression that you know more than me about it.

Maybe one day you'll get it. Keep trying. :up:

You’d have to expand on that for me given that it tells me very little about what you think. This is not as big an issue regarding the OP though as I am more concerned with political terminology than with philosophical perspectives or “ethics”. — I like sushi

It's fairly simple, in spite of the fact that some people seem to have great difficulty grasping what it entails and what it doesn't entail.

It simply means that I am of a stance whereby what's right or wrong is only so relative to the judgement of a person or a group of people or an organisation, or relative to a moral system. And I reject the alternative, which is moral absolutism, whereby what's right or wrong is so absolutely, not relative to anyone or anything.

It's not rocket science, eh? I probably wouldn't even have needed to explain that, because, well, you see, there's this thing called Google...

But I get that in some cases there can be a problem of ambiguity, so I get where you're coming from with your anti-ism-ism, but this doesn't seem to be a case in point. I'd say that just because some people don't get it and that there are various common misperceptions about it, that isn't the fault of this particular -ism, it's the fault of those people.

I completely agree with you that people don't pigeonhole themselves via someone else's assumption they pigeon hole themselves via identifying their standpoint with some ism or other. — Janus

The “someone elses assumption” IS the identification of the “ism”. You seem to have missed the point, perhaps I wasnt clear.
The person hears the “ism”, and pigeon holes the person according to the assumption of what that “ism” is. This is backwards, the onus is not on the person being pigeon holed.

I think granting the benifit of the doubt is preferable as well. It is better to assume a miscommunication rather than that the person is too stupid to understand you for example.
To your points about nuance and the way “isms” are misused: I think its worth looking at specific instances. In general Ive noticed a trend towards words losing their meaning, not just “isms”.

Thats a bit different than what I was saying, as you are offering a correction to someones label. You are telling them soecifically that you are not liberal. They should believe you unless they have good reason not to, such as if you cannot describe what makes you NOT a liberal (just as a general exemple).

Well, actually there are MANY positions within “moral relativism” so it pays to ask if only to inform you of the differences held under the umbrella of “moral relativism”.

Note: I quick google search would show you that there is not ONE position in “moral relativism” ;)

I'm aware that there are specific subcategories under moral relativism. But they all come under moral relativism, which is what you asked about. You didn't ask about the specifics. You just asked me to expound, which I did to some extent. But if you want encyclopaedia-style details, use the internet. If you want to know more details about my stance, ask.