Jack comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong

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Comment author: FeministX 05 November 2009 02:28:10AM 2 points [-]

Hi, I have never posted on this forum, but I believe that some Less Wrong readers read my blog, FeministX.blogspot.com.

Since this at least started out as an open thread, I have a request of all who read this comment, and an idea for a future post topic.

On my blog, I have a topic about why some men hate feminism. The answers are varied, but they include a string of comments back and forth between anti feminists and me. The anti feminists accuse me of fallacies, and one says that he "clearly" refuted my argument. My interpretation is that my arguments were more logically cogent that the anti feminists and that they did not correctly identify logical fallacies in my comments, nor did they comprehensivly refute anything I said. They merely decided that they won the debate.

Now, the issue is that when there is an argument between feminists and anti feminists on the internet, the feminists will believe that other feminists arguments include more truth and reason while anti-feminists will believe that anti-feminist arguments include more truth and reason. The internet is not a place where people are good at discussing feminism with measured equanimity.

But I wondered, who could be the objective arbiter of a discussion between feminists and anti feminists? Almost anyone has a bias when it comes to this issue. Everyone has a gender, and gender affects a person's thinking style, desires and determination of fairness in assessing behaviors between genders. Where in the world could I find intelligent entities that would not be swayed by gender bias and would instead attempt to seek out objective truth in a "battle of sexes" style discussion.

Well, I am not sure if unbiased people can exist regarding the issue but the closest thing I could think of was Less Wrong. Thus, I invite readers of Less Wrong to contribute to the admittedly inane thread on my blog, Why so much hate?

http://feministx.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-so-much-hate.html

Comment author: Jack 05 November 2009 09:37:35AM *  3 points [-]

Hi! Feel free to introduce yourself here.

There are a couple general reasons for disagreement.

  1. Two parties disagree on terminal values (if someone genuinely believes that women are inherently less valuable than men there is no reason to keep talking about gender politics)
  2. Two parties disagree on intermediate values (both might value happiness but a feminist might believe gender equality to be central to attaining happiness while the anti-feminist thinks gender equality is counter productive to this goal. It might be difficult for parties to explain their reasoning in these matters but it is possible). 3.Two parties disagree about the means to the end (an anti-feminist might think that feminism as a movement doesn't do a good job promoting gender equality)
  3. Two parties disagree about the intent of one or more parties (a lot of anti-feminists think feminism is a tool for advancing interests of women exclusively and that feminists aren't really concerned with gender equality. I don't think you can say much to such people though it is worth asking yourself why they have that impression... calling yourself a female supremacist will not help matters.)
  4. Two parties disagree about the facts of the status quo (if someone thinks that women aren't more oppressed than men or that feminists exaggerate the problem they may have exactly the same view of an ideal world as you do but have very different means for getting there. This is a tricker issue than it looks because facts about oppression are really difficult to quantify. There is a common practice in anti-subordination theory of treating claims of oppression at face value but this only works if one trusts the intentions of the person claiming to be oppressed.)
  5. One of more parties have incoherent views (you can point out incoherence, not much else).

I think that is more or less complete. As you can see, some disagreements can be resolved, others can't. Talk to the people you can make progress with but don't go in assuming that you're going to convince everyone of your view.

Edit: Formating.

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