A very good response. Thank you. I agree with much of it, but I would like to continue a bit further regarding the stuff near the top about claimed victim status. Let us all return in our minds to those idyllic days of childhood:
Younger sibling: "Quit picking on me!" Older sibling: "Me? I'm no picking on you." Younger sibling: "Mama!"
Now, as you visualize this scene, ask yourself whether younger sibling is "attempting to use a claimed victim status as a way to target behaviors they personally dislike". Ask whether she is implying that the weight of parental disapproval or true "ought"-ness is allied with her position. Whether she is implying that a parent who fails to join in denouncing or punishing the offender is not carrying out the parental responsibilities of protection and fair arbitration?
By analogy, it would seem that your advice to younger sibling would be "If you dislike something, you bloody well ought to be able to say you dislike it and why, without needing to call for a parent to announce/signal a factional alliance. That's divisive and unhelpful, no matter how "right" your position might be." Well, that just might be good advice, even to a child.
But what if the advice is followed and it doesn't work? Doesn't work repeatedly. Older sibling simply gets a kick out of tormenting his younger sister. What then?
The problem here, IMO, is not lack of communication of wants and needs, and it is not a matter of stereotyping. It is a matter of deliberate, well-informed, hostility. Hostility which shields itself with the argument "Ah, you are imagining things. See, no one else thinks I am doing any thing wrong."
In those circumstances, I think that for you to disapprove of "claimed victim status", to disapprove of seeking allies, is to give your approval to the victimizer.
It is a matter of deliberate, well-informed, hostility. Hostility which shields itself with the argument "Ah, you are imagining things. See, no one else thinks I am doing any thing wrong."
Why do you think this?
Having a different worldview and set of priors on the subject of gender is not the same thing as hostility.
Overview: This is a proposal for a LessWrong Pick Up Artist (PUA)-like sub-community; PUA without the PU (get it?)1. Members would focus on the deliberate practice of social artistry, but with non-mating goals. Origins and intent of the goal are discussed, possible topics for learning are listed, and suggestions for next steps are solicited.
Origins:
The PUA Community began decades ago with men that wanted to learn how to get better at seducing women. As I understand it, they simply began posting their (initially) awkward attempts at love online. Over the years, they appear to have amassed a fairly impressive set of practical knowledge and skills in this domain.
I admire and applaud this effort. However, my ability to meet women is not currently a limiting factor in my life satisfaction. In reading some of the PUA literature, I was struck how often different authors remarked on the unintended side benefits of their training: better relationships at work, better interviewing skills, more effective negotiations, more non-pickup social fun, better male friendships, more confidence, etc. These guys were able to make major strides in areas that I've struggled to improve at all in... without even bloody intending to! This struck me as an something worth taking very seriously!
I find it alarming that such a valuable resource would be monopolized in pursuit of orgasm; it's rather as if a planet were to burn up its hydrocarbons instead of using them to make useful polymers. PUA ought to be a special case of a more general skill set, and it's being wasted. I say that my goals are noble, and as such I should have the opportunity to sharpen my skills to at least the keenness of a PUA master!
Statement of Purpose:
The purpose of this post is to open discussion on how to construct a community of developing social artisans, modeled after the useful components2 of the PUA community. If there is sufficient mass, the next goals are probably sussing out learning methods and logistics.
The mission of the hypothetical community will probably need to be fleshed out more explicitly (and I don't want to be too prescriptive), but pretty much what I was thinking was expressed well by Scott Adams:
Word! [EDIT: We need not be bound by this exact list. For instance, there is no way I'm going to be doing any golfing.]
I've met people who were shockingly, seemingly preternaturally adept in social settings. Of course this is not magic. Like anything else, it can be reduced to a set of constituent steps and learned. We just need to figure out how.
Next steps:
I have a rather long list of ideas ready to go, but they made this post kind of awkward. Plus, Scott Adam's post says much of what I was trying to get at. Let's just start the conversation.
So, what do you think?
1 I have nothing whatsoever against the majority of the PUAers with whom I've had encounters, and the title is just meant to be funny. No offense!
2 The mention of PUA drags along several associations that I want to disavow (think anything obviously "Dark Arts"). I considered omitting the fact that much of the intellectual heritage of this idea is the PUAers to avoid these associations, but I couldn't think of another way to tie it together. This idea owes its genesis to the PUA community, but the product is not intended to be its exact replica. Undesirable elements need not be ported from the old system to the new.