MarkusRamikin comments on Rationality Lessons Learned from Irrational Adventures in Romance - Less Wrong
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Whether you feel pain or not is a fact. It's territory, not map.
Whether someone is racist/sexist depends on definitions. These are categories -- which are map, not territory.
I'd guess that whatever value is derived by arguing over whether someone is racist or sexist can be produced better by tabooing those words, and arguing more specifically over what the specific claim is ("would his words be offensive to a significant number of member of such group" "is he trying to increase his own group's relative power/privilege over the other group", "does he believe in an innate inferior moral worth for that group", etc, etc)
I agree these are helpful paraphrases-- but as a practical matter increasing the burden on the person trying to point out the offense or marginalization isn't necessarily a good idea since it often very difficult for people to call their friends and acquaintances on such matters. For example, I imagine it is very difficult for a black person surrounded by white people to call out behavior that makes them feel marginalized-- there is a great deal of social pressure against this. In normal social contexts a minority should be free to express how something makes them feel without being expected to enter into an extended defense of the matter.
Here at Less Wrong, I almost always translate "is x-ist" in the way you suggest and think it is worthwhile where the goal of the discussion is truth seeking (I'm not a member of many relevant minorities, though)