army1987 comments on Notes on the Psychology of Power - Less Wrong

34 Post author: gwern 27 July 2012 07:22PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (48)
Tags: power community coordination economics institutions psychology

Comments (48)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 July 2012 08:28:27AM 3 points [-]

There have been matriarchal cultures around (even though there have been so few of them that the spellchecker in my phone wants to correct that word to "patriarchal").

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 28 July 2012 11:15:56AM 4 points [-]

Name three (please).

Comment author: [deleted] 28 July 2012 11:56:47AM 0 points [-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 29 July 2012 03:22:10AM *  9 points [-]

From army1987's link:

Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal, but possible exceptions include the Iroquois, in whose society mothers exercise central moral and political roles.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 28 July 2012 06:25:40PM 1 point [-]

However, this reluctance to accept the existence of matriarchies might be based on a specific, culturally biased notion of how to define 'matriarchy': because in a patriarchy 'men rule over women', a matriarchy has frequently been conceptualized as 'women ruling over men', whereas in reality women-centered societies are - apparently without exception - egalitarian.

In other words, there isn't a trivial symmetry between those societies that are called "patriarchy" and those that are called "matriarchy".

Comment author: [deleted] 28 July 2012 06:56:17PM 2 points [-]

"Across all cultures and all times and by a large margin" is still an exaggeration.

Comment author: arundelo 28 July 2012 05:32:38PM 0 points [-]

wants to correct that word to "patriarchal"

This is why we still need feminism!

:-)

Comment author: Haladdin 29 July 2012 10:24:54AM *  -1 points [-]

Feminism is necessary because of auto-correct feature that suggests closely related words that are used more often?

The word "patriarchy" and its derivatives are used extensively by feminists and feminist scholars. If anything, the fact that the word "patriarchy" pops up more often can indicate that there is more awareness of current and historic gender asymmetry. Also, the word patriarchy is bound to be used more often simply due to historical context.

There are legitimate reasons for the feminist movement to continue. This is not one of them.

Comment author: arundelo 29 July 2012 02:14:30PM -1 points [-]

I was making a joke (hence the smiley).

There are legitimate reasons for the feminist movement to continue. This is not one of them.

I thoroughly agree and consider myself a feminist.

Comment author: Haladdin 29 July 2012 10:46:35PM 0 points [-]

I've seen too many comments like yours on Facebook or on Reddit without a hint of irony to think that it's a joke. Or maybe I'm just terribly dull when it comes to differentiating what is and isn't humor.

I suspect it's the latter.

Comment author: Zetetic 30 July 2012 02:40:03AM 4 points [-]

I think it's fair to say that most of us here would prefer not to have most Reddit or Facebook users included on this site, the whole "well-kept garden" thing. I like to think LW continues to maintain a pretty high standard when it comes to keeping the sanity waterline high.

Comment author: arundelo 29 July 2012 10:59:21PM 0 points [-]

No problem; even before your comment I considered adding a disclaimer so that people wouldn't misinterpret it as a slam against feminism. (The downvote on the great-grandparent wasn't from me, by the way.)

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit