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MugaSofer comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong
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Ah, right.
So you consider anti-X-ism better than anti-Y-ism, but both are worse than having neither?
If the only expected effects of anti-X-ism and anti-Y-ism are harm to X and harm to Y (respectively), yes, that's correct.
But you expect some secondary sociological/reputational benefit, at least in this case?
Expect? No. Just acknowledging that anti-X-ism doesn't necessarily harm X, nor does it necessarily only harm X.
But sure, it happens. The phrase "get off my side!" is often used in these cases.For example, the Westboro Baptist Church folks have probably done more good than harm for queers (net, aggregated over agents), despite being (I think) anti-queer.
By the same token, anti-Y-ism doesn't necessarily harm Y?
Well, sure. That's true of everything. But is it especially true of misandry?
You're response to one of those cases is what started this discussion.
Yup.
Beats me. I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was. You went from my statement about acts that cause harm to X and Y to a superficially similar statement about 'isms'. My point here is that going from endorsing FOO to endorsing 'FOOism' is not necessarily a truth-preserving operation for any 'ism', since 'isms' tend to carry additional baggage with them.
With respect to terms like 'misandry,' 'misogyny,' 'misanthropy,' 'feminism,' 'masculism', 'sexism', etc. I find it is almost always preferable to discard the term and instead talk about things like reducing harm to women, reducing harm to men, increasing benefits to women, increasing benefits to men, reducing net differentials between benefits to women and men, and similar concepts.
Yes. And?
Ah. I was still responding to the comment where you said comparing misogyny to misandry was like comparing a rich man and a poor man stealing bread and sleeping on the streets.
Just noting.
And you were responding to that by asking me whether it's especially true of misandry that it doesn't necessarily just harm men?
You've kind of lost me again.
If you can clarify the relationship between my comparison and your question -- or perhaps back up a step further and clarify your objection to my comparison, which I infer you object to but am not exactly sure on what grounds (other than perhaps that it's sexist, but I'm not quite sure how to interpret that label in this context), that might help resolve some confusions.
OK, if misandry (or other anti-X-ism) isn't especially likely to have good side effects, compared to misogyny (anti-Y-ism), why is objecting to it on the same grounds as misogyny mistaken?
I feel like I'm repeating myself, which indicates that I haven't been at all clear.
So let me back up and express myself more precisely this time.
I'm going to temporarily divide misandry into two components: MA1 (those things which harm men) and MA2 (everything else). I will assume for the moment that MA1 is non-empty. (MA2 might be empty or non-empty, that's irrelevant to my point.) I equivalently divide misogyny into MG1, which harms women, and MG2, which doesn't.
As I've said elsewhere, I mostly care about MA1 and MG1, and not about MA2 and MG2.
As I've also said elsewhere, I have two relevant values here:
V1: to maximize net benefit
V2: to minimize inequality.
So an (oversimplified subset of an) expected-value calculation for MA1 and MG1 might look like:
EV(MA1) = BMA*WV1 + EMA*WV2
EV(MG1) = BMG*WV1 + EMG*WV2
...where:
EV(x) is the expected value of x;
BMA/BMG is the expected change in net benefit due to MA1 and MG1 (respectively);
EMA/EMG is the expected change in net equality due to MA1 and MG1 (respectively);
WV1/WV2 is the weight of V1 and V2 (respectively)
(For convenience, I've defined everything such that more positive is better.)
I object to MA1 on the grounds that I expect EV(MA1) to be negative. I expect this for two reasons:
first, because BMA is negative -- that is, MA1 results in less net benefit.
second, because even though EMA is positive -- that is, MA1 results in less inequality -- I expect that (BMA*WV1) > (EMA*WV2).
I object to MG1 on the grounds that I expect EV(MG2) to be negative. I expect this for two reasons:
first, because BMG is negative -- that is, MG1 results in less net benefit.
second, because EMG is negative -- that is, MG1 results in more inequality.
So, rolling all of that tediously precise notation back into English, I could say that I object to misandry on the grounds that it causes harm, despite reducing inequality, and I object to misogyny on the grounds that it causes harm and increases inequality.
On consideration, I don't say it's necessarily a mistake to object to misandry and misogyny on the same grounds... for example, one might simply not care about inequality at all, in which case one would object to both of them on the same grounds -- that is, the EV(MA1) and EV(MG1) calculations are basically the same. I don't think it makes sense to say someone is mistaken to have or not have a particular value; if you don't value equality, then you don't, and there's not much else to say about it.
But I do seem to value equality, and I therefore reject expected value calculations where EV(MA1) and EV(MG1) are basically the same.
Is that any clearer?