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Eugine_Nier comments on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: OrphanWilde 02 January 2013 03:31AM

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Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 January 2013 05:30:35AM *  14 points [-]

That's the opposite of the point being made in the post, not a generalization of it.

At least, if I've understood you correctly — you're saying that when people make jokes about coercive/irresponsible men and passive-aggressive/nagging women, they are expressing a universal truth that society refuses to hear stated. To grossly oversimplify, we could state the blurred view proposed by the jokes being referred to as "All relationships are abusive".

The post TimS links to asserts, rather, that these jokes represent a blurring of distinctions that society fails to recognize. There actually do exist relationships that are more consensual and ones that are more abusive — the distinction — but insofar as everyone pretends that all men are coercive and all women passive-aggressive, they blur this distinction.

Moreover, blurring this distinction provides cover for the actual abusers by making the good relationships out to be just as bad as the abusive ones. If everyone is required to talk about their relationships in nonconsensual/abusive terms, then the people in consensual relationships cannot distinguish themselves as such. Hence, the post: "Even though Rowdy's brother-in-law wasn't really coercing his wife into a major responsibility she didn't want, he was cheerfully playing into a story created by, and validating for, men who really would."

It's a little like Soviet-era "moral equivalence" arguments, or more generally the tu quoque fallacy, when tu don't actually do quoque!

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 January 2013 06:12:01PM -2 points [-]

To grossly oversimplify, we could state the blurred view proposed by the jokes being referred to as "All relationships are abusive".

Yes, it's amazing how easy it is to dismiss opposing arguments when you start by "grossly oversimplifying" them into something clearly false.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 January 2013 09:38:51PM *  4 points [-]

I didn't think I was dismissing an opposing argument; rather, pointing out that the article TimS linked to was making the opposite of the claim that you stated as a generalization of its point: not "these jokes express unstated general truths" but rather "these jokes express false generalizations ... and thereby leave significant distinctions unstated and, indeed, more difficult to state."