Can we please overlook the usage of the term SJW and just pretend that didn't happen for 5 seconds so the actual main argument can be addressed?
Is the term "mansplaining" used by people as a shutdown phrase? (Yes - always, no - never, sometimes - by x group of people, etc)
My personal experience has been that the only time I ever see / hear the term "mansplaining" is when it is being used as a shutdown phrase. Not once have I ever witnessed it contribute towards a productive discussion or anything even resembling one. More often than not it is also followed by unwarranted accusations of misogyny.
That would seem to be neither. I'm not saying people don't act like ********s; I just question whether it's fair to paint it as being a gender-exclusive thing.
In what way do you think it's unfair? Do you think men routinely experience having things explained to them in a condescending way by women due to a societal presumption that men are less knowledgeable than women?
For what it's worth, your article never mentioned actually using the word "mansplain" so I don't even know if you could technically count that, though the sentiment is much the same.
This essay is considered to be the source of the concept of mansplaining, although the term itself is not used.
Are you saying you've never heard of a woman condescending to a man on the basis that "she knows best"? Because I've definitely experienced that.
No? That's clearly not what I said.
I think the point was more that when the actual word itself is used it's (at least in my experience) to shut down a conversation, not trying to describe something that happened.
I'm sure you've experienced that, but do you honestly believe that whenever someone wants to shutdown the conversation they say "mansplain" but whenever someone wants to describe the real phenomenon, they don't use the term?
It really sounded like it. But to answer the question, yes, I do think it's unfair to gender the behavior because men are given the same exact treatment with comments like "a woman knows best". People are ********s. It has little to do with your gender and more to do with your personality. I know plenty of guys who act like ********s and I know plenty of women who act like ********s. Condescension is usually just a part of the package deal on either side.
"a woman knows best" is not the same thing. The phrase "knows best" is about decision making ability, not about factual knowledge. If you look at the examples given of mansplaining, it's a presumption that a woman lacks knowledge or is uninformed. Do you think there is a social presumption that men are uninformed?
My point was that I only ever hear about it being used to shut down conversation as opposed to describing actual things that have happened. Maybe it's different for everyone else, but from my experience, there seems to be a lot, lot more of the former usage than the latter. I asked the original question to be answered because I'm curious as to whether others have had a similar / different experience than that, and from your responses thus far I can only assume that you must have.
When you say "you only ever hear about it being used", where exactly are you hearing about these instances from? Have you ever heard the term used in conversation personally?
I've heard it used on twitter anywhere from claiming that someone is mansplaining when a man explains to a woman why they're wrong, to just plain old responding, to explaining something that the man doesn't understand that well to a woman that's an expert. I think it's a valid complaint for the last example, but the first two are ridiculous.
I don't know if I would call it misandrist, but to me it is derisively dismissive. As a matter of logic in trying to establish a point, it has no persuasive value.
In conversation however, people are rarely so logical minded so it comes up.
There are many ways to be derisively dismissive.
Something like "only a libtard would think that" is an example.
A point is not invalid because of its source. But I find that almost nobody in society has the fortitude to adhere to that. In fact, people resort to name calling because they cannot disprove the other party and get frustrated. There is a reason after all why Godwin's Law has come to be.
Using the term SJW to "classify a set of [anti-intellectual] ideas" IS using it to shut down discussion and claim an instant win. That's why people love the term "SJW". What other value did the term add to your post?
Open any nosological medical index and you will find a myriad of diseases listed therein. Confine yourself to newer or rarer diseases and you may find that nothing resembling a complete etiology of the disease is yet known and there is no definitive laboratory test that can discern, statistically, whether or not a patient has the condition.
Some of these diseases may admit of a degree of variance in the symptoms; fever may be listed as a symptom, but a patient may lack a fever and still have enough of the other symptoms to be diagnosed. The disease may progress in stages, with different symptoms appearing as the disease progresses. There may be genuine room for disagreement about which symptoms are indicative, as well as considerable overlap with the symptom clusters of other diseases making the disease difficult to pin down.
Despite all of this difficulty, in medicine, clusters or patterns of related symptoms are studied, classified, and given names, and this is generally considered to be a fruitful and useful enterprise. It is, of course, always hoped that one day there will be a full etiology, that the pathogen that causes the disease may be identified, that a laboratory test for the condition that is as near perfect as statistically possible will be developed. But all of that rests necessarily on the work of those who have only the cruder classifications to go by.
Therefore I submit that the person who throws up pettifogging objections to this enterprise based on its incompleteness or uncertainty, or who makes overly stringent demands for etiologies where none have been found yet, actually makes impossible the outcome he claims to desire through his very objections themselves, and should on that basis be disregarded by those who are interested in studying the disease and its cure.
SJWism has become the name for a particular pattern of beliefs. It was not the first name given to this thought pattern, nor necessarily the best one, but it's the one that stuck. Basically everyone on the Internet knows roughly what an SJW is now. And whether or not you agree to call SJWism a disease, the method outlined above is entirely appropriate for studying this belief pattern and objections of this epistemic variety are pointless. Those who want to study the phenomenon could hardly proceed in any other fashion, and the incurious are welcome to sit things out as usual while the curious minds do the work.
I, however, am perfectly happy to call it a disease based solely on what is already known. Why? Well, perhaps that is best illustrated by addressing the thread topic:
Is claiming that someone is "mansplaining" misandrist?
Yes. To be more specific, it's misanthropic and therefore misandrist (not to mention misogynist!) a fortiori.
Imagine you were a diabolical evil genius that wanted to end the human race by forever poisoning normal relations between human beings, so that we all end up unlovable and therefore unloved. Well, one way to do it would be to warp the perception of language so as to make every conversation into a minefield, where every word and phrase is always construed so as to generate the maximum amount of offense, then make the minefield so thick and impenetrable -- construe so many things as offensive -- that it's simply impossible to get through unscathed.
I would never accuse SJWs of coordination or planning, but planned or otherwise, this has been precisely the net effect of their ascent. How the **** is anyone supposed to reproduce if every woman is primed to react to male interaction like Rebecca Solnit does? Some guy got one obscure fact insistently wrong in a conversation with her and he's suddenly "a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization." I see people of all genders firmly and insistently assert total nonsense in the face of reason every day, yet because this time it was a man and he happened to run into this ludicrous woman at the moment he decided to get a fact wrong, he's the root of all evil. Christ, navigating this woman's mind must be like getting to know a porcupine intimately with one's fingers.
I met my wife when we were both in grad school. She is a physicist and so she did and does know more about physics than I do. Nevertheless, I saw her working at a blackboard in the lounge and decided to try to approach by striking up a conversation about what she was working on. Suffice it to say I was not the equal of her postdoc physics courses and I told her nothing she did not already know herself. I was therefore straightforwardly guilty of "mansplaining." If my wife was a feminist journalist I could easily have ended up as one of the guys hung out to dry in an article just like the one by Solnit. But, thank goodness, there was virtually no SJWism back then and, thanks to basic moral and sexual intuitions unclouded by SJW and feminist nonsense, it was clear to her that I was interested in her and my attempts to engage with her about physics, however clumsy, were acts of good will.
In a world as Rebecca Solnit would have it, where everything is dialed up to maximum offense all the time, she might have said "stop mansplaining, you misogynistic carbuncle on civilization" and that would have been that. But she didn't, because that wasn't a thing, and male-female human interaction was more healthy. She gently steered the conversation away from physics and hinted she'd be amenable to meeting in another context.
I shudder to think how many beautiful futures will be ruined because now the path of maximum offense is being taken more and more often thanks to the increasing uptake of SJW anti-values into our culture.
"Mansplaining" and related ideas, when construed as negative moral norms, are corrosive to the basic fabric of human interaction. Demonizing men for male modes of approach and conversation hurts men and women alike.
I can only implore everyone reading who is not already immersed in this garbage to note that the SJWs can only build this conversational minefield if you are complicit in its construction. If sufficiently many people actively resist this bull, the theory of descriptive linguistics ensures that it won't stick. So don't let it happen. Actively resist the demonization of an entire gender based on its natural social tendencies and inclinations.
SJWism has become the name for a particular pattern of beliefs. It was not the first name given to this thought pattern, nor necessarily the best one, but it's the one that stuck. Basically everyone on the Internet knows roughly what an SJW is now.
And yet struggle to define the term, instead handwaving it away with "everyone knows".
I met my wife when we were both in grad school. She is a physicist and so she did and does know more about physics than I do. Nevertheless, I saw her working at a blackboard in the lounge and decided to try to approach by striking up a conversation about what she was working on. Suffice it to say I was not the equal of her postdoc physics courses and I told her nothing she did not already know herself. I was therefore straightforwardly guilty of "mansplaining." If my wife was a feminist journalist I could easily have ended up as one of the guys hung out to dry in an article just like the one by Solnit. But, thank goodness, there was virtually no SJWism back then and, thanks to basic moral and sexual intuitions unclouded by SJW and feminist nonsense, it was clear to her that I was interested in her and my attempts to engage with her about physics, however clumsy, were acts of good will.
It's actually possible to strike up a conversation with someone about their work, and discover they know more than you about it, without assuming you know more about it than they do and being a condescending jackass. If someone manages this feat, I don't think they'd be accused of mansplaining.
Furthermore, the 'obscure fact' that the man in Solnit's article got wrong was that the person he was condescendingly explaining a book to - a book that he had not even read - was in fact the author of that book; something he would have discovered had he let her get a word in edgeways. He continued to get this fact wrong despite having it pointed out to him several times, at which point I don't feel that the obscurity of the fact excuses him from getting it right. Were I in Solnit's position, I'd probably be fairly peeved too.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
\Open any nosological medical index and you will find a myriad of diseases listed therein. Confine yourself to newer or rarer diseases and you may find that nothing resembling a complete etiology of the disease is yet known and there is no definitive laboratory test that can discern, statistically, whether or not a patient has the condition.
Some of these diseases may admit of a degree of variance in the symptoms; fever may be listed as a symptom, but a patient may lack a fever and still have enough of the other symptoms to be diagnosed. The disease may progress in stages, with different symptoms appearing as the disease progresses. There may be genuine room for disagreement about which symptoms are indicative, as well as considerable overlap with the symptom clusters of other diseases making the disease difficult to pin down.
Despite all of this difficulty, in medicine, clusters or patterns of related symptoms are studied, classified, and given names, and this is generally considered to be a fruitful and useful enterprise. It is, of course, always hoped that one day there will be a full etiology, that the pathogen that causes the disease may be identified, that a laboratory test for the condition that is as near perfect as statistically possible will be developed. But all of that rests necessarily on the work of those who have only the cruder classifications to go by.
Therefore I submit that the person who throws up pettifogging objections to this enterprise based on its incompleteness or uncertainty, or who makes overly stringent demands for etiologies where none have been found yet, actually makes impossible the outcome he claims to desire through his very objections themselves, and should on that basis be disregarded by those who are interested in studying the disease and its cure.
SJWism has become the name for a particular pattern of beliefs. It was not the first name given to this thought pattern, nor necessarily the best one, but it's the one that stuck. Basically everyone on the Internet knows roughly what an SJW is now. And whether or not you agree to call SJWism a disease, the method outlined above is entirely appropriate for studying this belief pattern and objections of this epistemic variety are pointless. Those who want to study the phenomenon could hardly proceed in any other fashion, and the incurious are welcome to sit things out as usual while the curious minds do the work.
Ah yes, how manifestly unfair of anyone to ask for a definition of a term. Fine then, give me your symptoms of what makes an SJW in place of an actual definition.
I, however, am perfectly happy to call it a disease based solely on what is already known. Why? Well, perhaps that is best illustrated by addressing the thread topic:
Imagine you were a diabolical evil genius that wanted to end the human race by forever poisoning normal relations between human beings, so that we all end up unlovable and therefore unloved. Well, one way to do it would be to warp the perception of language so as to make every conversation into a minefield, where every word and phrase is always construed so as to generate the maximum amount of offense, then make the minefield so thick and impenetrable -- construe so many things as offensive -- that it's simply impossible to get through unscathed.
I would never accuse SJWs of coordination or planning, but planned or otherwise, this has been precisely the net effect of their ascent. How the **** is anyone supposed to reproduce if every woman is primed to react to male interaction like Rebecca Solnit does? Some guy got one obscure fact insistently wrong in a conversation with her and he's suddenly "a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization." I see people of all genders firmly and insistently assert total nonsense in the face of reason every day, yet because this time it was a man and he happened to run into this ludicrous woman at the moment he decided to get a fact wrong, he's the root of all evil. Christ, navigating this woman's mind must be like getting to know a porcupine intimately with one's fingers.
Yes, feminism is just an obstacle to male reproduction.
I met my wife when we were both in grad school. She is a physicist and so she did and does know more about physics than I do. Nevertheless, I saw her working at a blackboard in the lounge and decided to try to approach by striking up a conversation about what she was working on. Suffice it to say I was not the equal of her postdoc physics courses and I told her nothing she did not already know herself. I was therefore straightforwardly guilty of "mansplaining." If my wife was a feminist journalist I could easily have ended up as one of the guys hung out to dry in an article just like the one by Solnit. But, thank goodness, there was virtually no SJWism back then and, thanks to basic moral and sexual intuitions unclouded by SJW and feminist nonsense, it was clear to her that I was interested in her and my attempts to engage with her about physics, however clumsy, were acts of good will.
Why did you see someone working on physics problems on a blackboard and start up conversation by explaining elementary physics to them rather than asking them about physics? If it was rather clear that they were working on advanced or difficult problems, why would you be the explainer and not the explainee?
In a world as Rebecca Solnit would have it, where everything is dialed up to maximum offense all the time, she might have said "stop mansplaining, you misogynistic carbuncle on civilization" and that would have been that. But she didn't, because that wasn't a thing, and male-female human interaction was more healthy. She gently steered the conversation away from physics and hinted she'd be amenable to meeting in another context.
I shudder to think how many beautiful futures will be ruined because now the path of maximum offense is being taken more and more often thanks to the increasing uptake of SJW anti-values into our culture.
"Mansplaining" and related ideas, when construed as negative moral norms, are corrosive to the basic fabric of human interaction. Demonizing men for male modes of approach and conversation hurts men and women alike.
I can only implore everyone reading who is not already immersed in this garbage to note that the SJWs can only build this conversational minefield if you are complicit in its construction. If sufficiently many people actively resist this bull, the theory of descriptive linguistics ensures that it won't stick. So don't let it happen. Actively resist the demonization of an entire gender based on its natural social tendencies and inclinations.
Well, I'm sure that in a few years human reproduction will have ground to a halt, and we won't have to worry about any of this.
I am what I need to be at that moment to the person involved. Being frank in asking "How do you want me to approach this?"
"Are you looking for someone to complain to, or do you want a solution?"
You can see that conflict resolution begins with people who I see that I can maintain a relationship through talking and being respectful towards. There are people I can argue with that have different view points that do put up excellent arguments. Which is why I will consider those people in part, because I find the contradiction to my own view point good to know. Especially if the idea ends up being proven to work.
These moral crusaders come around every few years over something new. In recent years, I feel that the SJW war more of a causation and really a reaction to the fundamentalism we see with the Christian Right and especially with people born, bred, and raised around those communities and probably hurt in some way or their friends were. And in turn those early adopters of the tactics used in some communities are transplanted into others.
Really take a step back. Look at a SJW and a Christian conservative that is grandstanding and moralizing. They're quite similar, because they're from the same cultural stew.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
Really take a step back. Look at a SJW and a Christian conservative that is grandstanding and moralizing. They're quite similar, because they're from the same cultural stew.
There is a theory the "Horseshoe theory" that states that more far politically left or right someone becomes the more alike they become in certain ways.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
As humans, we have a tendency to cling to ideologies. Any positive set of beliefs can quickly turn malevolent once treated as ideology and not an honest intellectual or experiential pursuit of greater truth. Ideology does in entire economic systems and countries, causes religions to massacre thousands, turns human rights movements into authoritarian sects and makes fools out of humanity’s most brilliant minds. Einstein famously wasted the second half of his career trying to calculate a cosmological constant that didn’t exist because “God doesn’t play dice.”
There is a theory the "Horseshoe theory" that states that more far politically left or right someone becomes the more alike they become in certain ways.
Extremists think they know how everybody should act. This all-too-easily becomes a sense that they should force everybody to act that way. And the more extreme their position, the more force they have to use. In short, all extremism is authoritarianism.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Never mind that it's invariably capitalism which has existed for a tiny amount of time, had to be consciously created through denying agrarian populations their usual means of sustenance and needed entire new property laws and their enforcers (where did you think cops came from?).
"All extremism is authoritarianism" is drivel. It's a pointless claim because "extremism" is only in comparison to other beliefs, not something objective and inherent. It's simply something that deviates greatly from the cultural status quo (which is obviously relative).
You're basically right* that extremism is relative. That fact not only fails to disprove the point that all extremism is authoritarianism, but is actually necessary for it. I don't see how the sentence "The more extreme their position, the more force they have to use" would make any sense if extremism weren't relative. You don't need to force people to do something if they're all already doing it.
*The part where you're wrong is where extremism is a question of ideological tolerance or lack thereof. One can be an extremist for one's own cultural status quo. See hyper-nationalists, reactionaries, and xenophobes. And, conversely, one can have a very far-out belief but be tolerant of other beliefs and thus not be an extremist. See New Agers.
Ah yes, how manifestly unfair of anyone to ask for a definition of a term.
Asking for a definition isn't unfair. Asking for a definition and then immediately stating a heuristic on the basis of which you will reject every definition, however, strikes me as a bit underhanded.
Fine then, give me your symptoms of what makes an SJW in place of an actual definition.
Based on our numerous previous interactions on this topic, I can only assume you have already heard the essence of my position, so I'm not sure I can regard your request as entirely genuine. I will only be repeating things I have already said in your presence which apparently did not convince or satisfy you the first time around.
That being said, I have been meaning to write something concrete on this that I can refer back to, so maybe I will do that. Not at the present moment, though.
Yes, feminism is just an obstacle to male reproduction.
And straw men are just things farmers put in their fields to scare away birds.
Why did you see someone working on physics problems on a blackboard and start up conversation by explaining elementary physics to them rather than asking them about physics? If it was rather clear that they were working on advanced or difficult problems, why would you be the explainer and not the explainee?
I was trying to be helpful, I was interested in her, and it seemed like an opportunity to interact with her in a positive way where we could both get something from the conversation. I'm sure that will make SJW heads explode, as it violates their postulate that men have an evil, oppressive class consciousness, but there it is. The fact that one has to explain such an unambiguously positive human moral impulse these days is really more damning than anything else I could write.
Most people who are trying to solve problems on blackboards are stuck on something and need the visual aid to help them get past a particular obstacle. Most physics problems reduce to math problems after penetrating through the top layer of physical abstractions, and as a mathematician, those I am usually amply qualified to help solve. There was no a priori reason for me to think I couldn't help her; I couldn't know that until after I had made some inquiries into what she was doing.
I'm happy to grant that there was probably an SJW-approved Golden Path of conversation I could have taken, without ever "mansplaining" anything or violating any other ridiculous SJW dogma, that would have gotten me the date without ever mentioning physics. But that's really just another way of stating my point, isn't it? The narrower the Golden Path of SJW-approved conversation -- the more mines in the conversational mine field -- the fewer people that can successfully negotiate the Golden Path, and consequently, the fewer people that are able to form stable romantic connections and stable relationships. (Of course, this also applies to ordinary friendships/non-romantic interactions as well.)
Well, I'm sure that in a few years human reproduction will have ground to a halt, and we won't have to worry about any of this.
SJW reproduction will, at any rate. Indeed, there is some data that bears on the truth of this. White liberals (as a demographic group in the US) currently breed well below replacement rates. (Note: I don't mean to assert that white liberals are identical to SJWs, but there is considerable overlap.)
I know your comment is meant as snark, but it might be one faint hope for a non-SJW future. I have considered many possible solutions to the SJW debacle and as yet I have not found one that could be reasonably implemented without violating my own classically liberal ethical principles. People voluntarily removing themselves from the mating market, on the other hand, doesn't tread on any ethical boundaries of mine.
One issue is that SJWism appears to propagate along side channels much more effectively than traditional religions -- almost all of its spread to date has not been parent-child. So the hope is but faint.
Asking for a definition isn't unfair. Asking for a definition and then immediately stating a heuristic on the basis of which you will reject every definition, however, strikes me as a bit underhanded.
Based on our numerous previous interactions on this topic, I can only assume you have already heard the essence of my position, so I'm not sure I can regard your request as entirely genuine. I will only be repeating things I have already said in your presence which apparently did not convince or satisfy you the first time around.
That being said, I have been meaning to write something concrete on this that I can refer back to, so maybe I will do that. Not at the present moment, though.
Every time I'm surprised by what new viewpoint gets lumped in.
I was trying to be helpful, I was interested in her, and it seemed like an opportunity to interact with her in a positive way where we could both get something from the conversation. I'm sure that will make SJW heads explode, as it violates their postulate that men have an evil, oppressive class consciousness, but there it is. The fact that one has to explain such an unambiguously positive human moral impulse these days is really more damning than anything else I could write.
Most people who are trying to solve problems on blackboards are stuck on something and need the visual aid to help them get past a particular obstacle. Most physics problems reduce to math problems after penetrating through the top layer of physical abstractions, and as a mathematician, those I am usually amply qualified to help solve. There was no a priori reason for me to think I couldn't help her; I couldn't know that until after I had made some inquiries into what she was doing.
I'm happy to grant that there was probably an SJW-approved Golden Path of conversation I could have taken, without ever "mansplaining" anything or violating any other ridiculous SJW dogma, that would have gotten me the date without ever mentioning physics. But that's really just another way of stating my point, isn't it? The narrower the Golden Path of SJW-approved conversation -- the more mines in the conversational mine field -- the fewer people that can successfully negotiate the Golden Path, and consequently, the fewer people that are able to form stable romantic connections and stable relationships. (Of course, this also applies to ordinary friendships/non-romantic interactions as well.)
Asking what she was doing is different than the story you told before, in which you began to explain facts she already knew.
SJW reproduction will, at any rate. Indeed, there is some data that bears on the truth of this. White liberals (as a demographic group in the US) currently breed well below replacement rates. (Note: I don't mean to assert that white liberals are identical to SJWs, but there is considerable overlap.)
I know your comment is meant as snark, but it might be one faint hope for a non-SJW future. I have considered many possible solutions to the SJW debacle and as yet I have not found one that could be reasonably implemented without violating my own classically liberal ethical principles. People voluntarily removing themselves from the mating market, on the other hand, doesn't tread on any ethical boundaries of mine.
One issue is that SJWism appears to propagate along side channels much more effectively than traditional religions -- almost all of its spread to date has not been parent-child. So the hope is but faint.
If only demographers understood that white liberal reproductive rates are dropping because of SJWs. I'm sure this new paradigm of explaining population trends will take the field by storm.
Nevertheless, I saw her working at a blackboard in the lounge and decided to try to approach by striking up a conversation about what she was working on. Suffice it to say I was not the equal of her postdoc physics courses and I told her nothing she did not already know herself.
Why did you see someone working on physics problems on a blackboard and start up conversation by explaining elementary physics to them rather than asking them about physics? If it was rather clear that they were working on advanced or difficult problems, why would you be the explainer and not the explainee?
I was trying to be helpful, I was interested in her, and it seemed like an opportunity to interact with her in a positive way where we could both get something from the conversation. I'm sure that will make SJW heads explode, as it violates their postulate that men have an evil, oppressive class consciousness, but there it is. The fact that one has to explain such an unambiguously positive human moral impulse these days is really more damning than anything else I could write.
Most people who are trying to solve problems on blackboards are stuck on something and need the visual aid to help them get past a particular obstacle. Most physics problems reduce to math problems after penetrating through the top layer of physical abstractions, and as a mathematician, those I am usually amply qualified to help solve. There was no a priori reason for me to think I couldn't help her; I couldn't know that until after I had made some inquiries into what she was doing.
In your first story, you're explaining things to her that she already knows. In the second story, you're asking what she's doing, and finding out it's beyond your abilities. I doubt that SJWs would have any problem with the latter. Also, 'trying to be helpful', 'interested in her', and 'interact in a mutually beneficial way' are reasons to begin an interaction, not reasons to explain things she already knows without checking first whether she knows them.
I'm happy to grant that there was probably an SJW-approved Golden Path of conversation I could have taken, without ever "mansplaining" anything or violating any other ridiculous SJW dogma, that would have gotten me the date without ever mentioning physics. But that's really just another way of stating my point, isn't it? The narrower the Golden Path of SJW-approved conversation -- the more mines in the conversational mine field -- the fewer people that can successfully negotiate the Golden Path, and consequently, the fewer people that are able to form stable romantic connections and stable relationships. (Of course, this also applies to ordinary friendships/non-romantic interactions as well.)
From my perspective (I'm not sure whether you consider me an SJW), there is nothing taboo about mentioning physics; your second story of the event, in which you ask what she is doing, discover it's beyond you, and have an enjoyable conversation, seems like a fine piece of interaction to me.
The first story, in which you explain physics to her that she already knew, appeared (to me) to be more condescending, as you were assuming that you knew more about what she was doing than she did, with no information except that she was doing physics. As conversational minefields go, 'gauge someone's knowledge before dispensing your own' is hardly a challenging one, and indeed you appear to dodge it nimbly in the second version of your story. I hardly think a reduction in arrogant condescension is going to make social interactions more unpleasant and difficult.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Please stop posting in my thread. Whenever you post, you're always spouting misogynistic anti-feminist beliefs. You and all of the other MRA/MGTOW/whatevers are ridiculous. "But muh men's rights." STFU. I honestly can't take you seriously and I don't know why other people even bother responding to you. Hell you even have MRA in your name. You are an obvious troll.
In what way do you think it's unfair? Do you think men routinely experience having things explained to them in a condescending way by women due to a societal presumption that men are less knowledgeable than women?
If you think they don't you have never entered an area of study where women routinely achieve authority, or dealt much with human resources or social services.
Petty women with perceived power are equal to petty men with perceived power in how much of an ******** they can be, but unlike women, men don't have a little magic word to stifle further "abuse" (or discourse, or even well intentioned advice). All they have is a chance to excel and prove their worth which may have a lot to do with so many elite artists, chefs, beauticians and designers being male despite the mayority of the enrollment and instruction being female and all these endeavors being considered predominantly feminine.
Maybe if women didn't have the crutches of "mansplaining" and undesserved accusations of misandry, if success was the only recourse they had to prove their worth to society, we'd have more female scientists, economists, soldiers and athletes. Something feminism and it's sociopolitical minefield and media circus has utterly failed to achieve.
If you think they don't you have never entered an area of study where women routinely achieve authority, or dealt much with human resources or social services.
Petty women with perceived power are equal to petty men with perceived power in how much of an ******** they can be, but unlike women, men don't have a little magic word to stifle further "abuse" (or discourse, or even well intentioned advice). All they have is a chance to excel and prove their worth which may have a lot to do with so many elite artists, chefs, beauticians and designers being male despite the mayority of the enrollment and instruction being female and all these endeavors being considered predominantly feminine.
Maybe if women didn't have the crutches of "mansplaining" and undesserved accusations of misandry, if success was the only recourse they had to prove their worth to society, we'd have more female scientists, economists, soldiers and athletes. Something feminism and it's sociopolitical minefield and media circus has utterly failed to achieve.
Are you really sure you want to use professional chefs as an example of a field where women are the majority of enrollment, and where there's no social assumption that women are less capable? Maybe do a quick google and see if you want to revise that before we go on.
Wait, so your argument that society isn't sexist is that males in fields of work traditionally considered women's work tend to be promoted into leadership and celebrity roles at a greater rate than the majority of their female colleagues?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Wait, so your argument that society isn't sexist is that males in fields of work traditionally considered women's work tend to be promoted into leadership and celebrity roles at a greater rate than the majority of their female colleagues?
But only because feminism has made them soft and unable to compete!
Yes indeed.
Women are told they can't do something because it's men's work? They don't do it and a whole business model is made out of taking donations for the supposed purpose of making it easier for women to enter those fields of work. Even if ultimatedly it doesn't work.
Men are told they can't do something because it's women's work? They do it so well they become the elite within that line of work.
If you cannot see how the problem in this situation is NOT men, you're thinking way too much with your dicks. Women aren't weak, useless creatures that need your help, women are pampered by people having an excessive compulsion to protect their feelings, and THAT is sexism.
They don't do it and a whole business model is made out of taking donations for the supposed purpose of making it easier for women to enter those fields of work. Even if ultimatedly it doesn't work.
Feel free to link an example.
If you cannot see how the problem in this situation is NOT men, you're thinking way too much with your dicks.
Implying the problem is any one individual and not a mash of social and historical interactions that are now mostly subconscious beliefs and expectations over-simplifies things in a way that doesn't really help anyone. Maybe reconsider doing that.
people having an excessive compulsion to protect their feelings
Emotional health is important, but you can't fix the world if you think it's already fair in defiance of the evidence. You should work on that.
Seriously when there are universities saying "women don't get academic support" and economic research groups saying "if women were paid equally the economy would function better, pity they aren't" then the problem isn't people trying to save women's feelings.
Yes indeed.
Women are told they can't do something because it's men's work? They don't do it and a whole business model is made out of taking donations for the supposed purpose of making it easier for women to enter those fields of work. Even if ultimatedly it doesn't work.
Men are told they can't do something because it's women's work? They do it so well they become the elite within that line of work.
If you cannot see how the problem in this situation is NOT men, you're thinking way too much with your dicks. Women aren't weak, useless creatures that need your help, women are pampered by people having an excessive compulsion to protect their feelings, and THAT is sexism.
It is a bit ridiculous when people try to claim that the reason behind rampant inequality in the sexes is anything other than sexist men dominating higher positions in all fields of work. It is completely obvious that this is the case but so many people refuse to acknowledge it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-solnit13
Shutdown phrase or productive discussion?
In what way do you think it's unfair? Do you think men routinely experience having things explained to them in a condescending way by women due to a societal presumption that men are less knowledgeable than women?
This essay is considered to be the source of the concept of mansplaining, although the term itself is not used.
No? That's clearly not what I said.
I'm sure you've experienced that, but do you honestly believe that whenever someone wants to shutdown the conversation they say "mansplain" but whenever someone wants to describe the real phenomenon, they don't use the term?
"a woman knows best" is not the same thing. The phrase "knows best" is about decision making ability, not about factual knowledge. If you look at the examples given of mansplaining, it's a presumption that a woman lacks knowledge or is uninformed. Do you think there is a social presumption that men are uninformed?
When you say "you only ever hear about it being used", where exactly are you hearing about these instances from? Have you ever heard the term used in conversation personally?
I don't know if I would call it misandrist, but to me it is derisively dismissive. As a matter of logic in trying to establish a point, it has no persuasive value.
In conversation however, people are rarely so logical minded so it comes up.
There are many ways to be derisively dismissive.
Something like "only a libtard would think that" is an example.
A point is not invalid because of its source. But I find that almost nobody in society has the fortitude to adhere to that. In fact, people resort to name calling because they cannot disprove the other party and get frustrated. There is a reason after all why Godwin's Law has come to be.
Some of these diseases may admit of a degree of variance in the symptoms; fever may be listed as a symptom, but a patient may lack a fever and still have enough of the other symptoms to be diagnosed. The disease may progress in stages, with different symptoms appearing as the disease progresses. There may be genuine room for disagreement about which symptoms are indicative, as well as considerable overlap with the symptom clusters of other diseases making the disease difficult to pin down.
Despite all of this difficulty, in medicine, clusters or patterns of related symptoms are studied, classified, and given names, and this is generally considered to be a fruitful and useful enterprise. It is, of course, always hoped that one day there will be a full etiology, that the pathogen that causes the disease may be identified, that a laboratory test for the condition that is as near perfect as statistically possible will be developed. But all of that rests necessarily on the work of those who have only the cruder classifications to go by.
Therefore I submit that the person who throws up pettifogging objections to this enterprise based on its incompleteness or uncertainty, or who makes overly stringent demands for etiologies where none have been found yet, actually makes impossible the outcome he claims to desire through his very objections themselves, and should on that basis be disregarded by those who are interested in studying the disease and its cure.
SJWism has become the name for a particular pattern of beliefs. It was not the first name given to this thought pattern, nor necessarily the best one, but it's the one that stuck. Basically everyone on the Internet knows roughly what an SJW is now. And whether or not you agree to call SJWism a disease, the method outlined above is entirely appropriate for studying this belief pattern and objections of this epistemic variety are pointless. Those who want to study the phenomenon could hardly proceed in any other fashion, and the incurious are welcome to sit things out as usual while the curious minds do the work.
I, however, am perfectly happy to call it a disease based solely on what is already known. Why? Well, perhaps that is best illustrated by addressing the thread topic:
Yes. To be more specific, it's misanthropic and therefore misandrist (not to mention misogynist!) a fortiori.
Imagine you were a diabolical evil genius that wanted to end the human race by forever poisoning normal relations between human beings, so that we all end up unlovable and therefore unloved. Well, one way to do it would be to warp the perception of language so as to make every conversation into a minefield, where every word and phrase is always construed so as to generate the maximum amount of offense, then make the minefield so thick and impenetrable -- construe so many things as offensive -- that it's simply impossible to get through unscathed.
I would never accuse SJWs of coordination or planning, but planned or otherwise, this has been precisely the net effect of their ascent. How the **** is anyone supposed to reproduce if every woman is primed to react to male interaction like Rebecca Solnit does? Some guy got one obscure fact insistently wrong in a conversation with her and he's suddenly "a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization." I see people of all genders firmly and insistently assert total nonsense in the face of reason every day, yet because this time it was a man and he happened to run into this ludicrous woman at the moment he decided to get a fact wrong, he's the root of all evil. Christ, navigating this woman's mind must be like getting to know a porcupine intimately with one's fingers.
I met my wife when we were both in grad school. She is a physicist and so she did and does know more about physics than I do. Nevertheless, I saw her working at a blackboard in the lounge and decided to try to approach by striking up a conversation about what she was working on. Suffice it to say I was not the equal of her postdoc physics courses and I told her nothing she did not already know herself. I was therefore straightforwardly guilty of "mansplaining." If my wife was a feminist journalist I could easily have ended up as one of the guys hung out to dry in an article just like the one by Solnit. But, thank goodness, there was virtually no SJWism back then and, thanks to basic moral and sexual intuitions unclouded by SJW and feminist nonsense, it was clear to her that I was interested in her and my attempts to engage with her about physics, however clumsy, were acts of good will.
In a world as Rebecca Solnit would have it, where everything is dialed up to maximum offense all the time, she might have said "stop mansplaining, you misogynistic carbuncle on civilization" and that would have been that. But she didn't, because that wasn't a thing, and male-female human interaction was more healthy. She gently steered the conversation away from physics and hinted she'd be amenable to meeting in another context.
I shudder to think how many beautiful futures will be ruined because now the path of maximum offense is being taken more and more often thanks to the increasing uptake of SJW anti-values into our culture.
"Mansplaining" and related ideas, when construed as negative moral norms, are corrosive to the basic fabric of human interaction. Demonizing men for male modes of approach and conversation hurts men and women alike.
I can only implore everyone reading who is not already immersed in this garbage to note that the SJWs can only build this conversational minefield if you are complicit in its construction. If sufficiently many people actively resist this bull, the theory of descriptive linguistics ensures that it won't stick. So don't let it happen. Actively resist the demonization of an entire gender based on its natural social tendencies and inclinations.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
And yet struggle to define the term, instead handwaving it away with "everyone knows".
It's actually possible to strike up a conversation with someone about their work, and discover they know more than you about it, without assuming you know more about it than they do and being a condescending jackass. If someone manages this feat, I don't think they'd be accused of mansplaining.
Furthermore, the 'obscure fact' that the man in Solnit's article got wrong was that the person he was condescendingly explaining a book to - a book that he had not even read - was in fact the author of that book; something he would have discovered had he let her get a word in edgeways. He continued to get this fact wrong despite having it pointed out to him several times, at which point I don't feel that the obscurity of the fact excuses him from getting it right. Were I in Solnit's position, I'd probably be fairly peeved too.
Ah yes, how manifestly unfair of anyone to ask for a definition of a term. Fine then, give me your symptoms of what makes an SJW in place of an actual definition.
I, however, am perfectly happy to call it a disease based solely on what is already known. Why? Well, perhaps that is best illustrated by addressing the thread topic:
Yes, feminism is just an obstacle to male reproduction.
Why did you see someone working on physics problems on a blackboard and start up conversation by explaining elementary physics to them rather than asking them about physics? If it was rather clear that they were working on advanced or difficult problems, why would you be the explainer and not the explainee?
Well, I'm sure that in a few years human reproduction will have ground to a halt, and we won't have to worry about any of this.
I am what I need to be at that moment to the person involved. Being frank in asking "How do you want me to approach this?"
"Are you looking for someone to complain to, or do you want a solution?"
You can see that conflict resolution begins with people who I see that I can maintain a relationship through talking and being respectful towards. There are people I can argue with that have different view points that do put up excellent arguments. Which is why I will consider those people in part, because I find the contradiction to my own view point good to know. Especially if the idea ends up being proven to work.
These moral crusaders come around every few years over something new. In recent years, I feel that the SJW war more of a causation and really a reaction to the fundamentalism we see with the Christian Right and especially with people born, bred, and raised around those communities and probably hurt in some way or their friends were. And in turn those early adopters of the tactics used in some communities are transplanted into others.
Really take a step back. Look at a SJW and a Christian conservative that is grandstanding and moralizing. They're quite similar, because they're from the same cultural stew.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
There is a theory the "Horseshoe theory" that states that more far politically left or right someone becomes the more alike they become in certain ways.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You're basically right* that extremism is relative. That fact not only fails to disprove the point that all extremism is authoritarianism, but is actually necessary for it. I don't see how the sentence "The more extreme their position, the more force they have to use" would make any sense if extremism weren't relative. You don't need to force people to do something if they're all already doing it.
*The part where you're wrong is where extremism is a question of ideological tolerance or lack thereof. One can be an extremist for one's own cultural status quo. See hyper-nationalists, reactionaries, and xenophobes. And, conversely, one can have a very far-out belief but be tolerant of other beliefs and thus not be an extremist. See New Agers.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Also, you seem to be laying on even more vitriol than usual. Is this a sore subject for you?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Asking for a definition isn't unfair. Asking for a definition and then immediately stating a heuristic on the basis of which you will reject every definition, however, strikes me as a bit underhanded.
Based on our numerous previous interactions on this topic, I can only assume you have already heard the essence of my position, so I'm not sure I can regard your request as entirely genuine. I will only be repeating things I have already said in your presence which apparently did not convince or satisfy you the first time around.
That being said, I have been meaning to write something concrete on this that I can refer back to, so maybe I will do that. Not at the present moment, though.
And straw men are just things farmers put in their fields to scare away birds.
I was trying to be helpful, I was interested in her, and it seemed like an opportunity to interact with her in a positive way where we could both get something from the conversation. I'm sure that will make SJW heads explode, as it violates their postulate that men have an evil, oppressive class consciousness, but there it is. The fact that one has to explain such an unambiguously positive human moral impulse these days is really more damning than anything else I could write.
Most people who are trying to solve problems on blackboards are stuck on something and need the visual aid to help them get past a particular obstacle. Most physics problems reduce to math problems after penetrating through the top layer of physical abstractions, and as a mathematician, those I am usually amply qualified to help solve. There was no a priori reason for me to think I couldn't help her; I couldn't know that until after I had made some inquiries into what she was doing.
I'm happy to grant that there was probably an SJW-approved Golden Path of conversation I could have taken, without ever "mansplaining" anything or violating any other ridiculous SJW dogma, that would have gotten me the date without ever mentioning physics. But that's really just another way of stating my point, isn't it? The narrower the Golden Path of SJW-approved conversation -- the more mines in the conversational mine field -- the fewer people that can successfully negotiate the Golden Path, and consequently, the fewer people that are able to form stable romantic connections and stable relationships. (Of course, this also applies to ordinary friendships/non-romantic interactions as well.)
SJW reproduction will, at any rate. Indeed, there is some data that bears on the truth of this. White liberals (as a demographic group in the US) currently breed well below replacement rates. (Note: I don't mean to assert that white liberals are identical to SJWs, but there is considerable overlap.)
I know your comment is meant as snark, but it might be one faint hope for a non-SJW future. I have considered many possible solutions to the SJW debacle and as yet I have not found one that could be reasonably implemented without violating my own classically liberal ethical principles. People voluntarily removing themselves from the mating market, on the other hand, doesn't tread on any ethical boundaries of mine.
One issue is that SJWism appears to propagate along side channels much more effectively than traditional religions -- almost all of its spread to date has not been parent-child. So the hope is but faint.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Every time I'm surprised by what new viewpoint gets lumped in.
Asking what she was doing is different than the story you told before, in which you began to explain facts she already knew.
If only demographers understood that white liberal reproductive rates are dropping because of SJWs. I'm sure this new paradigm of explaining population trends will take the field by storm.
In your first story, you're explaining things to her that she already knows. In the second story, you're asking what she's doing, and finding out it's beyond your abilities. I doubt that SJWs would have any problem with the latter. Also, 'trying to be helpful', 'interested in her', and 'interact in a mutually beneficial way' are reasons to begin an interaction, not reasons to explain things she already knows without checking first whether she knows them.
From my perspective (I'm not sure whether you consider me an SJW), there is nothing taboo about mentioning physics; your second story of the event, in which you ask what she is doing, discover it's beyond you, and have an enjoyable conversation, seems like a fine piece of interaction to me.
The first story, in which you explain physics to her that she already knew, appeared (to me) to be more condescending, as you were assuming that you knew more about what she was doing than she did, with no information except that she was doing physics. As conversational minefields go, 'gauge someone's knowledge before dispensing your own' is hardly a challenging one, and indeed you appear to dodge it nimbly in the second version of your story. I hardly think a reduction in arrogant condescension is going to make social interactions more unpleasant and difficult.
User alert: Your Ignore List is incomplete.
If you think they don't you have never entered an area of study where women routinely achieve authority, or dealt much with human resources or social services.
Petty women with perceived power are equal to petty men with perceived power in how much of an ******** they can be, but unlike women, men don't have a little magic word to stifle further "abuse" (or discourse, or even well intentioned advice). All they have is a chance to excel and prove their worth which may have a lot to do with so many elite artists, chefs, beauticians and designers being male despite the mayority of the enrollment and instruction being female and all these endeavors being considered predominantly feminine.
Maybe if women didn't have the crutches of "mansplaining" and undesserved accusations of misandry, if success was the only recourse they had to prove their worth to society, we'd have more female scientists, economists, soldiers and athletes. Something feminism and it's sociopolitical minefield and media circus has utterly failed to achieve.
Are you really sure you want to use professional chefs as an example of a field where women are the majority of enrollment, and where there's no social assumption that women are less capable? Maybe do a quick google and see if you want to revise that before we go on.
Art is life itself.
But only because feminism has made them soft and unable to compete!
Women are told they can't do something because it's men's work? They don't do it and a whole business model is made out of taking donations for the supposed purpose of making it easier for women to enter those fields of work. Even if ultimatedly it doesn't work.
Men are told they can't do something because it's women's work? They do it so well they become the elite within that line of work.
If you cannot see how the problem in this situation is NOT men, you're thinking way too much with your dicks. Women aren't weak, useless creatures that need your help, women are pampered by people having an excessive compulsion to protect their feelings, and THAT is sexism.
Read up on the Glass Escalator (and how it's racist) here, friend. Part of it's summarized here, if that link doesn't work.
Feel free to link an example.
Implying the problem is any one individual and not a mash of social and historical interactions that are now mostly subconscious beliefs and expectations over-simplifies things in a way that doesn't really help anyone. Maybe reconsider doing that.
Emotional health is important, but you can't fix the world if you think it's already fair in defiance of the evidence. You should work on that.
Seriously when there are universities saying "women don't get academic support" and economic research groups saying "if women were paid equally the economy would function better, pity they aren't" then the problem isn't people trying to save women's feelings.
Art is life itself.
It is a bit ridiculous when people try to claim that the reason behind rampant inequality in the sexes is anything other than sexist men dominating higher positions in all fields of work. It is completely obvious that this is the case but so many people refuse to acknowledge it.