A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

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Kayla
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Kayla »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:17 am Women change levels of argument far more freely than men, and make more frequent use of fallacies: sex, sexism, ad hominem, straw man, non-sequiturs, reductio ad absurdum, confusing the general with the particular, and self-contradiction.
the irony, it burns!
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Skip, Kayla, Sir-Sister-of-Suck, I am sorry I am failing to impress you. Perhaps if you took a look at one of my essays, where I go into things in more detail, you might see some merit? Only the first is complete, the second is a half draft, and the third is just a collection of notes, but at least they should give you the general idea. ‘Talking Truthfully’ is intended to be my solution to most of the world’s ills.

Men, Philosophy and Women (5 pages) -- https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... jAzOTg0NzQ
Talking Truthfully (14 pages) -- https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... mZhYWQ3ODI
The Female Submission Reflex (5 pages) -- https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... TgxOTQ5NjY

Here is the synopsis for the first one, ‘Men, Philosophy and Women’:
A diatribe for men, with a commentary for women, focussing on one specific problem: the difficulty a husband has using rational argument with his wife. Contributions on the subject from several Western philosophers are investigated. Their various strategies for dealing with women are critically examined. All along, the utility of their work for the beleaguered husband is evaluated. The unhealthy outcome for the man-woman relationship in modern society is revealed, taking sexual harassment as an example. Original causes are identified, responsibilities are apportioned between the sexes, and temporary strategies are recommended. For the future a cure is promised.
Here is the summary for the second one, ‘Talking Truthfully’:
My essay shows men a new way of approaching and talking to women.  Key is the use of nonverbal communication. A strong approach attracts women, and ensures they talk truthfully.  To talk back truthfully, men must criticise women as well as praise them. At the moment, no man dares to do this, for fear of social sanctions or the sack. This is sad, because women like criticism, though they deny it, and have no fear of criticising men. Accordingly, my instructions are for men, and are designed to increase their confidence. Women readers will simply have to overhear what I say, most of the time. If accomplished well, relationships will improve, the power balance between men and women will be corrected, and both will go out into the world to fix all those other problems.
If anyone sees any merit in any of the above I will, of course, be delighted.
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

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Sir-Sister-of-Suck, you suppose that my activism tells me not to discriminate, but that is not true: my philosophy is full of discrimination, in order to treat people reasonably -- especially the handicapped and young children. I treat men and women completely differently (I find the idea of flirting with a man totally unacceptable).

My philosophy tells me, for example, that men should occasionally control women, both in public and in private, but I don’t feel happy holding that view without expressing it to my intimate friends (especially women, of course). At the moment I am getting away with it. If only I had know earlier that women don’t like maps, that alone might have saved my marriage.

I perfectly understand if you are exhausted by our conversation and in no way do I think you are 'copping out'. You have done sterling work in tolerating my extraordinary views and I am honoured to have had so much of your time.
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Greta
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Greta »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 10:25 pmMy philosophy tells me, for example, that men should occasionally control women, both in public and in private ...
How absurd. Why should any woman be controlled by a dimwit like you? Just because you have a penis? Dolt.
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Lacewing
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

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Duncan Butlin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 9:58 pm...
Your volumes of assessments about women are so contrived and inaccurate. Any passing insight you might hit on is overshadowed by all of the rigid absurdity that you manufacture. You are a funny fellow at times... and that makes me laugh. :) But I've lost interest in reading through your stuff.

You clearly have a passion for this masterpiece you have created. Too bad it's a bunch of baloney that you've served up APPARENTLY as a result of some traumas you've been through with women in your life. Perhaps you struggled to understand them, and then comforted and bolstered yourself in thinking you figured it all out... and figured THEM out. One element that keeps coming up in your writings is that you appear to feel beaten down by women. And your response TO THAT is to want to put women in their place and dominate them. You use flowery language as if to convince (anyone) that your motives are so very sensible... but they're not, because you do not have the necessary clarity and knowledge about women. You're making it all up to suit yourself, with the operational limits of your man-brain.

It would be more truthful for you to talk about your own pain and bafflement, and recognize the long-term ways that has distorted and limited your thinking... and stop defining women in such stupid and inaccurate ways.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Skip »

Maybe it's not too late for him to join the Salafi movement.
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 10:25 pm Sir-Sister-of-Suck, you suppose that my activism tells me not to discriminate, but that is not true: my philosophy is full of discrimination, in order to treat people reasonably -- especially the handicapped and young children.
Maybe so, but not for the specific reason that you like someone more than someone else. Because that probably isn't the most rational thing you could do, in light of your activism. Because personal attachments themselves aren't rational.

When you treat your friends better than other people who aren't your friends, that isn't done due to a careful consideration of your activism, it's done to fulfill a different part of your human psyche; The part that isn't attempting to be purely rational. Not sure if this quick rephrasing helps you understand where my point any better, but I thought it was worth a shot.

I'll check out some of those google docs later.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Judaka »

I'm not really the only one saying this but it's very difficult to make decisions about groups of people because everyone fits into multiple categories. People talk about the most visceral differences such as sex and race but realistically many more important ones exist that we are becoming more aware of and more able to identify.

Intelligence, temperament, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extroversion, personality characteristics such as "the big 5" and for instance comparisons like "analytical, driver, amiable, expressive are all very relevant markers between people that really matter in deciding "who should be doing what".

People can rightly point out that there are not insignificant differences between the sexes and perhaps that this is slightly more relevant than other markers between people because certain people want to argue there are no differences between the sexes.

However, I really don't understand how the differences between the sexes may trump the aforementioned markers in a way that ought to take precedence in dictating how a household should be run or how a relationship should function.

Should not the more reliable and conscientious individual be in charge of the finances for instance? What about being a man makes one more qualified? "Men should make the decisions in the household"? Why? Wouldn't it be better if the more pragmatic and analytical person did that?

The issue is very complex and rather than pointing out a solution, instead I am saying there's a certain stupidity in favouring differences in sex to all other differences if your argument is being practical and pragmatic about it. Perhaps you can talk about how the man is biologically hardwired to want to be in control and therefore it's emasculating and dysfunctional for a relationship where he's not. Not saying that's how it is but at least the argument would be appropriate even if the facts weren't.
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Post by henry quirk »

Duncan,

Women change levels of argument far more freely than men, and make more frequent use of fallacies: sex, sexism, ad hominem, straw man, non-sequiturs, reductio ad absurdum, confusing the general with the particular, and self-contradiction.

In my experience: there's little difference between the two. Instead, I find great variety when comparing individuals.

To monitor a marriage, a wife keeps a list of all the bad things her husband does; he keeps a list of all the good things he does.

I've seen that; have also seen the reverse.

Men have large consciences, feel guilt, and punish themselves when accurately blamed: women have small consciences and must be directly shamed (serotonin recovery times after defeat).

The difference in conscience is more aligned with self-perception: men tending to see themselves as solitaries; women tending to see themselves as community members.

Women are much better at finding holes in a men’s arguments.

No. Instead, a great many women are good at pretending they find holes (but then, some males are good at this too).

Women are very keen on change, undermining things (fashion); men want to preserve the status quo, the structure of the community (sociobiology: bride moves to husband’s house).

Just the opposite, I think. Women, cuz of biology, tend to hunker down, nest; men, cuz of biology, tend toward wanderlust or minimalizing.

female freedom is the freedom to break rules (modern, individualistic society); male freedom is the freedom to make rules (the building of civil society).

Again, just the opposite: women are civilizers (which is to say domesticaters); men are wild and don't stay men if domesticated.

Simply...

Women skew toward the communitarian; men skew toward the libertarian (or even the anarchic).

There is a healthy tension in this as long as men are men and women are women. The push for a kind of interchangeability is what screwed the pooch. Further muddying the water is all this gender fluidity/trans nonsense.
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Re:

Post by Kayla »

henry quirk wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:40 pm There is a healthy tension in this as long as men are men and women are women.
and sheep are nervous?
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Sorry for the delay, folks, I am finding this thread quite a challenge.

Greta, I honestly thing we are not very good at controlling ourselves: we know far better how others ought to behave than how to behave ourselves (we get away with what we can, when no-one’s looking). I think this is true whatever the sex, but I think men are particularly good at controlling women, and women are particularly good at controlling men. This is why marriage is so important, as is a balance between the sexes in public life.

Lacewing, sorry you’ve got bored. Yes, I am proud of my partially created masterpiece, and, yes, I do feel my difficult marriage gives me special insight. It’s not just that I feel beaten down by women, I claim that all men are being beaten down by most women -- a bit like patriarchy in reverse, only for much longer. So yes, I desperately yearn to put women in their place, both in public and private.

As for using flowery language I hope I’m getting better. I am trying to use the most direct words, even though they are taboo. Dominate, control, judge, discipline, shame, punish, sorry, submit … I’m trying to revive them all. I don’t think I’m particularly clever, but I do have a particular advantage: most people are going around with their eyes closed to these sex differences. No, I don’t want to “talk about [my] own pain” - that’s the female way -- I want to talk about how to fix things. Thanks for your stimulating criticism.

Skip, no, I'm not becoming a Salafist anytime soon. Being an evangelical atheist, I am somewhat sceptical of all religions. Anyway, we in the West should stop trying to advise Saudi men how to treat their women. We treat our women far worse. We have watered down the limits on their behaviour -- speech, fashion, divorce, feminist outpourings, claims to equality -- and as a result their rate of depression keeps on climbing. The Saudis appear to being draconian in public with the burqa (I have voted against it here in the UK), but in the home the husband is even more beleaguered than in the West. Few men prefer pornography to the real thing, and yet Saudi porn viewing back in the 80s was the highest in the world. God only knows what it is now. I think this is because they are denied sex -- frigidity is a real crime. No, I would not want to live there -- in some ways men are more bullied there than in the West.

Sir-Sister-of-Suck, ah, I think I’m getting a glimpse of the distinction you are trying to draw. We cannot choose our relations (except our spouses, in the West), so we are liking them and preferring them for biological reasons, not rationally or out of choice. But we can choose to shun them (or divorce), can't we?, and that is rational behaviour, if not good behaviour.

Judaka, so many good points! I think I agree with you that individual characteristics should generally override sex stereotypes when choosing roles within the family -- even to the point of choosing who is dominant (though I would be very aware of the validity of the stereotype you mention: “the man is biologically hardwired to want to be in control and therefore it's emasculating and dysfunctional for a relationship where he's not”). But I insist on extending that judgement to the public sphere where -- even if it were true, which it is not -- it is quite wrong to force the equality stereotype over individual qualifications in careers. It is pernicious that companies and governments the world over have initiated 50% quotas for women under the guise of ‘diversity’. Merit should be the criteria for selection, not sex, and 10% would probably be about right for women in STEM, the boardroom and parliament.

Some stereotypes, however, are strong enough to need recognising in our rituals. Here’s a marriage vow I’d like to institute: “A husband should contradict his wife at least once a day; she can contradict him all she wants. A wife should encourage her husband at least once a day; he can encourage her all he wants”.

Currently, sexual harassment is very strongly stereotyped by feminists (and the #MeToo movement) as men’s responsibility, but they’ve got it the wrong way round. When man and woman meet, the woman is in charge: she displays, he proposes, she manages his behaviour. If a man persists after she has told him to stop it is sexual assault -- not harassment -- and her judgement should leave no room for doubt. All he's got to do is to keep trying. Dressed to signal her intentions, she remains in control by always drinking less than him -- under her supervision they can go ahead. If she loses confidence she must stop him right away. If they both drink too much and have sex without her formal permission it is her fault — she has shirked her responsibility. If he rapes her he should go to jail.

henry quirk, I am delighted you see some of the differences I see between male and female logic -- not so thrilled that you think I’ve got most of them exaggerated or the wrong way round! First of all, we are strongly in agreement here:
There is a healthy tension in this as long as men are men and women are women. The push for a kind of interchangeability is what screwed the pooch. Further muddying the water is all this gender fluidity/trans nonsense.
Thank you for putting it so clearly. I also agree that women are better at pretending to find holes in arguments -- I just think they are better at finding real holes as well. Now I will try to cover the main points of contention.

Logical fallacies: certainly in their published literature, the feminists, in thousands of books, break the rules all the time (“Delusions of Gender” by Cordelia Fine being a particularly egregious example), whereas the only book in the last 60 years truly to support men, “Why Men Rule” by Steven Goldberg, is excruciatingly meticulous in its logic. Again, the output from Women’s Studies dwarfs that from Men’s Studies (and even that is feminised), and all that output is of such little value that 80% is never cited at all. So, as far as cheating in print is concerned, I’d say the ladies have it several thousand to one! No two individuals vary that much.

Our opposite opinions. I see men (you see women) as: communitarian, change-resistant, prone to guilt, rule-making, poor fault-finders, civilisers. In my support I say that it is precisely because women are so focussed on the family that they are less concerned with the community. Women have know who their children are for hundreds of millions of years, whereas men are still not quite sure. Thus women can support their own offspring while men have to keep an eye out for the whole community. Precisely because she puts more emphasis on the family, she can put less emphasis on the importance of the community.

As far as change is concerned, women’s fashions certainly supports me, as does their stereotype of fickleness. And surely you agree that men are more disciplinarian? The feminists strongly agree: not only would we like to control our wives overtly, they say, but we are generally more strict with the children as well. Women are excellent at getting men to do their bidding, but they don’t do it so much by making rules for him directly, and then overtly punishing him for infractions -- they do it by stealth. Men build hierarchies, classes, categorisations, and sex differences … women question them and undermine them.

There are obviously many arguments for and against, but that’s some argumentation in support of my side.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

One has to keep in mind, that the perceivable division between the sexes (divorces, broken families, etc.), also mirrors the division within the sexes (women and women, men and men) as a culture of domination is prevalent.

What effects the one affects the many. So for instance in a case where the wife cheats on her husband with his brother, both the brother and wife are guilty...and in reverse (husband cheating on wife) also.
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Post by henry quirk »

Duncan,

As I say up-thread, 'there's a heavy element of belief in my (up-thread) assessment(s)'.

I think, cramming it all into one little box, it suffices, for me, to say:

Women and men are not interchangeable, are complimentary, and a goodly chunk of the schism between men and women is directly the result of well-intentioned (and some not-so-well-intentioned) attempts to minimize difference instead of celebrating difference.

We're free wills but not tabulae rasae. We, as minds, extend directly out from flesh, flesh which doesn't determine but sure as hell mightily influences outlook.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Eodnhoj7, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean. I do think, when one tries to apportion blame in a particular situation, one has to be careful to distinguish between blaming the individuals concerned and blaming society as a whole. I believe that the rise in divorce is because women in general have too much power, for example, but when it comes to apportioning blame in particular divorces, the wife can scarcely be blamed for the fact that society is encouraging her to divorce -- she’s just adapting to modern circumstances. Sorry again, but I don’t think this quite covers your point.

henry quirk, fantastic!. I believe we are in perfect agreement. I particularly like your phrase ‘celebrate the differences’ -- those differences which at the moment the world is trying to eradicate. You say:
Women and men are not interchangeable, are complimentary, and a goodly chunk of the schism between men and women is directly the result of well-intentioned (and some not-so-well-intentioned) attempts to minimize difference instead of celebrating difference.

We're free wills but not tabulae rasae. We, as minds, extend directly out from flesh, flesh which doesn't determine but sure as hell mightily influences outlook.
In my terms, there are substantial sex differences in intellect and behaviour, many of them are biologically determined, and this helps to determine how men and women act in the world.

I go on to point out that the urge to minimise sex differences arises in women, not men, and only a substantial men’s movement (Men’s Studies at every university in the world) will be able to counteract their policies.
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Post by henry quirk »

"I go on to point out that the urge to minimise sex differences arises in women"

Yep. And the (perhaps not completely) unintended consequence has been the unwarranted diminishment of one and the unjustified elevation of the other (not to mention the normalizing of a number of disorders/diseases of the thinking).

#

"only a substantial men’s movement (Men’s Studies at every university in the world) will be able to counteract their policies."

That or eliminating 'women's studies' (and all the other dumbassery masquerading as, or supplanting, anthropology [which, in itself, should be enough]).

Personally: I'd rather cut to the bone, eliminating all horseshit (and horseshitters) lookin' to tell folks what they 'are'. Seems to me, each of us carries a genetic/instinctual encyclopedia readily accessible at any damn time.

What the hell more do any of us need?
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