ANOTHER TRANNY BASHING THREAD

[Immanuel Can]

that is it from me

Okay.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Feminists are deeply divided over this for it is indeed the single most divisive issue within the movement at this point in time

Terrific. It's an issue that needs to be hashed out, because at stake is the very right of a woman to be woman.

Are there any similar movements to keep males out of women's jails? That's pretty important.

How about keeping men out of washrooms where women are? I'm not really hearing much about that.

Are there any plans for feminists to take on the rampant abuses in Islamic countries? If there are, I have not heard at all.

How about the rights of unborn women? How are those working out?

Hmmm...so far to go.

You obviiously don't bother to look at any links, and your faux concern for women is as genuine as the faux women. Explaining something to you is like explaining something to someone with dementia. All you get is a glazed look.

[Immanuel Can]

You obviiously don't bother to look at any links

I don't recall any links. What did you have in mind?

If you've got links showing the Women's Movement campaigning against trans-wanting, or against men in women's bathrooms, or trans-men in women's prisons, or against revenge rapes and forced marriages in the Islamic world, or against the butchering of female babies, I'll happily watch them all.

But if you don't have any, then you may want to ask, why don't you? (There's your "glazed look").

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You obviiously don't bother to look at any links

I don't recall any links. What did you have in mind?

If you've got links showing the Women's Movement campaigning against trans-wanting, or against men in women's bathrooms, or trans-men in women's prisons, or against revenge rapes and forced marriages in the Islamic world, or against the butchering of female babies, I'll happily watch them all.

But if you don't have any, then you may want to ask, why don't you? (There's your "glazed look").

Perhaps you don't don't what links are. You could just google it

As for islam, a good start would be to stop attacking their countries and sending them back to the dark ages. But you are right, there haven't been any anti-war protests for a very long time. The PC are a lazy, shallow lot.

Plus, anyone who takes on the PCturd lobby is risking their livelihood and worse.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Some clever person has come up witht he term 'trans taliban'.

[Dubious]

I sometimes wonder if a bona fide lunatic asylum left completely on its own could end up ruling itself quite successfully without any interference by outside professionals. If their society overall ends up more seemingly logical than the current one we call normal it would finally prove who and what really Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I sometimes wonder if a bona fide lunatic asylum left completely on its own could end up ruling itself quite successfully without any interference by outside professionals. If their society overall ends up more seemingly logical than the current one we call normal it would finally prove who and what really Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It could be that the human race has literally collectively gone insane. It could be part of the natural evolution of the human brain.

[Dubious]

I sometimes wonder if a bona fide lunatic asylum left completely on its own could end up ruling itself quite successfully without any interference by outside professionals. If their society overall ends up more seemingly logical than the current one we call normal it would finally prove who and what really Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It could be that the human race has literally collectively gone insane. It could be part of the natural evolution of the human brain.

...in which case we should get to know our status ASAP BEFORE it's too late. We have a tendency to further cross the boundaries we have already pushed to extremes.

[FlashDangerpants]

If categorisation is a tool employed by people to discuss reated groups of objects, then the category is working just fine whenever those people are able to use it effectively to communicate their concepts.

I don't doubt your claim that "categorization is a tool." But is it merely an arbitrary tool, we might ask. Or when we do it, are we responding to some fact or set of facts about the objects we group?

I'm not sure if you got the tool thing then really. The screwdriver is by that account a merely arbitrary tool, it was created by people to do a job, not sent from the sky to be a perfect thing. Tools are like that. If the fact that they could have been created differently, and any specific tool need not have been created at all makes the whole screwdriver business unworkably arbitrary for you, then you have a problem that I can't fix for you.

Or another way we might ask this question is, if categorization is a tool, how come it works so very well in the real world? There are cases in which it is flawed, of course -- as when we accidentally categorize things that turn out not to be related -- but on the whole, we humans find it absolutely necessary to our engagement with reality that we categorize and classify all the time. Why is that necessary, if the deep truth is that things are not actually comparable?

The screwdriver works without reference to any deep truth of the wood, whatever a deep truth is supposed to actually be.

As for the other bit there, exactly how short of imagination are you? There are countless categories for which correct membership is a moot question, and those categories are themselves not "really super ultra real" in the world beyond humanity. Nations are a modern creation, and nothing in the universe has less reason to exist than the border between Belgium and Holland. You yourself have argued that religion is some sort of fake category (I can't remember why, please don't go off on a wild tangent), and you also argue that atheism is a religion, there's no correct universal TRUTH to be found there.

Let's check our language use here, and see what it takes for granted: what do we mean by a "group" of objects? Do we mean a cluster of things pulled together at random, and treated as "related" though really not "related" at all? Or do we mean a reason-backed collection of objects which share some basic feature that makes us correct in grouping them? If it's the former, then the "category" doesn't specify anything at all -- the objects are actually not "related in any way; we're just pretending they are. If it's the latter, then the "category" does specify something, but surely then we know what that thing is.

The human mind and our entire language system operates according to a conceptual schema that presupposes that relationships between objects in an external world can be described. Similarities and differences between those objects is a part of that. There is no way to discuss any possibility of this being "wrong" because there is no way to understand a concept that assumes all our concepts, including itself, to be garbage. I am not proposing to do away with all our concepts, I prefer to just analyse how they actually work.

All the terms you use above, "category," "group" "relationship" and "concept" especially, are already freighted with the implication that some similarity exists among the objects that justifies our placing them together in the same collective. They are not random, not irrational, and not criterionless -- unless you would prefer to say that we ourselves are behaving irrationally, and our grouping makes no sense and has no justification. And I don't believe that's quite what you'd want to say, is it?

As above, this freighting is necessary, assuming that objects can hold properties in common or are are similar in some ways is just hard wired into us. This only requires that humans can percieve similar properties in differing objects, and differing properties in similar objects, and create names for these things when we find purpose in doing so, or just when we feel like doing so anyway. Which is what we do, all the time, you do it and so do I, and most of the time we are not even conscious of doing so.

So back comes essentialism. Some "essential" or common feature, makes "categorizing" or "grouping" things the way we do either a rational exercise (if it works well) or an irrational one (if it fails to work well). However various our categories, it's very clear that we can categorize things wrongly -- as when, for example, we might think that cyanide is a beverage -- with disastrous effects. Something in reality is subverting our incorrect categorization, in such cases. So good "categorization" depends on there being some real feature that makes the "group" actually similar in reality -- not merely conceptually imagined-as-similar in the human mind, but not really similar.

But the grouping works every time I describe some group and you know enough to understand within the context. What wouldn't work AT ALL would be using only groups that we both thoroughly agreed on at all times. Consider the car...

If I say to you "I ought to learn to drive a car so I can live somewhere other than London one day". You would know what a car is and so would I. Well I sort of know what a car is, it's a mode of transport, it has wheels, probably one at each corner .... but what if there is some sort of object that has those, or most of those features, and nobody can decide if it's really a car though (let's say some people think it's quad bike with a steering wheel or something). Does the existence of some object that fuzzes the edges of the "car" category make the sentence I started with unintelligible all of a sudden? It does not, the category was absolutely fine for us both to know what I meant when I said I can't drive. The weird object can quite easily be a car for the purposes of insurance and road laws, but a bike for some other purpose such as competitive motorsport or something, and none of this is a problem for the real world.

All this, you have bundled into the word "effective." An "ineffective" categorization fails to "work," precisely because it fails to reflect accurately the pre-existing, real-world facts about the objects in question. It fails to pick out accurately the essential similarity or difference between objects, and thereby miscategorizes them.

That is an example of that coneptual inflexibility I was warning you about a while ago.

So Essentialism returns. (But if you don't like the word "essential" you'll need to find another one to account for the real-world feature that justifies our categorizations. You'll need some word for that quality, because it's obviously real.)

I'm content with perceived similarity. You are the one who has this need to fit everything perfectly into precise categories. I have been entirely clear about this point all along, only to be completely ignored by you and Henry, so please pay some attention .... I AM OK WITH AMBIGUITY, I EXPECT THIS ALL TO BE MESSY. It isn't a problem for me, or for my description of these things.

If a male wants to become a female, he needs the category "male" and the category "female" to do it; for his justification in asking is going to depend on there being a real and essential difference between the two. He's even going to have to specify that difference to himself, so he can decide HOW to go about transforming himself from the one to the other...or else, he will merely be taking shots in the dark, and will never know when he has "arrived" at his intended destination.

So as you can see, our categories are alterable, it happens whether you like it or not. Our society can just decide that traditional definitions no longer work for our present needs and change them, any of them. That neither makes them more nor less real than they have ever been, it has always been thus, they have never been static in the way you essentialists wish them to be and this is not the problem that you wish it to be.

The idea of family used to be mummy and daddy and baby makes three, that's changed, it's a done deal, families can have two daddies now. Marriage used to be one man one woman, that's changed too, it was controversial for a time, and then it just wasn't anymore. And here's another change heading right past you, whether you like it or not. The society you live in is rapidly altering its approach to gender - which has always been a linguistic construct distinct from the bilogical one of sex, which would be obvious to all if we were conducting this conversation in any language except English. Where it will end, I cannot tell you, there will always be an artifical quality to gender changes, I don't think trans people ignore that. I think a lot of what you are writing about them is more a matter of you projecting your visceral disgust on them than any actual reference to what they want or claim.

At some point, if you don't like these changes, you need a better tactic than just squealing that they are conceptually beyond your personal scope of understanding and thus beyond everyone else's. You just won't win that way.

[Immanuel Can]

If categorisation is a tool employed by people to discuss reated groups of objects, then the category is working just fine whenever those people are able to use it effectively to communicate their concepts.

I don't doubt your claim that "categorization is a tool." But is it merely an arbitrary tool, we might ask. Or when we do it, are we responding to some fact or set of facts about the objects we group?

I'm not sure if you got the tool thing then really.

I did. But I wonder if you get the difference between categories as arbitrary, and categories as applicable.

I can call a cat a "block." But that categorization will not serve me very well. I will find that other "blocks" do not behave like my cat. The category fails to collect things that are sufficiently alike.

In other words, there is a reality about cats that is, so to speak, pushing back against my "block" categorization. The "tool" I selected, the category "block" is not doing its job, because the realities fail to line up effectively with my categorization, and I find myself paralyzed as to action relative to cats. My "blocks" always stay where I put them. My cat does not. My blocks do not require feeding. My cat dies, if I do not feed it. And so on.

So categorization is a "tool," to be sure; but it's not "just at tool." The success of categorization is disciplined and restricted by the influence of the objective facts of the world. The category will succeed or fail not merely on my willingness to use it, but on its relevance to how the world really is.

That's what is really bundled into your word "effective," whether you realized it or not. A category is not merely arbitrary; rather, it's an attempt to approximate the situation in the real world.

Or another way we might ask this question is, if categorization is a tool, how come it works so very well in the real world? There are cases in which it is flawed, of course -- as when we accidentally categorize things that turn out not to be related -- but on the whole, we humans find it absolutely necessary to our engagement with reality that we categorize and classify all the time. Why is that necessary, if the deep truth is that things are not actually comparable?

The screwdriver works without reference to any deep truth of the wood, whatever a deep truth is supposed to actually be.

Au contraire: if you use a screwdriver to, say, hold water or provide nourishment, it will fail in every possible regard. Your "tool" has failed to serve the relevant purposes at all.

You yourself have argued that religion is some sort of fake category (I can't remember why, please don't go off on a wild tangent),

Indeed I have. And for the same reason. That it fails to collect things that are sufficiently objectively collectable.

Let's check our language use here, and see what it takes for granted: what do we mean by a "group" of objects? Do we mean a cluster of things pulled together at random, and treated as "related" though really not "related" at all? Or do we mean a reason-backed collection of objects which share some basic feature that makes us correct in grouping them? If it's the former, then the "category" doesn't specify anything at all -- the objects are actually not "related in any way; we're just pretending they are. If it's the latter, then the "category" does specify something, but surely then we know what that thing is.

The human mind and our entire language system operates according to a conceptual schema that presupposes that relationships between objects in an external world can be described. Similarities and differences between those objects is a part of that. There is no way to discuss any possibility of this being "wrong..."

Of course that's false. That is, in fact, very obviously false, for just the reasons I explained, and which, ironically, you accidentally also seeded in your own explanation -- that some "categorizations" are not "effective," because they fail to collect things which are objectively alike in the relevant way. Reality, we might say, "rejects" them. They don't work. They fail as tools...but that failure is occasioned by their incompatibility with the reality they attempt to classify.

All the terms you use above, "category," "group" "relationship" and "concept" especially, are already freighted with the implication that some similarity exists among the objects that justifies our placing them together in the same collective. They are not random, not irrational, and not criterionless -- unless you would prefer to say that we ourselves are behaving irrationally, and our grouping makes no sense and has no justification. And I don't believe that's quite what you'd want to say, is it?

As above, this freighting is necessary, assuming that objects can hold properties in common or are are similar in some ways is just hard wired into us.

Not "into us," only. There is a harness, a refusal to budge, that comes to us from the real world. No matter how hard we try to "classify" certain things as certain other things, it just doesn't work. Our categories then fail, and have to be corrected.

Reality always wins. Bad categories always inevitably fail us as "tools."

So back comes essentialism. Some "essential" or common feature, makes "categorizing" or "grouping" things the way we do either a rational exercise (if it works well) or an irrational one (if it fails to work well). However various our categories, it's very clear that we can categorize things wrongly -- as when, for example, we might think that cyanide is a beverage -- with disastrous effects. Something in reality is subverting our incorrect categorization, in such cases. So good "categorization" depends on there being some real feature that makes the "group" actually similar in reality -- not merely conceptually imagined-as-similar in the human mind, but not really similar.

But the grouping works every time I describe some group and you know enough to understand within the context. What wouldn't work AT ALL would be using only groups that we both thoroughly agreed on at all times.

Actually, if we could to it, that is precisely what would work, and would work best.

What keeps us from getting our categorizations to work all the time is our own fallibility. But again, reality does not care about that. It, so to speak, "pushes back" against whatever we get wrong.

All this, you have bundled into the word "effective." An "ineffective" categorization fails to "work," precisely because it fails to reflect accurately the pre-existing, real-world facts about the objects in question. It fails to pick out accurately the essential similarity or difference between objects, and thereby miscategorizes them.

That is an example of that coneptual inflexibility I was warning you about a while ago.

You made an error, then.

"Flexibility" is only an asset for an incorrect categorization. It's an asset then, because then the categorization can be revised. But once we get a category correct, "flexibility" is a liability, a fault -- it means we could then "flex" away from the truth, and thus lose the integrity of our category, and again come into conflict with reality again.

So Essentialism returns. (But if you don't like the word "essential" you'll need to find another one to account for the real-world feature that justifies our categorizations. You'll need some word for that quality, because it's obviously real.)

I'm content with perceived similarity.

You should not be.

We can "misperceive." And, in fact, isn't that exactly what the trans-wanters are insisting: that we "perceive" them as male, but they are actually female? They don't seem to want to respect "perceived similarity" at all.

You are the one who has this need to fit everything perfectly into precise categories.

No, the world is. If I succeed in getting my categories right, I will do well in the real world. If I get them loose or wrong, I will do badly. So will you.

If a male wants to become a female, he needs the category "male" and the category "female" to do it; for his justification in asking is going to depend on there being a real and essential difference between the two. He's even going to have to specify that difference to himself, so he can decide HOW to go about transforming himself from the one to the other...or else, he will merely be taking shots in the dark, and will never know when he has "arrived" at his intended destination.

So as you can see, our categories are alterable,

I do not "see" this. I point out the opposite. Flawed categories are alterable. The real world pushes back if you "alter" them badly.

The idea of family used to be mummy and daddy and baby makes three, that's changed, it's a done deal, families can have two daddies now.

So you say.

I don't grant it. The contentious question is still "What is a family?" That category has been illegitimately opened lately -- not for reasons of reality, but for political reasons...because particular persons wanted it to be opened, and not because the original category was wrong.

Reality has a push back on that one too. Men aren't even capable of procreation. Nor are two women.

Perhaps you need to get better categories, if those are the categories you have. They're failing to reflect reality. Good thing yours remain flexible, because at the moment, they're simply not in line with reality.

[uwot]

... I wonder if you get the difference between categories as arbitrary, and categories as applicable.

I can call a cat a "block." But that categorization will not serve me very well.

Mr Can, how well does your category 'Christian' serve you? As far as I can tell, it only includes you.

[FlashDangerpants]

The idea of family used to be mummy and daddy and baby makes three, that's changed, it's a done deal, families can have two daddies now.

So you say.

I don't grant it. The contentious question is still "What is a family?" That category has been illegitimately opened lately -- not for reasons of reality, but for political reasons...because particular persons wanted it to be opened, and not because the original category was wrong.

Reality has a push back on that one too. Men aren't even capable of procreation. Nor are two women.

Perhaps you need to get better categories, if those are the categories you have. They're failing to reflect reality. Good thing yours remain flexible, because at the moment, they're simply not in line with reality.

Ok. So your argument from before applies once more, and gays who wish to marry and adopt should instead be sent for counselling but only to a consellor who will tell them not to do it of course? Same as trannies.

They want something that 's unnatural and therefore they cannot have it and wanting it is wrong, they should pray away the gay. That's in line with your other stuff right?

[Immanuel Can]

Ok. So your argument from before applies once more, and gays who wish to marry...

It was a case your raised. I did not. I think it's a different topic, and one we're not even doing here.

I'm really not sure about the link you perceive between homosexuality and body dysmorphia. But maybe you can explain that, so it becomes relevant in some way.

The important question of the moment, it seems to me, is about categories...and particularly, the categories "male" and "female." If I understand you correctly, you were arguing that these are mere social conventions, not realities or "essences," as you put it. I would merely observe that the trans-wanting people believe they are not only real categories, but essential in the sense of absolutely necessary for them to acquire.

And I pointed out the incoherence of trying to say BOTH that the categories they crave are mere fictions AND that they are essential for trans-wanters.

Both simply cannot be rationally believed at the same time, because they are the opposite of one another. To the extent that gender is not essential, people cannot need a specific gender. To the extent that it is essential, they cannot have what they want. And it doesn't matter where you put the line; the same rational problem emerges.

[FlashDangerpants]

Ok. So your argument from before applies once more, and gays who wish to marry...

It was a case your raised. I did not. I think it's a different topic, and one we're not even doing here.

Well I pointed out, in case you have forgotten, that the categories of family and marriage have been in flux in recent decades. You appear to belive that this is unreasonable and that those changes are untrue. Thus your logic as applied to Trannies must also apply to these other wanters of category changes. Obviously you don't want attention drawn to this, but it is a logical entailment of the arguments you have put forward. So either you agree with it, or you disagree with your previous argument and need to rethink something.

This is a normal thing that we do when assessing a philosophical argument. Try to keep up.

I'm really not sure about the link you perceive between homosexuality and body dysmorphia. But maybe you can explain that, so it becomes relevant in some way.

Within context it was perfectly clear that I was referencing changing categories such as marriage and family. You have out-of-contexted me by insinuating that I draw that link. Please don't do that. If we were to make a category containing trans-rights, gay-rights and any other rights, we don't need to be idiots and pretend that conflates trannies with gays, so we won't do that, ok?

The important question of the moment, it seems to me, is about categories...and particularly, the categories "male" and "female." If I understand you correctly, you were arguing that these are mere social conventions, not realities or "essences," as you put it. I would merely observe that the trans-wanting people believe they are not only real categories, but essential in the sense of absolutely necessary for them to acquire.

And I pointed out the incoherence of trying to say BOTH that the categories they crave are mere fictions AND that they are essential for trans-wanters.

That would be incoherent. If it were accurate. But at this point it is entirely obvious that trans people are either not gender essentialists, but like me don't need essentialism to explain how categories are used as tools. Or they are essentialists and simply believe that the essence of gender comes from an inner sense of knowing what gender you are. Seeing as you have failed to provide any coherent explanation of essentialism, it could be either and there's nothing in your argument against either.

For my tool thing, I described an is about how categories actually work, and everything you have responded with is an ought. You have some additional belief that you are above the is/ought thing, but it is about as impressive as Veritas' attempt.

[Immanuel Can]

Ok. So your argument from before applies once more, and gays who wish to marry...

It was a case your raised. I did not. I think it's a different topic, and one we're not even doing here.

Well I pointed out, in case you have forgotten, that the categories of family and marriage have been in flux in recent decades.

You mean only that people have lost track of the reality to which those categories rightly referred.

And I agree...they have done so.

we don't need to be idiots and pretend that conflates trannies with gays, so we won't do that, ok?

Yeah, fine. I was always fine with it.

Let's get back to the trans issue.

But at this point it is entirely obvious that trans people are either not gender essentialists,

Oh, that's not at all obvious. Half of their rhetoric surrounds the claim that they "have to" become a specific "gender." If there's no such thing as that gender, then there's nothing they "have to" become. And then they have no claim that society "owes them" to enable them to "become" it.

Or they are essentialists and simply believe that the essence of gender comes from an inner sense of knowing what gender you are.

And that's also obviously incoherent. There can't be an "essence" at all if it's simply an "inner sense"; and there's nothing "you are" if there's no such thing as any particular gender categories. So that point of view can't even be put in a non-self-contradictory way.

That's as clear an indication as you're ever going to find of an incoherent position: that it cannot stay true even to itself.