Gender Essentialism

[FlashDangerpants]

In deference to your ire, I allowed a rewording. I simply asked if there are any real, objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary (you pick your word: I don't care which you choose) differences between men and women. You were allowed to drop the word "essential," which you (in contrast to many Feminists) don't think refers to anything.

That's pretty darn fair, I think you'd have to say. But still, you won't answer the question. Once you do, I can clear things up for you immediately.

So go ahead: answer the question, and I'll solve your issue.

That would be cosmetic.

Try it. Find out.

Then you're going to say "but category's have to be that, or else they have no essence", which will be silly because you will now be circular referencing essence to a synonym of itself. Is that your escape plan here? Just deal with the circularity of the logic like a competent philosopher would.

Sorry Henry, feel free to start your own trannie thread that isn't about essence if you feel so strongly about them. This thread is about Mannie's argument, and the sheer determination required to make him discuss one of those with something approaching honesty.

[Immanuel Can]

That would be cosmetic.

Try it. Find out.

Then you're going to say "but category's have to be that, or else they have no essence",

Nope. I promise I won't.

So give me your answer.

[FlashDangerpants]

Pick any you want. It will make no difference, you mean the same thing by it so it will be the same problem. You can't fix a circularity problem by going round the other way. Unless you pick a word that allows for change, and therefore movement between categories, or an actual explanation for why categories must by fixed and eternal that isn't self referencing.

I would say though that I am perfectly happy for categories to be constructed, imaginary, products of convention. That doesn't make them meaningless. When you do your "sure it does" routine on that, try to not be circular this time.

[henry quirk]

"Sorry Henry..."

[Immanuel Can]

Pick any you want.

No, no...I want the one YOU want. I want you to be able to own your own position. Don't ask me to "pick" it for you; that's not my job, it's yours.

So again,

Are there are any real, objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary (you pick your word: I don't care which you choose) differences between men and women?

That's just an easy, "yes/no" question. And, if you really actually know what you think, you should be able to say WHAT makes the difference, if such there is.

Go ahead. The floor's yours.

[Immanuel Can]

"Sorry Henry..."

Well, you've got that right.

It's funny...I know Flash is being disingenuous and evasive, and so does he. And interestingly, it shows me beyond reasonable doubt that Flash can already "do the math," and knows that if he gives me an honest answer, his goose is cooked on this one. That's why he's turning himself inside out in an attempt NOT to do it. But, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "There is a kind of confession in his words / Which his modesty has not enough craft to colour," or to put it another way, "So full of artless jealousy is guilt / It spills itself in fearing to be spilt."

Or maybe the right way to put it is just the way you did.

[FlashDangerpants]

Just deal with the issue in your argument.

Your entire argument depends on your supposed dichotomy that either there is an essence to a category, or else the category doesn't reference anything at all. So, yes, it does beg the question of why an essence is necessary for categories to reference anything, and you do respond only by saying that if there is no essence there cannot be a category. Your argument has been viciously circular so far.

Use any words you like. Change the logic so it works.

[Immanuel Can]

Just deal with the issue in your argument.

Sure:

Are there are any real, objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary (you pick your word: I don't care which you choose) differences between men and women?

[FlashDangerpants]

Just deal with the issue in your argument.

Sure:

Are there are any real, objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary (you pick your word: I don't care which you choose) differences between men and women?

obviously the categories of male and female are used because they are useful, and this implies there is a difference. There is clearly a mix of biological and social differences, and I see no reason why any particular one or any specific set would qualify as some sort of essence* of womanhood.

*nor the objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary definition of womanhood.

[Immanuel Can]

... there is a difference. There is clearly a mix of biological and social differences..."

Great. There are differences, you say.

Now, what, in specific are these "differences" of yours?

[FlashDangerpants]

... there is a difference. There is clearly a mix of biological and social differences..."

Great. There are differences, you say.

Now, what, in specific are these "differences" of yours?

Well some of them are biological you see. But others are social. It's really as much a matter of convention as anything else. That's always the way when sorting objects into categories and taxonomic groups and so on. After all, it used to be the case that a difference between women and men was that women were ineligible to vote, but these things change.

Are you planning to resurrect your gender doesn't exist if there's no essence routine or are you just hoping to force me to take your own view on something now?

[Nick_A]

"The point I am making is that we underestimate our own ignorance."

And mine is that none of us are as ignorant as we think, or pretend, we are.

The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. – Aristotle

I think Aristotle sides with me. All you have to do is listen to these know it alls who inhabit institutions of child abuse called schools. They know facts but lack understanding sufficient to appreciate their ignorance.

[Dachshund]

Nick,



If you do it will make it much easier for me to describe what I believe to be the difference between a normal adaptive cycle of life you described which seems the dominant focus of this thread and the conscious change or evolution of "being" Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15 in which a lower quality of being (natural body) evolves to a higher quality of being (spiritual body). From this perspective the essence or substance of Man has the potential for change

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.

Yes, I am familiar with the "The Great Chain of Being" that many of the Elizabethans , including Shakespeare, believed in, during the 14-15th centuries in England (and Western Europe, etc). The idea of a hierarchically- structured reality was actually first cooked up by Aristotle, I think, in his notion of the "scala natura". I think Aristotle was the most brilliant philosopher in the entire history of the West). I am very sympathetic, BTW, to the use of hierarchies of value propositions as a concept to help describe human nature. That is, I do believe that, whether it be differences in mental abilities (affective, cognitive, perceptual, etc;) or capabilities or physiological function or moral ( acts/behaviour) between individuals, that we are talking about, they can all be measured and sorted out and then placed into their appropriate position along appropriate vertical axes of hierarchy. Hierarchy is, think, (generally speaking), clearly one important aspect of Divinely ordained (moral) nautural law. God was not a communist or an egalitarian socialist; he did not intend for reality (in particular human social reality) to be flattened out and levelled, that is why when political rulers tried to do it in the 20th century (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Zedong, Pol Pot and all the rest) all hell broke loose and 120 million people got murdered !!!

So, as I am familiar with "Great Chain of Being", please tell me about your evolutionary thesis. Remember though, Nick, that biological evolution (Darwinian) takes place very slowly over time, Nick.

Regards

Dachshund (Der Uberweiner).....................................................(Beware the dog)

[Dachshund]

. After all, it used to be the case that a difference between women and men was that women were ineligible to vote, but these things change.

[/quote]


Yes that's right, young Flush, despite being clearly warned by many of the West's greatest philosophers and rulers (Aristotle, Pericles, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche to name but a few) in 20th-century America, good old Woodrow Wilson thought he was smarter and so he backed womens' suffrage in the US, then all the other political sheep backed it and suddenly the 19th amendment is law.

After a few decades, women began to realise they now had real political power and could vote both tactically and strategically, so what did they do ? They consistently voted Democrat, that's what. Why? Because the Democrat is Party is the Party that proudly stands for fair play, niceness, kindness and sharing and caring and empathy and social justice, maternity leave state-funded pre-schools , etc; and this all meched perfectly with standard female psychological traits and attitudes to social policy.

So the women all vote in JFK, who promised he'd do this kind of stuff if he won the Presidency (and because Oooooh he's sooo handsome (!) and aren't he and Jacqui just the sweet little lovebirds you ever did see!! Hee, Hee, Hee!), but JFK gets shot. Then LBJ takes over, but the power goes to Lyndon's head and he launches a massive set of socialist domestic programs called the "Great Society" all to do with eliminating racism and poverty,etc; in America. The biggest "Great Society" ballsup, however, comes in 1965 when LBJ decides (because he a nice, "brotherhood of man" type guy) that he's going to open America's borders to every 3rd-world nation on the map, through his new "Naturalization and Immigration Act." Not surprisingly, Immigrants from all over the 3rd world DID start flooding into the US BIG TIME. "Erm, Gee Whizz, says LBJ, never figured that'd happen - holy cow (!) there's f**Kin' millions of the bastards swarmin' in, whaddya know about that?" (That was the same year, BTW, he substantially escalated US involvement in Vietnam, sending thousands of extra American combat soldiers over. In 1968, after the communist Tet Offensive, poor LBJ has a breakdown and throws in the towel. That was a good thing because Nixon won the Presidential election in 1969, and when the going got tough in Vietnam, he didn't "drop his bundle". When the communists stubbornly and repeatedly refused to negotiate a reasonable peace deal he got pissed off and sent 100s of B-52 bombers and F-111 jets over and unleashed all f**king hell on Hanoi and Haiphong (Can you imagine seeing and hearing 124 angry B-52s and a shit-load of F-111s headed fast in your direction ?). Cop that Uncle Ho! Nixon won the war in 1972. Tragically the Democrats lost it for America (and the 58,000 US soldiers who'd sacrificed their lives defending South Vietnam from a communist invasion) in 1974, but that's another story, and the mods wont allow me to tell it )

Foreign 3rd world immigration/immigrants are what will ultimately destroy America. Trump, like George Custer, is fighting an heroic "last stand", and I admire his courage and will to win. But the numbers are against him, and "demography is destiny." There's nothing he can do to save the US now (because the coloureds are simply out-breeding the native, White-European Americans (who have pretty much stopped having babies) So, I figure America (that great republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers) is sitting on death row (figuratively speaking); in 100 years time, maybe sooner, the US will be a chaotic, violent, tin pot, socialist state, and you can thank Woodrow Wilson and his 19th Amendment for what now lies ahead.

Regards


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)..............................................(Beware the dog)

[henry quirk]

"Sorry Henry..."

Well, you've got that right.

It's funny...I know Flash is being disingenuous and evasive, and so does he. And interestingly, it shows me beyond reasonable doubt that Flash can already "do the math," and knows that if he gives me an honest answer, his goose is cooked on this one. That's why he's turning himself inside out in an attempt NOT to do it. But, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "There is a kind of confession in his words / Which his modesty has not enough craft to colour," or to put it another way, "So full of artless jealousy is guilt / It spills itself in fearing to be spilt."

Or maybe the right way to put it is just the way you did.

I knew this when he declined to answer my question about bedding a women who actually is a guy. If he expresses natural and normal outrage (cuz he knows men are men, women are women and the two are not interchangeable) then his modern day 'enlightenment' bona fides are for crap.

I'm tempted to start my own thread, as he suggested, just asking...

Is there are any real, objective, certain, non-constructed, irreducible, non-imaginary difference between man and woman?

...or...

Is gender fluid, mutable, interchangeable, just a social construct, or, is gender fixed, immutable, not subject to change, sumthin' intrinsic to the person?

...or...

Can a man really turn into a woman, or can he only pretend to be a woman?

...but there's no real point. He, and others like him, would ignore the thread, or come up with tortured reasonings why the questions are nonsensical. Anyway, as you say, 'he protests much.': in effect, he's answered the questions (just not in a particularly honest way).

'nuff said.