Factual Feminist on intersectionality

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brimstoneSalad
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Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Great video, which makes an interesting point about it being a conspiracy theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYpELqKZ02Q
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garrethdsouza
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by garrethdsouza »

Trying to understand feminism by listening EXCLUSIVELY to anti feminists is like trying to understand veganism by reading only from authoritynutritiion.com or letthemeatmeat.com

Row7 column 4

http://s3.scoopwhoop.com/anj/anti/883085623.png
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

garrethdsouza wrote:Trying to understand feminism by listening EXCLUSIVELY to anti feminists is like trying to understand veganism by reading only from authoritynutritiion.com or letthemeatmeat.com
Did you watch the video at all? It is not at all like that. You've put yourself in an echo chamber, and you need to look at arguments outside your bubble.

I notice you always respond quickly, with hostility, and without any reasoned argument or evidence to anything about intersectionality.
Well, it's time for you to put up, or shut up for good about it.

There are strong arguments made in the video, and that I have made (which are different from hers; I don't totally agree with her), and you have never responded properly to one of them.
Instead, you continue to attack the characters of the presenters, and throw around rhetoric and cartoons, all without engaging in discussion.
You should know this is inappropriate, and you should be ashamed.

https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... ?f=11&t=52
forum rules wrote:1. This is a discussion forum. Please come here willing to discuss. This isn't a place to lecture, and then refuse to address others' rational arguments or even answer others' questions. Discussion is founded upon logic, if you don't accept basic logic as valid, there's really nothing for you to do here except lecture, and this isn't the place for it. Again: This is a discussion forum.
You have done this multiple times. Broaching the subject and baiting argument, only to lecture, spew a bunch of rhetoric and post cartoons, then retreat from it instead of answering to your claims.

This is a warning. If you refuse to engage in real discussion in this thread and answer the questions made to you and the arguments presented with actual arguments of your own, you will be forbidden from further discussion of intersectionality on this forum, and from responding to any threads or discussions on the topic on this forum.
I don't want to ban you, because you make useful posts and sensible arguments on other topics. But you're breaking the first forum rule repeatedly, and that's not OK. You don't get special treatment here just because you're vegan and atheist. Vegans and carnists alike, theists and atheists alike, have to respond to argument and questions; this is the only forum I know of on the internet that requires people to actually make arguments.
No more quips, no more rhetoric, no more insults, no more cartoons. Nothing. You will be restricted to unrelated topics and advice.

Do you understand?

If you choose to do the intellectually honest thing and engage in discussion, you have to do it now or never.

You don't have to win, you don't have to be right, and you don't even have to be nice, but you have to finally engage and answer the arguments posed rather than running off to your safe space as soon as somebody says something you don't have an easy answer for. Not by linking somewhere else where the arguments aren't answered either, but in your own words and thoughts, here.


From my perspective, you will define anybody who questions your cult of intersectionalism as anti-feminist to shut them down, saying it's not a credible source, which really just confirms her point in the video and makes it appear that you're trying to hold up an ideology as inherently immune to criticism.

YOU have done nothing but demonstrate the harms of intersectionality by YOUR rude and divisive behavior and YOUR representations of it. I have read what YOU have posted, what YOU have linked to, and taken YOUR refusal to respond to reasoned arguments as evidence that YOU and anybody YOU would consider a "True Feminist" have no real argument to make.

Maybe I'm totally misunderstanding the whole concept still, but if you never engage in discussion, there's no way to correct that now is there?
I've read the people you wanted me to read even though you refused to answer questions. That's done.

I see an irrational dogma that is harmful, and a person who otherwise aspires to be rational and moral being sucked into it. You can go back to your safe space if I've triggered you, but know that means you are forbidden from mentioning it or responding to it ever again here. Or you can stand up for what you think you believe in and subject your beliefs to some actual scrutiny outside your echo chamber and earn back the respect I (and probably other forum members who have seen you do these cowardly drive-bys before) used to have for you.

I would be glad to discuss this, and I'd be glad to have my mind changed on the topic, but you have to do your part too and not just bombard the forum with cartoons and character assassination, and links to shitty arguments filled with emotional appeals and anecdotes rather than rational arguments and evidence.

Put up now and make an actual argument, or shut up about it for good.
The ball is in your court, Garreth.
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

For your convenience, although I have posted this several times already, these are my oppositions to intersectionality:
brimstoneSalad wrote: 1. Adversarial nature
There is no true equality in asymmetrical issues. Matters like reproductive rights are inherently asymmetrical, and obtaining something that seems fair is about compromise; that means an adversarial negotiation. That doesn't mean people have to be unfriendly, but that they're advancing different and inherently opposing interests in negotiating that compromise.

2. FAIR doesn't mean GOOD
This is something many people misunderstand, because intuitively fair feels good, and unfair feels wrong. This is deontological nonsense, and you need to understand that in order to substantiate the wrongness of something you have to provide some evidence for the ultimate and global consequences being harmful.

3. Parsimony
This is as important in charity and activism as it is in science. If asking people to "go vegan" makes people less likely to actually go vegan, we should avoid it and do something more effective. If looking like morons by being obsessively politically correct makes our outreach less effective to the majority with only minor gains from minorities, we shouldn't do it. Cost and benefit analysis is essential to any situation where we have limited resources, and both human effort and compassion are in very limited supply.
From here, where originally stated: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... =40#p15550

I'll post back in a moment summarizing what I took from the points the Factual Feminist made.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

https://youtu.be/cYpELqKZ02Q?t=184
PROBLEM 1
IT'S A CONSPIRACY THEORY
I mean if intersectionality theory were merely a reminder to be sensitive to different kinds of social advantage and disadvantage that would be fine but it's much more than that. It's an all encompassing theory of human reality constructed to be immune to criticism. If you question it, that only proves you don't understand it, or that you're just part of the problem it's seeking to correct.
I like to deal more with logical arguments and hard scientific empirical evidence.
Being a conspiracy theory doesn't automatically make something wrong, but it does make it empirically improbable, so this is a strike against intersectionality on empirical grounds IF it is true that intersectionality resembles a conspiracy and presents an unfalsifiable proposition (which seems credible from my reading).
It becomes nothing more than a religion, founded on faith, and I don't think that's something that's attractive, or necessarily good (even if it is accidentally true).

The bigger issue I see is the behavior indicating an inherent lack of intellectual honesty in the movement. Beyond becoming like a religious ideology, it has become a cult. Intersectionalists I have encountered (such as yourself, Garreth) have provided me personal anecdotes indicating this is true (like the cartoon you just posted, instead of an argument).
In order to see how well this maps to the movement in general, I would need to see some broader surveys of those who identify with the movement and their behavior.
This would be very damning, if true. It wouldn't mean it's false, but it would mean it's probably false on empirical grounds, and it would mean it's very dangerous, and that no research coming out of the itersectionalist community could be trusted because of this inherent dishonesty (social sciences are already soft and subject to bias, unlike the hard sciences, but this would make the case even worse).

https://youtu.be/cYpELqKZ02Q?t=246
PROBLEM 2
VICTIM CREEP
According to this theory, victimization confers wisdom, moral authority, even prestige. So in places where intersectionalists gather on campuses and in social media there's now a mad scramble for victim status [...]
This is unfortunate, and speaks to the issue of intellectual honesty I pointed at above. If the whole movement is basically succumbing to a massive fallacy of argument from authority, this is a practical issue. But IF intersectionality necessarily puts itself in theoretical opposition to such arguments being fallacies, that makes it logically false at it's core: It's just a massive fallacy masquerading as something that sounds like a theory, much like Intelligent Design was just a huge unfalsifiable argument from ignorance fallacy.

The idea that an oppressed person has inherently more insight on that oppression than any person who is not subject to that oppression is patently false. Sometimes it will be true, but very often it will not be, and it's impossible to evaluate the credibility of somebody based on these standards, or accept and dismiss arguments on those grounds.

https://youtu.be/cYpELqKZ02Q?t=334
PROBLEM 3
BULLYING
Intersectionality tells us that white males are in charge of the capitalist white supremacist patriarchy and that they enjoy most of the unearned privileges, so on many campuses that has given marginalized victims permission to treat them badly. Ironically, members of the insider victim class now routinely do to others what they accuse the privileged class of doing to them: they stereotype, demonize, shame, and silence people.
I have seen these to be true, even from your behavior Garreth, but these are just anecdotes. We would need more thorough study to determine how pervasive this trend is, regardless of how obvious it seems (it may just be the most vocal intersectionalists who are hypocritical assholes). We wouldn't want veganism being judged by its worst and most vocal advocates.

I agree that this is problematic, but the scope is not clear, and it can't be used as evidence to discredit the theory of intersectionality.
This is the main point I'd disagree with the Factual Feminist on, since any group has its bad eggs who represent the group poorly.
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by miniboes »

I find discussions of feminism like this, Rubin Report, etc. mildly interesting. The feminism found in the US simply doesn't exist here. Neither does a movement like black lives matter exist. Are intersectionality and new wave feminism popular in the US, or are they vocal minorities?
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by knot »

Seems like the debate about race and gender inequality will never end. Roll back the clock 40 years and it's the exact same; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sGn6PdmIo

They need to teach kids about statistics in high school, or something ..
Last edited by knot on Thu Mar 31, 2016 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by Red »

What exactly is intersectionality anyways?
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by knot »

RedAppleGP wrote:What exactly is intersectionality anyways?
It's where you take different systems of oppression into account. For example, white women have historically been less privileged than white men, but much more privileged than black women.
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Re: Factual Feminist on intersectionality

Post by EquALLity »

knot wrote:
RedAppleGP wrote:What exactly is intersectionality anyways?
It's where you take different systems of oppression into account. For example, white women have historically been less privileged than white men, but much more privileged than black women.
Well, of course we should care about all forms of oppression.

However, I don't think we should try to mix veganism and feminism (for example), because then we're pushing away potential vegans who aren't feminists, and it's not like the issues are really related in a meaningful way.

It's like the phrase, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
*Not that feminism and veganism would necessarily be perfect. Feminism is just an example.
"I am not a Marxist." -Karl Marx
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