Philosophical Vegan Forum

Hello everyone, so I just finished watching Ask Yourself's most recent video, titled "Intersectionality is cancerous retardation." This is the longest video he's made so far, at nearly 80 minutes long. Despite it's length, I thought it was well worth watching, and helped me to gain a better understanding of what intersectionality is, and what its problems are (both theoretical and practical).

I liked how thorough his explanations are, and how eloquent of a speaker he is. It's too bad that he only has 5,511 subscribers; I think he has a lot of potential to do good for the vegan* movement.


What do you all think of it, for those of you who've watched it?

For those of you who've not yet seen it, but have a good understanding of intersectionality, what do you think are the most noteworthy problems with this dogma?

For those of you who believe in intersectionality as a useful approach towards activism and moral progress, what sort of arguments would you make in favor of it?

Thank you all for providing your insights.


*For now, based upon what I know about intersectionality, my greatest worry is how it might infect the vegan movement. A movement too important to allow it to be undermined by bad philosophy. Of course, intersectionality has already seeped into the vegan movement to some degree, with advocates like Gary Francione. I'm just wondering how severe this has already become, and how it will continue...

There are a number of issues with the video, but I can recommend watching it if you're interested in the subject. I'll give my take on the problems later if I have time.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2017 2:27 pm There are a number of issues with the video, but I can recommend watching it if you're interested in the subject. I'll give my take on the problems later if I have time.

Thank you. I'll appreciate whatever insights you'd like to offer. It doesn't need to be a lot, I understand you're often busy. What did you mean when you said "I can recommend watching it..."? Did you mean some specific, noteworthy portions of Ask Yourself's intersectionality video? Or other videos criticizing intersectionality?

Regarding Ask Yourself's intersectionality video, I've already watched the whole thing, but I don't know if I understand and agree with all of it. I don't consider myself an expert on this topic yet, so I'd like to learn more. What aspects of intersectionality do you think he explained well in his video? In what ways was it incorrect, misleading, and/or lacking?


For anyone else interested, here's a link to the actual video. I forgot to link it earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7q6sqreuk

The steel man of neo-marxism may look like a strawman or complete misrepresentation to others. Some intersectionalists come from that direction, and he makes good points about the theoretical and most of the practical problems, but there are also intersectionalists who are coming from the multiple-intelligences "critical race theory" racist pseudoscience conspiracy theory side.
That is, people who legitimately believe that all people are inherently equal in ability and the value of that ability (although different) and it's only systems of prejudice that keep them down, and that society is a carefully constructed system built to marginalize people who are different.

You can't steel man that nonsense by making it into something completely different that those people don't believe in.


Also: He said some stuff that was kind of racist in the way he phrased it, like "black people commit more crimes". You can't say that and expect to not alienate most of your audience (aside from the racists). Urban poor commit more crimes, a disproportionate number of urban poor happen to be 'black'. Being 'black' (controlled for income and education and where you live) does not in itself make you more likely to be criminal in the way that a generalization like the one he made implies. You have to be more careful with that shit, you can and will alienate people who were on the fence and willing to listen if you were more precise in your wording.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2017 8:02 pm The steel man of neo-marxism may look like a strawman or complete misrepresentation to others. Some intersectionalists come from that direction, and he makes good points about the theoretical and most of the practical problems, but there are also intersectionalists who are coming from the multiple-intelligences "critical race theory" racist pseudoscience conspiracy theory side.
That is, people who legitimately believe that all people are inherently equal in ability and the value of that ability (although different) and it's only systems of prejudice that keep them down, and that society is a carefully constructed system built to marginalize people who are different.

You can't steel man that nonsense by making it into something completely different that those people don't believe in.


Also: He said some stuff that was kind of racist in the way he phrased it, like "black people commit more crimes". You can't say that and expect to not alienate most of your audience (aside from the racists). Urban poor commit more crimes, a disproportionate number of urban poor happen to be 'black'. Being 'black' (controlled for income and education and where you live) does not in itself make you more likely to be criminal in the way that a generalization like the one he made implies. You have to be more careful with that shit, you can and will alienate people who were on the fence and willing to listen if you were more precise in your wording.

Thank you for your insights so far. I was a little confused by his whole "strawman/steelman" explanation. Isn't a steelman just another way of misrepresenting a position? Why not simply address the argument as is, rather than {insert substance}manning it?

As for his "racist" claim that "black people commit more crimes", I was also rubbed the wrong way by it. However, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt, and thought he was saying that people who happen to be black are committing disproportionately more crime, but not necessarily because they're black. He wasn't very clear about this last part though, and I agree with you that he should be more careful with how he phrases stuff like this.

Do you think that his "racist" claims are enough to turn away most non-racists from the rest of his message? Isn't it irrational to ignore most of what someone says (regarding a broad topic of discussion with many points to be made) just because a few of the statements were offensive, or even incorrect?

Lightningman_42 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:49 pm I was a little confused by his whole "strawman/steelman" explanation. Isn't a steelman just another way of misrepresenting a position? Why not simply address the argument as is, rather than {insert substance}manning it?

It sort of is, yes. Although in some cases it's credible, like addressing arguments made by the Vatican instead of argument made by lay Catholics, because they supposedly recognize that authority as making better arguments than themselves.

In this case, we're dealing with a very diverse, inconsistent, and decentralized "movement", so it's hard to do something like that. It would have been more useful to address the beliefs directly, and the entire spectrum of their interpretations.

Or if he really wanted to, Crenshaw -- who coined the term -- who was a "Critical Race Theory" legal scholar (AKA. a racist, who believed in the bullshit I mentioned, and whose ideas may or may not have any link to neomarxism). He might find a link to neo-marxism through her, but that's the route that he'd need to take to claim some authoritative connection. I don't find that useful, so I haven't done it, because as I mentioned, Intersectionality has kind of become its own thing and it's diverse and inconsistent.

Lightningman_42 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:49 pm As for his "racist" claim that "black people commit more crimes", I was also rubbed the wrong way by it. However, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt, and thought he was saying that people who happen to be black are committing disproportionately more crime, but not necessarily because they're black. He wasn't very clear about this last part though, and I agree with you that he should be more careful with how he phrases stuff like this.

I assume that's what he meant, the problem is you can't ignore how people will take what you say entirely and expect your message to be effective.
If he's just putting things out there for personal amusement and has no intention to change minds or reach the audience he needs to, that would explain such indifference.
I think he has an elitist mentality here, where he thinks anybody worth educating would listen regardless; he ignores the middle ground of people on the fence who aren't quite there yet (the majority), and he ignores as well the rational principle of induction when it comes to assessing sources before investing time in them.
If somebody starts out saying something absurd, it is usually a safe assumption that you can skip it and save precious time.
If somebody says something that sounds racist and doesn't care at all that it sounds racist, that person is probably actually racist, and as such you can assume he or she is biased and likely irrational, and you can probably skip it and save precious time.

Lightningman_42 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:49 pm Do you think that his "racist" claims are enough to turn away most non-racists from the rest of his message?

I can't assess the statistical effect, but I know they were unnecessary for his message and could only harm its reception except for in the eyes of racists.

Lightningman_42 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:49 pm Isn't it irrational to ignore most of what someone says (regarding a broad topic of discussion with many points to be made) just because a few of the statements were offensive, or even incorrect?

Not really. As I mentioned before, we have to be parsimonious. If somebody links me to an hour long video that starts out saying the Earth is flat, I'm not going to invest time in watching it and assessing the rest of the claims (this is the same I mentioned to nonzerosum about APV). It could be that the video contains very valuable information, but probably not given the sample it started with. That's a reasonable exercise of considering the probability of something being worthwhile before wasting time and energy on it.