Though a bit depressing that Doyle has apparently seen fit to hide that tweet of his from everyone but his "small circle of friends" ...
But Pascal said pretty much the same thing several hundred years ago:
Pascal: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -- 'religious conviction' clearly covering a lot of ground:
Well said. The FreePress did a great mini docu podcast on "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling" which was fantastic if you haven't listened yet. It covers your same points.
With "Phelps-Roper", as I think her name is? Seem to recollect skimming it but not much more than that -- may have to go back & take a closer look.
But too many of us are scientifically illiterate -- Sagan suggested 90% -- which makes us easy marks for the charlatans & grifters. Which includes those peddling "conventional wisdom" and "folk-biology" -- like the view that "sex is immutable!!11!!" 🙄 and that everyone is either male or female -- as gospel truth.
Scott Alexander had a useful insight on that "systemic" problem some years ago:
SA: "Topics here tend to center vaguely around this meta-philosophical idea of how people evaluate arguments for their beliefs, and especially whether this process is spectacularly broken in a way that may or may not doom us all."
ICYMI, Mark Twain had similar perspectives & insights:
Twain: "Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party's approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals. ....
And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the Voice of God."
Indeed. Whole transgender clusterfuck seems to bear some unfortunate, if illuminating though hardly flattering, similarities with Swift's tale of Lilliputian civil wars over egg (ova) cracking protocols and with Pope's Rape of the Lock (Part Deux).
But in many ways that clusterfuck is where the rubber meets the road, is predicated on a whole raft of principles which too many haven't a flaming clue about or are trying to abrogate, repudiate, bastardize or ride roughshod over.
Periodically wonder if it's hyperbole or understatement to say that western "civilization" hangs in the balance ... 🙂
Many -- an increasing number -- have the same clues, the same facts and principles; reach the same conclusions. Except they're otherwise occupied so I'm obliged to step up to the plate. But they've provided ample evidence of those conclusions.
"me alone", eh? "generalities about definitions" from some "fringe biologists", eh? Like Colin Wright? :roll-eyes: 🙄
If you're capable of it -- rather moot, I know -- you might actually try reading and thinking about what he's said about polythetic categories, something that set me down that track several years ago:
Colin: "The idea that for something to be a member of a category it must share at least 1 thing in common with all other members is not accurate. See 'polythetic' categories/classification."
They're saying that, for example, the category "female" has 3 separate conditions for category membership: some members can have ovaries that might become functional, some members can have ovaries that actually are functional, and some members have ovaries that might have been functional. They're all members of the same category, but they don't all share the same traits. At least apart from being gonads, although there are discrete and clearly defined differences in terms of functionality.
A rather imperfect definition for many reasons, but still sort of a half-way house -- apparently for those of delicate sensibilities ... -- between traditional folk-biology and the more rigorous and defensible biological definitions. The latter are monothetic categories which stipulate single conditions for category membership, traits that ALL members share -- i.e., functional gonads of either of two types.
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless; my emphasis]."
Griffiths (PhilPapers): "Individual organisms pass in and out of these regions – sexes – one or more times during their lives. Importantly, sexes are life-history stages rather than applying to organisms over their entire lifespan. This fact has been obscured by concentrating on humans, and ignoring species which regularly change sex, as well as those with non-genetic or facultatively genetic sex determination systems."
PK: "Strictly speaking it’s the sex that an individual is disposed to develop into that is determined at conception, i.e. the sex that a person will become *if* they develop the ability to produce gametes. This is one of the few contexts where that particular distinction matters."
LGBTQIA: "The term [sexless] includes intersex people who were born sexless as well as people who became sexless later in life (desired/planned or not) and people who desire to be sexless."
You "think" we're somehow different from our phenotypes? That our sexes are some mythic and magical "je ne sais quoi" essence separate from them? An intrinsic and immutable element of our souls? 🙄
Try thinking about an analogy with heights. We might define "six-footer" as "the phenotype that is 6 feet tall". Are you going to argue that a new-born baby is a "six-footer" at birth because it is likely to become 6 feet tall?
The child doesn't qualify as a "six-footer" until it HAS the phenotype that IS six feet tall. The same way a child won't qualify as, say, a "female" until it has the phenotype that produces ova.
🙄 :roll-eyes: 🙄 You're INCAPABLE of a coherent, rational, and well-evidenced response.
The "mythic essence" was a rhetorical question to emphasize the untenability of your position. The analogy was an attempt to show why that is the case.
But you're too gutless, too much of an intellectually dishonest fraud to actually deal with the argument and analogy tabled.
I agree with what you say, Steersman, but I wish that you (and many, many others) would be more careful with your rhetoric. I say this because my own field happens to be comparative religion.
Wokism, and other political ideologies are indeed what could be called "secular religions" but only if you refer specifically to fundamentalist religion. Fundamentalism is not traditional religion (although it purports to be traditional). Rather, it's a modern phenomenon--more specifically, a reaction against both modernity in general and secularism in particular. In various ways, so do modern political ideologies. Religious and secular forms of fundamentalism have in common several characteristic features, notably dualism ("us" vs. "them"), consequentialism (the end can justify the means), utopianism (the hope of building a perfect society) and revolutionism (as distinct from reformism). Every ideology since the nineteenth century (notably, in our time, wokism and transgenderism) has relied on intimidation, moreover, to close down debate and thus control discourse.
My point is not that traditional forms of religion have never done so--anyone can point to early precursors of the fundamentalist mentality--but that traditional forms of religion sometimes have indeed done so. For evidence, I would point not only to well-documented debates that theologians and philosophers carried on for generations (without resorting to threats) and to the common admission that "doubt" or ambivalence are part of religion . Much depends on historical context.
Quite agree with your "Religious and secular forms of fundamentalism have in common several characteristic features ..."
Religion, per se, is maybe less a problem than the misuses of it, notably the dogmatic certainty of many of its adherents. A trait which, as you say, many "secular forms" also exhibit. Reminds me of a passage from Dawkins' "The God Delusion":
Dawkins: "... I wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic [or panentheistic] God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language.” [pg. 41]
Often takes some effort to separate the nutritious wheat from the often poisonous chaff -- so to speak. But generally rather important to do so.
Michael: "... how even the atheistic are vulnerable to a religious psychology."
"amen" -- so to speak -- to that. Reminds me of a recent tweet by Andrew Doyle on a comparison of the Woke & The Religious:
"The JK Rowling controversy has exposed one of the most chilling aspects of the woke ideology: the sheer certainty of its adherents.
It never occurs to these people that they might be wrong. That’s why they refuse to debate.
This is zealotry; it needs to be resisted."
https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1208423606977515520
Though a bit depressing that Doyle has apparently seen fit to hide that tweet of his from everyone but his "small circle of friends" ...
But Pascal said pretty much the same thing several hundred years ago:
Pascal: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -- 'religious conviction' clearly covering a lot of ground:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/blaise_pascal_133606
Well said. The FreePress did a great mini docu podcast on "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling" which was fantastic if you haven't listened yet. It covers your same points.
With "Phelps-Roper", as I think her name is? Seem to recollect skimming it but not much more than that -- may have to go back & take a closer look.
But too many of us are scientifically illiterate -- Sagan suggested 90% -- which makes us easy marks for the charlatans & grifters. Which includes those peddling "conventional wisdom" and "folk-biology" -- like the view that "sex is immutable!!11!!" 🙄 and that everyone is either male or female -- as gospel truth.
Scott Alexander had a useful insight on that "systemic" problem some years ago:
SA: "Topics here tend to center vaguely around this meta-philosophical idea of how people evaluate arguments for their beliefs, and especially whether this process is spectacularly broken in a way that may or may not doom us all."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/
"Doomed!! I say doomed!" 😉🙂
ICYMI, Mark Twain had similar perspectives & insights:
Twain: "Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party's approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals. ....
And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the Voice of God."
http://www.paulgraham.com/cornpone.html
As another famous philosopher once put it, "we have seen the enemy, and he is us" ... 😉🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)
Yep with Phelps Roper. It is frustrating when it feels like the analysis is so thin and there's so much more interesting things to read and study!
Indeed. Whole transgender clusterfuck seems to bear some unfortunate, if illuminating though hardly flattering, similarities with Swift's tale of Lilliputian civil wars over egg (ova) cracking protocols and with Pope's Rape of the Lock (Part Deux).
But in many ways that clusterfuck is where the rubber meets the road, is predicated on a whole raft of principles which too many haven't a flaming clue about or are trying to abrogate, repudiate, bastardize or ride roughshod over.
Periodically wonder if it's hyperbole or understatement to say that western "civilization" hangs in the balance ... 🙂
Many -- an increasing number -- have the same clues, the same facts and principles; reach the same conclusions. Except they're otherwise occupied so I'm obliged to step up to the plate. But they've provided ample evidence of those conclusions.
"me alone", eh? "generalities about definitions" from some "fringe biologists", eh? Like Colin Wright? :roll-eyes: 🙄
If you're capable of it -- rather moot, I know -- you might actually try reading and thinking about what he's said about polythetic categories, something that set me down that track several years ago:
Colin: "The idea that for something to be a member of a category it must share at least 1 thing in common with all other members is not accurate. See 'polythetic' categories/classification."
https://nitter.it/SwipeWright/status/1215527760451514369
https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1215527760451514369
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2799807
That's basically the basis for the folk-biology/spectrum-lite definitions that he, Emma Hilton, & Heather Heying had published in the UK Times:
https://nitter.it/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
They're saying that, for example, the category "female" has 3 separate conditions for category membership: some members can have ovaries that might become functional, some members can have ovaries that actually are functional, and some members have ovaries that might have been functional. They're all members of the same category, but they don't all share the same traits. At least apart from being gonads, although there are discrete and clearly defined differences in terms of functionality.
A rather imperfect definition for many reasons, but still sort of a half-way house -- apparently for those of delicate sensibilities ... -- between traditional folk-biology and the more rigorous and defensible biological definitions. The latter are monothetic categories which stipulate single conditions for category membership, traits that ALL members share -- i.e., functional gonads of either of two types.
Hardly. Many others endorse the same conclusions:
Paul Griffiths for example:
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless; my emphasis]."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
Griffiths (PhilPapers): "Individual organisms pass in and out of these regions – sexes – one or more times during their lives. Importantly, sexes are life-history stages rather than applying to organisms over their entire lifespan. This fact has been obscured by concentrating on humans, and ignoring species which regularly change sex, as well as those with non-genetic or facultatively genetic sex determination systems."
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
Mathematician & philosopher Patrick Killeen:
PK: "Strictly speaking it’s the sex that an individual is disposed to develop into that is determined at conception, i.e. the sex that a person will become *if* they develop the ability to produce gametes. This is one of the few contexts where that particular distinction matters."
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039829533392822272
We're not born with that "ability to produce gametes"; it's just something that most of us ACQUIRE at puberty.
Wikipedia: "Sexlessness is the state of being either without sexual activity, or without a biological sex. It may refer to:
Gonadal agenesis, when a male child is born without gonads and consequently develops no testes ..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexlessness
LGBTQIA: "The term [sexless] includes intersex people who were born sexless as well as people who became sexless later in life (desired/planned or not) and people who desire to be sexless."
https://www.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Sexless
Many others. An increasingly popular perspective ...
Mockery and ridicule is often the only response necessary:
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them ...."
https://quotefancy.com/quote/918147/Thomas-Jefferson-Ridicule-is-the-only-weapon-which-can-be-used-against-unintelligible
Many peddling that "everyone has a sex" mantra have yet to tender anything in the way of evidence to justify their "arguments".
You "think" we're somehow different from our phenotypes? That our sexes are some mythic and magical "je ne sais quoi" essence separate from them? An intrinsic and immutable element of our souls? 🙄
Try thinking about an analogy with heights. We might define "six-footer" as "the phenotype that is 6 feet tall". Are you going to argue that a new-born baby is a "six-footer" at birth because it is likely to become 6 feet tall?
The child doesn't qualify as a "six-footer" until it HAS the phenotype that IS six feet tall. The same way a child won't qualify as, say, a "female" until it has the phenotype that produces ova.
🙄 :roll-eyes: 🙄 You're INCAPABLE of a coherent, rational, and well-evidenced response.
The "mythic essence" was a rhetorical question to emphasize the untenability of your position. The analogy was an attempt to show why that is the case.
But you're too gutless, too much of an intellectually dishonest fraud to actually deal with the argument and analogy tabled.
What a jam tart.
🙄:roll-eyes: 🙄
I agree with what you say, Steersman, but I wish that you (and many, many others) would be more careful with your rhetoric. I say this because my own field happens to be comparative religion.
Wokism, and other political ideologies are indeed what could be called "secular religions" but only if you refer specifically to fundamentalist religion. Fundamentalism is not traditional religion (although it purports to be traditional). Rather, it's a modern phenomenon--more specifically, a reaction against both modernity in general and secularism in particular. In various ways, so do modern political ideologies. Religious and secular forms of fundamentalism have in common several characteristic features, notably dualism ("us" vs. "them"), consequentialism (the end can justify the means), utopianism (the hope of building a perfect society) and revolutionism (as distinct from reformism). Every ideology since the nineteenth century (notably, in our time, wokism and transgenderism) has relied on intimidation, moreover, to close down debate and thus control discourse.
My point is not that traditional forms of religion have never done so--anyone can point to early precursors of the fundamentalist mentality--but that traditional forms of religion sometimes have indeed done so. For evidence, I would point not only to well-documented debates that theologians and philosophers carried on for generations (without resorting to threats) and to the common admission that "doubt" or ambivalence are part of religion . Much depends on historical context.
Quite agree with your "Religious and secular forms of fundamentalism have in common several characteristic features ..."
Religion, per se, is maybe less a problem than the misuses of it, notably the dogmatic certainty of many of its adherents. A trait which, as you say, many "secular forms" also exhibit. Reminds me of a passage from Dawkins' "The God Delusion":
Dawkins: "... I wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic [or panentheistic] God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language.” [pg. 41]
Often takes some effort to separate the nutritious wheat from the often poisonous chaff -- so to speak. But generally rather important to do so.