ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Yes, happy to. I think 'trans' is an umbrella term that covers a lot of interrelated issues, so I also don't believe in the 'trans' adult as a distinct thing either. I think the best frame is that of a culture bound syndrome (Helen Joyce's position), as I've outlined previously.
https://www.themotte.org/post/587/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/120789?context=8#context
To inquires into trans means we need to differentiate the different component parts - applying a label trans child/trans adult is already question begging. It locks us into a particular metaphysical frame where it's very easy to assume, 'people are born like that'.
I don't preclude biological or genetic aspects or some mechanism like hormones in natal development on the brain for some portion of trans identification, but even then I don't jump to 'trans person' as a response but 'person who may find difficulties with the assumed gender roles and presentation that is normative for their sex', ie gender dysphoria and gender non-conforming. Mental illness is a broad, unhelpful term but there a host of psychological conditions that could impact someones social identity formation and self-concept that don't have any need for the creation of a 'trans person'. OCD, autism, body dysmorphia.
For children the assumption (by adults on the child's behalf) is even more egregious. Part of gender is obviously socially constructed and we learn in development language, customs around gender. To answer my earlier question, this means it is adults supplying the children with concepts and language to talk about gender. The current iteration of ideas in my view is clearly a social contagion drawing from all sorts of problematic and contingent elements such as queer theory and an ideological fervour from progressives.
While children learn early about sex categories our awareness of our sexed nature's and social identity doesn't really take off until early adolescence and in particular puberty. Society, through child development, is shaping ideas around gender expression and what it is to be a self. Why are we shaping it in such a way that we are allowing some children to take drugs with serious side-effects and surgeries as well as foregoing puberty without a strong evidence base, is shocking. For many children we are foreclosing the rite of passage to adulthood, surely limiting their integration as a social being.
It's because of activists, and a big blob of people that aren't treating this as a public health issue, so are complicit in unethical medical harms.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
It's difficult because yeah, probably are some genuinely transgender kids out there
I strenuously deny this assertion. There are gender non-conforming children, gay children, those who struggle to develop a gendered identity in a social world, and ultimately those who struggle with body or gender dysphoria but there is no evidence that there are 'trans-children'.
The blind acceptance of this frame by both sides is something we need to challenge if we want medical professionals to start caring about child-safeguarding.
The idea of a trans child was unknown 20 years ago when trans(sexual) identification was the domain of adult males with autogynephilia
Who is providing the language and ideas for these children to use?
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
My first guess would be 'psychologically wrong' given the setup. Perhaps they have mother issues and secretly hate women (though it's not always a blocker for success)
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Yes, that's what I mean, 'is justifying it in the confused minds of the people who are immersed in the ideology'.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Yep, there deserves to be a top-level post (perhaps there have been several already) but the alt-right definitely steals from the worldview of the progressives.
Ie there's this big hegemonic cultural force that is imposing a progressive view of race and inhibiting the success of whites. Gee, that sounds an awful lot like structural racism a la critical theory.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I am formulating a post on this. I'm thinking that the branding, or framing, of strangeness or weirdness might not be a great draw, but nonetheless there is a great potential uniter in a better description of how we actually experience reality. Of course religious people are already playing in this space, but this always requires some extra beliefs.
For me, this sense of reality, which as you describe can include a feeling of unreality, has been the starting point to a notion of God, but a God akin the Spinoza's God, ie God as the 'other' or the universe. The universe is somehow unfolding in front of us and while quite strange is also magical. It takes me out of the plain scientific frame of my specific beliefs and thoughts running around my brain and into some other space.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I'm sure it does mean the narrower definition but even then I think for certain people it might encourage a certain holding back. Any term has the problem of where the agreed threshold is and they also overlap, the duty of civility derives from some consideration that is a kindness.
But kindness is deeper and sometimes it's not clear what is kind, ie giving a streetperson money that you are sure they will buy drugs with, or the tradition of fierce wisdom-telling people what they might need to hear even if they will find it unkind. Now, we're not in a spiritual or personal community here so I don't advocate for fierce wisdom, there should be protocols that understand the nature of the space. But this fits better with the less loaded term of civility in my view.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I disagree with kindness, charity is worthwhile though something of a hopeless cause. Someone else said it here but kindness is an insidious term that has been weaponised politically, eg COVID and trans issues.
The term I favour is civility. Civility is a form, so isn't as loaded, and doesn't require people to hide any of their views or fail to call people out, it just requires that it's done with style, panache even. As in a debate where someone says someone is stupid but with a witty retort.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
What do you mean, the gender identity ('born in the wrong body') is justifying the surgery. Also the gender identity stuff is an incoherent belief system that is being taught in schools and mandated in workplaces.
The irony is that having a sex category, being an immutable fact, allows for any manner of expression. It is gender identity where the individual is forced to show social proof of membership, typically confirming to regressive sex stereotypes in order to do so.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I was going by a podcast title a while back that seemed to suggest so, though that might have been click bait.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Ah can't claim the McMindfulness so use at will, there's an established critique around this.
I accept that there may be pearls that once the mud is cleaned off are seen as vitally relevant but there's also the epistemic authority problem of interpretation. One particular creed will take X from a story, the other Y. Is it all vital? I'm not convinced there isn't a lot of contingent dross smuggled in from time and place. Perhaps it's not easy to know so you keep it all.
I come at religion from a Jordan Peterson kind of place (pre his official conversion), ie a largely metaphoric journey through our prehistory of what is effective/insightful of the human condition. I think Christianity is vitally relevant here but also appreciate the insights of other traditions.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
This links to what I call the lineage problem, which is where the concern is any adjustments to the core creed have a dilution effect that risks effective transmission of the ideas over time and may even give rise to enough drift in the tradition that ideas entirely counter to the original spirit arise.
Buddhism in the West is a good example. Various long-standing traditions were imported into the West and over time things deemed superfluous or esoteric were abandoned. It's an oversimplification but this has culminated in the McMindfulness approach you see now.
The trouble is, traditions also lock in a bunch of stuff that genuinely does seem to be superfluous, and traditions also need to change.
I'm actually a moderniser type of guy- it seems pertinent to me having the belief system of Christianity doesn't necessarily bear any relation to the behaviour of the Christian, and I think theism in the modern age has become a victim of the Cartesian split.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
The similarity is also a problem in assigning variance to a single component but it's definitely a kind of experiment so worth taking seriously
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I was more pointing to the gene editing reference. It seems more intuitive that we could select embryos as all the bits are functionally integrated via evolution.
There's a lot of reading so will tap into later. Do we really know if the causal correlation is from genes to IQ in the % of variation explained. Might they be markers of ethnicity, itself with a cultural link to IQ?
My journey in these waters is first to explore what level of evidence do we have. Aggregate associations between genetics and IQ scores would be low quality in terms of causal inference wouldn't it, in terms of evidence based medicine?
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I don't have great insight into this field but I think you overstate the science somewhat. A number of genes have been 'implicated in' intelligence but that is a long way off from the proof that inserting these genes into someone will make them intelligent. I believe there is evidence that genes can function differently in different circumstances/populations so it's not a trivial X makes Y scenario.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
If you want some background to this story I follow a substack that seems reputable (woke watch Canada). As far as I can tell it's actually a pretty interesting case of the facts not being covered by the msm.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I think your last paragraphs sum it up for me, it would be a fascinating topic for me if you had visibility of scientists arguing science at the individual issue level, so that you could get a sense of the thing. Instead you have people many levels up with their understanding and particular biases and material is locked into that frame, which actually limits inquiry and learning.
The same goes for global warming, there is actually a real world phenomenon of global warming (to whatever degree, causes and impact that it is) and funnily enough reality doesn't care about what the left or right happens to think about the issue. But the debate is culture warred out - people tend to start with their politics and build out from there and so we don't really progressed, it gets frozen in time.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
It all rests on personhood I suppose and the current social contract is pretty clear on what a person is as far as I can tell.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Yes, the example wasn't very real and a bit half-baked but as a thought experiment youre obliged to take it as it is. The point is there's a compulsion element from the state on the individual in banning abortion. This kind of thing normally raises the hackles of an average republican but doesn't seem to register in this case. Murder is also a misframing because the cost of not committing murder is zero.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I think abortion is one of those Necker cube, two ways of seeing the world things. If you can't see the two sides then you haven't really tried very hard or have some systemic condition such as black or white thinking.
Murder is the wrong word of course but we get the idea, someone is ending a potential human life.
But having the state force someone to carry through an event they're not in favour of and that has very real risks to health and even life is morally wrong if you believe in the sovereignty of the individual. It's not equivalent, or a real life scenario, but a thought experiment of forcing someone to take a vaccine with serious potential health impacts and a 9 month side-effect profile in order to save someones life wouldn't presumably get the same republican buy-in.
So at the least it is weighing up these morals. My take is that a liberal society can't force someone to do carry to term- it would be fine in a theocracy but we don't live in a theocracy. Frankly that's some cold-assed shit to put on someone who is at most 50% to blame.
At the same time I think culture needs to shift back the other way. There should be shame associated with abortion, the morning after pill is not contraception, a fetus is a potential human being, not just a bunch of cells.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I think it's healthy to take breaks from social media at different points so qdos. I suspect I might be a different age from you because my expectations are very low for this kind of site (at the same time I really enjoy it).
From my perspective any sense of a 'community' in such places is already illusory, which doesn't mean there's not connection, shared perspectives etc but it's not real life and for me it's at the level of infotainment - sometimes very good infotainment, but not really anything to get hung up about.
The best thing about the motte, is the lack of censoriousness. People are free to express ideas people might find odious but that is what free speech is. I'm taken aback somewhat by the views some people have landed with but I'm not adversely affected by them.
Something that shifted for me with 'ideas' was at around age 40 i read some Jung and became intensely interested in the bodily feeling of being triggered by other peoples ideas. I started to actively lean in to this and it has helped me become more detached from various debates because I am also interested in my own thoughts, ideas and reactions and other peoples commentary is in fact fuel for this process. It also goes along with Haidt's moral tastebuds ideas. I may not agree with someones ideas but if I'm not triggered I'm actually in a better place to perhaps see where they're coming from. Perhaps it's an age thing.
Practically and without wanting to sound condescending, I scroll through a lot here without reading much. I'm not inclined to care enough about us politics, HBD paradigms or atheist argument chains. There's also stuff I don't comment on because I have no particular insight but I enjoy reading, such as law, history, economics etc. And then there's a few nuggets that resonate really well each week as well as my own culture war pet topics. I know the sense of despair that people seem so at odds but I guess that's just the world?
On comparison with Scotts community i don't actually believe 'niceness' is a value though it may coincide with one at times. I suspect there must be a lot of interesting discussion wherever he is but am guessing it would be prone to status games and idolatry. The motte is good because it's like that semi-grotty pub in the wrong part of town where you engage, or overhear, people not like you. And I'd warn against people mimicking Scotts style. I see it here often falling flat and adding unnecessary word count.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
It would be interesting to look at what people find salient, what identities they inhabit, in different times. I imagine a colonial governer in India would draw on that tradition of 'Great Englishman'. All of these kind of identities, nationhood, ancestry identities seem to have a strong component of fortifying myth, while other identities are perhaps just closer to roles, eg engineer, internet troll etc. Which is not to contrast or make any particular point except to try to tease 'identity' out a bit.
My point was more around how we don't typically have good language to describe our moment by moment experience as a Self and what that encompasses. From religious traditions and phenomenological philosophers, cognitive science, we actually have a rich model and language of direct experience, but this hasn't made it into the public space.
I mean existence is actually pretty weird. For example it's possible to find yourself in fairly uncertain states about what is actually happening in moment to moment consciousness and life and our interactions with others can be coloured by a certain weirdness. While we can often retreat to a sensible perspective of ego, or small self, with our identities, beliefs, and homoncular experience, we also may be plunged into existential anxiety and shifting reality.
I think the failure to communicate this reality underequips young people to appreciate that they might have difficult, uncomfortable experiences where they don't feel like a coherent whole. They might mistake this as a kind of mismatch, where something is wrong with them, and search for a path of certainty by over attaching to an identity they can perform.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I think we are overfocused on identity and have an impoverished shared/folk understanding of what it is actually like to 'be a self'.
While this was true previously it is particularly true now, with the internet, which creates I argue a sense of disembodiment.
Being a self is much more than just having an identity. A self is the space that our separate, overlapping identities arise in. It contains something ineffable that can't be captured by propositions around 'who one is'
Now we obviously need to operate with others which is where identity/persona is relevant. But we should enrich our vocabulary of what it means to 'be a human's, with all its attendent existential anxieties so that we don't mistake ourselves and each other as identities, as well as helping young people understand their experience.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
But what happens when that higher g means that you're developmentally behind all of your peers when it comes to physical instrumentality during extremely important stages of your life and development?
That is what parents are for any child and the way they do this is through strategic alliance with the tribe, co-operate to achieve strategic advantages over other tribes, and have a system of child development, underneath culture. Probably an oversimplification but this is actually how cognition evolved, and in all these behaviours I would find G useful.
More options
Context Copy link