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PaperclipPerfector  17d ago (text post)   29731 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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"A woman is someone who calls herself a woman" is as simple as "a William is someone who calls himself William". "Yes, but what is a William" is a nonsense-question and has no other answer than "someone called William".

  • -10

It's not a nonsense question. "William" is an example of name, an arbitrary label we out on people that makes it easier for us to communicate who we are talking about, or who we are addressing when we talk. Are you saying "woman" is also an arbitrary label? Why not just say thatz if that's what you mean?

In contrast most definitions, the way progressives try to talk about what is woman is incoherent, and far from simple.

‘What is a William’ is not a nonsense question- the answer is ‘someone named William’. That individuals can generally use whatever first name they choose as a form of address, at least as adults, is a convention. To say ‘he is a William’ would be lying if he generally went by John. The statement would come off as odd(the normal formulation would be ‘that’s William’ or ‘he is William’), but it would be understood as meaning he would like to be addressed as William if you spoke to him.

Likewise, ‘she is a woman’ tells us this is an adult of the female sex. It’s entirely possible for the statement to be lying.

‘What is a William’ is not a nonsense question

I obviously meant, in the wider context of my [checks notes] two-sentence-long post, that it's a nonsensical follow-up question to ask once someone has already told you that "a William is someone who calls himself William". Obviously it can be true or false in that narrow sense, but then so can "does this person identify as a woman or not".

As I pointed out to you elsewhere, this is true if and only if "a woman is anyone who calls herself a woman" is the only statement about "woman" that you will ever use, with no connection to any other statement or issue allowed, ever.

This sort of hermetic formulation is not what people generally expect from a definition, and pretending otherwise makes it difficult to take you seriously. And this is why people with more at stake than you hem and haw and rely on squid ink when asked in the real world: they can't just retreat to forum anonymity when asked to apply or extend their definition in even the simplest ways.

This mysteriously isn't a problem when we need to convey that people are called William. (Also, I realize that by definition I cannot prove it, but I have made this point before IRL.)

Thats because there usually is only one person called William thats relevant to any given statement, and things do in fact go south pretty quickly when you cant keep it that way.

Within philosophy of language more broadly, proper and personal names are always a bit of a pain point. If you dont have a revisionist theory of them (and your argument relies on not doing so), then you generally need a much more fragmentary theory in general, where the pieces are sensitive to more parameters then we would usually expect, and then trying to generalise from personal names to something else would require a lot more checking to see if the situation is analogous, which its definitely not in this case.

This mysteriously isn't a problem when we need to convey that people are called William.

There are no athletic competitions ringfenced only for people named William, because people named William are systematically weaker and slower than people who go by other names. Williams do not get their own bathrooms, prisons and changing rooms because Williams are at vastly elevated risk of sexual assault compared to people who go by other names. There are no academic scholarships or grant programs ringfenced for people named William, in recognition of the historic discrimination they have endured at the hands of non-Williams.

Elective membership in a category only makes sense if there are no consequences associated with membership in said category. Which is obviously not true of the category "woman". Which is why so many trans-identified males want to join the category.

A teacher lines students up to use the water fountain:

"Line up by reverse alphabetical order this time. ...Aaron, it's reverse alphabetical order, you should be at the back." "I've decided that I'm called William, actually."

What should the teacher do?

Again, "people are called William if they want to be called William" is likewise not a problem if and only if no action or statement ever depends on or is connected to this definition in any way. When we try to actually do things with this information, allowing the data to be completely arbitrary breaks whatever we try to use it for. We do not, in fact, generally allow people to arbitrarily change their own names; to the extent that we allow name changes, we do so through legible processes, because names are important in a lot of ways.

What should the teacher do?

Allow it this once, but observe whether William actually lastingly goes by William in other social contexts, and/or if he switches back to Aaron when drinking order switches back again. Take appropriate disciplinary action if you get conclusive evidence he's doing it frivolously.

  • -12

Take appropriate disciplinary action if you get conclusive evidence he's doing it frivolously.

Now this is interesting.

My first instinct is to effectively say "Aaron, cut the shit. Back of the line." Given that he's never claimed to be William before, and there's a short-term reward for being William today, I disbelieve him with confidence.

And sure: If Aaron comes in the next day saying he's William, and for the next week, and for some unspecified time after, it does makes sense to call him William.

That actually happened, by the way. A young Englishman named Aaron started calling himself William. At first, everyone just kept calling him Aaron, but he stuck to it, and hardly anyone even remembers his original name. Ironically, he wound up believing that names don't matter after all, as demonstrated by his quote: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - Aaron Shakespeare

sorry

Your definition was "a William is someone who calls himself William". You made no mention previously of frivolity invalidating self-assigned Williamosity. You make no mention here of what separates frivolous self-designations from serious ones. You seem to think that changing the name back and forth to secure a position in the front of a line would be illegitimate, but you've offered no justification for why that particular arbitrary change is the lone illegitimate one, nor a list of what the other exceptions might be, much less a general method for discerning legitimate changes from illegitimate ones.

Would you agree that "people are called William if they want to be called William" appears to be a definition that doesn't actually work, given that it appears very easy to abuse without adding an unspecified number of additional caveats?

No. The present tense "calls" in "someone who calls himself" was, I thought, sufficient to imply "habitually calls himself"; to imply a measure of stability. If you really think this is ambiguous, we can add an adverb, whatever.

Is your position then that "genderfluid" people are full of shit?

If you haven't already, you have to approve this to make it visible. You really gotta start looking more closely, man.

I hate the filter so, so much.

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