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That was someone else.
I agree with that, and I believe that does not imply I'm disrespecting their preferences. Your right to believe you're a cat ends at my right to not be forced to say "heeereee kitty, kitty, kitty!" when I see you. This applies to all other identities. Muslims don't have to recognize me as a Muslim, the Japanase don't have to recognize me as a Japanaese, etc.
Ah, yes my bad.
This is a bit too abstract to address. We definitely do put social and legal expectations on one another that compel us to do or not do things all the time. And sometimes we hit one another with serious consequences for these things.
Perhaps we could focus it a bit.
I thought it was pretty focused? You gave the example of someone identifying as a cat. I added examples of someone identifying as a Muslim or Japanese without being accepted as one by these groups. If you don't like these comparison feel free to give another one, but I'd like that to be accompanied by an argument why the new analogy is better than the ones we already had.
Mmm, I kept rewriting my post because I was having trouble relating it back to trans situations, which are really what all our metaphors are presumably about.
There are lots of object level issues there that play into the social expectations.
I can argue that there are cases where you will be socially punished for not accepting someone as a Muslim or Japanese.
But what I'm really thinking here, is that the analogy isn't useful at all.
Social expectations do exist for all sorts of things, and the expectations and their punishments are very diverse.
Sometimes the punishments come from your local friend group, sometimes they come from formal repercussions.
But whether those expectations and punishments are warranted in the specific case of say, not using someone's pronouns, is really only answerable if we talk about pronouns.
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I think that proves too much. If society shames you for not saying hello or being polite, or calling a married woman Mrs or a Dr, Dr, they are forcing preferences upon you. There isn't any intrinsic reason this should stop any particular place. Society forces its preferences on you all the time, individuals can choose to buck the trend and then take the social consequences but most people will go along.
My right to believe I am a cat ends where I am able to persuade society it ends. Your right not to comply then ends where you don't want to take the social consequences. That's what the whole thing is about! (And of course vice versa, if you can persuade society I am not a cat then if I choose to continue acting as one, I will take the social consequences in return).
If you were able to persuade enough Japanese people to recognize you as Japanese such that they could successfully shame other Japanese people who did not, then at a societal level you ARE Japanese. You could go into Japanese only bars and so on.
It is at once a meaningful biological group and a malleable social group and it is possible to be in one or the other, both or neither.
Yes, and I'm in the process of persuading society that there should be no consequences for this particular thing, Do you mind?
Would you like to participate in the conversation, or continue making the unrelated observation about the arbitrariness of social conventions?
Well if you admit that is exactly what you are trying to do, it isn't unrelated is it?
Remember we are here to discuss the culture war not wage it. If you are trying to persuade society here 1) This is not the venue for that. 2) You'd be better off somewhere with significant "normie" presence.
Its absolutely fine to use arguments as soldiers, but at the very least here you should be upfront about that.
Hence my meta commentary.
It absolutely is! I'll believe you that you think it's related, if you can link me to a comment where you argue, using that logic, in favor of a point you disagree with.
That doesn't mean you get to derail any conversation with "it's all relative, man".
If I comment on something you said, pointing out that it is overly broad and that it applies to any attempt to force preferences, and indeed that many of your preferences are forced right now, and then you say yes that is what you were doing, trying to force preferences, then logically those things are related. So I don't have to prove anything from any prior comment. Everything needed to determine if I am correct or not is contained in this chain. It's not really relevant whether you believe I believe those things are related or not. That is entirely up to you.
Having said that, it doesn't matter whether I think you are correct not, just that the justification for your position is weak. Don't mistake me criticizing your logic for the fact I disagree with your position. Your statement was I think false. People's rights to do X does not in fact end when you are forced to do Y. Maybe it should end there, but it clearly doesn't (which you yourself seem to admit). Given that, using it as an argument makes your position weaker as it is easily rebutted. I am not saying change your position, I am saying make a better argument that fits with how things actually work.
You can feel free to take my word that I am up front or not. And if you feel I am derailing the conversation, you do not have to respond. No harm, no foul on my end at least.
No, i said I'm trying to persuade people that a preference isn't worth forcing.
Yup, like I said, I'm going to need some evidence to accept that you are.
A distinction with no difference. If I am trying to persuade people calling Doctors Dr is a preference not worth forcing, then i am practically going to have to persuade them to shame those who do prefer to use Dr and who are pushing for that. Thats part of how a social convention becomes one. By making it judged positively if you do it and judged negatively if you do not.
You just have to look at how well, "hate the sin not the sinner" worked. In general it leads to hating the sinner by proxy. An attempt to set a social norm that people do not have to say Dr, will lead to people who do say Dr to be judged.
And if you require proof of good faith, I think you may have misjudged the purpose of the space. My arguments are at face value and i assume yours are as well. Otherwise whats the point of even being here?
If A == !A then it's not that your argument is not relevant, it's meaningless.
No I don't. Most arguments here happen with shaming. In fact, shaming is against the rules.
Even though waging the culture war is against the rules, people still do it. Last I checked it was still ok to point out someone is doing it, and I think you are doing it here.
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