Is gender a social construct?

[Gaby]

First edition of the book is available as YT audiobook, or mp3 and PDF files on Hicks's website:
http://www.stephenhicks.org/explaining-postmodernism/

I'd recommend it for everyone who may have problems with understanding some parts of Gellner's writing, as I have, or as a very good and accessible introduction to the postmodernism phenomena. A bit different approach but fully relevant to the problem at hand.

I read Gellner years ago and it was a very difficult reading for me, but at least I understood the bigger picture. It's scary to see how postmodernism has spread out so fast and effectively during the last few years or so. It's useful to review this material for sanity's sake.

I've been listening to Hick's book while I drive. It is truly very easy to understand and instructive.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Interesting thread! Some thoughts:

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.
I do agree that, while gender is culturally constructed to an extent, it makes no sense for people to make claims on other people to recognize them as being in a new gender category. If It’s cultural, then that would argue that gender is the role that the culture thinks you should play, not what role we think we should play.
I think what a lot of people object to is the utopianism of both the left and the liberals: the attempt to change culture quickly to create a better society. One of the strengths of traditional conservatism is the idea that such changes can have unintended consequences.
As for Ponerization, that happens to any ideology, so I don’t think we can single out any of them on that regard. I don’t think we should let ideologies on the right (Traditional Conservatism, Nationalism, Fascim). off the hook, either.
Certainly if the world is messed up as it is, conservatism has had something to do with that, and, in trying to “conserve” traditional norms, they can slip into reactionary stances. Change has been so rapid, both out of control change and controlled social experiments by puppet masters, that traditional conservatism has a lot of appeal now. That’s what Putin represents in the world stage. Even China has rehabilitated Confucius, and they are one of the more relentlessly “modern” states, having wiped out traditional elements with brutal efficiency in the Cultural Revolution. But that stance begs the question, what is “traditional”? It usually means whatever situation existed in the period just prior to the one a person knows much about. In that area lots of myths can be created and exploited, like “make America great again.” I’m old enough to remember when America was supposedly “great” and it wasn’t that great. But you have to be at least 60 to have much of a memory of it, so such a concept is ripe for exploitation.
To simplify things, by “liberal” I mean thought that prioritizes individual rights against the state and the group. Fascism prioritizes the state, representing a nation, over the individual. Socialism/Communism prioritizes a class interest over individual rights or rights of older social groups. Conservatism prioritizes traditional group values over the state and the individual.
This scheme is why I hate it when the right wing calls liberals “the left” or leftists “liberals. The left I see as anti-capitalism. Liberals are generally fine with capitalism because it underpins individual rights (they think). That’s also why liberals are friendlier to identity politics, because they prioritize the individual over the collectivity. I see Liberalism as occupying the center, not the left.

A problem with the anti-postmodernists is that they don’t take a critical view of capitalism. They see it as the eternal natural order of things. You can add to Gellner’s liberal criticism of postmodernism a left criticism of it from someone like Frederic Jameson, who says a lot of the same things as Gellner, but from a Marxist perspective, which doesn’t take capitalism as good, or “natural.” Jameson points out that things like post modernism, or, more precisely, post-structuralism, seems radical but ends up supporting the powers that be. It was the rage in academia in the 1980s and early 90s, but the people who studied it, if they didn’t end up in academia, were in demand in the advertising industry, which is all about creating identities.

 

[Laura]

Interesting thread! Some thoughts:

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.

What cultures are those? And what are the "more than two genders"?

I am aware that many cultures throughout history have accepted gays and have had special terms for them that are often, but not always, pejorative, but none, so far as I am aware, actually consider them another "gender."

 

[Turgon]

Interesting thread! Some thoughts:

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.

What cultures are those? And what are the "more than two genders"?

I am aware that many cultures throughout history have accepted gays and have had special terms for them that are often, but not always, pejorative, but none, so far as I am aware, actually consider them another "gender."

I've read up on some of those cultures, and most of them seem to be similar to what amounts to cross-dressers or drag queens. Men dressing up like women or women dressing up like men and identifying with the other gender. In some cultures, they created an entirely new gender to account for that, but still, it's essentially for the most part, just like anyone in today's Western culture referring to someone as transsexual or cross-dresser. They are still pulling from the base of the two sexes in order to do so, and only in some instances do they attempt to try and pull from aspects of both masculine and feminine in order to create a "third" gender.

_http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

Fakaleiti (Tonga)

description
Similar to the third gender traditions in Samoa and Hawaii, the Tongan fakaleiti a biological males who adopt feminine dress, mannerisms, and social roles. They do not necessarily consider themselves to be transgender or gay, which are considered strictly Euro-American constructs that do not apply.

Metis (Nepal)

description
The term meti is an indigenous term for a third gender in Nepal with a long and checkered history in the Himalayan region. They a born as males, but assume feminine dress and carriage. For the last 30 years, most Metis make their living as prostitutes. They do not consider themselves gay, but rather as a third gender that is interested in straight men. In recent years they have been the targets of violence by Napalese police and gangs calling themselves "Maoists."

Chuckchi (Siberia)

description
The Chuckchi (and neighboring indigenous peoples including the Koryak, and the Kamchadal) (http://www.northernshamanism.org/shamanic-techniques/gender-sexuality/ergi-the-way-of-the-third.html) are a nomadic, shamanic people who embrace a third gender. Generally shamans are biologically male with some adoption of female roles and appearance, who married men but also were not subject to the social limitations placed on women. Third gender Chuckchi could accompany men on the hunt, as well as take care of family.

 

[Laura]

Interesting that the descriptions of the alleged "third genders" come from Postmodernist anthropology.

 

[mkrnhr]

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.

I think there is some semantic confusion that arises with these complex issues when simplifications are used. Sometimes we agree on a certain premise and use different words, and sometimes we use the same words to describe different aspects of an issue, both giving the sense of a superficial convergence that hides a deeper divergence. For instance, the fact that some cultures recognized that some individuals couldn't operate in a way that corresponded to their gender/sex doesn't make is "clear" that we cannot equate gender with sex. The bimodality (I prefer to "binary") of gender doesn't exclude overlaps and exceptions. The fact that "there are strong biological underpinnings to gender" negates that "clearly we cannot equate gender with sex". The differentiation of genders is an emergent property that evolved to maximize a sustainable development of humans both individually and collectively. The existence of outliers to an overlapping differentiation is also part of this process.

If I say that humans are bipedal, that doesn't exclude those individuals who cannot walk on two legs from being humans. It's about recognizing a general feature and also recognizing that there are exceptions to that general feature.

As for Ponerization, that happens to any ideology, so I don’t think we can single out any of them on that regard. I don’t think we should let ideologies on the right (Traditional Conservatism, Nationalism, Fascim). off the hook, either.

True, but nobody's defending other utopias here. NeoLiberalism, or more generally Postmodernism is under scrutiny in this thread because it's the actual main nihilistic ideology being used to destroy society and the individual.

Certainly if the world is messed up as it is, conservatism has had something to do with that, and, in trying to “conserve” traditional norms, they can slip into reactionary stances. Change has been so rapid, both out of control change and controlled social experiments by puppet masters, that traditional conservatism has a lot of appeal now. That’s what Putin represents in the world stage. Even China has rehabilitated Confucius, and they are one of the more relentlessly “modern” states, having wiped out traditional elements with brutal efficiency in the Cultural Revolution. But that stance begs the question, what is “traditional”? It usually means whatever situation existed in the period just prior to the one a person knows much about. In that area lots of myths can be created and exploited, like “make America great again.” I’m old enough to remember when America was supposedly “great” and it wasn’t that great. But you have to be at least 60 to have much of a memory of it, so such a concept is ripe for exploitation.

The cure to postmodernism is not conservatism, whatever that is. "MAGA" has nothing to do with is either since some of the posters here are not even American. Postmodernism and its sub-manifestations are a struggle against reality and a healthy cure would be a knowledge/reality-based evolution that preserves the positives of the past and improves upon it, correcting the negatives of the past, without falling into either of the extremes that consider that the past was so wonderful we must return to it on every aspect, or the one that considers that the past was all horrible everything should be destroyed to the core and experimenting with anything "new" is okay because reality is subjective in any case, and there are no consequences to befall us in case we make the wrong choices.

To simplify things, by “liberal” I mean thought that prioritizes individual rights against the state and the group. Fascism prioritizes the state, representing a nation, over the individual. Socialism/Communism prioritizes a class interest over individual rights or rights of older social groups. Conservatism prioritizes traditional group values over the state and the individual.
This scheme is why I hate it when the right wing calls liberals “the left” or leftists “liberals. The left I see as anti-capitalism. Liberals are generally fine with capitalism because it underpins individual rights (they think). That’s also why liberals are friendlier to identity politics, because they prioritize the individual over the collectivity. I see Liberalism as occupying the center, not the left.

That would be the classical liberals. Neo-liberals do not promote the individual, hence the identity politics.It goes beyond political parties and the false left/right dichotomy. The left and the right in the US are both capitalist, or what one could see as NeoCon in the service of big corporations. The issue is mostly the ideas and ideologies that poison the mind of young people.

A problem with the anti-postmodernists is that they don’t take a critical view of capitalism. They see it as the eternal natural order of things. You can add to Gellner’s liberal criticism of postmodernism a left criticism of it from someone like Frederic Jameson, who says a lot of the same things as Gellner, but from a Marxist perspective, which doesn’t take capitalism as good, or “natural.” Jameson points out that things like post modernism, or, more precisely, post-structuralism, seems radical but ends up supporting the powers that be. It was the rage in academia in the 1980s and early 90s, but the people who studied it, if they didn’t end up in academia, were in demand in the advertising industry, which is all about creating identities.

Indeed, it is not just a debate on the level of economics anymore, although some secondary aspects may be related, but rather on the level of ideas and on how one sees and interact with reality.

 

[Ant22]

Interesting thread! Some thoughts:

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.

What cultures are those? And what are the "more than two genders"?

I am aware that many cultures throughout history have accepted gays and have had special terms for them that are often, but not always, pejorative, but none, so far as I am aware, actually consider them another "gender."

It looks like "more than two genders" or "third genders" has been taken to a pretty foolish level. I found the below article on RT this morning:

https://www.rt.com/usa/236283-facebook-gender-custom-choice/

After being told by users that its 58 existing gender options are not inclusive enough, the social network has relented and given its US-based members a chance to fill in their own gender as they wish.

“Now, if you do not identify with the pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your own. As before, you can add up to 10 gender terms and also have the ability to control the audience with whom you would like to share your custom gender. We recognize that some people face challenges sharing their true gender identity with others, and this setting gives people the ability to express themselves in an authentic way,” Facebook’s Diversity team said in a statement.

“We're hoping this will open up the dialogue,” said Ari Chivukula, a transgender member of the team.

Among the list of existing US options are Two-Spirit, Pangender, Neutrois and Transmasculine. Last summer, UK users were given additional options – including Hermaphrodite, and Two* Person – bringing up their total choices to over 70.

But some still complained that the existing gender choices were restrictive and pigeon-holed people who may have a more uncertain conception of their own place on the gender spectrum. For those, the new ability to self-define is empowering.


"People are still fighting to make room for gender identity within the socially constructed binary of male and female. Labels and identities are powerful in that they give a sense of community, a way of articulating one's experience," Alison Fogarty, a gender identity researcher at Stanford University, told AP.

"This helps to accelerate trans acceptance in our country. I'm excited about the future for gender identity," said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of LGBT group GLAAD.

A UCLA study from 2011 estimated that about 700,000 US citizens are transgender – whether through gender reassignment surgery, or simply living as a different gender than the one identified at birth.

Despite welcoming the change, Facebook user comments below the announcements complained that Facebook is still forcing its members to use real names – opening them up to potential abuse – and that people are only allowed to identify Male and Female in their potential partner preferences when filling in their profile forms.

Here's a list of all 58 genders:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/02/heres-a-list-of-58-gender-options-for-facebook-users/

The following are the 58 gender options identified by ABC News:

Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

Most of them are really weird to put it mildly. And to be honest some look like a result of the creators not understanding the vocabulary items these phrases consist of. What exactly would be the difference between transgender male, transgender woman and transgender female and trans woman? And there's also transgender without any gender identifier attached.


ADDED: I guess I might have stumbled upon an example of the target group for the above gender classification. What would he be, 'other'?

He (or they?) wants to remove his genitals and then at 58 seconds he says the "martian / alien" look is "kind of sexy".

https://youtu.be/cffyclpEo2s

 

[Laura]

Interesting thread! Some thoughts:

I think some of the confusion can be traced to the fact that, on the one hand, there ARE or HAVE BEEN cultures with more than two genders. So clearly we cannot equate gender with sex. But it is also a fact that there are strong biological underpinnings to gender.

What you just did was talk out of both sides of your mouth at once. You just cited some postmodernist thinking about "more than two genders" and then admitted, from your own common sense, there there is "strong biological underpinnings to gender."

I do agree that, while gender is culturally constructed to an extent, it makes no sense for people to make claims on other people to recognize them as being in a new gender category. If It’s cultural, then that would argue that gender is the role that the culture thinks you should play, not what role we think we should play.

Here, you run off the rails. Gender is not a "role", gender is what is. You already said so: "there are strong biological underpinnings to gender."

So, why should gender be a role that culture thinks anyone should "play"? That there are "gender roles" is not disputed, and that cultures sometimes/often try to impose certain roles on humans because of their gender, is not in question. But gender, itself, is not culturally constructed. You had a moment of clarity at the beginning that you keep losing your grasp on.

I think what a lot of people object to is the utopianism of both the left and the liberals: the attempt to change culture quickly to create a better society.

Obviously you are here speaking of the OLD definition of the Left and Liberals and their "progressive values." I will admit to being such a liberal leftist to some extent. However, living in a Socialist society has altered my views somewhat.

One of the strengths of traditional conservatism is the idea that such changes can have unintended consequences.

I don't think that anybody here is talking about "traditional conservatism" nor that it ever had any such view. However, what is being noted, outside of conservatism, is that, indeed, "such changes" (and you didn't specify them, so I'm assuming you meant Liberal Left Utopian ideas?) do have unintended consequences. As I just said, after some time living in a socialist society, my views of socialism have changed somewhat.

As for Ponerization, that happens to any ideology, so I don’t think we can single out any of them on that regard. I don’t think we should let ideologies on the right (Traditional Conservatism, Nationalism, Fascim). off the hook, either.

This is a rather empty "yes, but..." remark.

Certainly if the world is messed up as it is, conservatism has had something to do with that, and, in trying to “conserve” traditional norms, they can slip into reactionary stances.

From where I sit, the "messed up world" is almost entirely due to the efforts to impose "Progressive Values" on everybody, keeping in mind that this is Double Talk. What "Progressive Values" means for the elite is quite different from what it means to the average person who is led to believe that people like the Clintons actually had their best interests in mind.

One must also remember that, when you get to the top, there really is no difference between the Right and the Left. They converge on the idea of preservation of their position, power and dominance. If you think otherwise, if you have drunk the "progressive values" kool aid, it's a sad day for this forum to realize that its efforts to educate have failed.

Change has been so rapid, both out of control change and controlled social experiments by puppet masters, that traditional conservatism has a lot of appeal now. That’s what Putin represents in the world stage.

Again, talking out of both sides of your mouth at once.

The rest of what you wrote seems to be little more than mixed up paramoralisms and double talk that you don't even understand yourself. It is a prime example of the following discussion from Lobaczewski:

In spite of their typical deficits, or even an openly schizoidal declaration, their readers do not realize what the authors’ characters are like; they interpret such works in a manner corresponding to their own nature. The minds of normal people tend toward corrective interpretation thanks to the participation of their own richer, psychological world view. However, many readers critically reject such works with moral disgust but without being aware of the specific cause. An analysis of the role played by Karl Marx’s works easily reveals all the above-mentioned types of apperception and the social reactions which engendered separations among people.

In reading any of those disturbingly divisive works, let us ponder whether they contain any of these characteristic deficits, or even an openly formulated schizoid declaration. That will enable us to gain a proper critical distance from the contents and make it easier to dig the valuable elements out of the doctrinaire material. If this is done by two people who represent greatly divergent interpretations, their methods of perception will come closer together, and the causes of dissent will die down. Let us make this attempt as a psychological experiment and for purposes of proper mental hygiene. [...]

In spite of the fact that the writings of schizoidal authors contain the above described deficiency, or even an openly formulated schizoidal declaration which constitutes sufficient warning to specialists, the average reader accepts them not as a view of reality warped by this anomaly, but rather as an idea to which he should assume an attitude based on his convictions and his reason. That is the first mistake. The oversimplified pattern, devoid of psychological color and based on easily available data, exerts an intense influence upon individuals who are insufficiently critical, frequently frustrated as result of downward social adjustment, culturally neglected, or characterized by some psychological deficiencies. Others are provoked to criticism based on their healthy common sense, also they fail to grasp this essential cause of the error.

Societal interpretation of such activities is broken down into the main trifurcations, engendering divisiveness and conflict. The first branch is the path of aversion, based on rejection of the contents of the work due to personal motivations, differing convictions, or moral revulsion. This already contains the component of a moralizing interpretation of pathological phenomena.

We can distinguish two distinctly different apperception types among those persons who accept the contents of such works: the critically-corrective and the pathological. People whose feel for psychological reality is normal tend to incorporate chiefly the more valuable elements of the work. They trivialize the obvious errors and complement the schizoid deficiencies by means of their own richer world view. This gives rise to a more sensible, measured, and thus creative interpretation, but is not free from the influence of the error frequently adduced above.

Pathological acceptance is manifested by individuals with diversiform deviations, whether inherited or acquired, as well as by many people bearing personality malformations or who have been injured by social injustice. That explains why this scope is wider than the circle drawn by direct action of pathological factors. This apperception often brutalizes the authors’ concepts and leads to acceptance of forceful methods and revolutionary means.

And then, in the discussion of the relationship of Pathocracy to Religions. Lobaczewski was writing from a Catholic point of view, but endeavored to be even-handed in respect of other religions and gives some time to discussing ponerized religions and their role in Pathocracy:

We must therefore pose the following question: Can the most constant and sensible action based on the natural world view and theological and moral reflections ever completely eliminate the effects of a ponerological process which has long been surmounted? Based on experience gleaned from individual patients, a psychotherapist would doubt such a possibility. The consequences of the influence of pathological factors can only be definitely liquidated if a person becomes aware that he was the object of their activity. Such a method of careful correction of detail may sound reminiscent of the work done by an art restorer who decided against removing all later paint-overs and revealing the master’s original work in toto, but rather retained and conserved a few failed corrections for posterity.

And then:

People who have lost their psychological hygiene and capacity of proper thought along this road also lose their natural critical faculties with regard to the statements and behavior of individuals whose abnormal thought processes were formed on a substratum of pathological anomalies, whether inherited or acquired. Hypocrites stop differentiating between pathological and normal individuals, thus opening an “infection entry” for the ponerologic role of pathological factors. ... Some have been even influenced by others to grow accustomed to such “reasoning”, since conversion thinking is highly contagious and can spread throughout an entire society. ...

We should point out that the erroneous thought processes described herein also, as a rule, violate the laws of logic with characteristic treachery. Educating people in the art of proper reasoning thus obviously counteracts such tendencies; it has a hallowed age-old tradition which seems to have been insufficiently effective for centuries. As an example: according to the laws of logic, a question containing an erroneous or unconfirmed suggestion has no answer. Nevertheless, not only does operating with such questions become epidemic among people with a tendency to conversion thinking, and a source of terror when used by psychopathical individuals; it also occurs among people who think normally, or even those who have studied logic.

Then, the main problem here seems to be:

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic way. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding individuals among normal people. The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first criterion of ponerogenesis.

 

[mkrnhr]

As for Ponerization, that happens to any ideology, so I don’t think we can single out any of them on that regard. I don’t think we should let ideologies on the right (Traditional Conservatism, Nationalism, Fascim). off the hook, either.

This is a rather empty "yes, but..." remark.

It is also a deflection that usually shows that there is some program that prevents the mind from looking deeply into a particular issue. Postmodernist ideology is not named, it's first drowned in "any ideology" then the attention is diverted to "ideologies on the right". One should be careful when our minds play such a trick whenever we think about something.

 

[Ca.]

I've read up on some of those cultures, and most of them seem to be similar to what amounts to cross-dressers or drag queens. Men dressing up like women or women dressing up like men and identifying with the other gender. In some cultures, they created an entirely new gender to account for that, but still, it's essentially for the most part, just like anyone in today's Western culture referring to someone as transsexual or cross-dresser. They are still pulling from the base of the two sexes in order to do so, and only in some instances do they attempt to try and pull from aspects of both masculine and feminine in order to create a "third" gender.
_http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

Jordan Peterson Destroys SJW Professor on Gender Pronouns and Censorship
Published on Nov 21, 2016

https://youtu.be/18ZmPwuuj88

 

[Joe]

I've read up on some of those cultures, and most of them seem to be similar to what amounts to cross-dressers or drag queens. Men dressing up like women or women dressing up like men and identifying with the other gender. In some cultures, they created an entirely new gender to account for that, but still, it's essentially for the most part, just like anyone in today's Western culture referring to someone as transsexual or cross-dresser.

That seems to be the case, and I think that claiming that these individuals are another "gender" is an entirely subjective thing. Some people may decide that they are another gender or sex, but personally I do not, and I think there is a solid rational and logical basis for taking that stance. So any designation of 'third gender' for such people would be by consent only, not based on some hard scientific fact. People would agree to call such a person "ze" or "non binary" or whatever and also "agree" that that is another sex, but biologically, it CLEARLY is NOT.

There is this idea that gender is not the same as sex, although gender has "biological underpinnings", but whether or not a person can be a third gender includes not only biology but how the person "feels". If a biological man feels like a woman, then he can be a woman, if a biological man feels like neither a man or woman then he can be a 'third gender'. Ok, but that feeling is entirely separate from biology, and any such third gender would not be "underpinned" by biology or science but entirely separate from it, in the domain of feeling or psychological make up, which is by definition very subjective and specific to the individual in question.

 

[luc]

It is also a deflection that usually shows that there is some program that prevents the mind from looking deeply into a particular issue. Postmodernist ideology is not named, it's first drowned in "any ideology" then the attention is diverted to "ideologies on the right". One should be careful when our minds play such a trick whenever we think about something.

I agree. Me too I have to slash through some pretty deep programs when thinking about all this because I've grown up in a very 'postmodernist' household. But the beauty of our minds is that, if we use it properly and fearlessly, we can throw out everything we know or think we know, tentatively accept & embrace new information fully without blinking as sort of a test balloon, and see where it leads. And we can do that without doing any harm, because it's only in our minds! I think it's a very good exercise.

So what I try to do is forgetting everything I thought I knew about progressivism and consider for a moment that leftist progressive/postmodern thought is at the root of the evil we're seeing today, and not right-wing or conservative thought, without any "yes but's", and see how it goes.

Mr. Premise, you might be interested in reading the book "Explaining Postmodernism" and observe your reactions to it. It's fascinating and really puts the whole thing into context. I sometimes felt some friction while reading, because I think the author simplifies a lot, but this makes it all the more fruitful and thought-provoking.

It strikes me that when discussing postmodernism, progressivism, right-wingism etc., we really need to "think with a hammer" to get to the bottom of things. All this seems to be such a messy maze with all the different intellectual and practical currents, but if we can 'zoom out' of the picture, certain general directions become clear, and I think these have to do with pathological influences, aka the agents of the Matrix.

One such pathological influence is constantly pushing towards collectivism and interventionalism, which of course is the opposite of traditional liberalism - i.e. focus on the individual. This liberal 'current' associated with the enlightenment has been progressively (sic) stomped out by pathological forces. Today, we find this current mostly on the conservative right - it's no coincidence that what in America is now called 'conservatism' is actually liberalism in the traditional, enlightenment sense. And what is called liberalism in America today is actually brutal socialism, where a small elite takes it upon themselves to enslave the masses à la communism to create their utopia where oppression doesn't exist and everyone is equal - not just in a specific culture, but with the goal of world dominion. The international dictatorship of the proletariat under its new guise: the international dictatorship of those who "feel oppressed". Whereas 'oppressed' is not defined by basic needs not being met, but equity depending on 'feeling'. It's anti-liberal, anti-reality and authoritarian to the core.

Whatever the current disguise, it's the age-old pathological push by a small elite to 'save the world' by creating a power-structure that implements a utopia based on an over-simplified, pathological world view. As with communism and any other such attempts, the masses inevitably refuse to be 'saved', and so need to be forced and subdued with supreme power.

The gender debate fits right into this - it's not just some curious debate where the "truth is in the middle", it's pathological and ridiculous from start to finish, and it is forced down our throats by the pathological elite.

OSIT - I'm still in the process of refining my thoughts on all this.

 

[bjorb]

[quote author= Ant22]I guess I might have stumbled upon an example of the target group for the above gender classification. What would he be, 'other'?[/quote]

I guess that one was just to wild to 'correctly 'phrase. Could be litterally everything.


[quote author= Ant22]He (or they?) wants to remove his genitals and then at 58 seconds he says the "martian / alien" look is "kind of sexy". [/quote]

Still processing what I just watched. Besides the valuable info that is being discussed here, the video might put things into perspective what to expect, and how it all is going to look like more or less, one thing seems for sure, humanity will be unrecognizable over 20 years. (Assuming that we still have 2 decades)


[quote author= luc]I agree. Me too I have to slash through some pretty deep programs when thinking about all this because I've grown up in a very 'postmodernist' household. But the beauty of our minds is that, if we use it properly and fearlessly, we can throw out everything we know or think we know, tentatively accept & embrace new information fully without blinking as sort of a test balloon, and see where it leads. And we can do that without doing any harm, because it's only in our minds! I think it's a very good exercise.[/quote]

The liberal or postmodernist household teaches all that standing between what others want or makes them 'happy' is evil. Using phrases like ''Who are you to stand between the happiness of others.'' It's a very effective slogan. And I caught myself in the past more than once saying: ''Well, if it makes them happy''. While not understanding the destructive force behind such 'logic'. It removes all sanity and gives reign to absolute subjectivity, and absolute subjectivity results in absolute chaos and suffering.

 

[Laura]

A couple things about all of this business just sort of clicked together in my head.

First, where Gellner says this:

"The relativists-hermeneuticists are really very eager to display their universal, ecumenical tolerance and comprehension of alien cultures. The more alien, the more shocking and disturbing to the philistines, to those whom they deem to be the provincialists of their own society, the better. Very, very much the better, for the more shocking the other, the more does this comprehension highlight the superiority of the enlightened hermeneutist within his own society. The harder the comprehension, the more repellent the object destined for hermeneutic blessing, the greater the achievement, the illumination and the insight of the interpretive postmodernist"

And then, where Lobaczewski says this:

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic way. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding individuals among normal people. The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first criterion of ponerogenesis. ....

Thus, whenever we observe some group member being treated with no critical distance, although he betrays one of the psychological anomalies familiar to us, and his opinions being treated as at least equal to those of normal people, although they are based on a characteristically different view of human matters, we must derive the conclusion that this human group is affected by ponerogenic process.....

Once a group has inhaled a sufficient dose of pathological material to give birth to the conviction that these not-quite-normal people are unique geniuses, it starts subjecting its more normal members to pressure characterized by corresponding paralogical and paramoral elements, as expected. For many people, such collective opinion takes on attributes of a moral criterion; for others, it represents a kind of psychological terror ever more difficult to endure. The phenomenon of counter-selection thus occurs in this phase of ponerization: individuals with a more normal sense of psychological reality leave after entering into conflict with the newly modified group; simultaneously, individuals with various psychological anomalies join the group and easily find a way of life there. The former feel “pushed into counter-revolutionary positions”, and the latter can afford to remove their masks of sanity ever more often.

People who have been thus thrown out of a ponerogenic association because they were too normal suffer bitterly; they are unable to understand their specific state. Their idea, which constituted a part of the meaning of life for them, has now been degraded, although they cannot find a rational basis for this fact. They feel wronged; they “fight against demons” they are not in a position to identify. In fact, their personalities have already been modified to a certain extent due to saturation by abnormal psychological material, especially psychopathic material. They easily fall into the opposite extreme in such cases, because unhealthy emotions make the decisions. What they need is good advice in order to find the path of reason and measure. Based on ponerologic understanding of their condition, psychotherapy could provide rapid positive results. However, if the union they left is succumbing to deep ponerization, a threat looms over them: they may be the objects of revenge, since they have betrayed a magnificent ideology.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

If I would add my two cents to this subject. I would say that if the Nature would want to that people would develop genders then Nature would give the possibilities for it. We would born as the hermaphrodites and gender would develop parallel to the develop of the personality. And until some biological year somebody would end as the girl or boy or gender would be fluid and change through some kind of struggle.

But we start our lifes as the boy or girl. And this is probably intentional by the Nature. C's said sometime that STO allow that things go naturally, and STS interfere in the process. For me interfering in the process is the gender idea as the social construct. Being respecting the Nature, in turn, is to speak up for gender as the biological structure. Also, in the end, I would say, as me, I don't know how others, exisiting of genders, man and woman is some kind of the expression of the balance in the Universe. The universe is about balance, as my signature is saying. And obfuscateing differences between the sexes is a disorder of this balance.