Again, this looks like you’re trying to school someone (this time me) on the issue of consent. I know that taking someone’s car without their consent is theft. Why did you feel it necessary to explain that to me? The natural parallel in this discussion would be rape, but you just finished saying that you weren’t suggesting that either. So what are you suggesting?
Help me understand this question.
Ok. People in relationships compromise on their preferences all the time. They do things to make their partner happy, which they wouldn’t do if their partner didn’t want to do it. Why is sex an area where any suggestion of compromise and having more sex than one would otherwise prefer is considered treating the less amorous partner as a “a vending machine”?
Why is sex an area where any suggestion of compromise and having more sex than one would otherwise prefer is considered treating the less amorous partner as a “a vending machine”?
Partial answer: Social norms (and quite possibly behavioral instincts) prefer sexual negotiations to be implicit rather than explicit. So for example saying outright “If you do not have sex—good sex—with me at least twice a week I will leave you for another mate” is vulgar, coercive and also unlikely to work. On the other hand making equivalent behavioral signals that indicate that you are the kind of person who has sexual options and have the kind of personality that considers satisfying your preferences to be important and having the other person’s instincts adjust to the implied incentives is basically just everyday social behavior.
Social norms (and quite possibly behavioral instincts) prefer sexual negotiations to be implicit rather than explicit.
Well, our culture has spent the past 50 years discarding a lot of traditional social norms about sex. Assuming you agree that we were right to discard those norms, why shouldn’t that norm also be discarded?
“I want more sex” is a totally valid reason to break up with someone. It’s much healthier to say it explicitly rather than communicate via passive-aggressive behavior.
Some . . . people are going to be assholes operating under the mistaken impression that you are a vending machine, and that if they feed you enough suck-up coins, you will dispense whatever it is they want.
Dude, it’s a linked quote. If you can’t understand what I meant, go read it in context.
In brief, the person behaving like an asshole by treating other people as vending machines is doing social interaction wrong. No irony is intended.
EDIT: For additional clarity: There are two independent points at issue here.
1) Explicit communication about sex is better than implicit communication, particularly passive-aggressive implicit communication.
2) Regardless of the explicitness one uses to ask for sex, sometimes the answer is no. Being offended that someone won’t have sex with you when you have (been really nice / taken that person to several expensive dinners / bought the person a drink / etc) is very entitled behavior.
There is no contradiction and barely any relationship between those two points. This sub-branch of comments was about the first issue (norms of communication). You raised my quote about the second issue (entitlement norms) as if it contradicts the communication norm, and I just don’t see it.
Being offended that someone won’t have sex with you when you have (been really nice / taken that person to several expensive dinners / bought the person a drink / etc) is very entitled behavior.
Why? I realize this is a traditional social norm, but you seem to be in favor of doing away with traditional social norms related to sex.
Apocryphally, there once was a time when the sex norm was “no sex before marriage, minimal unchaperoned contact between sexes.” When people say “traditional social norm” in the context of relationships, this is the one I assume is being referenced. One fictional presentation is Pride and Prejudice, which is set sometime between the late 1790s and the early 1810s in England.
Regardless of when, if ever, this norm was dominant, or if it was applied in a sex-neutral way, or any of the other critiques one might raise, the fact of the matter is that this norm is dying, if not dead, in the youth of the secular West.
The norm that replaced it is that sex is permissible, and is less frowned upon the more committed the relationship is. One night stands bad, sex later in the relationship ok. One archetypal example of this norm is The Rules (published in the 1990s), which is explicitly written as a guidebook for how women should act to maximize their utility (presuming that a certain understanding of marriage maximizes a woman’s utility).
The problem with the current norms is that they create a sense that one does wrong not to have sex once the relationship has reached a certain, fairly low, level of commitment. Under the prevailing norms, if the guy has taken the girl to 4 or 6 or 8 very nice dates, he should expect sex. Much like how, after I put 6 quarters in a vending machine, I expect a soda. That’s a very entitled view when dealing with another person’s choices.
In short, I don’t think the norm you discussed here is particularly traditional, in that both the chaperone-model and the modern-dating-model seem to incorporate it. If anything, it is more central to the modern-dating model, because the chaperone model could probably be made to function without it.
I am opposed to the current social norms about sexuality. But I don’t think those are the traditional social norms about sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, I’d oppose the traditional norms as well, but they are dying without any action on my part, and aren’t really the topic of conversation in this thread.
The problem with the current norms is that they create a sense that one does wrong not to have sex once the relationship has reached a certain, fairly low, level of commitment. Under the prevailing norms, if the guy has taken the girl to 4 or 6 or 8 very nice dates, he should expect sex. Much like how, after I put 6 quarters in a vending machine, I expect a soda.
This isn’t quite the current norm yet (witness the negative reaction PUA tends to get on non-PUA sites). Although why shouldn’t it become the norm?
That’s a very entitled view when dealing with another person’s choices.
Taboo “entitled”. To use your example, is it entitled of me to expect a soda after putting 6 quarters into a vending machine.
In short, I don’t think the norm you discussed here is particularly traditional, in that both the chaperone-model and the modern-dating-model seem to incorporate it. If anything, it is more central to the modern-dating model, because the chaperone model could probably be made to function without it.
Are there several not’s missing for misplaced in that paragraph?
This isn’t quite the current norm yet (witness the negative reaction PUA tends to get on non-PUA sites).
Sure, the actual norms in operation are more complicated than “Every woman follows The Rules.” I think it is a reasonable generalization, and it certainly is a more accurate description than what I called the traditional sexuality norms.
That said, I think pushback to PUA comes from a variety of different sources:
Unwillingness to admit we don’t follow what I’ve called the traditional sexuality norms (including those who think this will help return us to those norms)
Social activists advocating for additional changes to the sex norms
Advocates of the current sex norms (such as they are) being upset about attempts to hack them
I decline to get into a separate fight that LW has shown itself unable to do with sufficient rationality. You are conflating a discussion about what the specific sex norms should be with a distinct discussion about whether being reflexive about what the norms are is a good idea.
To use your example, is it entitled of me to expect a soda after putting 6 quarters into a vending machine.
It is not wrong of me to assert a moral right to receive the soda, because there is an explicit social understanding that essentially everyone has accepted. Further, analytical challenges to that understanding are met with reasoned arguments that follow from explicit premises. And those arguments acknowledge and accept the premises.
By contrast, there is not an explicit social understanding of sexuality. To the extent there is any consensus at all, the consensus is implicit, not explicit. Analytical challenges to the consensus are met with hostility. To the extent that reasoning is used against the challenges, it is often unwilling to accept the premises used to justify the conclusions.
In short, I don’t think the norm you discussed here is particularly traditional, in that both the chaperone-model and the modern-dating-model seem to incorporate it. If anything, it is more central to the modern-dating model, because the chaperone model could probably be made to function without it.
Are there several not’s missing for misplaced in that paragraph?
“Don’t be explicit about examining norms” is part of both traditional sexuality norms and “The Rules” sexuality norms. Beyond that, I’m not sure what you think I was trying to say, so I’m not sure how to clarify.
Taboo “entitled”. To use your example, is it entitled of me to expect a soda after putting 6 quarters into a vending machine.
That seems to be taking considerable liberties with his argument. A vending machine, after all, can’t possibly have any objection to dispensing a drink after money has been inserted into it. The vending machine has no desires or expectations in the transaction.
If you want a drink, you can buy one from a vending machine at a fixed rate, but that doesn’t mean that you can count on being able to take the same six quarters and buy someone else’s drink off them. They might be thirsty and not have another drink, and value the one they have more than six quarters. They might feel uncomfortable being approached by a stranger for such a transaction. For that matter, they might just say “here, I’ll give you the drink, you clearly want it more than I do.”
Expecting to be able to buy someone else’s drink off them as if they were a vending machine reflects a significant degree of disregard for their wants and concerns. You’re placing your own convenience in being able to rely on that transaction over whatever concerns might cause them to refuse. I think this is what TimS means by “entitlement.”
A vending machine, after all, can’t possibly have any objection to dispensing a drink after money has been inserted into it. The vending machine has no desires or expectations in the transaction.
In fairness to Eugine’s point, there are humans lurking somewhere behind the soda machine—the shareholders of the soda company, if no one else.
However, steel-manning his point in that way doesn’t address the remainder of your post.
EDIT: Thanks to wedrifid for suggesting better phrasing of my point. I endorse the linked version over my prior phrasing, which I leave as is for thread continuity.
Surely “steel manning” what Desrtopa was replying must at the very least make it as reasonable as a literal interpretation of the words. If not then the very concept would seem to be devalued. In this case, Eugine was asking for an explanation of what the word ‘entitled’ is supposed mean. This seems necessary since it is clear that the intent is to convey strong connotations that those not familiar with feminist jargon may not be familiar with. After all, in some circles an ‘entitled’ attitude has positive connotations and refers to a somewhat different set of observable behavioral tendencies.
(This is not to say that I expect you to steel man Eugine. It may be legitimate for you and Desrotopa to assume Eugine is asking that question only with the intent to follow it up with some other provocative point—that even seems likely. However if making those assumptions you are no longer entitled to call what you are doing ‘steel manning’. )
Eugine was asking for an explanation of what the word ‘entitled’ is supposed mean. This seems necessary since it is clear that the intent is to convey strong connotations that those not familiar with feminist jargon may not be familiar with.
For what it is worth, I don’t think “entitled” is feminist jargon. As a lawyer, I would say the general usage of “entitled to X” is:
claim of moral right to receive X
When someone criticizes you for having an entitled attitude, they have an implicit premise that you don’t have the moral right that you claim. Thus:
You want to live in my home, rent free? That’s a very entitled attitude.
For what it is worth, I don’t think “entitled” is feminist jargon.
(Not exclusively, no. That is merely where your intended usage is most common and the most relevant to the context.)
The strong negative moral connotations you intend when you use that word are not universally associated with the word itself. It is often used very differently by subcultures. That is, “entitled” is also used as a non-morally-loaded description and even as a compliment. As such sometimes someone (in this case Eugine) may inquire about your meaning, giving you the chance to make your claim clear, as you have done here.
Sure, the negative connotation applies only when the implicit premise of “lack of moral right” is also present. I think the presence of that implicit premise can be determined by context, like my example at the end of my post.
I didn’t write it that way in my own response to Eugine because my experience is that discussions about object-level brute moral facts lead down an irrational rabbit hole in this venue.
Sure, the negative connotation applies only when the implicit premise of “lack of moral right” is also present. I think the presence of that implicit premise can be determined by context, like my example at the end of my post.
I agree, and certainly I had no trouble following your meaning. Mind you I tend to distance myself from such utterances because they convey a way of thinking about morality that I must emulate as if speaking a foreign language.
I didn’t write it that way in my own response to Eugine because my experience is that discussions about object-level brute moral facts lead down an irrational rabbit hole in this venue.
I don’t understand your recommendation for my future actions.
Desrotopa said something that could be interpreted as “asserting a moral right to a position that hurts the soda machine does not hurt any human being.” That is not precisely true, because harms to the soda machine are harms to the owner of the soda machine—and eventually, that reasoning traces to a human being.
I was trying to improve Eugine’s argument by including that point (tracing back to humans) explicitly. That is, I predict a reasonable person asserting Eugine’s positions would express the point I made. I wouldn’t have do that if I didn’t think it made Eugine’s overall argument better. I think the point is valid, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t address all of Desrtopa’s points. In my experience, explicitly laying out the points of agreement and disagree enhances rational argument by focusing attention on the disagreement.
If that’s not what you think steel-manning should mean, so be it. Saying the other side’s arguments in ways they would agree with, for the purpose of clarifying a disagreement, is at least potentially rationality enhancing. If Eugine finds it unhelpful, I’ll stop doing it with him. If he thinks I mis-stated his position, then I will correct.
I don’t understand your recommendation for my future actions.
The quote from Eugine being responded to was:
Taboo “entitled”. To use your example, is it entitled of me to expect a soda after putting 6 quarters into a vending machine.
The description you made was less reasonable than a literal interpretation of Eugine’s request. Therefore it cannot be said to be a steel man. At best it could be said to be “steel manning Desrtopa’s straw man”. This is an improvement but still not a steel man of Eugine’s claims. Saying that it is a steel man (and in the process suggesting that even then it is inadequate) both sends a false message about Eugine’s words and devalues the ‘Steel Man’ process.
So that cannot possibly be said that you do not understand my recommendation for future actions: In similar circumstances do not say this:
However, steel-manning his point in that way doesn’t address the remainder of your post.
To be clear, let me disclaim that I heartily endorse the other part of the comment, which was:
In fairness to Eugine’s point, there are humans lurking somewhere behind the soda machine—the shareholders of the soda company, if no one else.
The above does all those virtuous things that you describe in the parent.
That makes sense. Thus, better phrasing of my intended point would be:
In fairness to Eugine’s point, there are humans lurking somewhere behind the soda machine—the shareholders of the soda company, if no one else.
To the extent that Desrtopa’s response implied that Eugine believed no human preferences are at issue with the soda machine example, that was setting up a strawman. However, the presence of human preferences related to the soda machine does not address Desrtopa’s other points.
And that’s another thing the OP missed. How about telling Jane how you feel, and though you want to be with her, the situation is unacceptable as is?
He seems to be unwilling to do this, thinking it will make him a bad guy who is “pressuring” her into sex. And certainly many would see it that way. Others would see it as him giving her the option of weighing the trade off herself. If he really wants to be with her, he should treat her like an adult and let her make her own choices.
Well, our culture has spent the past 50 years discarding a lot of traditional social norms about sex. Assuming you agree that we were right to discard those norms, why shouldn’t that norm also be discarded?
Social norms (and quite possibly behavioral instincts) prefer sexual negotiations to be implicit rather than explicit.
That doesn’t really address the issue, because being explicit cuts both ways, whether a sexual advance or a sexual rebuff.
But your “everyday social behavior” strikes me as quite dysfunctional. To put a relationship under continual threat on an everyday basis strikes me as extremely harmful to a relationship, and I believe I’ve read research to that effect. People should expect that their mates will leave them if they’re unhappy with the relationship, but making that a prominent subtext of everyday give and take seems quite unpleasant to me.
But your “everyday social behavior” strikes me as quite dysfunctional. To put a relationship under continual threat on an everyday basis strikes me as extremely harmful to a relationship, and I believe I’ve read research to that effect. People should expect that their mates will leave them if they’re unhappy with the relationship, but making that a prominent subtext of everyday give and take seems quite unpleasant to me.
You are disapproving of a straw man. Things like ‘continual threat on an everyday basis’ are (once again) your construction, not mine.
My judgement tells me it is time for me to embrace the BANTA and leave this thread. Neither the subject (“let’s decide who to shame and blame!”) nor the style seem desirable.
On the other hand making equivalent behavioral signals that indicate that you are the kind of person who has sexual options and have the kind of personality that considers satisfying your preferences to be important and having the other person’s instincts adjust to the implied incentives is basically just everyday social behavior.
I wrote:
To put a relationship under continual threat on an everyday basis
Doesn’t look like a straw man to me, but have fun embracing the Banta.
Ok. People in relationships compromise on their preferences all the time. They do things to make their partner happy, which they wouldn’t do if their partner didn’t want to do it. Why is sex an area where any suggestion of compromise and having more sex than one would otherwise prefer is considered treating the less amorous partner as a “a vending machine”?
This is a way in which people compromise in relationships all the time. Plenty of couples have sex more than one partner wants, because the other partner pressures them into it. There’s a big difference between this and a situation where one partner, knowing that the other partner wants it, still says no, and the other partner forces sex anyway. But that being said, couples that need to compromise a lot on things that are important to them tend to be considerably less happy together than ones who agree on the matters that are important to them, and a high degree of sexual compromise isn’t a healthy sign for a relationship.
Again, this looks like you’re trying to school someone (this time me) on the issue of consent.
You wrote:
There’s a big difference between this and a situation where one partner, knowing that the other partner wants it, still says no, and the other partner forces sex anyway.
Yes. Big difference. Has anyone here suggested otherwise? Why did you feel the need to share something which I think is obvious to everyone here?
high degree of sexual compromise isn’t a healthy sign for a relationship.
Indeed. Which implies that incompatible sexual preferences isn’t a healthy sign for a relationship, so that waiting until you’re married to check for sexual compatibility is probably not a great plan.
As one rather popular post (which I’d take the time to dig up, but my computer is suffering some pretty serious lag at the moment) suggests, it’s often worthwhile to make things explicit even if they may appear obvious. The part of my comment which is addressing your comment is the part where I state that, contrary to your implication, compromising on frequency of sex is a standard and widely tolerated component of relationships. That this does not entail that compromising on the necessity of consent is acceptable is probably an obvious corollary, but I thought it better to disclaim it than not.
compromising on frequency of sex is a standard and widely tolerated component of relationships.
Yes, I believe that’s true as well. Yet a suggestion that a woman might do that in a case where her male partner wants more sex than she does meets with hostility and insinuations of rape.
Again, this looks like you’re trying to school someone (this time me) on the issue of consent. I know that taking someone’s car without their consent is theft. Why did you feel it necessary to explain that to me? The natural parallel in this discussion would be rape, but you just finished saying that you weren’t suggesting that either. So what are you suggesting?
Ok. People in relationships compromise on their preferences all the time. They do things to make their partner happy, which they wouldn’t do if their partner didn’t want to do it. Why is sex an area where any suggestion of compromise and having more sex than one would otherwise prefer is considered treating the less amorous partner as a “a vending machine”?
Partial answer: Social norms (and quite possibly behavioral instincts) prefer sexual negotiations to be implicit rather than explicit. So for example saying outright “If you do not have sex—good sex—with me at least twice a week I will leave you for another mate” is vulgar, coercive and also unlikely to work. On the other hand making equivalent behavioral signals that indicate that you are the kind of person who has sexual options and have the kind of personality that considers satisfying your preferences to be important and having the other person’s instincts adjust to the implied incentives is basically just everyday social behavior.
Well, our culture has spent the past 50 years discarding a lot of traditional social norms about sex. Assuming you agree that we were right to discard those norms, why shouldn’t that norm also be discarded?
Yes! A THOUSAND times, Yes!
But people who want to restore the traditional norms are not supportive of this effort.
You do realize which social norm was being referred to? (It was the one you implied would be followed by any “reasonable person” in this comment.)
Hrm?
“I want more sex” is a totally valid reason to break up with someone. It’s much healthier to say it explicitly rather than communicate via passive-aggressive behavior.
To quote you:
Yes, that is the position that I think is wrong. That’s why the next sentence I wrote was:
“But that’s not how any reasonable person should expect the world to work.”
So were you using “assholes” ironically there?
Dude, it’s a linked quote. If you can’t understand what I meant, go read it in context.
In brief, the person behaving like an asshole by treating other people as vending machines is doing social interaction wrong. No irony is intended.
EDIT: For additional clarity: There are two independent points at issue here.
1) Explicit communication about sex is better than implicit communication, particularly passive-aggressive implicit communication.
2) Regardless of the explicitness one uses to ask for sex, sometimes the answer is no. Being offended that someone won’t have sex with you when you have (been really nice / taken that person to several expensive dinners / bought the person a drink / etc) is very entitled behavior.
There is no contradiction and barely any relationship between those two points. This sub-branch of comments was about the first issue (norms of communication). You raised my quote about the second issue (entitlement norms) as if it contradicts the communication norm, and I just don’t see it.
Why? I realize this is a traditional social norm, but you seem to be in favor of doing away with traditional social norms related to sex.
Apocryphally, there once was a time when the sex norm was “no sex before marriage, minimal unchaperoned contact between sexes.” When people say “traditional social norm” in the context of relationships, this is the one I assume is being referenced. One fictional presentation is Pride and Prejudice, which is set sometime between the late 1790s and the early 1810s in England.
Regardless of when, if ever, this norm was dominant, or if it was applied in a sex-neutral way, or any of the other critiques one might raise, the fact of the matter is that this norm is dying, if not dead, in the youth of the secular West.
The norm that replaced it is that sex is permissible, and is less frowned upon the more committed the relationship is. One night stands bad, sex later in the relationship ok. One archetypal example of this norm is The Rules (published in the 1990s), which is explicitly written as a guidebook for how women should act to maximize their utility (presuming that a certain understanding of marriage maximizes a woman’s utility).
The problem with the current norms is that they create a sense that one does wrong not to have sex once the relationship has reached a certain, fairly low, level of commitment. Under the prevailing norms, if the guy has taken the girl to 4 or 6 or 8 very nice dates, he should expect sex. Much like how, after I put 6 quarters in a vending machine, I expect a soda. That’s a very entitled view when dealing with another person’s choices.
In short, I don’t think the norm you discussed here is particularly traditional, in that both the chaperone-model and the modern-dating-model seem to incorporate it. If anything, it is more central to the modern-dating model, because the chaperone model could probably be made to function without it.
I am opposed to the current social norms about sexuality. But I don’t think those are the traditional social norms about sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, I’d oppose the traditional norms as well, but they are dying without any action on my part, and aren’t really the topic of conversation in this thread.
This isn’t quite the current norm yet (witness the negative reaction PUA tends to get on non-PUA sites). Although why shouldn’t it become the norm?
Taboo “entitled”. To use your example, is it entitled of me to expect a soda after putting 6 quarters into a vending machine.
Are there several not’s missing for misplaced in that paragraph?
Sure, the actual norms in operation are more complicated than “Every woman follows The Rules.” I think it is a reasonable generalization, and it certainly is a more accurate description than what I called the traditional sexuality norms.
That said, I think pushback to PUA comes from a variety of different sources:
Unwillingness to admit we don’t follow what I’ve called the traditional sexuality norms (including those who think this will help return us to those norms)
Social activists advocating for additional changes to the sex norms
Advocates of the current sex norms (such as they are) being upset about attempts to hack them
Application of the general norm that we should be unwilling to explicitly examine our norms.
I decline to get into a separate fight that LW has shown itself unable to do with sufficient rationality. You are conflating a discussion about what the specific sex norms should be with a distinct discussion about whether being reflexive about what the norms are is a good idea.
It is not wrong of me to assert a moral right to receive the soda, because there is an explicit social understanding that essentially everyone has accepted. Further, analytical challenges to that understanding are met with reasoned arguments that follow from explicit premises. And those arguments acknowledge and accept the premises.
By contrast, there is not an explicit social understanding of sexuality. To the extent there is any consensus at all, the consensus is implicit, not explicit. Analytical challenges to the consensus are met with hostility. To the extent that reasoning is used against the challenges, it is often unwilling to accept the premises used to justify the conclusions.
“Don’t be explicit about examining norms” is part of both traditional sexuality norms and “The Rules” sexuality norms. Beyond that, I’m not sure what you think I was trying to say, so I’m not sure how to clarify.
That seems to be taking considerable liberties with his argument. A vending machine, after all, can’t possibly have any objection to dispensing a drink after money has been inserted into it. The vending machine has no desires or expectations in the transaction.
If you want a drink, you can buy one from a vending machine at a fixed rate, but that doesn’t mean that you can count on being able to take the same six quarters and buy someone else’s drink off them. They might be thirsty and not have another drink, and value the one they have more than six quarters. They might feel uncomfortable being approached by a stranger for such a transaction. For that matter, they might just say “here, I’ll give you the drink, you clearly want it more than I do.”
Expecting to be able to buy someone else’s drink off them as if they were a vending machine reflects a significant degree of disregard for their wants and concerns. You’re placing your own convenience in being able to rely on that transaction over whatever concerns might cause them to refuse. I think this is what TimS means by “entitlement.”
In fairness to Eugine’s point, there are humans lurking somewhere behind the soda machine—the shareholders of the soda company, if no one else.
However, steel-manning his point in that way doesn’t address the remainder of your post.
EDIT: Thanks to wedrifid for suggesting better phrasing of my point. I endorse the linked version over my prior phrasing, which I leave as is for thread continuity.
Surely “steel manning” what Desrtopa was replying must at the very least make it as reasonable as a literal interpretation of the words. If not then the very concept would seem to be devalued. In this case, Eugine was asking for an explanation of what the word ‘entitled’ is supposed mean. This seems necessary since it is clear that the intent is to convey strong connotations that those not familiar with feminist jargon may not be familiar with. After all, in some circles an ‘entitled’ attitude has positive connotations and refers to a somewhat different set of observable behavioral tendencies.
(This is not to say that I expect you to steel man Eugine. It may be legitimate for you and Desrotopa to assume Eugine is asking that question only with the intent to follow it up with some other provocative point—that even seems likely. However if making those assumptions you are no longer entitled to call what you are doing ‘steel manning’. )
For what it is worth, I don’t think “entitled” is feminist jargon. As a lawyer, I would say the general usage of “entitled to X” is:
When someone criticizes you for having an entitled attitude, they have an implicit premise that you don’t have the moral right that you claim. Thus:
(Not exclusively, no. That is merely where your intended usage is most common and the most relevant to the context.)
The strong negative moral connotations you intend when you use that word are not universally associated with the word itself. It is often used very differently by subcultures. That is, “entitled” is also used as a non-morally-loaded description and even as a compliment. As such sometimes someone (in this case Eugine) may inquire about your meaning, giving you the chance to make your claim clear, as you have done here.
Sure, the negative connotation applies only when the implicit premise of “lack of moral right” is also present. I think the presence of that implicit premise can be determined by context, like my example at the end of my post.
I didn’t write it that way in my own response to Eugine because my experience is that discussions about object-level brute moral facts lead down an irrational rabbit hole in this venue.
I agree, and certainly I had no trouble following your meaning. Mind you I tend to distance myself from such utterances because they convey a way of thinking about morality that I must emulate as if speaking a foreign language.
Absolutely.
I don’t understand your recommendation for my future actions.
Desrotopa said something that could be interpreted as “asserting a moral right to a position that hurts the soda machine does not hurt any human being.” That is not precisely true, because harms to the soda machine are harms to the owner of the soda machine—and eventually, that reasoning traces to a human being.
I was trying to improve Eugine’s argument by including that point (tracing back to humans) explicitly. That is, I predict a reasonable person asserting Eugine’s positions would express the point I made. I wouldn’t have do that if I didn’t think it made Eugine’s overall argument better. I think the point is valid, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t address all of Desrtopa’s points. In my experience, explicitly laying out the points of agreement and disagree enhances rational argument by focusing attention on the disagreement.
If that’s not what you think steel-manning should mean, so be it. Saying the other side’s arguments in ways they would agree with, for the purpose of clarifying a disagreement, is at least potentially rationality enhancing. If Eugine finds it unhelpful, I’ll stop doing it with him. If he thinks I mis-stated his position, then I will correct.
The quote from Eugine being responded to was:
The description you made was less reasonable than a literal interpretation of Eugine’s request. Therefore it cannot be said to be a steel man. At best it could be said to be “steel manning Desrtopa’s straw man”. This is an improvement but still not a steel man of Eugine’s claims. Saying that it is a steel man (and in the process suggesting that even then it is inadequate) both sends a false message about Eugine’s words and devalues the ‘Steel Man’ process.
So that cannot possibly be said that you do not understand my recommendation for future actions: In similar circumstances do not say this:
To be clear, let me disclaim that I heartily endorse the other part of the comment, which was:
The above does all those virtuous things that you describe in the parent.
That makes sense. Thus, better phrasing of my intended point would be:
I agree with that.
And that’s another thing the OP missed. How about telling Jane how you feel, and though you want to be with her, the situation is unacceptable as is?
He seems to be unwilling to do this, thinking it will make him a bad guy who is “pressuring” her into sex. And certainly many would see it that way. Others would see it as him giving her the option of weighing the trade off herself. If he really wants to be with her, he should treat her like an adult and let her make her own choices.
Conversational implicatures can be cancelled.
Good luck.
That doesn’t really address the issue, because being explicit cuts both ways, whether a sexual advance or a sexual rebuff.
But your “everyday social behavior” strikes me as quite dysfunctional. To put a relationship under continual threat on an everyday basis strikes me as extremely harmful to a relationship, and I believe I’ve read research to that effect. People should expect that their mates will leave them if they’re unhappy with the relationship, but making that a prominent subtext of everyday give and take seems quite unpleasant to me.
You are disapproving of a straw man. Things like ‘continual threat on an everyday basis’ are (once again) your construction, not mine.
My judgement tells me it is time for me to embrace the BANTA and leave this thread. Neither the subject (“let’s decide who to shame and blame!”) nor the style seem desirable.
You wrote:
I wrote:
Doesn’t look like a straw man to me, but have fun embracing the Banta.
This is a way in which people compromise in relationships all the time. Plenty of couples have sex more than one partner wants, because the other partner pressures them into it. There’s a big difference between this and a situation where one partner, knowing that the other partner wants it, still says no, and the other partner forces sex anyway. But that being said, couples that need to compromise a lot on things that are important to them tend to be considerably less happy together than ones who agree on the matters that are important to them, and a high degree of sexual compromise isn’t a healthy sign for a relationship.
I wrote:
You wrote:
Yes. Big difference. Has anyone here suggested otherwise? Why did you feel the need to share something which I think is obvious to everyone here?
Indeed. Which implies that incompatible sexual preferences isn’t a healthy sign for a relationship, so that waiting until you’re married to check for sexual compatibility is probably not a great plan.
As one rather popular post (which I’d take the time to dig up, but my computer is suffering some pretty serious lag at the moment) suggests, it’s often worthwhile to make things explicit even if they may appear obvious. The part of my comment which is addressing your comment is the part where I state that, contrary to your implication, compromising on frequency of sex is a standard and widely tolerated component of relationships. That this does not entail that compromising on the necessity of consent is acceptable is probably an obvious corollary, but I thought it better to disclaim it than not.
Yes, I believe that’s true as well. Yet a suggestion that a woman might do that in a case where her male partner wants more sex than she does meets with hostility and insinuations of rape.