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.
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: