Sounds like a rough experience. Hope you’re feeling better these days.
I can see why you might have an allergic reaction, however, your criticisms feel a bit overstated and as not quite hitting the nail on the head, at least from my perspective.
I agree with Scott et al. regarding the validity of the language game where we include transwomen as women. I recommend reading at least a bit of Wittgenstein, if you’ve never done this.
This said, you are correct to suspect that there is something funky going on, where people are insisting on the use of this language game to the exclusion of the more traditional use. And it seems that in some cases, this insistence goes beyond merely a request for politeness/respect to an attempt to gain an advantage in public policy discourse.
Here, I’m trying to differentiate between the validity of a language game and its weaponisation. In particular, that one might defend the former without also defending the latter.
Perhaps if people were less aggressive about their attempts to control the public conversation, then you might feel differently about the validity of the language game in and of itself?
But in the current discourse, perhaps you’re worried that defending the language game unavoidably supports its weaponised form?
Sounds like a rough experience. Hope you’re feeling better these days.
I can see why you might have an allergic reaction, however, your criticisms feel a bit overstated and as not quite hitting the nail on the head, at least from my perspective.
I agree with Scott et al. regarding the validity of the language game where we include transwomen as women. I recommend reading at least a bit of Wittgenstein, if you’ve never done this.
This said, you are correct to suspect that there is something funky going on, where people are insisting on the use of this language game to the exclusion of the more traditional use. And it seems that in some cases, this insistence goes beyond merely a request for politeness/respect to an attempt to gain an advantage in public policy discourse.
Here, I’m trying to differentiate between the validity of a language game and its weaponisation. In particular, that one might defend the former without also defending the latter.
Perhaps if people were less aggressive about their attempts to control the public conversation, then you might feel differently about the validity of the language game in and of itself?
But in the current discourse, perhaps you’re worried that defending the language game unavoidably supports its weaponised form?