(Thanks for acknowledging the common ground; this response likewise deals only with the small area of disagreement.)
The issue here isn’t whether feminists (or anyone else for that matter) are morally/emotionally justified in using these sorts of thought-terminating cliches,
Oh, I agree. My point in concocting the imaginary scenario of an embattled Less Wrong was to provide an alternative to the notion that feminism is fundamentally disposed to semantic stopsigns; namely that feminists find themselves in a situation) where semantic stopsigns are unusually cognitively necessary (as opposed to morally or emotionally).
That is, it’s not possible to usefully understand the cognitive situation of public feminism without thinking about the death threats, the rape threats, the “you just need a good fucking” responses, the “feminists are just ugly women” responses, and so on. It’s not that these morally justify the dismissive attitude represented by bingo cards, nor that they emotionally explain (i.e. psychoanalyze) it; but that they make it cognitively and dialectically a necessary tool.
but whether these types of cliches lower the quality of discourse and make their users more resistant to genuine counter-argument/counter-evidence.
If the situational interpretation applies, then reducing the use of semantic stopsigns would mean less available cognitive power to respond to meaningful counter-evidence, not more.
If the situational interpretation applies, then reducing the use of semantic stopsigns would mean less available cognitive power to respond to meaningful counter-evidence, not more.
I think situation plays a role here as well though.
If I’m reading the comments section on Shakesville and see some rando come in with a basic question and get hit with the “I’m not your sherpa” card and a link to 101 materials, that’s fine. You can’t drop everything to debate every random dude who expresses a disagreement; I certainly don’t appreciate it when people wander into the bio department and start up debates about irreducible complexity (yup, true story).
On the other hand, if I’m on GiantITP having a fun conversation about the best way to generate ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons (3d6 down the line, BTW) and someone goes full RadFem and derails the thread into talking about “biotruth” and privilege until it has to be locked, my jimmies get considerably rustled. Especially when I recognize a lot of the same rhetorical techniques I saw up in the first example.
That’s the general point I was making; these tools are useful for defense, but unfortunately just as useful for offense.
(Thanks for acknowledging the common ground; this response likewise deals only with the small area of disagreement.)
Oh, I agree. My point in concocting the imaginary scenario of an embattled Less Wrong was to provide an alternative to the notion that feminism is fundamentally disposed to semantic stopsigns; namely that feminists find themselves in a situation) where semantic stopsigns are unusually cognitively necessary (as opposed to morally or emotionally).
That is, it’s not possible to usefully understand the cognitive situation of public feminism without thinking about the death threats, the rape threats, the “you just need a good fucking” responses, the “feminists are just ugly women” responses, and so on. It’s not that these morally justify the dismissive attitude represented by bingo cards, nor that they emotionally explain (i.e. psychoanalyze) it; but that they make it cognitively and dialectically a necessary tool.
If the situational interpretation applies, then reducing the use of semantic stopsigns would mean less available cognitive power to respond to meaningful counter-evidence, not more.
I think situation plays a role here as well though.
If I’m reading the comments section on Shakesville and see some rando come in with a basic question and get hit with the “I’m not your sherpa” card and a link to 101 materials, that’s fine. You can’t drop everything to debate every random dude who expresses a disagreement; I certainly don’t appreciate it when people wander into the bio department and start up debates about irreducible complexity (yup, true story).
On the other hand, if I’m on GiantITP having a fun conversation about the best way to generate ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons (3d6 down the line, BTW) and someone goes full RadFem and derails the thread into talking about “biotruth” and privilege until it has to be locked, my jimmies get considerably rustled. Especially when I recognize a lot of the same rhetorical techniques I saw up in the first example.
That’s the general point I was making; these tools are useful for defense, but unfortunately just as useful for offense.
In fact I suspect much of the feminists’ need for defense comes from the highly aggressive ways they tend to go on offense.
I guessed the “fundamentally” link would be to this.