Thank you Helen, this is a much needed discussion. The problem with language is one of (I believe) the most problematic aspects of the rise of the Progressive Left. The difficulty in trying to have a productive discussion when you must constantly define the words used to make certain the meaning has not changed is infuriating. My Gen Z son and I have always been able to discuss anything, but of late I have had to ask for definitions several times because we seemed to be talking past each other on subject I thought I understood his position.
One thing we are generally terrible at is defining our terms up front. I was in a Facebook conversation with someone, probably several months ago now. I was using the word “gender” to refer to something innate about someone (but different from sex) and “gender role” as something socially constructed. We were disagreeing about whether gender was socially constructed and it was only after several rounds of back and forth that I realized she was using “gender identity” the same way I was using “gender” and she was using “gender” the same way I was using “gender role.” In effect, we were saying the same thing, but for putting the label “gender” on two different definitions. I pointed out as much and the conversation faded off.
(To be clear, I’m not sure I hold this definition of gender anymore, but that’s a separate issue.)
The disagreement could have been avoided if we’d known up front what we each meant by these terms, even if we were using them differently.
If anyone ever asks me if I am a feminist, I will absolutely ask first what they think that is before answering.
Yes, and I think when we’re so familiar with a certain discourse where people are using terms in the same way, it may not even occur to us that somebody else might not be!
Sometimes there’s a problem with asking for definitions before a discussion (a polite “how are you defining __?”) in that it’s seen as a trap. I’m tired of hearing people ask me to Look It Up when there are multiple definitions.
Of course, if they really don’t know what they mean or are relying on equivocation to do their argument, it might be a trap.
I quite agree. Subtleties of views are being missed in a rush to define people as ‘hard left’, ‘far right’ or similar. I wonder if these definitions of left and right are even very helpful now.
Incidentally I have just finished your book ‘Cynical Theories’ Helen. I must say it’s a fabulous work. Congratulations! A perfectly coherent and rational analysis of things I’ve noticed but haven’t been able to quantify. Your analysis has helped my understanding immensely. Thank you
Broadly these questions arose as I read through this. 1) what makes people resist an attitude of “both, and” vs “either, or”? And related - (and maybe this is too simplistic) 2) how much does lack of attention span factor into people’s inability to grasp nuanced concepts?
I believe somewhere in the last century (during my childhood) I was taught that there are as many viewpoints as fingerprints. So it would make sense that there would be vast values, opinions, moral compasses…why do we *insist* on putting them in only 2-3 buckets? I find myself thinking of Hermione Granger’s comment to Ron “Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have”.
And this is why I read you Helen. You go to the granular.
My personal image of what "very conservative" vs "far right" means is: the former would be a very traditional and typically religious person who is very strict in their personal life, but generally wants the government out of things (i.e. not actively encouraging a modern outlook or regulating traditional lifestyles away); meanwhile the latter I typically picture as having more of a Nietzschean worldview (even if they also happen to be religious), are more freewheeling in their personal life than a traditional conservative person would be, yet wanting an active government to enforce hierarchies.
When people call mainstream views "far right," sometimes it's a cynical and deliberate strategy to make these mainstream views sound more fringe than they really are -- but in many cases, there's a sincerity to it. Basically, it's people thinking with their feelings.
Yes, I can see that distinction. And yes, I think people with extreme views often see those with moderate views on the other side as extreme. I'm economically left-leaning but not socialist so to the socialists, I'm neo-liberal and right-leaning and to the many on the furthest right, I'm a communist.
I am similar, economic left, further left than neoliberal but not as far as actual socialism. I prefer a system that treats people as individuals not extensions of collectives, and for the government to have well-organized public goods and services but not using them as leverage to push any given viewpoint.
Ooh, I’m excited for this series. I’ve been thinking about definitions, false dichotomies, the difference between material and symbolic truths - or literal and metaphorical language - a lot this last week.
I don't understand that stuff about clothing and the gender binary. If a conservative person thinks that clothing should be traditional, they can just wear traditional clothes. Why anyone else should care about their clothing choice, or vice versa is a mystery.
If either a conservative or a leftist insists that the state should require any particular clothing standard, I would object.
If some other social organization than govt (a religious group or political club) decided to uphold some specific clothing standard, that is the business of the members of the organization to argue about, or have agreement on, whichever the case.
Scientific organizations that censor legitimate dissent should be cut off from govt funding and support and exposed to the public via investigative journalism.
I'm assuming that most Pluckroseans agree that virtue signaling by the radical "woke" "left" is usually a sign of mental dysfunction.
Leaving european culture, things can get weird. Lorenzo Warby of Oz recent wrote a couple of articles on substack about Australian Aboriginal forced wife swapping rituals. Napoleon Chagnon described how the heads of beta females (Yanamamo tribe) were used by males like sports balls to see who could bounce a head higher off the ground. Chagnon described other brutal aspects to gender relations by pre-industrial tribes. A late anthropologist I used to know in a 1990s email community (Jackson Armstrong-Ingram) that was a dissident scholar described the cultural practice of boys posing in female sexual roles in Muslim cultures, but not being seen as homosexual because such behavior was not specifically prohibited as spiritually "unclean" in the Qur'an or Hadith. If that isn't a weird religious "get out of jail free" card, I don't know what is.
Kinda think your link to "Why more young men in Germany are turning to the far right" is broken. or maybe Substack is screwing up since I've seen similar cases recently. But I get this error message when I click on your link: "This site can’t be reached"; you might try it yourself.
I love how much detail and richness you can dig out of a short article! Very much looking forward to reading your thoughts on multiculturalism.
I think the term has definitely evolved in different directions within different political tribes and there's a high likelihood we're talking past each other as a result. I suspect the crux of disagreement probably lies in what the speaker understands 'culture' to be - whether they see it as primarily about relatively superficial practices like what clothes a person wears or the food they eat (in which case multiculturalism is good/indifferent) or is it seen as encompassing more fundamental political and social commitments e.g. towards the status of women, the role of religion in public life, the acceptability of violence as a political strategy etc. (in which case multiculturalism is more likely to be viewed as corrosive of social cohesion and potentially dangerous)
As per the Overton window, the German multicultural situation is above discourse. ie without action addressing the disastrous policies of Merkel et al - discourse will have little to no effect on a rightward shift.
I can provide either short or elaborate definitions of most controversial terms and concepts, such as "woke", "left", "right", "classical liberalism", and so forth, and some people still violently react when I provide a definition that they disagree with.
Pathological postmodern leftists use the manipulation of language as a political and psychological weapon.
I agree to a limited extent that meanings are fluid, but wildly abusing conventional meanings of words is going too far.
It's not in German. It's in English from a journalist who speaks German in Germany. We do have to trust that journalists represent their sources accurately when we analyse anything or we'd never be able to address any account of anything that we weren't actually present at. If the woman cited did not, in fact, say that, I'm pretty sure she'll challenge claims that she did, requiring the journalist to present the original and issue a correction if the claim is not verified. An investigative journalist for a leading news organisation can't survive many such corrections.
You don't have to 'put faith' in any account of anything from a mainstream news organisation to analyse it at face value. If it later turns out to be fabricated, the thing that you analysed wasn't real and you'd need to tell people that. You've no reason to be ashamed of having done an analysis of a news piece or feel you should avoid analysing anything ever unless you've seen the original recording/transcript. Nobody would ever be able to discuss anything.
Thank you Helen, this is a much needed discussion. The problem with language is one of (I believe) the most problematic aspects of the rise of the Progressive Left. The difficulty in trying to have a productive discussion when you must constantly define the words used to make certain the meaning has not changed is infuriating. My Gen Z son and I have always been able to discuss anything, but of late I have had to ask for definitions several times because we seemed to be talking past each other on subject I thought I understood his position.
One thing we are generally terrible at is defining our terms up front. I was in a Facebook conversation with someone, probably several months ago now. I was using the word “gender” to refer to something innate about someone (but different from sex) and “gender role” as something socially constructed. We were disagreeing about whether gender was socially constructed and it was only after several rounds of back and forth that I realized she was using “gender identity” the same way I was using “gender” and she was using “gender” the same way I was using “gender role.” In effect, we were saying the same thing, but for putting the label “gender” on two different definitions. I pointed out as much and the conversation faded off.
(To be clear, I’m not sure I hold this definition of gender anymore, but that’s a separate issue.)
The disagreement could have been avoided if we’d known up front what we each meant by these terms, even if we were using them differently.
If anyone ever asks me if I am a feminist, I will absolutely ask first what they think that is before answering.
Yes, and I think when we’re so familiar with a certain discourse where people are using terms in the same way, it may not even occur to us that somebody else might not be!
Sometimes there’s a problem with asking for definitions before a discussion (a polite “how are you defining __?”) in that it’s seen as a trap. I’m tired of hearing people ask me to Look It Up when there are multiple definitions.
Of course, if they really don’t know what they mean or are relying on equivocation to do their argument, it might be a trap.
“First, define ‘feminist.’” Exactly. I’ve seen it used to mean so many different things, some of which contradict each other.
One of the vexing aspects of life in the postmodern era is the fragmentation and atomization of meaning.
David Chapman's description of the meta-crisis of meaning is pretty good:
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
I quite agree. Subtleties of views are being missed in a rush to define people as ‘hard left’, ‘far right’ or similar. I wonder if these definitions of left and right are even very helpful now.
Incidentally I have just finished your book ‘Cynical Theories’ Helen. I must say it’s a fabulous work. Congratulations! A perfectly coherent and rational analysis of things I’ve noticed but haven’t been able to quantify. Your analysis has helped my understanding immensely. Thank you
Thanks, Ben!
Looking forward to the next installment.
Broadly these questions arose as I read through this. 1) what makes people resist an attitude of “both, and” vs “either, or”? And related - (and maybe this is too simplistic) 2) how much does lack of attention span factor into people’s inability to grasp nuanced concepts?
I believe somewhere in the last century (during my childhood) I was taught that there are as many viewpoints as fingerprints. So it would make sense that there would be vast values, opinions, moral compasses…why do we *insist* on putting them in only 2-3 buckets? I find myself thinking of Hermione Granger’s comment to Ron “Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have”.
And this is why I read you Helen. You go to the granular.
My personal image of what "very conservative" vs "far right" means is: the former would be a very traditional and typically religious person who is very strict in their personal life, but generally wants the government out of things (i.e. not actively encouraging a modern outlook or regulating traditional lifestyles away); meanwhile the latter I typically picture as having more of a Nietzschean worldview (even if they also happen to be religious), are more freewheeling in their personal life than a traditional conservative person would be, yet wanting an active government to enforce hierarchies.
When people call mainstream views "far right," sometimes it's a cynical and deliberate strategy to make these mainstream views sound more fringe than they really are -- but in many cases, there's a sincerity to it. Basically, it's people thinking with their feelings.
Yes, I can see that distinction. And yes, I think people with extreme views often see those with moderate views on the other side as extreme. I'm economically left-leaning but not socialist so to the socialists, I'm neo-liberal and right-leaning and to the many on the furthest right, I'm a communist.
I am similar, economic left, further left than neoliberal but not as far as actual socialism. I prefer a system that treats people as individuals not extensions of collectives, and for the government to have well-organized public goods and services but not using them as leverage to push any given viewpoint.
Ooh, I’m excited for this series. I’ve been thinking about definitions, false dichotomies, the difference between material and symbolic truths - or literal and metaphorical language - a lot this last week.
Excellent!
I don't understand that stuff about clothing and the gender binary. If a conservative person thinks that clothing should be traditional, they can just wear traditional clothes. Why anyone else should care about their clothing choice, or vice versa is a mystery.
If either a conservative or a leftist insists that the state should require any particular clothing standard, I would object.
If some other social organization than govt (a religious group or political club) decided to uphold some specific clothing standard, that is the business of the members of the organization to argue about, or have agreement on, whichever the case.
Scientific organizations that censor legitimate dissent should be cut off from govt funding and support and exposed to the public via investigative journalism.
I'm assuming that most Pluckroseans agree that virtue signaling by the radical "woke" "left" is usually a sign of mental dysfunction.
Leaving european culture, things can get weird. Lorenzo Warby of Oz recent wrote a couple of articles on substack about Australian Aboriginal forced wife swapping rituals. Napoleon Chagnon described how the heads of beta females (Yanamamo tribe) were used by males like sports balls to see who could bounce a head higher off the ground. Chagnon described other brutal aspects to gender relations by pre-industrial tribes. A late anthropologist I used to know in a 1990s email community (Jackson Armstrong-Ingram) that was a dissident scholar described the cultural practice of boys posing in female sexual roles in Muslim cultures, but not being seen as homosexual because such behavior was not specifically prohibited as spiritually "unclean" in the Qur'an or Hadith. If that isn't a weird religious "get out of jail free" card, I don't know what is.
Kinda think your link to "Why more young men in Germany are turning to the far right" is broken. or maybe Substack is screwing up since I've seen similar cases recently. But I get this error message when I click on your link: "This site can’t be reached"; you might try it yourself.
Here's the current link:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy082dn7rkqo
I love how much detail and richness you can dig out of a short article! Very much looking forward to reading your thoughts on multiculturalism.
I think the term has definitely evolved in different directions within different political tribes and there's a high likelihood we're talking past each other as a result. I suspect the crux of disagreement probably lies in what the speaker understands 'culture' to be - whether they see it as primarily about relatively superficial practices like what clothes a person wears or the food they eat (in which case multiculturalism is good/indifferent) or is it seen as encompassing more fundamental political and social commitments e.g. towards the status of women, the role of religion in public life, the acceptability of violence as a political strategy etc. (in which case multiculturalism is more likely to be viewed as corrosive of social cohesion and potentially dangerous)
Credit to you for rationality and nuance.
As per the Overton window, the German multicultural situation is above discourse. ie without action addressing the disastrous policies of Merkel et al - discourse will have little to no effect on a rightward shift.
I can provide either short or elaborate definitions of most controversial terms and concepts, such as "woke", "left", "right", "classical liberalism", and so forth, and some people still violently react when I provide a definition that they disagree with.
Pathological postmodern leftists use the manipulation of language as a political and psychological weapon.
I agree to a limited extent that meanings are fluid, but wildly abusing conventional meanings of words is going too far.
Is this analysis based on the original German text? Otherwise it’s putting a lot of faith into the translation.
It's not in German. It's in English from a journalist who speaks German in Germany. We do have to trust that journalists represent their sources accurately when we analyse anything or we'd never be able to address any account of anything that we weren't actually present at. If the woman cited did not, in fact, say that, I'm pretty sure she'll challenge claims that she did, requiring the journalist to present the original and issue a correction if the claim is not verified. An investigative journalist for a leading news organisation can't survive many such corrections.
You don't have to 'put faith' in any account of anything from a mainstream news organisation to analyse it at face value. If it later turns out to be fabricated, the thing that you analysed wasn't real and you'd need to tell people that. You've no reason to be ashamed of having done an analysis of a news piece or feel you should avoid analysing anything ever unless you've seen the original recording/transcript. Nobody would ever be able to discuss anything.
Why would anyone be for diluting their rich culture, heritage, & history?