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As I said on this forum before hearing people talk about postmodernism as if it is the current "thing" within continental philosophy circles is really odd. It hasn't been for a decade or more.

The backlash against these methodologies has been pretty severe within continental philosophy itself. For example, Meillassoux's critique of correlationism pretty much says that the whole epistemological manoeuvres, perhaps vulgarised by postmodern turn, by which it is claimed there is nothing "real" without a human correlated to it and that "reality" cannot be truly accessed, only reality as it appears to human beings, distorted by power, ideology etc etc.

There is a good description here though might be pretty high level. https://euppublishingblog.com/2014/12/12/correlationism-an-e...

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I don't get the impression that its relevance is due to any particular currency within actual philosophy circles, but rather because postmodernism is the motte to which the more academic strains intersectional feminism retreat when pressed -- and that very much is a "thing" in contemporary left-wing activism and internet flame wars.

On the street and in less academic varietals of intersectionalism, this just consists of "you should shut the fuck up, because you are male / white / heterosexual / cisgendered / wealthy / neurotypical / had good parents / some other form of privileged that I just thought up".

In more respectable garb, this gets dressed up as "your arguments have no validity, because <insert postmodernist gloss on ad hominem dismissal here>". Which is no less toxic to having any kind of rational and inclusive dialogue, and deserves to be taken down on its own terms.

(Note: this is coming from someone who is firmly left-wing and even has considerable respect for many aspects of intersectional feminism when applied in a philosophical / analytical context; I just despise what it has done to the tone of left-wing activism over the last 10 years.)

>"you should shut the fuck up, because you are male / white / heterosexual / cisgendered / wealthy / neurotypical / had good parents / some other form of privileged that I just thought up".

Holy narratives bat man. That is such an inaccurate assessment of what is being discussed, I'd wager you have ulterior motivations for being so disingenuous.

I feel like the "shut the fuck up" part of that is a complete misunderstanding of what happens when people who have secure livelihoods in whatever form attempt to "educate" or dismiss the complaints others have about the society they live in, even though the "educators" often have no experience with the hardships being discussed and don't see (and even worse, don't appreciate) the advantages that were given to them -- either due to aggregate "system" side-effects or just straight up inherited security (in its many forms). Or even worse, these "educators" can't even begin to abstractly reason why these complaints might have some merit.

In other words, they aren't presenting arguments. There isn't some attempt to counter-reason with the complaints. The actual "shut the fuck up" comes from the "other" side, which strangely seemed to be entirely missed in your post.

If you're going to try to use SJW-boogeyman talking points, just come out and do it. Don't try to dress up a turd with poorly used and understood philosophical nomenclature.

Are you... are you trying to prove his point?

>Holy narratives batman

Postmodern narrative analysis as gloss.

>you have ulterior motives for being so disingenuous

Straight into the ad hominem.

>when people who have secure livelihoods in whatever form attempt to "educate" or dismiss the complaints others

Some other form of privilege you just thought up.

>Straight into the ad hominem.

That's not an ad hominem. If you're going to use logical fallacies you had best understand what they are. And don't try to partially quote me to make my statements seem more definitive than they were presented.

Nothing I said even remotely resembles what his point was attempting to state. And I definitely didn't just construct some random form of privilege there.

What is the point of your response to my post?

> That's not an ad hominem.

It absolutely is. You are attacking the person, not his argument.

The credibility of his own perspective on this matter is pretty fundamental to the basis of his perspective and his quote. I'm not taking to disparate events or characteristics and using it to dismiss what he's saying, quite the opposite actually -- I'm saying he's dismissing others, poorly understands what is actually being discussed, and is "misquoting" what other people are actually stating. It's not a fallacy.

I could have called it ignorance, but that'd require he demonstrate some unfamiliarity with the subject, which he clearly isn't all that unfamiliar with it.

It is strange that his his "quote" is getting a free pass, despite it not having any backing to it what so ever.

Have a good read: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html

> The credibility of his own perspective on this matter is pretty fundamental to the basis of his perspective and his quote

Why? OP claimed to see people on left-wing side use this tactic (and assuming he is telling the truth) how is his/her perspective shifted?

The OP stated left wing tactics boils down to: "You're view doesn't count since your aren't black/trans/queer/female enough". Your message was almost, "Your view shouldn't count because of your perspective".

Personally, I've seen the same argument be used (i.e. "Shut up cis/hetero/male/white/etc.") in various forms on various forums. It would not surprise me that it's used in Democratic circles, in some shape or form.

>The OP stated left wing tactics boils down to: "You're view doesn't count since your aren't black/trans/queer/female enough".

That's the thing. It isn't that. It has never been that. No one says that. No where in academia does it even approach that. He whimsically went back and forth between pretending to address philosophical tenets and then right in the very core part of his statement, just slapped in a mischaracterization of entire philosophical and anthropological field. He didn't even pretend to transition or weasel that in, he just did it full stop. This conversation is annoying to have because it always devolves into this meta-argument, because people's egos get involved. Try doing that with any other less "fuzzy" subject and people would immediately and rightly call you out on it. Which I did.

> Your message was almost, "Your view shouldn't count because of your perspective".

No, my message was specifically and has been repeatedly his "view" is a complete mischaracterization of both the philosophical and social anthropology view points this subject brushes upon. Which is totally and blindingly ironic given his "shut the fuck up" quote. This is where one might get told "to shut the fuck up", as you would in any other discussion on any other subject, when you want to waltz around and wave your own very personal view point around (without any solid basis) when serious subjects are attempting to be discussed. It's a double whammy in that case, because people might realize that you're fully unwilling to reason about your own and other's position in society.

>Personally, I've seen the same argument be used (i.e. "Shut up cis/hetero/male/white/etc.") in various forms on various forums. It would not surprise me that it's used in Democratic circles, in some shape or form.

If we're going to use anecdotes and SJW-boogeyman talking points, then don't pretend that you're addressing philosophical tenets. Just go ahead and do it. As I said in my original post.

> That's the thing. It isn't that. It has never been that. No where in academia does it even approach that.

The OP didn't talk about academia, but the more prosaical use, hence the

> "On the street and in _less academic_ varietals of intersectionalism"

---------------

> If we're going to use anecdotes and SJW-boogeyman talking points, then don't pretend that you're addressing philosophical tenets. Just go ahead and do it. As I said in my original post.

We are discussing tenets, but not as they exist in academia, but how they apply to general populace. I mean, you can talk Nihilism in media, without discussing nihilism in academia, even if Nihilism originated in academia.

>The OP didn't talk about academia, but the more prosaical use

I didn't constrain it to academia. I was quite clear in the fact it doesn't really exist anywhere. It doesn't exist because it's a complete mischaracterization. It's extremely frustrating that people, when confronted with this subject, will nitpick and somehow fail at basic reading comprehensions just to attempt to make a point. And then you get the classic e-logicians that want to try to use logical fallacies, when they're clearly very inexperienced in doing so in any kind of rigorous setting, just to devolve the conversation into a meta argument. I mean, I understand the normal human tendency to blockade uncomfortable discussions, but it's so ludicrously obvious when this subject gets brought up. On a "hacker" forum, of all things too.

>We are discussing tenets

Where? Because all that was done in the original post that I replied to was just repeating a talking point used to anchor a narrative into the conversation. They didn't address anyone's actual stated opinions/perspectives/tenets on this subject. I pointed out specifically and very directly where they started to act like they were going to tackle the subject, and then just immediately shifted gears.

> I didn't constrain it to academia.

> > That's the thing. It isn't that. It has never been that. No one says that. No where in academia does it even approach that?

Are you claiming that using privilege to shut down discussion isn't used in academical or are you claiming it's neither used in academical nor casual setting.

Because I claim, it very well used for that purpose in casual setting. "Check your privilege" isn't a meme for no reason. So, I do see how it isn't used in academia, but its definitely present on forums and other places.

If we define any statement to be the perspective of the author, then no disagreement can ever be made which would not be ad hominem. At that point we can give up on discussing all together and return to the old ways of solving conflicts with violence.

If you want to have a discussion you must separate statements from perspective. Otherwise we just end up arguing if the credibility of your perspective of nkoren is pretty fundamental to the basis of your perspective. If we then call that perspective to be ignorance on your part, we simply enter the realm of name calling and the quality of discussion enter that special place for which a lot of words are waisted and no agreements are ever found.

>If we define any statement to be the perspective of the author, then no disagreement can ever be made which would not be ad hominem.

His perspective has no basis, it's a narrative, and it was specifically constrained to the current subject matter.

>If we then call that perspective to be ignorance on your part, we simply enter the realm of name calling

Uh, what?

> His perspective has no basis, it's a narrative

That is your perspective. It has no basis, and is just a narrative that you have made up.

One has to go beyond Solipsism in order to have a meaningful discussion.

>That is your perspective.

It's a fact.

Seems pretty accurate as far as my experiences have been, and I can point to a number of prominent cases in the open-source community that looked an awful lot like that.

Which one is pretty accurate? The post I was replying to or my post? In either case I'd be interested in any number of prominent cases in the open source community that are relevant to the current discussion.

It's not inaccurate. there is almost always an element of intimidation.

We're dealing with a problem of unjust exclusion through intimidation and violence. The SJW solution? Exclude white male cis from social participation through violence and intimidation. Not a working path.

That won't work. Read the first 10 pages of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. He talks about the folly of the oppressed that seek liberation by emulating the destructive behaviors of their oppressors. He explains that the oppressor is confined in his role and cannot be expected, even by force, to change. He/She (the oppressor) must be liberated from the cycle of ignorance, fear, and suffeung by the oppressed.

I tend to agree. It fits with what we've seen in history. It makes sense morally. It also aligns with almost every single moral teaching in the world.

>It's not inaccurate. there is almost always an element of intimidation

Is there any way you can back this up in some solid, less qualitative manner? I understand the broadness of what is being discussed, but I've never seen this talking point come to fruition in any relevant manner. It's always a mischaracterization (normally designed to appeal to outrage "consumers") whenever I look deeper to any specific incident that gets presented as "exclusion through intimidation and violence"

You may despise the tone of left-wing activism, but arguments based on identity aren't ad-hominem. Some people need to "shut up", as you put it, so that other folks who have relevant experience and expertise can talk and be heard.

Forms of privilege aren't just thought up on the spot, activists have been talking about privilege for the better part of a century.

You complain about internet flame wars, but you have interpreted left-wing activism in such an uncharitable way that almost no reasonable response is possible.

Privilege is one thing, while invalidating someone's argument or, more accurately, squelching it through intimidation, based on some non-essential element of their being is the most appalling behavior in the US. They've been doing it for centuries. This is the first time, however, that the supposed 'enlightened elite' (the urban left) has jumped on the bandwagon of self-righteous prejudice enforced through violence and intimidation. Shame on y'all.

It's cannibalizing the left.

>arguments based on identity aren't ad-hominem

Well here's the problem. Arguments that discredit another perspective based on the identity of who is making it are ad hominem. Arguments about the discursive process itself that address representation of various identities aren't. For example, if you tell me that privilege prevents minority voices from contributing to a national dialogue on poverty alleviation, I would agree. But that's not how people use identity in most online or casual arguments. They use identity to directly discredit and silence their opponents. Telling others to shut up isn't a good faith starting point for a productive conversation. That approach is based on an unrealistic, zero sum interpretation of how people interact, where it's only possible for one person to speak on any given subject. Getting more black people involved in a conversation on race doesn't mean silencing all the white people. Yet that's where these conversations often progress to. It's extraordinarily unpleasant to experience and completely useless for fostering dialogue.

This, absolutely. I actually care passionately about racial, gender, orientation, and economic equality. I've been an activist for these causes for nearly my whole life. I want more people to care about these issues and speak up about them.

However the mainstream manifestation of intersectional activism is opposed to this, apparently predicated on the notion that speech is a zero-sum game, and that if you're part of any kind of majority-group, you can't be on our side.

This both morally and strategically wrong: morally because it is founded on a notion of race/gender/culture/identity essentialism that is the entire fucking thing I've spent my life fighting against, and strategically because the only winning condition is one where you get the majority on your side -- and telling them how much they need to shut up will never, ever do that.

Of course "shut up" is not a good starting point for a conversation. The point is that people can't talk and listen at the same time. When people are ignorant about a subject because they don't have the relevant personal experience they don't have anything to contribute to the conversation so they should just listen. That's the only way to have the kind of productive dialogue you claim to want. Otherwise discussions on these topics will never go beyond the 101 level.

Your claim that white people are being silenced on race is absurd. In all mediums, whether it's newspapers, blogs, TV, or anywhere else, you see white people pontificating on race. It's people of color whose opinions are being silenced.

Besides, a real discussion on race needs to be uncomfortable for white people. A pleasant conversation about race with white people doesn't result in minds being changed. Coming to terms with the way society oppresses people of color and favors white people is inherently unpleasant.

>When people are ignorant about a subject because they don't have the relevant personal experience they don't have anything to contribute to the conversation so they should just listen

Well this is exactly the problem. You're assuming from the get go that white people have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

>Your claim that white people are being silenced on race is absurd

I have never made any such claim. I argued that people frequently use identity as a tool to silence opponents. That used to be a common tactic for suppressing minority views. "Oh, he's just a dumb negro, what does he know," and similar statements used to be socially acceptable ways of dismissing someone's perspective purely on the basis of their racial identity. Nowadays that more often takes the form of what you just did: assuming that white people have nothing relevant to contribute, where the reverse argument has become socially unacceptable. That does not mean white people are universally silenced, nor on the other hand does it mean that we as a society are devoting enough time to listening to minorities. The whole point of this argument is that you cannot discredit any individual person's argument on the basis of what proportion of our national discourse is devoted to people who share that person's identity. The argument and the arguer must be separated where the arguer is acting in good faith. A problem with the mix of views available does not detract from the individual truth or validity of any one person's arguments.

>Besides, a real discussion on race needs to be uncomfortable for white people. A pleasant conversation about race with white people doesn't result in minds being changed.

I don't think that approach convinces anyone. You don't win political arguments by alienating people. That sort of verbal aggression just provokes a backlash. Movements make progress by making people feel good about themselves. White people marched with MLK because he made them feel like they were part of a grand moral crusade. Which they were. The gay rights movement has had similar success by proactively recruiting and including allies. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Ultimately this is the fundamental flaw in your thinking:

>The point is that people can't talk and listen at the same time.

That's true in a one on one conversation, not a national discourse. The consensus that governs a democratic society is the product of a million simultaneous and contradictory voices clamoring in a thousand separate media. Me writing this post doesn't stop a black person from replying. My speech doesn't detract from theirs. It's not a zero sum game.

Yeah, I think you need to parse the popular expression of vague post-modernist thought in political debate from the philosophical proponents of post-modernism. You ought not infer the emptiness of the second from the emptiness of a lot of the first. There are a lot of very bad arguments in circulation about POV epistemology, e.g. you should not be able to speak to an issue given your sociological standpoint. That is very reductive / simplistic, obviously.

Absolutely. Both privilege and oppression are real and worth understanding, and at an academic level, intersectional feminism has done a lot of good work in this regard.

Recognising that structures of oppression with regards to race, gender, sexuality, etc. are not totally uncorrelated, but have commonalities that are worth identifying and studying in their own right, is a significant innovation of intersectional feminism, and I respect it.

Similarly, the concept of "privilege" is very worth unpacking. To those who can think of themselves as "just a person" living on some kind of neutral substrate, that feels like the most ordinary and natural thing in the world -- but it's a huge privilege. If you're a woman, this fact is continually thrown in your face, in a way that distinctly qualifies and limits your "personhood". If you're a gay black woman, then the qualifications and limitations genuinely get multiplied. I think it's important to unpack and understand this, and I welcome philosophies that aid in doing so.

(As an aside, I don't consider this kind of cultural analysis is at odds with rationality, until it crosses the threshold of insisting that it is describing the whole of reality in a totalising way, at which point it does start having genuine philosophical problems.)

The problem is that the populist expression of this pretty much boils down to "you have privilege, so shut up", which A.) is illiterate, because "privilege" is neither a personal nor even a cultural failing -- it's the lack of privilege that's a problem, and B.) utterly inimical to fostering any kind of understanding.

Anyhow, I suppose this is no different from what happens when any other nuanced philosophy gets used as a tool in populist conflicts. I have huge respect Buddhism as a philosophy, but it is nonetheless being used as a justification for persecution and genocide in Burma. Here or there, I think it's important to not let enlightened ideas be used as an excuse for being a jerk. (Nor to let jerks discredit enlightened ideas, although on the whole I'm less concerned about this).

> To those who can think of themselves as "just a person" living on some kind of neutral substrate

Does such person exist? For example, does there exist a young adult which life has been completely uninfluenced by society? I don't see how such person could even exist, and much less so a whole demographic group.

Male identity carries with it cultural expectations from society, which distinctly qualifies and limits "personhood". Race identity also carries with it cultural expectations, which as you say multiply (or at least appends), limiting the personhood even more. We would need to quantify those expectations in order to unpack the concept of "privilege", a job which in my view is too entangled with culture to actually be achievable. Unsurprising, "privilege" is used as a term that can't be proven or disprove.

Understand however don't need us to quantify how much each limitation is worth. If we look back at equality feminism, we simply need to focus on the basic similarities to find commonalities. Similar we have cultural homogenisation that finds understanding between people by identities into a single global one. Modernism mostly discarded those views in favor of the polar opposite.

Whether its a thing within current academic philosophy is by-the-by though isn't it? The issue under discussion is to what extent has postmodernism entered and undermined current popular understanding of cultural issues as well as lets say less, ah, rigorous disciplines within the humanities. Perhaps the modern exponents of continental philosophy should be doing more to export their evolved criticisms of postmodernism to the rest of the academy and wider society?

The paper is from 2005, so not exactly current philosophy(I fixed the title to reflect that). I just saw this elsewhere and thought it's exploration of "five favourite rhetorical manoeuvres: Troll’s Truisms, Motte and Bailey Doctrines, Equivocating Fulcra, the Postmodernist Fox-trot and Rankly Relativising Fields" would hold true in regards to the sophistry that dominates the site and industry, even out of it's philosophical context. The Troll's Truism in particular is seen a lot in tech.

I did not recognize the title, but as soon as I saw the abstract, I realized that I had read this some time ago. While postmodernism may be history, this particular paper still has relevance because the rhetorical devices it critiques are timeless.

Meillasoux's critique of correlationism is a critique of Kant/phenomenology, not postmodernism, at all. Viz., that truth is "correlational." Meillasoux's cohort are friendly enough with postmodernists, even if they disagree. The Badiou/Meillasoux critique of postmodernism is for them believing _too much_ in absolute truth, viz., for them being platonists. I would recommend reading "The Clamor of Being" if you actually want to understand the matter.

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