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Comment by krageon | Hacker News Reader

I think the author has a point to make that is definity valid, but she wraps it up in this hyper-western freedom ideal that says if you conform you may as well not have been born. To me this is a shame, because the argument that perhaps gender politics is entirely too violent at times and could benefit from having more calm adults is a reasonable one. It doesn't really matter if you are a proponent or a detractor, the hate is there for all to see. Sometimes it seems like this is what unites everyone who even cares to speak of these topics: no matter what they believe, they do so while angry.

I find myself wishing that this argument would have been made separate from the fetishism of freedom, which is in itself an position that is a little alienating in how it is presented (and angry besides - isn't this the problem?)

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I don't know, I think there are plenty of people out there who aren't angry, you just can't really hear them because they aren't yelling.

One thing I know for sure, the amount of anger someone has is always inversely proportionate to how much they know about a topic. Whenever someone gets angry about a topic I know for sure they know nothing about it and are therefore not worth wasting time on.

How can you resist the dominant ideology without valuing freedom? How can you challenge the norms set by the elite without asserting your right as an individual to take a non-conforming stance? Even if you argue that society would be more harmonious if we all followed a different/better norm, how are you entitled to make a statement that contradicts the current paradigm if you don't value the ability to contradict the current paradigm of society?

I suppose that an alternative basis than freedom is faith; eg "God told me to stand up for divine principles" — but even then, why are you uniquely responsive to God's will?

Seriously, I'd love to understand how you critique the status quo/advocate for change without valuing freedom.

She wraps it in terms most understood by her audience which is, well, very Western.

Your statement on 'hate' is self-referential on self-identity, akin to labeling others divisive. It's not simply 'there to see,' like a brick or a tree. You're conjuring it. As such, I directly disagree with you.

The stance that anything that cannot be touched exists only as a reflection of the observer is philosophically interesting, but not much more than that. It directly stifles communication with almost everyone else and it stops you from seeing harmful behaviour besides. There is, to my mind, very little point to it except as a (fun) thought exercise.

I assert less than that, merely that your confidence is significantly overstated, your opinion overfit. The bold, factual, and wrong “there to see” hyperbole renders discourse irrelevant.

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