If you want me to reflect on some things I’ve said or done to see if they are consistent with my morality, you have to point them out, like you just did above (although I happen not to be enslaving any cotton-pickers at this time). Likewise if you want me to change my values, you would have to be specific about where the incongruency is.
If, on the other hand, the claim is that the group (or just I) should or could change expressed attitudes and/or language to accommodate you, if you don’t say what is permissible under your values, we can’t reasonably decide whether or not to change and impose those costs on ourselves since we have no idea what change would entail or what the costs would be. Some people believe (or at least claim in court) that it is the responsibility of a corporation to compensate customers whenever its employees fail to vet memetic fragments such as children’s nursery rhymes in their normal use of English for purity of origin, and customers are emotionally distressed, as part of their civil rights. I don’t care to be so careful, and I’m honestly not sorry about it.
I agree that for the first type of thing, it’s not necessary to say what your standards are, so long as you provide specific examples of how things violate my standards. It would still be helpful. You could actually demonstrate general insanity or unreasonableness in any number of ways, and I’d still listen if you did a good job of articulating and enumerating problems according to my values. However, the less you show we share values, the more work that will be for you. For some people I know who have values like mine, a simple “X was racist” will do to make me think that X violated my values. Each plaintiff in the case I linked to could also convince me of the same thing, but she’d have to show that she understood what I think reasonable and unreasonable, which might be hard as she wouldn’t easily be able to do that by noticing what she thought about X.
I agree, there are good and bad aspects of it
I didn’t mean that at all. I meant that there isn’t any single it. When different people use the term, they mean to convey different things. It’s like “democracy”, or “feminism”, or “slovenly”.
certain sub-topics that fall under the umbrella term instead.
People may legitimately disagree about which sub-topics fall under the umbrella term. That’s why it’s useful not to use it, and even more useful not to be offended by the term itself, even if one must be offended by some ideas sometimes intended by it.
If you want me to reflect on some things I’ve said or done to see if they are consistent with my morality
All agreed but… sometimes I might not know you or your morality and can therefore not reflect upon it for you. but if I know that, say, you’ve said something that pattern-matches with something that I know to generally be following (as an example) a racially prejudiced worldview..
What you seem to be asking for is for me (and everyone else) to know you well enough to to know why something would be a contradiction in your own set of moral rules. I don’t know you that well. I can only point at the the thing that seems to be prejudicial.
I think this is kinda what I was trying to get at. Sometimes… we can see the problem, but while we don’t have a solution, we can at least point at the problem in the hopes that you can figure the solution out.
...anyways. Not sure where that leaves the discussion...
I know that, say, you’ve said something that pattern-matches with something that I know to generally be following (as an example) a racially prejudiced worldview.
There seems to be a tension between pattern matching and judging others favorably/reading their words charitably. How can we resolve this?
What you seem to be asking for is for me (and everyone else) to know you well enough to to know why something would be a contradiction in your own set of moral rules.
The whole point of me asking you to point to something you consider not a violation of morality, as well as something that you consider immoral, is so I can see your reasonableness and you can use your own judgement as a proxy, and we can work with that. If you refuse to give me an example of something that would not be sexist, I can’t really assume about anything having to do with gender that you don’t consider it sexist, and consequently your statements that something “is sexist” won’t be meaningful to me. Hypothetically.
Sometimes… we can see the problem, but while we don’t have a solution, we can at least point at the problem in the hopes that you can figure the solution out.
Exactly. We can point at statements made and judge whether or not they are mainstream at LW, acceptable at LW, unwelcome at LW but not worthy of reflexive opposition and being shouted down. We can discuss how to tolerate minority beliefs that the majority here believes are wrong. We can point at people’s statements and ask them what they meant, or if they have changed their minds. We can identify misunderstandings so that no one is deluded into thinking their enemies are innately evil.
We can point at a problem, if we see a problem. Please point.
There seems to be a tension between pattern matching and judging others favorably/reading their words charitably. How can we resolve this?
I’m not sure at all how to resolve it… or if a resolution is even really possible. The problem I see is that we cannot control how another person is going to pattern-match on our own ideas. We can try thinking about potential bad-patterns is might accidentally match to. But that takes a lot of extra work on our part, and still won’t reach everybody.
Still, I think it’s worth considering for some thing that have already been proven to be controversial (and easy to misinterpret), such as the field of PUA.
I can tell you what he default pattern is there. As a woman, PUA matches as “these people are trying to manipulate my own flaws to get me to sleep with them.” along with “They don’t care about me, just the “score”″… neither of which is appealing to a woman and makes her feel uncomfortable in the presence of people that say they are a part of that scene.
now—these patterns may or may not have validity… but if we want to attract more women to the group.. we’d be wise to either not talk about the things that match awful patterns such as these, or do as you suggested and taboo the words that auto-match against them, and instead talk specifically about the non-awful aspects of the field (eg self-confidence or social-skills building exercises) - especially where they have gender-balanced benefits.
Anyway—this is a long-winded way of again saying that I agree with you entirely.
I think it is important to be careful, whenever doing something out of a sensitivity to prejudice and discrimination, to keep track of what trying to achieve that end impels us to do.
If we find that a regime designed to be sensitive, encourage open dialogue, and avoid prejudice leads us to systematically eschew charitable interpretation in favor of most probable or even uncharitable interpretation (as part of communal policing against insensitive, dialogue-closing, and prejudicial statements), then the regime has become a lost purpose, and a harmful ugh field.
If you want me to reflect on some things I’ve said or done to see if they are consistent with my morality, you have to point them out, like you just did above (although I happen not to be enslaving any cotton-pickers at this time). Likewise if you want me to change my values, you would have to be specific about where the incongruency is.
If, on the other hand, the claim is that the group (or just I) should or could change expressed attitudes and/or language to accommodate you, if you don’t say what is permissible under your values, we can’t reasonably decide whether or not to change and impose those costs on ourselves since we have no idea what change would entail or what the costs would be. Some people believe (or at least claim in court) that it is the responsibility of a corporation to compensate customers whenever its employees fail to vet memetic fragments such as children’s nursery rhymes in their normal use of English for purity of origin, and customers are emotionally distressed, as part of their civil rights. I don’t care to be so careful, and I’m honestly not sorry about it.
I agree that for the first type of thing, it’s not necessary to say what your standards are, so long as you provide specific examples of how things violate my standards. It would still be helpful. You could actually demonstrate general insanity or unreasonableness in any number of ways, and I’d still listen if you did a good job of articulating and enumerating problems according to my values. However, the less you show we share values, the more work that will be for you. For some people I know who have values like mine, a simple “X was racist” will do to make me think that X violated my values. Each plaintiff in the case I linked to could also convince me of the same thing, but she’d have to show that she understood what I think reasonable and unreasonable, which might be hard as she wouldn’t easily be able to do that by noticing what she thought about X.
I didn’t mean that at all. I meant that there isn’t any single it. When different people use the term, they mean to convey different things. It’s like “democracy”, or “feminism”, or “slovenly”.
People may legitimately disagree about which sub-topics fall under the umbrella term. That’s why it’s useful not to use it, and even more useful not to be offended by the term itself, even if one must be offended by some ideas sometimes intended by it.
All agreed but… sometimes I might not know you or your morality and can therefore not reflect upon it for you. but if I know that, say, you’ve said something that pattern-matches with something that I know to generally be following (as an example) a racially prejudiced worldview..
What you seem to be asking for is for me (and everyone else) to know you well enough to to know why something would be a contradiction in your own set of moral rules. I don’t know you that well. I can only point at the the thing that seems to be prejudicial.
I think this is kinda what I was trying to get at. Sometimes… we can see the problem, but while we don’t have a solution, we can at least point at the problem in the hopes that you can figure the solution out.
...anyways. Not sure where that leaves the discussion...
There seems to be a tension between pattern matching and judging others favorably/reading their words charitably. How can we resolve this?
The whole point of me asking you to point to something you consider not a violation of morality, as well as something that you consider immoral, is so I can see your reasonableness and you can use your own judgement as a proxy, and we can work with that. If you refuse to give me an example of something that would not be sexist, I can’t really assume about anything having to do with gender that you don’t consider it sexist, and consequently your statements that something “is sexist” won’t be meaningful to me. Hypothetically.
Exactly. We can point at statements made and judge whether or not they are mainstream at LW, acceptable at LW, unwelcome at LW but not worthy of reflexive opposition and being shouted down. We can discuss how to tolerate minority beliefs that the majority here believes are wrong. We can point at people’s statements and ask them what they meant, or if they have changed their minds. We can identify misunderstandings so that no one is deluded into thinking their enemies are innately evil.
We can point at a problem, if we see a problem. Please point.
I’m not sure at all how to resolve it… or if a resolution is even really possible. The problem I see is that we cannot control how another person is going to pattern-match on our own ideas. We can try thinking about potential bad-patterns is might accidentally match to. But that takes a lot of extra work on our part, and still won’t reach everybody.
Still, I think it’s worth considering for some thing that have already been proven to be controversial (and easy to misinterpret), such as the field of PUA.
I can tell you what he default pattern is there. As a woman, PUA matches as “these people are trying to manipulate my own flaws to get me to sleep with them.” along with “They don’t care about me, just the “score”″… neither of which is appealing to a woman and makes her feel uncomfortable in the presence of people that say they are a part of that scene.
now—these patterns may or may not have validity… but if we want to attract more women to the group.. we’d be wise to either not talk about the things that match awful patterns such as these, or do as you suggested and taboo the words that auto-match against them, and instead talk specifically about the non-awful aspects of the field (eg self-confidence or social-skills building exercises) - especially where they have gender-balanced benefits.
Anyway—this is a long-winded way of again saying that I agree with you entirely.
I think it is important to be careful, whenever doing something out of a sensitivity to prejudice and discrimination, to keep track of what trying to achieve that end impels us to do.
If we find that a regime designed to be sensitive, encourage open dialogue, and avoid prejudice leads us to systematically eschew charitable interpretation in favor of most probable or even uncharitable interpretation (as part of communal policing against insensitive, dialogue-closing, and prejudicial statements), then the regime has become a lost purpose, and a harmful ugh field.