Don’t use words if you do not know what they mean.
Indeed.
Better yet, don’t criticize someone’s usage of a word unless you know what it means.
At this point, I no longer give significant credence to the proposition that you are making a good-faith effort at truth-seeking, and you are being very rude. I have no further interest in responding to you.
Show me a definition oft the word bowdlerize that does not use the word vulgar or a synonym.
If I am being rude it is because I am frustrated by the double standards of the people I am talking with. I use the word force and I get scolded for trying to taint the conversation with connotations. I will agree that “force” has some negative connotations, but it has positive ones too. In any case it is far more neutral than bowdlerize. And quite frankly I am shocked that I get criticized for pointing out that you clearly do not know what that word means while you get praised for criticizing me for pointing out what the word actually means.
It is hypocritical to jump down my throat about smuggling connotations into a conversation when your language is even more aggressive.
It is also hypocritical that if I propose that there are people who have faith in religion not because they fear a world without it the burden of proof is on me; while if it is proposed by the opposition that many people have faith in religion because they fear a world without it no proof is required.
I once thought the manifest rightness of post-modern thought would convince those naive realists of the truth, if only they were presented with it clearly. It doesn’t work that way, for several reasons:
Many “post-modern” ideas get co-opted into mainstream thought. Once, Legal Realism was a revolutionary critique of legal formalism. Now it’s what every cynical lawyer thinks while driving to work. In this community, it is possible to talk about “norms of the community” both in reference to this community and other communities. At least in part, that’s an effect of the co-option of post-modern ideas like “imagined communities.”
Post-modernism is often intentionally provocative (i.e. broadening the concept of force). Therefore, you shouldn’t be surprised when your provocation actually provokes. Further, you are challenging core beliefs of a community, and should expect push-back. Cf. the controversy in Texas about including discussion of the Spot Resolution in textbooks.
As Kuhn and Feyerabend said, you can’t be a good philosopher of science if you aren’t a good historian of science. You haven’t demonstrated that you have a good grasp of what science believes about itself, as shown in part by your loose language when asserting claims.
Additionally, you are the one challenging the status quo beliefs, so the burden of proof is placed on you. In some abstract sense, that might not be “fair.” Given your use of post-modern analysis, why are you surprised that people respond badly to challenges to the imagined community? This community is engaging with you fairly well, all things considered.
ETA: In case it isn’t clear, I consider myself a post-modernist, at least compared to what seems to be the standard position here at LW.
Really great post! You are completely right on all accounts. Except I really am not a post-modernist, I just agree with some of their ideas, especially conceptions of power as you have pointed out.
I am particularly impressed with Bullet point # 2, because not only does it show an understanding of the basis of my ideas, but it also accurately points out irrationality in my actions given the theories I assert.
I would then ask you if understand this aspect of communities including your own, would you call this rational? It is no excuse, but I think coming here I was under the impression that equality in burden of proof, acccomdation of norms and standards, would be the norm, because I view these things as rational.
Does it seem rational that one side does not hold the burden of proof? To me it is normal for debate because each side is focused solely on winning. But I would call pure debate a part of rhetoric (“the dark arts”). I thought here people would be more concerned with Truth than winning.
As to your qusetion- I do not think I have made any more extraordinary claims than my opposition. To me saying that because “several people have told someone that they need there to be God because without God the universe would be immoral” is not sufficient enough evidence to make that claim. I would also suggest that my claims are not extraordinary, they are contradictory to several core beliefs of this community, which makes them unpleasant, not unthinkable.
If someone X, before asking him to provide some solid evidence that X, you should stick your neck out and say that you yourself believe that non X.
Otherwise, people might expect that after they do all the legwork of coming up with evidence for X, you’ll just say “well actually I believe X too I was just checking lol”.
You can’t expect people to make efforts for you if you show no signs of reciprocity—by either saying things they find insightful, or proving you did your research, or acknowledging their points, or making good faith attempts to identify and resolve disagreements, etc. If all you do is post rambling walls of texts with typos and dismissive comments and bone-headed defensiveness on every single point, then people just won’t pay attention to you.
Respectfully, if you don’t think post-modernism is an extraordinary claim, you need to spend more time studying the history of ideas. The length of time it took for post-modern thought to develop (even counting from the Renaissance or the Enlightenment) is strong evidence of how unintuitive it is. Even under a very generous definition of post-modernism and a very restrictive start of the intellectual clock, Nietzsche is almost a century after the French Revolution.
my claims are not extraordinary, they are contradictory to several core beliefs of this community.
If your goal is to help us have a more correct philosophy, then the burden is on you to avoid doing things that make it seem like you have other goals (like yanking our chain). I.e. turn the other cheek, don’t nitpick, calm down, take on the “unfair” burden of proof. Consider the relevance of the tone argument.
“several people have told someone that they need there to be God because without God the universe would be immoral” is not sufficient enough evidence to make that claim.
There are many causes of belief in belief. In particular, religious belief has social causes and moral causes. In the pure case, I suspect that David Koresh believed things because he had moral reasons to want to believe them, and the social ostracism might have been seen as a feature, not a bug.
If one decides to deconvert someone else (perhaps to help the other achieve his goals), it seems like it would matter why there was belief in belief. And that’s just an empirical question. I’ve personally met both kinds of people.
I concede that post-modernism is unintuitive when compared to the history of academic thought, but I would argue that modernism is equally unintuitive to unacademic thought. Do you not agree?
What do we mean by modernism? I think the logical positivists are quite intuitive. What’s a more natural concept from “unacademic” thought than the idea that metaphysics is incoherent? The intuitiveness of the project doesn’t make it right, in my view.
Bowdlerization is normally understood to be the idea of removing offensive content, but this offensiveness doesn’t need to have anything to do with “vulgarity”.
There exist things that are offensive against standards of propriety and taste (the things you call “vulgar”). Then again there exist things which offend against standards of e.g. morality.
You don’t seem to understand that there can exist offensiveness which isn’t about good manners, but about moral content.
Please respond to these following two question, if you want me to understand the point of disagreement:
Do you understand/agree that I’m saying “offensive content” is a superset of “vulgar content”?
Therefore do you understand/agree that when I say something contains offensive content, I may be saying that it contains vulgar content, but I may also be saying it contains non-vulgar content that’s offensive to particular moral standards?
First, bowdlerizing has always implied removing content, not adding offensive content. Second, the word has evolved over time to mean any removal of content that changes the “moral/emotional” impact of the work, not simply removal of vulgarity.
All they see is you/people like you calling a part of them “vulgar.” I don’t believe I’ve done this It is harder and/or worse to get people to part with these beliefs than to adopt a bowdlerized version of them”.
Don’t use words if you do not know what they mean.
The two statements you quoted are not inconsistent because a bowdlerized theory is not calling the original theory vulgar, in current usage. Based on the change in meaning that I identified.
“It is harder and/or worse to get people to part with these beliefs than to adopt a bowdlerized version of them”.
Don’t use words if you do not know what they mean.
Indeed.
Better yet, don’t criticize someone’s usage of a word unless you know what it means.
At this point, I no longer give significant credence to the proposition that you are making a good-faith effort at truth-seeking, and you are being very rude. I have no further interest in responding to you.
Show me a definition oft the word bowdlerize that does not use the word vulgar or a synonym.
If I am being rude it is because I am frustrated by the double standards of the people I am talking with. I use the word force and I get scolded for trying to taint the conversation with connotations. I will agree that “force” has some negative connotations, but it has positive ones too. In any case it is far more neutral than bowdlerize. And quite frankly I am shocked that I get criticized for pointing out that you clearly do not know what that word means while you get praised for criticizing me for pointing out what the word actually means.
It is hypocritical to jump down my throat about smuggling connotations into a conversation when your language is even more aggressive.
It is also hypocritical that if I propose that there are people who have faith in religion not because they fear a world without it the burden of proof is on me; while if it is proposed by the opposition that many people have faith in religion because they fear a world without it no proof is required.
I once thought the manifest rightness of post-modern thought would convince those naive realists of the truth, if only they were presented with it clearly. It doesn’t work that way, for several reasons:
Many “post-modern” ideas get co-opted into mainstream thought. Once, Legal Realism was a revolutionary critique of legal formalism. Now it’s what every cynical lawyer thinks while driving to work. In this community, it is possible to talk about “norms of the community” both in reference to this community and other communities. At least in part, that’s an effect of the co-option of post-modern ideas like “imagined communities.”
Post-modernism is often intentionally provocative (i.e. broadening the concept of force). Therefore, you shouldn’t be surprised when your provocation actually provokes. Further, you are challenging core beliefs of a community, and should expect push-back. Cf. the controversy in Texas about including discussion of the Spot Resolution in textbooks.
As Kuhn and Feyerabend said, you can’t be a good philosopher of science if you aren’t a good historian of science. You haven’t demonstrated that you have a good grasp of what science believes about itself, as shown in part by your loose language when asserting claims.
Additionally, you are the one challenging the status quo beliefs, so the burden of proof is placed on you. In some abstract sense, that might not be “fair.” Given your use of post-modern analysis, why are you surprised that people respond badly to challenges to the imagined community? This community is engaging with you fairly well, all things considered.
ETA: In case it isn’t clear, I consider myself a post-modernist, at least compared to what seems to be the standard position here at LW.
Really great post! You are completely right on all accounts. Except I really am not a post-modernist, I just agree with some of their ideas, especially conceptions of power as you have pointed out.
I am particularly impressed with Bullet point # 2, because not only does it show an understanding of the basis of my ideas, but it also accurately points out irrationality in my actions given the theories I assert.
I would then ask you if understand this aspect of communities including your own, would you call this rational? It is no excuse, but I think coming here I was under the impression that equality in burden of proof, acccomdation of norms and standards, would be the norm, because I view these things as rational.
Does it seem rational that one side does not hold the burden of proof? To me it is normal for debate because each side is focused solely on winning. But I would call pure debate a part of rhetoric (“the dark arts”). I thought here people would be more concerned with Truth than winning.
Does it really seem to you that the statement “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary support” is not rational?
Obviously, there’s substantial power in deciding what claims are extraordinary.
Your dodging my question.
As to your qusetion- I do not think I have made any more extraordinary claims than my opposition. To me saying that because “several people have told someone that they need there to be God because without God the universe would be immoral” is not sufficient enough evidence to make that claim. I would also suggest that my claims are not extraordinary, they are contradictory to several core beliefs of this community, which makes them unpleasant, not unthinkable.
If someone X, before asking him to provide some solid evidence that X, you should stick your neck out and say that you yourself believe that non X.
Otherwise, people might expect that after they do all the legwork of coming up with evidence for X, you’ll just say “well actually I believe X too I was just checking lol”.
You can’t expect people to make efforts for you if you show no signs of reciprocity—by either saying things they find insightful, or proving you did your research, or acknowledging their points, or making good faith attempts to identify and resolve disagreements, etc. If all you do is post rambling walls of texts with typos and dismissive comments and bone-headed defensiveness on every single point, then people just won’t pay attention to you.
Respectfully, if you don’t think post-modernism is an extraordinary claim, you need to spend more time studying the history of ideas. The length of time it took for post-modern thought to develop (even counting from the Renaissance or the Enlightenment) is strong evidence of how unintuitive it is. Even under a very generous definition of post-modernism and a very restrictive start of the intellectual clock, Nietzsche is almost a century after the French Revolution.
If your goal is to help us have a more correct philosophy, then the burden is on you to avoid doing things that make it seem like you have other goals (like yanking our chain). I.e. turn the other cheek, don’t nitpick, calm down, take on the “unfair” burden of proof. Consider the relevance of the tone argument.
There are many causes of belief in belief. In particular, religious belief has social causes and moral causes. In the pure case, I suspect that David Koresh believed things because he had moral reasons to want to believe them, and the social ostracism might have been seen as a feature, not a bug.
If one decides to deconvert someone else (perhaps to help the other achieve his goals), it seems like it would matter why there was belief in belief. And that’s just an empirical question. I’ve personally met both kinds of people.
I concede that post-modernism is unintuitive when compared to the history of academic thought, but I would argue that modernism is equally unintuitive to unacademic thought. Do you not agree?
What do we mean by modernism? I think the logical positivists are quite intuitive. What’s a more natural concept from “unacademic” thought than the idea that metaphysics is incoherent? The intuitiveness of the project doesn’t make it right, in my view.
Bowdlerization is normally understood to be the idea of removing offensive content, but this offensiveness doesn’t need to have anything to do with “vulgarity”.
X is offensive. Vulgar is offensive. Therefore X is vulgar. Logic equals very yes?
vul·gar : indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar work; a vulgar gesture.
And just incase....
Indecent: offending against generally accepted standards of propriety or good taste; improper; vulgar:
Or are you going to tell me that “offensive content” is different from something that is offending?
There exist things that are offensive against standards of propriety and taste (the things you call “vulgar”). Then again there exist things which offend against standards of e.g. morality.
You don’t seem to understand that there can exist offensiveness which isn’t about good manners, but about moral content.
??? Um no read sentence # 2.
Please respond to these following two question, if you want me to understand the point of disagreement:
Do you understand/agree that I’m saying “offensive content” is a superset of “vulgar content”?
Therefore do you understand/agree that when I say something contains offensive content, I may be saying that it contains vulgar content, but I may also be saying it contains non-vulgar content that’s offensive to particular moral standards?
First, bowdlerizing has always implied removing content, not adding offensive content. Second, the word has evolved over time to mean any removal of content that changes the “moral/emotional” impact of the work, not simply removal of vulgarity.
I do not say it means adding content. It means to remove offensive content. Offensive content that is morally base is considered vulgar.
The two statements you quoted are not inconsistent because a bowdlerized theory is not calling the original theory vulgar, in current usage. Based on the change in meaning that I identified.