I find myself agreeing with your general statement, that it is important to not treat the outspoken members of a group as indicative whether good or bad, while being somewhat worried that you have fallen into the same pattern in the process of trying to explain it.
Your examples of feminist and men’s rights activist generalizations seem to be examples of the sort of one-sided generalizations you warn about in the very next paragraph. Men’s right’s activists are generalized in a positive fashion—they are victims of circumstance, trying to avenge the wrongs done to them—while feminists are portrayed in a negative fashion—one dimensional bigots building a career on hating men. I think it would have served your point better if you had attempted positive generalizations for both. How you have it now just seems like it is undermining your general point. In fact, you should probably avoid contemporary political groups when giving examples to avoid this sort of this altogether.
It is possible that you deliberately chose those generalizations in order to demonstrate the trap many people fall into. If that is the case, I think you need to make it more clear. Examples of failed rationality are useful, but should be clearly labeled.
Additionally, I don’t see how learning the opinions of the silent majority is reversed stupidity. We already know the opinions of the vocal minority, wouldn’t learning the opinions of the silent majority give us a clear picture of the whole group’s opinions? I suppose there could be a third group left out by this, some sort of Mumbling Moderates, but it should be easy enough to pick them up in well designed polls as well.
My description of men’s rights activists is usually used as negative. First, it implies they are losers, i.e. low-status, which for most people means that their opinions are not worth to consider seriously. Second, it implies that they merely generalize from their personal issues, which against means that they are biased, and that people who don’t have the same issues can ignore them.
To put it in a near mode, imagine that you are at a lecture where someone speaks about men’s rights, and then someone in the audience whispers to their neighbor “this guy had a nasty divorce recently”. Is this remark meant to make the person who heard it treat the lecture more seriously, or less seriously?
My description of men’s rights activists is usually used as negative. First, it implies they are losers, i.e. low-status, which for most people means that their opinions are not worth to consider seriously. Second, it implies that they merely generalize from their personal issues, which against means that they are biased, and that people who don’t have the same issues can ignore them.
I think that’s true of many kinds of activists in the early stages of their (later successful, somewhat) movement. For instance, AIDS activists were considered losers and biased, people of colour were considered losers and biased and so on and so forth. I’m not saying that men’s-right activism is going to become mainstream, since it may be true of all movements. I can’t bring to mind a successful example of a çountermovement that has been later successful, however. The only example I can think of is neo-nazism. As maligned as MRA’s are, it obviously unreasonable to equate them with Hitler. I for one think they have valid problems, but suboptimal, counterproductive and frequently mean ways of dealing with them.
To bring it back to quotes, I feel this one could speak to them:
“Think about the three biggest discouragers in your life… they aren’t your biggest discouragers. You are.”
I find myself agreeing with your general statement, that it is important to not treat the outspoken members of a group as indicative whether good or bad, while being somewhat worried that you have fallen into the same pattern in the process of trying to explain it.
Your examples of feminist and men’s rights activist generalizations seem to be examples of the sort of one-sided generalizations you warn about in the very next paragraph. Men’s right’s activists are generalized in a positive fashion—they are victims of circumstance, trying to avenge the wrongs done to them—while feminists are portrayed in a negative fashion—one dimensional bigots building a career on hating men. I think it would have served your point better if you had attempted positive generalizations for both. How you have it now just seems like it is undermining your general point. In fact, you should probably avoid contemporary political groups when giving examples to avoid this sort of this altogether.
It is possible that you deliberately chose those generalizations in order to demonstrate the trap many people fall into. If that is the case, I think you need to make it more clear. Examples of failed rationality are useful, but should be clearly labeled.
Additionally, I don’t see how learning the opinions of the silent majority is reversed stupidity. We already know the opinions of the vocal minority, wouldn’t learning the opinions of the silent majority give us a clear picture of the whole group’s opinions? I suppose there could be a third group left out by this, some sort of Mumbling Moderates, but it should be easy enough to pick them up in well designed polls as well.
My description of men’s rights activists is usually used as negative. First, it implies they are losers, i.e. low-status, which for most people means that their opinions are not worth to consider seriously. Second, it implies that they merely generalize from their personal issues, which against means that they are biased, and that people who don’t have the same issues can ignore them.
To put it in a near mode, imagine that you are at a lecture where someone speaks about men’s rights, and then someone in the audience whispers to their neighbor “this guy had a nasty divorce recently”. Is this remark meant to make the person who heard it treat the lecture more seriously, or less seriously?
I think that’s true of many kinds of activists in the early stages of their (later successful, somewhat) movement. For instance, AIDS activists were considered losers and biased, people of colour were considered losers and biased and so on and so forth. I’m not saying that men’s-right activism is going to become mainstream, since it may be true of all movements. I can’t bring to mind a successful example of a çountermovement that has been later successful, however. The only example I can think of is neo-nazism. As maligned as MRA’s are, it obviously unreasonable to equate them with Hitler. I for one think they have valid problems, but suboptimal, counterproductive and frequently mean ways of dealing with them.
To bring it back to quotes, I feel this one could speak to them:
-Nick Vujicic
BAM!