I may be wrong about this (I should probably check in on some feminist forums and get opinions from people working more seriously in the field) but I would say that the privileged discussion has a subgoal that is necessary for the supergoal of “actually fixing the problem.” The goal of the privileged discussion is there to discuss what the problem IS and get people involved with it, because you can’t actually fix the problem until a critical mass of people care. There is nothing inconsistent about that.
I’m demanding language be accurate so we can discuss problems precisely and work with them, while you are suggesting we sacrifice accurate language in order that we may fight the problem through the language itself.
I do not think there is such a thing as language without inherent impact. Demanding the kind of precise, abstract language we use here has a way of abstracting problems and removing the emotional context from them. Which is important. Sometimes. But emotional context is not meaningless. It is the emotional context that made the movement necessary in the first place. A technical dialogue that makes men normal and women abnormally is automatically contributing to lower status. It’s not neutral.
I don’t see how we can resolve which approach is better without access to a lot of information we don’t have.
Agree with this. But my current take is: if the privilege discussion (and feminist movement) were just beginning now, I’d estimate the likelihood of technical language being superior maybe 30-40%. But since there’s already a big movement with inertia that has chosen to use certain words, attempting to switch gears now would be problematic in all sorts of ways, and I think the effort of changing reduces the likelihood down to 5-10% tops.
Really though, the issue is that the rest of the world does not share Less Wrong’s rational standards. Feminism is part of the rest of the world, and yes a lot of feminists would probably benefit from being more rational. Use of the world “Privilege” is probably no more or less technically accurate than the general level of discourse throughout Feminist blogs. It’s also no less technically accurate than the general level of discourse in the Western world. (I actually think it’s several steps ABOVE the normal accuracy of discourse about women/men relations).
Feminism is not, the place for a man to show up and say “hey you guys need to be more rational!” “Women are irrational” is one of the very stereotypes they’re fighting against. Whether or not it’s accurate in this place, it will set off flags that poison the conversation rather than improve it. Whatever rationality that feminism is lacking should be addressed by fixing society in general, not feminism in particular.
And again, in Eliezer’s My Way, he notes that his (and probably Less Wrong in general’s) approach to rationality is very male. What works for the most men isn’t necessarily what works for most women. I don’t know how much men really are more technically minded than women, how much is stereotypes, and how much is culture that deserves to change. But I would not assume that the Less Wrong culture is inherently better than what a female dominated rationalist culture might come up with.
I think an anonymous person would probably be assumed to be male. Fair? Maybe not, but the set of circumstances that resulted in that situation weren’t really fair either.
I may be wrong about this (I should probably check in on some feminist forums and get opinions from people working more seriously in the field) but I would say that the privileged discussion has a subgoal that is necessary for the supergoal of “actually fixing the problem.” The goal of the privileged discussion is there to discuss what the problem IS and get people involved with it, because you can’t actually fix the problem until a critical mass of people care. There is nothing inconsistent about that.
I do not think there is such a thing as language without inherent impact. Demanding the kind of precise, abstract language we use here has a way of abstracting problems and removing the emotional context from them. Which is important. Sometimes. But emotional context is not meaningless. It is the emotional context that made the movement necessary in the first place. A technical dialogue that makes men normal and women abnormally is automatically contributing to lower status. It’s not neutral.
Agree with this. But my current take is: if the privilege discussion (and feminist movement) were just beginning now, I’d estimate the likelihood of technical language being superior maybe 30-40%. But since there’s already a big movement with inertia that has chosen to use certain words, attempting to switch gears now would be problematic in all sorts of ways, and I think the effort of changing reduces the likelihood down to 5-10% tops.
Really though, the issue is that the rest of the world does not share Less Wrong’s rational standards. Feminism is part of the rest of the world, and yes a lot of feminists would probably benefit from being more rational. Use of the world “Privilege” is probably no more or less technically accurate than the general level of discourse throughout Feminist blogs. It’s also no less technically accurate than the general level of discourse in the Western world. (I actually think it’s several steps ABOVE the normal accuracy of discourse about women/men relations).
Feminism is not, the place for a man to show up and say “hey you guys need to be more rational!” “Women are irrational” is one of the very stereotypes they’re fighting against. Whether or not it’s accurate in this place, it will set off flags that poison the conversation rather than improve it. Whatever rationality that feminism is lacking should be addressed by fixing society in general, not feminism in particular.
And again, in Eliezer’s My Way, he notes that his (and probably Less Wrong in general’s) approach to rationality is very male. What works for the most men isn’t necessarily what works for most women. I don’t know how much men really are more technically minded than women, how much is stereotypes, and how much is culture that deserves to change. But I would not assume that the Less Wrong culture is inherently better than what a female dominated rationalist culture might come up with.
How about, crazy though this may sound, a woman advocating rationality?
That sounds like an excellent idea. My point was specifically targeted at guys that don’t understand the array of signals they are sending.
I wonder what gender someone anonymous would be treated as, if a woman could say this without bad signals and a male couldn’t.
I think an anonymous person would probably be assumed to be male. Fair? Maybe not, but the set of circumstances that resulted in that situation weren’t really fair either.
One would think a feminist community would strive to avoid such assumptions, though. So I’m left wondering.