The worst thing you can do while considering a politically-colored question is make political statements, like declaring a side. It’s more productive to strive to consider such questions as intellectual curiosities, ignoring the political impact of the discussion itself, even if you do have a clear side associated with huge stakes or affect. Otherwise, the arguments will more often be chosen for reasons other than their truth and relevance.
I think you just neatly encapsulated why I cringe a little whenever I see the pickup controversy rearing its head. I strongly agree—but gender relations seem like about the hardest possible topic to approach as an intellectual curiosity, if the track record of LW and (especially) OB is anything to go by.
I believe I can reliably approach absolutely anything as an intellectual curiosity, and I don’t believe I’m so much of a mutant that this skill is not reproducible.
(This mode does slip sometimes, and I do need to focus, so it’s not purely a character trait. When it slips, I produce thoughts that I judge on reflection slightly to significantly incorrect.)
In the mainstream discourse it’s undoubtedly so, but on LW, I’m not so sure. On many occasions, I’ve seen people here make comments about topics that are seen as even more inflammatory or outlandish in respectable mainstream circles, only to get calm, rational, and well-argued responses. Certainly I can’t think of any topics that are such a reliable discourse-destroyer on LW as the gender relations/PUA issues. I find it a fascinating question why this is so.
So, I think about race relations, as a somewhat obvious example.
The impression I’ve gotten is not that LW is capable of an advanced discussion of race relations but not of gender relations, but rather that race relations simply don’t come up in conversation as often as gender relations do. (Which isn’t too surprising, given how much more fundamental gender-marking is to our language than race-marking. )
But perhaps I’m not giving the community enough credit. If there have been valuable discussions here about race relations, I’d be interested to read them… pointers are welcomed.
Point taken. Its representation here is probably better explained by calling it one of the more difficult ones that we don’t have a taboo against discussing, although it’s definitely high up on my canonical list of mind-killing subjects outside of LW as well.
The worst thing you can do while considering a politically-colored question is make political statements, like declaring a side. It’s more productive to strive to consider such questions as intellectual curiosities, ignoring the political impact of the discussion itself, even if you do have a clear side associated with huge stakes or affect. Otherwise, the arguments will more often be chosen for reasons other than their truth and relevance.
I think you just neatly encapsulated why I cringe a little whenever I see the pickup controversy rearing its head. I strongly agree—but gender relations seem like about the hardest possible topic to approach as an intellectual curiosity, if the track record of LW and (especially) OB is anything to go by.
I believe I can reliably approach absolutely anything as an intellectual curiosity, and I don’t believe I’m so much of a mutant that this skill is not reproducible.
(This mode does slip sometimes, and I do need to focus, so it’s not purely a character trait. When it slips, I produce thoughts that I judge on reflection slightly to significantly incorrect.)
Oh, there are many more difficult. Gender relations are just a difficult one that comes up.
In the mainstream discourse it’s undoubtedly so, but on LW, I’m not so sure. On many occasions, I’ve seen people here make comments about topics that are seen as even more inflammatory or outlandish in respectable mainstream circles, only to get calm, rational, and well-argued responses. Certainly I can’t think of any topics that are such a reliable discourse-destroyer on LW as the gender relations/PUA issues. I find it a fascinating question why this is so.
So, I think about race relations, as a somewhat obvious example.
The impression I’ve gotten is not that LW is capable of an advanced discussion of race relations but not of gender relations, but rather that race relations simply don’t come up in conversation as often as gender relations do. (Which isn’t too surprising, given how much more fundamental gender-marking is to our language than race-marking. )
But perhaps I’m not giving the community enough credit. If there have been valuable discussions here about race relations, I’d be interested to read them… pointers are welcomed.
Point taken. Its representation here is probably better explained by calling it one of the more difficult ones that we don’t have a taboo against discussing, although it’s definitely high up on my canonical list of mind-killing subjects outside of LW as well.
You’re right.