You’re right, “objectively” doesn’t fit as well in that statement as I thought.
That is how I intended ‘convincing’ to be interpreted.
For almost every category of X, you’ll be judged hard for your preferences, even if you didn’t consciously choose any of them.
It depends on if X is a demographic/group or a variable. “I don’t want to date people who are [uneducated/from a drastically different cultural background]” sounds a lot less politically correct than “I want to date people with whom I estimate a high probability of mutual relationship satisfaction.” because you don’t have to explain your criteria to everyone. I admit that’s more semantic obfuscation of judgement risk markers than it is mitigating the problem.
It does depend how you explain yourself, but in the end, you’re just wording the same thing (the same preference) differently, and that’s still assuming that you know the reason of your own preference, and that they have a reason.
The logic seems to be “when the truth looks bad, it is, therefore you must pretend otherwise”, which adds a useless layer on top of everything obscuring the truth. The truth isn’t always more valuable than pleasant lies, but when this constructed social reality starts influencing areas in which it does matter (like medicine, general science and ways of doing things, like parenting), I find that it’s harmful.
I’ll also admit that I don’t find preferences to be a problem at all. Even though most preferences are shallow (occuring before conscious thought). I think both lying about them and inferring something from them is more harmful. All this perceived intent where none exists is what causes aspects of life to be so unappealing. I find most peoples perceptions to be unhealthy, by which I mean lacking in innocence, resulting in a sort of oversensitivity or tendency to project or interpret negative signals.
This is sort of abstract, but if we assume that racism is solved by not seeing color, then moral evil can be solved by not looking at the world through such a lens. Favorable and unfavorable outcomes will still exist, the dimension of “pure/corrupt” feelings associated with things will just disappear. This may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater though.
You’re right, “objectively” doesn’t fit as well in that statement as I thought.
That is how I intended ‘convincing’ to be interpreted.
It depends on if X is a demographic/group or a variable. “I don’t want to date people who are [uneducated/from a drastically different cultural background]” sounds a lot less politically correct than “I want to date people with whom I estimate a high probability of mutual relationship satisfaction.” because you don’t have to explain your criteria to everyone.
I admit that’s more semantic obfuscation of judgement risk markers than it is mitigating the problem.
I see! I think we largely agree then.
It does depend how you explain yourself, but in the end, you’re just wording the same thing (the same preference) differently, and that’s still assuming that you know the reason of your own preference, and that they have a reason.
The logic seems to be “when the truth looks bad, it is, therefore you must pretend otherwise”, which adds a useless layer on top of everything obscuring the truth. The truth isn’t always more valuable than pleasant lies, but when this constructed social reality starts influencing areas in which it does matter (like medicine, general science and ways of doing things, like parenting), I find that it’s harmful.
I’ll also admit that I don’t find preferences to be a problem at all. Even though most preferences are shallow (occuring before conscious thought). I think both lying about them and inferring something from them is more harmful. All this perceived intent where none exists is what causes aspects of life to be so unappealing. I find most peoples perceptions to be unhealthy, by which I mean lacking in innocence, resulting in a sort of oversensitivity or tendency to project or interpret negative signals.
This is sort of abstract, but if we assume that racism is solved by not seeing color, then moral evil can be solved by not looking at the world through such a lens. Favorable and unfavorable outcomes will still exist, the dimension of “pure/corrupt” feelings associated with things will just disappear. This may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater though.