One difference that I have with this community is that I take seriously the influence of social context, the history of ideas and the discursive practices that help determine our horizon of meaning. To me, drawing attention to social context in which an idea acquires meaning is not conflating issues, that is the issue. Ignoring or downplaying it means we’re trying to ignore the background in which certain problems become salient, acquire meaning and new choices become a possibilities. That’s just not reality.
I’m not merely pointing to the political movement, but the entire culture of polyamory. What are it’s values, shared beliefs, assumptions, norms, categories and justifications, and how does it posit itself relative to mainstream culture? The fact that you identify yourself as polyromantic probably means you have largely adopted that worldview. And here’s another area where I differ from the individualist bent of this community—even if you personally do not suffer from the ill effects of a particular idea, I claim that you have an ethical duty to consider the effects of promoting an idea if the influence of it’s philosophical presuppositions has a negative impact on society.
I want to point out that, at least so far, you haven’t disputed my contention that the poly subculture holds flexibility as the pre-eminent value, only that you personally don’t.
Ah-ha. You seem to be conflating polygamy-as-a-lifestyle with polygamy-as-a-political-movement. I know next to nothing about polygamy-as-a-political-movement, and don’t much care to—one can easily adopt polygamy-as-a-lifestyle without it, if that seems to be in one’s best interests.
One difference that I have with this community is that I take seriously the influence of social context, the history of ideas and the discursive practices that help determine our horizon of meaning. To me, drawing attention to social context in which an idea acquires meaning is not conflating issues, that is the issue. Ignoring or downplaying it means we’re trying to ignore the background in which certain problems become salient, acquire meaning and new choices become a possibilities. That’s just not reality.
Considering the second of the two to be much more important doesn’t make it not a conflation to collapse the first into it.
That’s a matter of your perspective. You assume that the concepts are ontologically separate to begin with, and are then collapsed, simply because in this case they are made conceptually distinct by being named differently. I disagree, I say the conceptual distinction is artificial, used to avoid the full scope of the issue by ruling certain facts a priori irrelevant without having to consider them.
If two concepts are separable, then considering them to be the same is “ruling certain facts a priori irrelevant”—specifically, whatever facts allow them to be separated. I do not see how it would be possible for the opposite to also be true.
Which facts do you think are being declared irrelevant in the process of looking at polygamy-as-a-lifestyle separately from polygamy-as-a-political-movement?
I don’t consider them to be the same, I think individuals and culture mutually influence each other and interact in complex ways. There are facts that are relevant to the debate that are being disallowed based on a preference for reductionist approaches that I don’t share. This preference wants to consider an individual’s motivations independently of the culture in which he or she is embedded. It’s incorrect to say that I disallow facts that would allow them to be treated separately, I have no problem with that. For example, if it can be shown that the cultural issues have no bearing on the issue. Given that questions about mainstream vs. subculture and conformity vs. nonconformity are deeply connected to this issue, I’m skeptical that this can be done, but I certainly have no objection to you trying.
The specific facts that I think are relevant is the polyamory culture’s connection to counterculture. Ignoring this influence means we’re debating whether polyamory could be logically justified, which is an abstract intellectual exercise that has little relevance to the question of how polyamory is actually justified. I assume that the rationale for this is that if polyamory can be shown to be logically justifiable, it doesn’t matter too much if one gets there by a different route; that it doesn’t matter if you are right for the wrong reasons. I disagree with that, I think it does matter.
The origin of an idea probably has a long term influence, but ideas also get changed as people use them. Not paying attention to the current state of an idea, or the movement which is using it means that you miss a lot.
I’m finding your comments harder and harder to parse. I’m not sure if this is a sign that I need to take a break and come back to this when I’m fresh, or a function of you being evasive, but either way, taking a break seems like a good idea. I’ll come back to this thread tomorrow.
He’s formulating his arguments in a paradigm foreign to this site, one that I would hesitantly identify as post-structuralist. I can mostly follow his arguments, but only because I thought I wanted to major in English in my freshman year of college.
The problem with post-structuralism and other similar paradigms, especially in the context of this site, is that it doesn’t seem to be terribly concerned with truth as rationalists define it; this makes it a particularly poor tool for discovering truth. Very good for circular arguments based on poorly-defined jargon, though.
Interesting. I find that his arguments are clear, but wrong.
I think I have a mental habit of thinking “what might this mean?” and coming up with something—generally something good enough that people think I understand them. It takes quite a bit to get me to think something is nonsense.
One difference that I have with this community is that I take seriously the influence of social context, the history of ideas and the discursive practices that help determine our horizon of meaning. To me, drawing attention to social context in which an idea acquires meaning is not conflating issues, that is the issue. Ignoring or downplaying it means we’re trying to ignore the background in which certain problems become salient, acquire meaning and new choices become a possibilities. That’s just not reality.
I’m not merely pointing to the political movement, but the entire culture of polyamory. What are it’s values, shared beliefs, assumptions, norms, categories and justifications, and how does it posit itself relative to mainstream culture? The fact that you identify yourself as polyromantic probably means you have largely adopted that worldview. And here’s another area where I differ from the individualist bent of this community—even if you personally do not suffer from the ill effects of a particular idea, I claim that you have an ethical duty to consider the effects of promoting an idea if the influence of it’s philosophical presuppositions has a negative impact on society.
I want to point out that, at least so far, you haven’t disputed my contention that the poly subculture holds flexibility as the pre-eminent value, only that you personally don’t.
Considering the second of the two to be much more important doesn’t make it not a conflation to collapse the first into it.
That’s a matter of your perspective. You assume that the concepts are ontologically separate to begin with, and are then collapsed, simply because in this case they are made conceptually distinct by being named differently. I disagree, I say the conceptual distinction is artificial, used to avoid the full scope of the issue by ruling certain facts a priori irrelevant without having to consider them.
If two concepts are separable, then considering them to be the same is “ruling certain facts a priori irrelevant”—specifically, whatever facts allow them to be separated. I do not see how it would be possible for the opposite to also be true.
Which facts do you think are being declared irrelevant in the process of looking at polygamy-as-a-lifestyle separately from polygamy-as-a-political-movement?
I don’t consider them to be the same, I think individuals and culture mutually influence each other and interact in complex ways. There are facts that are relevant to the debate that are being disallowed based on a preference for reductionist approaches that I don’t share. This preference wants to consider an individual’s motivations independently of the culture in which he or she is embedded. It’s incorrect to say that I disallow facts that would allow them to be treated separately, I have no problem with that. For example, if it can be shown that the cultural issues have no bearing on the issue. Given that questions about mainstream vs. subculture and conformity vs. nonconformity are deeply connected to this issue, I’m skeptical that this can be done, but I certainly have no objection to you trying.
The specific facts that I think are relevant is the polyamory culture’s connection to counterculture. Ignoring this influence means we’re debating whether polyamory could be logically justified, which is an abstract intellectual exercise that has little relevance to the question of how polyamory is actually justified. I assume that the rationale for this is that if polyamory can be shown to be logically justifiable, it doesn’t matter too much if one gets there by a different route; that it doesn’t matter if you are right for the wrong reasons. I disagree with that, I think it does matter.
The origin of an idea probably has a long term influence, but ideas also get changed as people use them. Not paying attention to the current state of an idea, or the movement which is using it means that you miss a lot.
Are you implying that the movement has changed its philosophical presuppositions? If so, please provide a citation to back this up.
I’m finding your comments harder and harder to parse. I’m not sure if this is a sign that I need to take a break and come back to this when I’m fresh, or a function of you being evasive, but either way, taking a break seems like a good idea. I’ll come back to this thread tomorrow.
It’s not you. I am unable to parse any of alsomike’s comments.
He’s formulating his arguments in a paradigm foreign to this site, one that I would hesitantly identify as post-structuralist. I can mostly follow his arguments, but only because I thought I wanted to major in English in my freshman year of college.
The problem with post-structuralism and other similar paradigms, especially in the context of this site, is that it doesn’t seem to be terribly concerned with truth as rationalists define it; this makes it a particularly poor tool for discovering truth. Very good for circular arguments based on poorly-defined jargon, though.
Interesting. I find that his arguments are clear, but wrong.
I think I have a mental habit of thinking “what might this mean?” and coming up with something—generally something good enough that people think I understand them. It takes quite a bit to get me to think something is nonsense.