In most cases, someone who thinks of themselves as “a meat eater” really does eat meat. On the other hand, there are very many people who think of themselves as “a really smart person” but who are not really smart.
Which case is more similar to heterosexuality, in your view?
The categories get really fuzzy, really fast, which causes a lot of confusion.
For the sake of concreteness, I’ll define my terms as follows (1):
A meat eater is someone who reliably experiences the desire to eat meat, and would sometimes be willing to eat meat if offered, and would not necessarily feel that eating that meat was problematic.
A heterosexual is someone who reliably experiences the desire to have sex with opposite-gendered people, and would sometimes be willing to do so if offered, and would not necessarily feel that having that sex was problematic.
A really smart person is someone who would reliably perform well on certain kinds of real-world problems that I don’t know how to define in a noncircular way but I can point to examples of.
Given those definitions, I agree that someone who identifies themselves as a meat eater typically is a meat eater and that someone who identifies themselves as a really smart person frequently is not a really smart person, and I would say that someone who identifies themselves as heterosexual typically is heterosexual.
So, to answer your question: if I look at just those cases, the meat-eater case is more like the heterosexual case than the smart-person case is
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(1) I have no particular fondness for those definitions, I picked them as my best approximations to what I thought you probably had in mind. If you would prefer different definitions let me know. Different definitions might change my answer.
Leaving terms like these in their normally fuzzy state causes lots of confusion when trying to have precise discussions of them … is a prepubescent child who has never been sexually attracted to anyone heterosexual? Is a man who is sexually attracted to other men, has never had sex with one, would refuse to have sex with one if offered (assuming etc.), and regularly has sex with women despite not really being sexually attracted to them heterosexual? Etc. Etc. Etc.
There’s nothing especially interesting about these questions, they’re just labeling questions… but if we don’t agree on the labels, it’s easy to confuse labeling questions with actual questions about the underlying states of the world, including states of people’s minds.
I agree with all of this. But I think it all casts Blank’s thesis in a bad light: “heterosexuality dates to the 1860s and not earlier” can only be supported if those labeling questions are resolved in a deliberately misleading way. I had the impression you thought differently but perhaps not.
Not having read the book, I can’t speak to Blank’s thesis.
I will point out, though, that just because I’m a meat-eater doesn’t mean that I ever think of myself as a meat eater, that I ever talk about myself as a meat-eater, or that I live in a culture in which being a meat-eater exists as a social construct.
Similarly, just because I’m heterosexual (which, by the definition above, I am, despite being in a 19-year same-sex relationship) it doesn’t follow that I ever think of myself as heterosexual (which I haven’t in a little over 20 years), that I talk about myself as heterosexual (which I usually don’t), or that I live in a culture where heterosexuality exists as a social construct (which I have for my entire life). Depending on the context I’m working in, different definitions become appropriate.
If I’m talking about social constructs, for example, the statement “heterosexuality dates to the 1860s and not earlier” might be true, or might not… beats me. It certainly isn’t true if I’m talking about mate-selection behavior… in that context “heterosexuality” refers to something that predates the evolution of the human race. There are other contexts in which the statement “heterosexuality is about as old as humanity, but not significantly older” might be true.
You seem to be saying that speaking in some of those contexts, or speaking in a way that fails to clarify what context I’m operating in, is necessarily deliberately misleading; if you’re saying that, then yes, I think differently. But, again, I haven’t read Blank’s book, so it’s entirely possible that Blank in particular is being deliberately misleading.
I withdraw “deliberately”, after all how would I know. But “social construct” is technical jargon from a controversial theory in a controversial academic discipline. Almost every English-speaking adult knows what straight and gay are, but hardly any of them know what a social construct is. So I do believe that it’s misleading to speak of “heterosexuality” when you mean “the social construct of heterosexuality.”
Whether someone knows what the term “social construct” refers to has nothing to do with the matter. Most people don’t know what the term “pheromone” refers to, but it would be mistaken to infer from that that sexual attraction has nothing to do with pheromones, or that discussions of sexual orientation in terms of pheromones is necessarily misleading.
That said, though, sure, if social constructs don’t exist at all, then there certainly isn’t such a thing as a social construct of heterosexuality, in which case any discussion of same (including my own comments in this thread) is misleading, albeit (as you admit) not necessarily deliberately so.
In most cases, someone who thinks of themselves as “a meat eater” really does eat meat. On the other hand, there are very many people who think of themselves as “a really smart person” but who are not really smart.
Which case is more similar to heterosexuality, in your view?
The categories get really fuzzy, really fast, which causes a lot of confusion.
For the sake of concreteness, I’ll define my terms as follows (1):
A meat eater is someone who reliably experiences the desire to eat meat, and would sometimes be willing to eat meat if offered, and would not necessarily feel that eating that meat was problematic.
A heterosexual is someone who reliably experiences the desire to have sex with opposite-gendered people, and would sometimes be willing to do so if offered, and would not necessarily feel that having that sex was problematic.
A really smart person is someone who would reliably perform well on certain kinds of real-world problems that I don’t know how to define in a noncircular way but I can point to examples of.
Given those definitions, I agree that someone who identifies themselves as a meat eater typically is a meat eater and that someone who identifies themselves as a really smart person frequently is not a really smart person, and I would say that someone who identifies themselves as heterosexual typically is heterosexual.
So, to answer your question: if I look at just those cases, the meat-eater case is more like the heterosexual case than the smart-person case is
===============
(1) I have no particular fondness for those definitions, I picked them as my best approximations to what I thought you probably had in mind. If you would prefer different definitions let me know. Different definitions might change my answer.
Leaving terms like these in their normally fuzzy state causes lots of confusion when trying to have precise discussions of them … is a prepubescent child who has never been sexually attracted to anyone heterosexual? Is a man who is sexually attracted to other men, has never had sex with one, would refuse to have sex with one if offered (assuming etc.), and regularly has sex with women despite not really being sexually attracted to them heterosexual? Etc. Etc. Etc.
There’s nothing especially interesting about these questions, they’re just labeling questions… but if we don’t agree on the labels, it’s easy to confuse labeling questions with actual questions about the underlying states of the world, including states of people’s minds.
I agree with all of this. But I think it all casts Blank’s thesis in a bad light: “heterosexuality dates to the 1860s and not earlier” can only be supported if those labeling questions are resolved in a deliberately misleading way. I had the impression you thought differently but perhaps not.
Not having read the book, I can’t speak to Blank’s thesis.
I will point out, though, that just because I’m a meat-eater doesn’t mean that I ever think of myself as a meat eater, that I ever talk about myself as a meat-eater, or that I live in a culture in which being a meat-eater exists as a social construct.
Similarly, just because I’m heterosexual (which, by the definition above, I am, despite being in a 19-year same-sex relationship) it doesn’t follow that I ever think of myself as heterosexual (which I haven’t in a little over 20 years), that I talk about myself as heterosexual (which I usually don’t), or that I live in a culture where heterosexuality exists as a social construct (which I have for my entire life). Depending on the context I’m working in, different definitions become appropriate.
If I’m talking about social constructs, for example, the statement “heterosexuality dates to the 1860s and not earlier” might be true, or might not… beats me. It certainly isn’t true if I’m talking about mate-selection behavior… in that context “heterosexuality” refers to something that predates the evolution of the human race. There are other contexts in which the statement “heterosexuality is about as old as humanity, but not significantly older” might be true.
You seem to be saying that speaking in some of those contexts, or speaking in a way that fails to clarify what context I’m operating in, is necessarily deliberately misleading; if you’re saying that, then yes, I think differently. But, again, I haven’t read Blank’s book, so it’s entirely possible that Blank in particular is being deliberately misleading.
I withdraw “deliberately”, after all how would I know. But “social construct” is technical jargon from a controversial theory in a controversial academic discipline. Almost every English-speaking adult knows what straight and gay are, but hardly any of them know what a social construct is. So I do believe that it’s misleading to speak of “heterosexuality” when you mean “the social construct of heterosexuality.”
Whether someone knows what the term “social construct” refers to has nothing to do with the matter. Most people don’t know what the term “pheromone” refers to, but it would be mistaken to infer from that that sexual attraction has nothing to do with pheromones, or that discussions of sexual orientation in terms of pheromones is necessarily misleading.
That said, though, sure, if social constructs don’t exist at all, then there certainly isn’t such a thing as a social construct of heterosexuality, in which case any discussion of same (including my own comments in this thread) is misleading, albeit (as you admit) not necessarily deliberately so.