There’s a further complicating factor: often when this happens, both modern Blues and Greens won’t exactly correspond to historical Blues and Greens even though both are using the same terms. Worse, when the entire region of acceptable social policy has changed, sometimes an extreme Green or Blue today might be what was seen as someone of the other type decades ago.
Yes, the first wave of a movement may have many divergent descendents, which end up on different sides of a current political dispute. And the direct-est descendent might be on the opposite side of the political divide from what we would predict the first-wave proponents would adopt. But for that to happen, there needs to be significant passage of time.
By contrast, if the third wave of a movement cannot point to an immediately prior second wave that actually believed the position criticized (and which the third wave has already rejected), then Villiam_Bur’s moving-the-goalposts criticism has serious bite, to the point that an outsider probably should not accept the third wave as genuinely interested in rational discussion or true beliefs.
And here we were having a very nice discussion without pointing out any potentially controversial/mindkilling examples. Using the phrasing of second and third wave doesn’t make it less subtle or less potentially mindkilling.
In the specific case which you are not so obliquely referencing, there’s a pretty strong argument that much of thirdwave feminism has strands from first and second wave, while also agreeing on the most basic premises.
It is also worth noting in this context, that movements (wherever they are politically) aren’t in general after rational discussion or true beliefs but at accomplishing specific goal sets. You will in any diverse movement find some strains that are more or less interested in rational discussion, but criticizing a movement for its failure to embody rationality is not by itself a very useful criticism.
It is the big obvious current example where the ideological battle is between “second wave” and “third wave” and the first wave is barely mentioned. I encounter it in relation to the UK social justice Twittersphere, which is tangential to the more Kankri Vantas stretches of Tumblr. (Or, more accurately, the Porrim Maryam stretches.)
Edit: Can anyone think of another field described as having numbered waves where the battle was between second and third?
I’m pretty sure that’s what TimS was talking about given his use of the phrases “second wave” and “third wave”. It is especially clear because if one was going to be talking about a generic example and using the term wave, one would in the same context have likely discussed the first wave v. the second wave. The off-by-one only makes sense in that specific historical context.
Oppositely, the second and third waves immediately screamed ‘feminism’ to me, but I couldn’t assemble the rest of the analogy. The third wave has plenty of legitimate differences and similarities with both the first and second waves. I’m still not sure what TimS was getting at.
There’s a further complicating factor: often when this happens, both modern Blues and Greens won’t exactly correspond to historical Blues and Greens even though both are using the same terms. Worse, when the entire region of acceptable social policy has changed, sometimes an extreme Green or Blue today might be what was seen as someone of the other type decades ago.
Yes, the first wave of a movement may have many divergent descendents, which end up on different sides of a current political dispute. And the direct-est descendent might be on the opposite side of the political divide from what we would predict the first-wave proponents would adopt. But for that to happen, there needs to be significant passage of time.
By contrast, if the third wave of a movement cannot point to an immediately prior second wave that actually believed the position criticized (and which the third wave has already rejected), then Villiam_Bur’s moving-the-goalposts criticism has serious bite, to the point that an outsider probably should not accept the third wave as genuinely interested in rational discussion or true beliefs.
And here we were having a very nice discussion without pointing out any potentially controversial/mindkilling examples. Using the phrasing of second and third wave doesn’t make it less subtle or less potentially mindkilling.
In the specific case which you are not so obliquely referencing, there’s a pretty strong argument that much of thirdwave feminism has strands from first and second wave, while also agreeing on the most basic premises.
It is also worth noting in this context, that movements (wherever they are politically) aren’t in general after rational discussion or true beliefs but at accomplishing specific goal sets. You will in any diverse movement find some strains that are more or less interested in rational discussion, but criticizing a movement for its failure to embody rationality is not by itself a very useful criticism.
Um, I had not linked the parent of your comment to any specific movement until you pointed out the possible existence of such a link …
It is the big obvious current example where the ideological battle is between “second wave” and “third wave” and the first wave is barely mentioned. I encounter it in relation to the UK social justice Twittersphere, which is tangential to the more Kankri Vantas stretches of Tumblr. (Or, more accurately, the Porrim Maryam stretches.)
Edit: Can anyone think of another field described as having numbered waves where the battle was between second and third?
I’m pretty sure that’s what TimS was talking about given his use of the phrases “second wave” and “third wave”. It is especially clear because if one was going to be talking about a generic example and using the term wave, one would in the same context have likely discussed the first wave v. the second wave. The off-by-one only makes sense in that specific historical context.
Oppositely, the second and third waves immediately screamed ‘feminism’ to me, but I couldn’t assemble the rest of the analogy. The third wave has plenty of legitimate differences and similarities with both the first and second waves. I’m still not sure what TimS was getting at.