There are obviously no incompatibilities between reality and the moral claims of feminism.
Feminism as an ideology that makes both factual and moral claims, with the moral claims being the primary motivation, and the factual claims serving as rationalizations for the moral claims. It’s a matter of indifference whether the factual claims are true—they’re just tools in the service of furthering the moral claims. Opening the factual claims to alternative explanations that don’t support the moral claims undermines the power of the ideology, and so is resisted.
Predictive implication: antihereditarian beliefs among political egalitarians will cease when eugenics, genetic engineering, or pharmaceutical personality sculpting become technologically (not politically, since we’re talking about beliefs in support of already politically implausible interventions) plausible. (You may or may not believe such conditions have already been fulfilled.)
I don’t know that they have “antihereditarian beliefs” in the first place, though some might. It’s not that heredity doesn’t matter, it’s that the distributions must be the same for all groups that they have egalitarian impulses about.
No, I don’t think that’s right either. Or at least it’s not true in the long term. And I should amend my original comments on Feminism as well.
It would be true if egalitarianism were the true motivation, and not a rationalization of a will and claim to power. But wasn’t Eugenics once a Progressive cause? Increasingly, I’ve concluded that power if the fundamental motivation. If it’s just about power, the switch from Pro to Anti Eugenics shouldn’t be a surprise.
And it’s the same with my comments on Feminism above. Is the motivation really sexual egalitarianism, or is that just a rationalization for a claim to power? It’s the difference between people and ideologies. The Pro Feminists of today could easily morph into the Anti Feminists of tomorrow. The details of the current Feminist ideology isn’t really the point—power is.
Feminism as an ideology that makes both factual and moral claims, with the moral claims being the primary motivation, and the factual claims serving as rationalizations for the moral claims. It’s a matter of indifference whether the factual claims are true—they’re just tools in the service of furthering the moral claims. Opening the factual claims to alternative explanations that don’t support the moral claims undermines the power of the ideology, and so is resisted.
Predictive implication: antihereditarian beliefs among political egalitarians will cease when eugenics, genetic engineering, or pharmaceutical personality sculpting become technologically (not politically, since we’re talking about beliefs in support of already politically implausible interventions) plausible. (You may or may not believe such conditions have already been fulfilled.)
I don’t think so.
I don’t know that they have “antihereditarian beliefs” in the first place, though some might. It’s not that heredity doesn’t matter, it’s that the distributions must be the same for all groups that they have egalitarian impulses about.
No, I don’t think that’s right either. Or at least it’s not true in the long term. And I should amend my original comments on Feminism as well.
It would be true if egalitarianism were the true motivation, and not a rationalization of a will and claim to power. But wasn’t Eugenics once a Progressive cause? Increasingly, I’ve concluded that power if the fundamental motivation. If it’s just about power, the switch from Pro to Anti Eugenics shouldn’t be a surprise.
And it’s the same with my comments on Feminism above. Is the motivation really sexual egalitarianism, or is that just a rationalization for a claim to power? It’s the difference between people and ideologies. The Pro Feminists of today could easily morph into the Anti Feminists of tomorrow. The details of the current Feminist ideology isn’t really the point—power is.