I’d be really interested in hearing from some minority—whether in terms of race or sexual orientation or whatever—who wouldn’t want her community to accept a coin toss on the principles described above.
Hm.
So, I think that if actually offered such a coin toss for sexuality, with some kind of proviso that kept me from suddenly no longer being sexually attracted to my husband or vice versa (and that avoided similar problems for everyone else), I would ultimately conclude that the benefits of accepting such a coin toss outweighed the costs, and thus would want my community to accept it. (Note that this is a different question from whether I would impose the results of such a coin toss on my community.)
I’d be really torn, though, and the truth is I don’t know how well I can predict my actual behavior in the event.
The same thing is true for being Hispanic, but I’m more confident that I’d endorse the cointoss there. Unsurprisingly, I identify less as Hispanic than I do as queer.
The same cointoss for Judaism is somewhere in between, and my anxiety considering it is high enough that my confidence that I can actually predict it is again pretty low.
As for where the anxiety/resistance comes from… I don’t think it’s anything surprising. Cultural identities feel very important and they are associated with whatever attributes they are associated with. Mess with those attributes, you mess with the associated identities, which feels threatening.
And, of course, in real-world situations (which don’t have the magic properties you’ve posited for your thought experiment) such feelings of threat have historically often been justified. That is, historically, eliminating the distinctions between majority M1 and minority M2 frequently turns out to mean eliminating M2 altogether, or trying to. And, hey, if M1 is going to act against M2′s collective interests, then M2 had damned well better be prepared to act collectively in their mutual interests, or they’re going down… so it’s not too surprising that our instincts trend that way. (of course, one can come up with evo-psych justifications for anything, so that’s not worth much.)
Hm.
So, I think that if actually offered such a coin toss for sexuality, with some kind of proviso that kept me from suddenly no longer being sexually attracted to my husband or vice versa (and that avoided similar problems for everyone else), I would ultimately conclude that the benefits of accepting such a coin toss outweighed the costs, and thus would want my community to accept it. (Note that this is a different question from whether I would impose the results of such a coin toss on my community.)
I’d be really torn, though, and the truth is I don’t know how well I can predict my actual behavior in the event.
The same thing is true for being Hispanic, but I’m more confident that I’d endorse the cointoss there. Unsurprisingly, I identify less as Hispanic than I do as queer.
The same cointoss for Judaism is somewhere in between, and my anxiety considering it is high enough that my confidence that I can actually predict it is again pretty low.
As for where the anxiety/resistance comes from… I don’t think it’s anything surprising. Cultural identities feel very important and they are associated with whatever attributes they are associated with. Mess with those attributes, you mess with the associated identities, which feels threatening.
And, of course, in real-world situations (which don’t have the magic properties you’ve posited for your thought experiment) such feelings of threat have historically often been justified. That is, historically, eliminating the distinctions between majority M1 and minority M2 frequently turns out to mean eliminating M2 altogether, or trying to. And, hey, if M1 is going to act against M2′s collective interests, then M2 had damned well better be prepared to act collectively in their mutual interests, or they’re going down… so it’s not too surprising that our instincts trend that way. (of course, one can come up with evo-psych justifications for anything, so that’s not worth much.)