Keeping the main focus on the individual always much appreciated.
As I believe you have mentioned, anti-woke efforts are sometimes going too far these days. I am particularly sensitive to the generalizations about men and women I am hearing more and more often lately in liberal quarters. (Even "psychological differences" is going too far for me.) (Add particulars, and "generally" and I'm usually OK.)
I've heard that research shows some general differences between men and women's brains, which I am not knowledgeable enough to critique. Is it going too far into a 'post-modernist' mentality to say that my experience has shown me a lot of harm done to individuals who do not conform to some model of one sex or the other? To be a girl child who is considered odd for liking math. To be a boy child disapproved of for not being athletic.
Most of my life I have looked forward to a world which allows individuals to be their individual selves but with the left seeming to follow the right into lauding generalities over individuation, I sometimes wonder if we are fated to go in the other direction.
In system theory there is a principle of progress where the course corrections early on eventually help achieve the purpose of the system, but then there is the inevitable corruption that occurs from human nature to constantly want more.
The design of Western democracy and the freedom to agitate for cause was always supposed to work this way:
People take time from their normal productive endeavors, including the crushing demands for managing a family and providing safety, security and sustenance, to agitate for a cause. Then after the war or the vote, people go back to their normal productive endeavors.
In this way, the "movement" if you will is always a temporary project that seeks to achieve some outcome and then ends.
Feminism has become an industry, and it has been corrupted as per the Shirky Principle. It in fact achieved all and more based on its initial outcome targets. It then should have gone away. But the feminists had attached themselves to the movement as a perpetual power, status and money-making enterprise. And feminized men attached themselves to the feminists for the same.
The movement went over the apogee of positive returns and has been on the downward slope for the last several decades. The 3rd and 4th wave feminists agenda is no longer about female choice and female equality. It is about pushing ideas that are the death of Western democratic capitalist liberal society to be replaced with a collectivist design that these feminists think will acquire them more power, status and money.
Feminism is frankly the current primary enemy of Western civilization. It is the new fascist movement and WWIII is upon us. Feminist females have become the conduit of destruction... the Pandora's Box fable come to life.
TLDR. Sorry Helen, but, offhand, feminism is something of a joke, a clownshow, all cohorts and sects -- over 20 at last count -- riding madly off in all directions -- as the English-Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock put it some 100 years ago.
You should have read the article because it criticizes radical feminism and other ultra-identitarian ideologies while arguing liberal feminism is a logical sub-focus of liberal activism as it reinforces individualism and moral universalism.
She isn't arguing one is the true sect over the others. She is arguing for a feminism rooted in individualism and equal rights over illiberal indentitarian sects. She criticized the 19 illiberal sects of feminism in her article.
Feminism consists of different groups of people. Pluckrose explains exactly which group she supports here, and it is a very coherent and principled stance. Perhaps you can explain how universal rights and individual freedom are "a joke, a clownshow"?
So she is championing one sect of over 20. Whole bunch of very questionable premises probably common to many of them, probably her own sect included, that weighs against them all. Failed ideology from square one. Cases in point being Koertge & Patai's Professing Feminism:
Patai and Koertge are classical liberal feminists that criticized radical, indentitarian feminism in their works. Helen's argument here is also the same.
Helen, i'm a fan, but I must say this post rubs me the wrong way.
Your take on liberal feminism seems premised on feminists' theoretical description of themselves rather than on an empirical assessment of what liberal feminism manifestly is. You write "in principle, it’s not fundamentally about women at all."
But then you write this:
"It is a recognition that women are individuals and people, and as such should have equal social and moral status and the same opportunities and freedoms as men."
I notice your language shift. You write first that liberal feminism is not about women at all fundamentally, but about both sexes. Yet you describe liberal feminism as concerned with women--not both sexes, but women--enjoying the benefits of equality. I think this tension in language tracks the tension between what liberal feminism theoretically is and what it manifestsly is.
Where are the liberal feminists clamoring to have women subjected to the selective service on the same terms as men? Where are the liberal feminists demanding that women receive the same heightened criminal sentences for crimes as men, including the death penalty? Where are the liberal feminists recognizing that a sexual double standard seems to apply in the university sexual misconduct context? Yes, liberal feminists sometimes address these issues, but usually only in a token way, as if they're doing the bare minimum in order to qualify as technically caring about men too.
You write:
"Nevertheless, in principle, [the liberal feminist] stance also protects men and should the need to defend them against such discrimination arise, explicitly advocates that. Men, therefore, can appreciate this principle and the framing of it to apply to both sexes."
"In principle," sure. And, in principle, "white pride" it's simply about pride in being white. It is not enough to tell me to celebrate liberal feminism because of the principles it abstractly claims to espouse. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding tastes like like less than genuine equality. Liberal feminism is relatively friendly to men compared to radical feminism, sure. i'm not saying that liberal feminists hate men. I am saying that they don't give two French farts about men, and therefore they don't deserve my admiration. Liberal feminism is and has always been gynocentric in practice. So why should I believe it's really something else? Because wikipedia says that they are about equality for both sexes?
Liberalism is an excellent word at its root (liber = free), though over time it’s largely been co-opted to mean freedom PLUS a varying set of things that should be forced upon others in the service of personally compelling good intentions. Voluntaryism is a useful word in place of what liberalism once meant. Regardless of which meaning you tend towards, thanks for the thoughtful article (and the pointer to MJN Williams).
Keeping the main focus on the individual always much appreciated.
As I believe you have mentioned, anti-woke efforts are sometimes going too far these days. I am particularly sensitive to the generalizations about men and women I am hearing more and more often lately in liberal quarters. (Even "psychological differences" is going too far for me.) (Add particulars, and "generally" and I'm usually OK.)
I've heard that research shows some general differences between men and women's brains, which I am not knowledgeable enough to critique. Is it going too far into a 'post-modernist' mentality to say that my experience has shown me a lot of harm done to individuals who do not conform to some model of one sex or the other? To be a girl child who is considered odd for liking math. To be a boy child disapproved of for not being athletic.
Most of my life I have looked forward to a world which allows individuals to be their individual selves but with the left seeming to follow the right into lauding generalities over individuation, I sometimes wonder if we are fated to go in the other direction.
Spot on. The principle of equal protection before the law applies to everyone, and avoids singling out any identity group for elevated treatment.
In system theory there is a principle of progress where the course corrections early on eventually help achieve the purpose of the system, but then there is the inevitable corruption that occurs from human nature to constantly want more.
The design of Western democracy and the freedom to agitate for cause was always supposed to work this way:
People take time from their normal productive endeavors, including the crushing demands for managing a family and providing safety, security and sustenance, to agitate for a cause. Then after the war or the vote, people go back to their normal productive endeavors.
In this way, the "movement" if you will is always a temporary project that seeks to achieve some outcome and then ends.
Feminism has become an industry, and it has been corrupted as per the Shirky Principle. It in fact achieved all and more based on its initial outcome targets. It then should have gone away. But the feminists had attached themselves to the movement as a perpetual power, status and money-making enterprise. And feminized men attached themselves to the feminists for the same.
The movement went over the apogee of positive returns and has been on the downward slope for the last several decades. The 3rd and 4th wave feminists agenda is no longer about female choice and female equality. It is about pushing ideas that are the death of Western democratic capitalist liberal society to be replaced with a collectivist design that these feminists think will acquire them more power, status and money.
Feminism is frankly the current primary enemy of Western civilization. It is the new fascist movement and WWIII is upon us. Feminist females have become the conduit of destruction... the Pandora's Box fable come to life.
TLDR. Sorry Helen, but, offhand, feminism is something of a joke, a clownshow, all cohorts and sects -- over 20 at last count -- riding madly off in all directions -- as the English-Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock put it some 100 years ago.
You should have read the article because it criticizes radical feminism and other ultra-identitarian ideologies while arguing liberal feminism is a logical sub-focus of liberal activism as it reinforces individualism and moral universalism.
So I should try adjudicating between the 38,000 sects of Christianity as to which one is the genuine, real-meal deal? 🙄
She isn't arguing one is the true sect over the others. She is arguing for a feminism rooted in individualism and equal rights over illiberal indentitarian sects. She criticized the 19 illiberal sects of feminism in her article.
LoL. You say po-ta-toe, I say po-tat-oe. Pots & kettles methinks.
Reminds me of a classic case with a convocation of all of the religions in the world where the Dalai Lama had some choice criticisms of the lot.
Feminism consists of different groups of people. Pluckrose explains exactly which group she supports here, and it is a very coherent and principled stance. Perhaps you can explain how universal rights and individual freedom are "a joke, a clownshow"?
So she is championing one sect of over 20. Whole bunch of very questionable premises probably common to many of them, probably her own sect included, that weighs against them all. Failed ideology from square one. Cases in point being Koertge & Patai's Professing Feminism:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090807234859/http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2009/07/27/professing-feminism-noh/
And Koertge's own:
The Feminist Critique [Repudiation] of Logic
https://philpapers.org/rec/KOETFC
Patai and Koertge are classical liberal feminists that criticized radical, indentitarian feminism in their works. Helen's argument here is also the same.
Helen, i'm a fan, but I must say this post rubs me the wrong way.
Your take on liberal feminism seems premised on feminists' theoretical description of themselves rather than on an empirical assessment of what liberal feminism manifestly is. You write "in principle, it’s not fundamentally about women at all."
But then you write this:
"It is a recognition that women are individuals and people, and as such should have equal social and moral status and the same opportunities and freedoms as men."
I notice your language shift. You write first that liberal feminism is not about women at all fundamentally, but about both sexes. Yet you describe liberal feminism as concerned with women--not both sexes, but women--enjoying the benefits of equality. I think this tension in language tracks the tension between what liberal feminism theoretically is and what it manifestsly is.
Where are the liberal feminists clamoring to have women subjected to the selective service on the same terms as men? Where are the liberal feminists demanding that women receive the same heightened criminal sentences for crimes as men, including the death penalty? Where are the liberal feminists recognizing that a sexual double standard seems to apply in the university sexual misconduct context? Yes, liberal feminists sometimes address these issues, but usually only in a token way, as if they're doing the bare minimum in order to qualify as technically caring about men too.
You write:
"Nevertheless, in principle, [the liberal feminist] stance also protects men and should the need to defend them against such discrimination arise, explicitly advocates that. Men, therefore, can appreciate this principle and the framing of it to apply to both sexes."
"In principle," sure. And, in principle, "white pride" it's simply about pride in being white. It is not enough to tell me to celebrate liberal feminism because of the principles it abstractly claims to espouse. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding tastes like like less than genuine equality. Liberal feminism is relatively friendly to men compared to radical feminism, sure. i'm not saying that liberal feminists hate men. I am saying that they don't give two French farts about men, and therefore they don't deserve my admiration. Liberal feminism is and has always been gynocentric in practice. So why should I believe it's really something else? Because wikipedia says that they are about equality for both sexes?
Lovely! I was particularly struck by the triggering of the tribal brain, which so quickly responses, so often rather unproductively.
Liberalism is an excellent word at its root (liber = free), though over time it’s largely been co-opted to mean freedom PLUS a varying set of things that should be forced upon others in the service of personally compelling good intentions. Voluntaryism is a useful word in place of what liberalism once meant. Regardless of which meaning you tend towards, thanks for the thoughtful article (and the pointer to MJN Williams).